Is Advertising Morally Justifiable? The Importance of Protecting Our Attention - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/07/14/4273200.htm <comment><USER2> IMO there is nothing wrong with advertising in the strict sense of the word. "Here is this product. That's how it works. That's how it's different from its competitors. Here is the price. Here is the total cost of ownership as compared to the competitor. Here is how this product can satisfy your needs in this specific case":

But what is being passed today as advertising is nothing like that, it is more like high school psychological and emotional blackmail. "Here is this product. If you don't have it you are not in the ingroup but in the outgroup. You are not beautiful enough without this product. People will look down on you without this product. This product will make you more attractive to the opposite sex and more likely to land a high paying high profile job".

It is very hard to legislate this are because of freedom of speech concerns but the British have a very good set of regulations concerning to advertisement [1] and an independent regulator responsible for this area [2].

[1] [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2008/9780110811475/conte...](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2008/9780110811475/contents)

[2] [https://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Our- history.aspx](https://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Our-history.aspx)

<comment><USER3> Disclaimer: I work in advertising.

> But what is being passed today as advertising is nothing like that, it is > more like high school psychological and emotional blackmail. "Here is this > product. If you don't have it you are not in the ingroup but in the > outgroup. You are not beautiful enough without this product. People will > look down on you without this product. This product will make you more > attractive to the opposite sex and more likely to land a high paying high > profile job".

I don't understand this. If anything advertising is more transparent today than ever before.

Consider in the 1800s it wasn't uncommon for a publisher to be paid for a product & make it seem like they were simply endorsing something they truly liked.

With the advent of TV, products would be place throughout the show.

Today we have much stricter laws about making it clear a publisher is promoting a product because they are paid.

> ... the strict sense of the word. "Here is this product. That's how it > works. That's how it's different from its competitors. Here is the price. > Here is the total cost of ownership as compared to the competitor. Here is > how this product can satisfy your needs in this specific case"

Only a very, very small percentage of things are purchased this way.

Why does your friend pay extra for those Louis Vuitton sunglasses? Hint: It's not because of quality. All sunglasses are basically made by one company.

Why does your friend drink Coke over Pepsi? Hint: It's not because of health reasons & pretty unlikely it's because of taste.

Why does your friend buy Frosted Flakes instead of the store brand? And so on...

A lot of it boils down to "brand equity" \-- what you'll pay for a specific brand over something else. Why do people do that? It's because of the association, image, and feeling a brand generates. You don't sell diapers by saying "We sell good diapers." You sell diapers by showing a cute baby with soft music & get mother's to form an emotional bond with the product.

<comment><USER4> Wow. You're basically just describing the mechanism by which you're manipulating people's behavior, very apparently without concern for your redistribution of inherently finite resources. The opposition to modern advertising is in response to exactly this. It's not that much different than cigarettes. You're exploiting subconscious human mechanisms utterly without concern for any effect except number of purchases. People are better off when they can _consciously_ think about what they're doing. There are people who are motivated to promote that in their societies.

<comment><USER5> This is totally true, but in a world where there are tens of thousands of products in our supermarkets alone, sometimes I prefer an easy subconcious choice. If Old Spice deodorant works, and I got there because of an advertisement that played on subconcious desires, eh. I don't really have the desire to conciously evaluate my deodorant purchase (even though I avoid anti persperants at all cost cause there are weird metals and it just doesn't seem natural to not perspire).

If I choose Pepsi over Coke because of some subconciously altered motive, eh. Whatever.

I'm not sure it'll be a popular opinion, but to be honest, I don't particularly mind not having to conciously evaluate my soda choice.

<comment><USER6> I don't mind either.

What I _do_ mind is the amount of distraction introduced into my environment in an effort to influence that unconscious and irrelevant choice.

<comment><USER3> Yep, this is exactly my objection as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For quite some time I've felt that advertising/marketing, at least the sort we've had for the past century or so, is inherently immoral. The fact that it's a necessary evil in our economic system doesn't stop it from being an evil.

Modern advertising is not merely informing people about products and what they do. It's _brain-hacking_ , where advertisers have figured out over decades of experience, and research into human cognitive biases and failure modes, ways of presenting the same product, the same information, but getting a desired response out of the target.

We accept this as a society because we tell ourselves that, as rational human beings, we have the choice to listen to or reject these messages. But modern understandings of cognitive biases show how advertising works on deeper levels, and even works despite us knowing about the tricks that are being used on us.

The problem is that there's a severe imbalance. Advertisers are getting better and better at attacking -- at figuring out precisely what makes us tick, down to the level of pixels on an A/B-tested website.

Are people getting any better at defending themselves? Are people being trained in dealing with their cognitive biases to make themselves resistant? Overall, I don't think so. There's no law of nature that says that attackers and defenders must be equal in strength; the situation we're in right now with advertising is like medieval warfare with the advent of the crossbow -- a great imbalance in favor of the attacker that disrupted the nature of combat for centuries.

<comment><USER8> > the situation we're in right now with advertising is like medieval warfare > with the advent of the crossbow -- a great imbalance in favor of the > attacker that disrupted the nature of combat for centuries.

(totally off topic, but)

hm. I thought that the crossbow was a little like the early fireams, in that it wasn't particularly _better_ than what came before, mostly due to it's terribly slow rate of fire; it was just easier to use.

My understanding was that someone skilled with a longbow was a more effective fighter, especially in terms of rate of fire, but also in terms of armor penetration and range than someone with a crossbow or a early firearm. (my understanding was that early firearms were massively effective at dealing with armor at very close ranges, but that effectiveness dropped off very quickly. Crossbows suffered from similar issues, in a less dramatic sort of way.)

However, becoming really good with a longbow was a serious undertaking, one that took up a significant portion of your time over a lifetime.

The crossbow and the early firearms, from what I read, were superior in that you could give them to a bunch of shopkeepers or construction workers or what have you, have them drill every third Saturday, and have someone who was a semi-effective warrior when it came time for battle.

back on-topic, I... think there's a hole in our schooling; one the greeks had down. Rhetoric. Most students don't study it. And most of that manipulation of other people (at least if you use words) falls under rhetoric.

Incidentally, I am given to understand that rhetoric and logic were often taught together. Formal logic gets more academic time than rhetoric, I think, but I think that explicitly teaching logic with rhetoric says important things about logic and how it ought to be applied to argument. This idea that we need to apply logic to our arguments before applying rhetoric is a cultural value that we don't have, that the greeks did. I mean, I'm the first to call the greeks assholes, and to remind everyone that they had slaves, that they were not good people and that we should not follow them in all things. But we have chosen to model our education systems after theirs, and this is one of the things they did that I think we should do, too.

In fact, I've been looking for a modern academic-ish rhetoric text; all I've found so far are a bunch of pop psychology style books, while I strongly prefer a more academic presentation.

But yeah; I think in this case, understanding what other people are doing to manipulate you is how you disarm them.

<comment><USER7> I agree with you on the importance of rhetoric -- in the sense of really breaking down what people are saying. Though, I remember being taught some of that in school and I don't know if it stuck for most students. It's probably a disconnect between a subject learned for school and tests, and a subject that's really internalized. A lot of analyzing dusty old essays and historical arguments, not enough forceful application to one's own modern-day surroundings.

(And I think you're probably correct about the crossbow bit. The influence it had was in the manner of making arms more accessible -- hand a peasant a crossbow and all that. I suppose a different analogy would be World War 1 -- outdated charging tactics coming up against machine guns, though that's a case where defense had the upper hand over offense.)

<comment><USER8> Most things aren't going to stick for most people. I certainly only retain some small portion of every book I read. But I do retain some. There is value in exposure to ideas, I think, even if those ideas don't always take root.

Now, I think we've got a really idealized vision of Greece; Idealized by a whole chain of different powers who translated their work, so some of this could be complete bullshit, but from what we read, it sure sounds like they saw rhetoric and logic as the practical skills one needed to be a pundit, a talking head, a leader, or even a participating member of a democracy. So... if we were to give the modern equivalent, we'd teach people about modern rhetoric more than historical rhetoric. History does have a place, sure, but it's not a big one. (I... really, really enjoy history, but I think it has less value that advocates clam to understanding the future. )

There were hippies who talked a lot about how important the connotations of a particular word are. gah. I'm forgetting the author. But I read all my parent's stuff when I was a kid, and it made a real impression on me. For a long time, i would translate everything I heard into the same thing, only using words with negative connotations, with the idea of inoculating myself against such a thing, and because for whatever reason, the negative connotation felt more honest to me than the positive. Less manipulative.

But that's the sort of thing, I think, that people need to think about if they don't want to be sheep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ever since I've read this comic from Zen Pencils, I've taken a hardcore stance against any and all advertisements. I block everything with ublock origin, and mute my TV when ads come on.

I've sat down with my kids while they watch TV and it's disgusting just how much they POUND children with ads to buy toys. The advertising industry is insidious. Just absolutely hound them! I've seen taken the TV out of their room and taught them how to use Popcorn Time to watch whatever they want. No more ads in this house.

[http://zenpencils.com/comic/155-banksy-taking-the-piss- expli...](http://zenpencils.com/comic/155-banksy-taking-the-piss-explicit/)

<comment><USER10> Popcorn Time is piracy. You can get ad-free TV from legal streaming and PBS. Amazon and Netflix have tons of kids programming.

<comment><USER9> I'm in South America, a 3rd world country. So it's either piracy or my kids will be watching Alf on the local TV station.

<comment><USER11> I feel this to be a great example for the tremendous value created by piracy in modern society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Our descendants will consider advertising like we consider tobacco: dangerous to your health.

Adv manipulates your _agency_ , your ability to make independent decisions. Tracker-based targeted advertising exploits all human vulnerabilities that are used in "the long con."

Firms that make their money on more sophisticated advertising techniques understand this. It reminds me of the classic picture of 7 Big-Tobacco executives swearing to Congress that "tobacco is not addictive" despite evidence that they internally held reams of documentation from 1960s indicating the opposite [1].

[1] [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/tim...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/settlement/timelines/april94.html)

<comment><USER13> Doesn't all communication count as manipulation of agency? Like, in reading this I feel swayed... but you didn't cite any facts or research.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Money doesn't talk, it swears." \- Bob Dylan

Scale effects are far too often ignored. The scale effects of highly concentrated corporate ad purchases are tremendous.

<comment><USER13> I find this reply really confusing.

1\. What were you hoping to accomplish with the Dylan quote? Are you ceding the agency argument and now asserting that advertising should be banned because it's obscene?

2\. What scaling effects are we ignoring? You quoted Dylan, someone who communicated at a very large scale -- do you consider his communication to be worse on that basis? Is it immoral that we are discussing this on a forum rather than email?

If your main argument is that you're ideologically opposed to corporate advertising, why not just say that?

<comment><AUTHOR> It was an illustrative description of the effect of money. That it's not speech so much as drowning out all else in the room.

If you prefer quantitative rather than qualitative results, this article on a recent Princeton University study on the influence of money in political policy:

"Study: Congress literally doesn't care what you think" [https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/](https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/)

 _Professors Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern University) looked at more than 20 years worth of data to answer a simple question: Does the government represent the people?_

 _Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all._

...

 _"The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."_

 _One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a "statistically non-significant impact," Economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence._

Similarly, money bought decades of protection for the tobacco industry -- the medical link between smoking and cancer was established _in the 1940s._

By, as it happens, Nazi Germany... [http://www.jpands.org/hacienda/edcor5.html](http://www.jpands.org/hacienda/edcor5.html)

(So, yes, there's a literal truth to the complaints of some smokers about anti-smoking Nazis...).

Or, in the case of lead added to paint and gasoline, an understanding dating to the late _eighteenth_ century, at least (though earlier understanding of harms dates back to 2000 BC), of the negative health consequences of lead, the harms from paint (up to 50% lead by weight) by the early 20th century. The "Dutch Boy" paint brand was adopted by National Lead Company (now NL Industries, Dutch Boy was sold to Sherwin-Williams in 1980). Or asbestos. Or CFCs. Or CO₂ and global warming. Or sugar, corn syrup, and diabetes.

Robert N. Proctor calls this "agnotology": culturally _induced_ ignorance. It's _only_ possible due to the scale of spending behind such disinformation. Millions to billions of dollars, over time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology) [https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2363bo/agnotol...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2363bo/agnotology_culturally_induced_ignorance/)

While that's only a part of the problem with advertising, it's a large one.

I've mentioned Jerry Mander's _Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television_ , which deals heavily with advertising, and Neil Postman's _Amusing Ourselves to Death_. I recommend both, strongly.

Also Adam Curtis's _Century of the Self_ documentary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Advertisements are pure deception, and every time a consumer is exposed to one, the consumer loses and the advertiser gains. Having that opinion makes me a member of a tiny minority in America.

I remember hearing on NPR about a study some marketers conducted. They surveyed college classes in the U.S. They asked students in person to raise their hands if they felt their purchasing decisions were influenced by advertising. Almost nobody raised their hands. They also observed that many of those who didn't raise their hands were wearing branded clothes and hats at the time (and not the clothing's brand, completely unrelated brands like Monster energy drink). This means that even when advertisers have successfully converted one of their targets into a walking human advertisement, their target remains convinced that the advertiser has had no influence over them whatsoever.

So if your goal is to diminish advertising, that's what you're up against. The victimized not only don't realize that they're being victimized, but will also defend the rights of the victimizer to continue victimizing them as a matter of free speech.

<comment><USER15> _They surveyed college classes in the U.S. They asked students in person to raise their hands if they felt their purchasing decisions were influenced by advertising. Almost nobody raised their hands. They also observed that many of those who didn 't raise their hands were wearing branded clothes and hats at the time_

I do believe that people are often more affected by advertising than they believe, but this anecdote doesn't establish that. You'd have to show that they wouldn't have bought the clothes without the branding.

<comment><USER16> That's hardly difficult. Why do people buy branded clothes when no-label clothes of equivalent quality are available at much lower cost?

What else except branding justifies the ticket on a $5000 handbag? Even if you accept the fact that it's (allegedly) hand-made from the finest raw materials, the BOM and labour cost a negligible fraction of the consumer price.

And here's the real problem - people think they're buying handbags, clothes, cars, and computers, but really they're just buying capitalist fetish objects.

Advertising doesn't sell stuff, it sells a distorted and rather mad morality where conspicuous wealth and status display is the ultimate moral good.

Should we question that? Damn right we should. It's effectively a repackaging of the religious mode of discourse with a novel moral payload, and it's as destructive to rational freedom of thought as any other religion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Veblen goods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh boy I love this thought. I think very bad of advertising in public spaces. Was there ever a public discussion on this topic before bill-boards became the norm. Even in semi public spaces, likes the 20 or so Dutch TV channels people receive I feel that it is reason enough not to own a cable connection at all.

But... I would not make it illegal, but very heavily taxed. Tax billboards for 95% out of this world because they are disgusting (that 5% might give us 50% of the current tax income), tax companies into only having small logo's on their buildings and into sponsoring events/art/archtecture/etc.

Focus, awareness, peace of mind, not selling out, "outside and inside come in pairs".

<comment><USER18> Said it elsewhere, but there is an interesting experiment in one city in France where the new mayor removed all billboards from the city's grounds.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1125...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11250670/Grenoble- to-replace-street-advertising-with-trees-and-community-spaces.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> You know what other part sucks? The number of brilliant, creative people who create ads instead of useful things.

<comment><USER19> Yes. Creative people creating ads are paid billions in fees every year to make useless things. Businesses buying advertising are just that stupid. They love to spend money on useless things instead of useful ones. I mean, who doesn't?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In the medical practice world, marketing of pharmaceuticals has been an incendiary subject for some time. The common gist has been that medical practitioners are too easily influenced and merely hearing what a pharma company rep has to say will lead to inappropriate prescribing.

On such grounds many clinics forbid manufacturers' reps to have access to staff, else they would be tainted. Of course they'd be, a dozen years of training and 20 years on the front lines mean nothing, really, prescribers are clearly unable to know a sales pitch when they hear it, incapable of applying their own judgement concerning a product's merit.

Sure, there are instances where pharma firms have been unethical, but in my dealings with them, reps have mostly stayed within the lines. In case they don't, I'm not that delicate and can deal with overzealousness when necessary. Generally, it's a two-way interaction, I listen to what reps have to say, and the better ones listen to my feedback about clinical realities.

One thing that gets lost in the noisy public discourse is the role of marketing. In our economic system marketing is fundamental to distribution of goods and services. A pharma company could develop a break-through product, but if providers don't know of its existence it won't be used where it would make a difference.

Inadequate marketing has impeded uptake of a number of useful medications, and fewer treatment options is not a good thing. I'm not advocating a free-for-all in this sphere, rules are necessary. But we can have too many rules too, better to maintain an intelligent balance.

Sometimes I think about an interesting experiment: what if _all_ advertising had to follow the same rules as pharmaceutical companies? Imagine a car commercial on TV, and the announcer having to murmur a list of all the defects reported for the car's vehicle class. You know, real truth in advertising would be very refreshing.

</comment><comment><USER21> I find the concept of paying people for their information and time fantastic as way to battle advertising.

In other ways, wouldnt it be great to have the right to not be subject to advertising? Adblock has been great at providing such experience on the web to me..how about billboards? TV? Eliminate product integration? Etc.

I dont like using the word "moral" to describe a problem, because it makes it very subjective. The amount of money that goes into advertising is ridiculous and in aggregate it has to be doing lots of damage by opportunity cost and mis-information.

<comment> qu4z-2 You can't really define "damage" without reference to a moral framework, though. It is somewhat inherently a moral question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have asked here about this in the past [1]

I am not sure regulations will help much. For one thing, is is hard to specify where the limits lie, and to objectively detect when an ad cross the limits. Another thing is that all regulations bend depending on how much money you have to throw at those. And in this case it is a lot.

So along with regulations, I think it is also necessary to educate kids to defend against manipulations like this. I don't think schools will ever do something like this. So it should come from parents, from home. Teach them how such manipulations work, teach them how to recognize and avoid them. In the process, you will also teach them very useful critical thinking.

But there may be social aspects that work against these. For example, if you never watch ads in your home, your kid may get ridiculed in the school because he/she does not know about Ad xyz. The same way you will be ridiculed today for not using Facebook or whatsapp.

So, in short, I think we should talk about this, A LOT. Both online and offline.

Build a public awareness.

Make it cool, to NOT watch ads.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9690432](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9690432)

</comment><comment><USER23> Ironically enough, it may be CPC ads themselves that allow people protect their attention. Browser add ons like Ad Nauseam, [http://adnauseam.io/](http://adnauseam.io/), automatically click on ads (after first being blocked) and ensure that there's a high price to pay for playing in the ad game.

<comment><USER24> Too bad they don's support ublock origin. I don't use ABP anymore because they allow "acceptable" ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Banksy and peers, in a different medium, have been making many of these arguments for some time, in my opinion eloquently. They got me thinking about many of these issues of who gets to speak to the public and how do we decide, in ways I hadn't before.

</comment><comment><USER26> The article states: "The advertising industry consists of the buying and selling of your attention between third parties without your consent."

Mostly, I don't think that's true. When I turn on the TV to watch a show, I think I am consenting to some advertising being present, and naturally the TV station has sold that advertising time to some other company. Similar situation with websites, search engines, radio, newspapers, etc.

The only situation where I think the assertion might be true is when it comes to advertising in public areas, outdoors, etc. I don't think it's reasonable to argue that consent has been given in those circumstances.

<comment><USER27> The article agrees with you: "Although consumers are not the customers of television companies, they ... have substantial influence over the transaction, and the quid pro quo for them is transparent"

BTW, both the article and the HN comment section make me realize that as someone not living in the US, I lead a sheltered life. The level of advertising to "captured audiences" in the US seems to have reached truly mind-killing proportions.

FTA: "Advertising to children in America has increased more than 150 fold since the early 1980s, especially inside schools where the audience is captive."

<comment><USER28> Inside schools? Why is there any advertising inside schools?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Definitely not the largest fan of online advertising --> [http://www.drewmeyersinsights.com/2013/08/24/my-problem- with...](http://www.drewmeyersinsights.com/2013/08/24/my-problem-with-online- ads/)

It's at the heart of the time suck economy we live in today (and which gets worse everyday): [http://www.geekwire.com/2013/time-suck-economy-starting- buil...](http://www.geekwire.com/2013/time-suck-economy-starting-building/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Advertising isn't just about business, if it were ìt'd be a lot more effective and less obnoxious. It's also about power. Being able to control what people see and listen to is powerful. Being able to inject your brand into the public consciousness is powerful. Many brands are familiar to us, and form a part of the culture background, because of advertising, regardless of if we use them.

This makes companies and advertisers feel good, because it's a demonstration of power, and of status.

</comment><comment><USER31> Advertising makes as unhappy or poor. It creates artificial tangible desires for needless goods. Unfulfilled desire makes us unhappy. Buying needless and worthless goods poor.

</comment><comment><USER32> Upton Sinclair — 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

<comment><USER19> Is this in reference to people who are software engineers who work for big businesses that are mostly marketing, sales and advertising driven and who would not have a job if it weren't for what they're criticizing in this thread?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not parent, but I'd argue generally Yes. Moreover it's an excellent dynamic to keep in mind when you're encountering strong resistance from someone. Often there's either a conflict of interest or cognitive dissonance at play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This why there are no billionaire philosophers. Every argument he made about advertising i can make about his article, and about every interaction he had in his entire life with everyone he ever met. Just because economics are in play with advertising doesnt mean that everything and everyone else in the world shouldnt be held to the same standards.

Contrary to what this article claims...people do value their attention and are very particular and careful with how they allocate it. Good marketers also know how valuable peoples attention is and are careful to respect it...hence the rise of content marketing and value add advertising.

The argument that consumers dont give media permission to sell their attention is false. You can always change the channel, click away, drive a different route, and stop using an app. You make choices about how you allocate your attention and you accept the costs associated with it by allocating your attention to that media.

<comment><USER34> > This why there are no billionaire philosophers.

Becoming a billionaire requires being unethical in this society. The mere existence of billionaires is a problem, anyway. So of course people who care about ethics do not become billionaires.

Is that the fault of the people with ethical concerns? No, it is a damning statement about our society.

<comment><USER33> Want to know the only difference between your ethics and a billionaires ethics? Your ethics look to the world and others to assign blame and criticize...billionaires look to themselves to see how they can improve and grow despite circumstances outside themselves and beyond their control.

I might not be a billionaire...but i definitely dont want to be someone who cant take ownership my own problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I often feel a bit sorry for advertisers and consider they are simply wasting their money and effort. I have no more inclination to buy a car I saw parked on top of a giant rock on TV than I did before I saw the ad. I have no more inclination to drink a coke than I did before I saw the ad. The only ad I remember following or taking an interest in within recent memory was for a drone on youtube. Out of the thousands and thousands seen over the past decade. I realize maybe I'm not typical... but I simply can't fathom how commercials for things like shampoo on TV impress anyone. Are people really still susceptible in this day and age? I just don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm quite surprised to see so many here seem to agree with the idea that advertising is seemingly inherently bad. This article in particular is full of over-the-top writing that drives me crazy.

"advertising imposes costs on individuals without permission or compensation. It extracts our precious attention and emits toxic by-products, such as the sale of our personal information to dodgy third parties."

I wish my life was that important that my attention not only could be "precious" but that it was so precious that that I'm worried about the demands ads make on my attention instead of other things (like staying up too late making comments on web sites...).

</comment><comment><USER37> It's insane that advertisement spending is tax deductible (at least in the US) given how questionable its impact to society is. A slight change to the tax code would cut down on ads considerably.

<comment><USER38> Same as every other business expense, it's not like it's got a special status.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Products and services not directly necessary for sustenance exist only because of advertising.

If you are employed in an industry other than agriculture, textiles, or residential construction, there would be _no_ work for you or any of your coworkers without advertising. If people's basic urges do not require them to give you money, then there is no money with which to write your paycheck.

Obviously it can be taken too far, but eliminating advertising from the world in all forms is probably not what you want.

<comment><USER40> I don't understand how you reach the conclusion that people would not purchase products that they do not need to live if not for advertisements.

Would you mind explaining your reasoning for that?

<comment><USER39> Sure. Advertising is the craft of getting people to want things, then positioning a particular product as the best (or only) way to satisfy that want.

If you want something not embedded in your biology (i.e. food, sex, temperature regulation) then you want it because of advertising - either media you were exposed to, people who influenced you to want it, or just seeing the product out in the street. If you are aware of a particular product or vendor _at all_ , it is because of advertising.

Of the people in the world who are economically useful, they are useful only insofar as as people want the things they help produce. Without advertising, people want only food, shelter, water, sex, etc. Without advertising, people are entirely unaware of where they can exchange money for _anything_ they want, biologically necessary or not.

A world without advertising is a world without trade. The only way that could ever really happen is a centrally planned economy with resources handed out; the second you have something resembling a market, the way sellers and buyers discover each other is advertising.

<comment> qu4z-2 Hm. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that children would not want to be told stories, without advertising?

I mean, I agree people need to be aware of a good or service to buy it (and that includes food, sex, and temperature regulation -- not sure why you've got a special case for them). But I think there's a distinction between making that information available for people seeking things out (like, having a stall at a market that carries your product) and bombarding people with messages about it at all hours of the day.

<comment><USER39> Advertising to people with intent to buy is still advertising, just the most lucrative and expensive kind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> spam is bad, advertising is necessary to spread "product", just like how newspaper is necessary to spread news

</comment><comment><USER42> This article has quite a cynical tone that I can't say I agree with. The argument that advertising is the business of harvesting customers' attention, while not necessarily incorrect, is disingenuous. The ad industry is not some diabolical entity that conspires to brainwash citizens of the world.

I would posit that the advertising market is actually quite efficient as opposed to being a market failure. Let's examine a paragraph from the market failure section:

> Movie theatres, cable channels, phone apps, bill-board operators, and so on > price the sale of your attention at what it takes to extract it from you - > namely, how easy it is for you to escape their predations. This is often > much lower than the value to you, or to others, of directing your attention > to something else.

The author makes the implicit assumption that advertisements automatically garner 100% of our attention. They don't. When was the last time you went to a movie theater before the previews started, sat silently, and stared at the advert loop? You probably have never done that! Instead, you give your attention to your loved ones or your phone. And maybe you'll watch the previews, but if you're even somewhat into watching newly released movies, those add value to you.

Some advertisements _do_ capture our attention, and those are priced appropriately. Super Bowl commercials cost more on a CPM basis than a commercial to be aired during the Walking Dead, which in turn costs more than an Instagram sponsored story. This is the sign of an efficient market, not a market failure.

Moreover, people do avoid advertisements when they deem it necessary. Some people buy the premium versions of iPhone applications, some people only watch new TV shows on Netflix, and some people pay extra to watch live sports events on an ad-free Internet stream. Again, this is the sign of an efficient market, not a market failure.

You could, instead, possibly make the argument that advertising is a prisoner's dilemma. Perhaps the world would be better off without advertising. (I'm not even sure that this is true, given that advertising does benefit people.) But if there are no advertisements and a single company ran a TV spot, it would be at a huge competitive advantage. So everyone runs marketing campaigns. I really think this benefits the consumer more than the author gives credit for, however. Marketing is the field of creating value for a specific segment of the population, who in turn will enter into a long-term relationship with your firm and give you economic value in return. Advertising is an important part of this.

Also, to be clear, I don't advocate for marketing strategies that themselves are disingenuous. Moreover, there are perfectly valid arguments to make that inference-based advertising are immoral, or that Internet tracking is immoral. But the author is painting with absolutely massive brush strokes against the entire field of "advertising," and I feel the need to strongly qualify his argument.

There's a lot I want to say about this piece, because it seems that the author fundamentally misunderstands marketing. The entire bit about advertisers charging consumers directly is a terrible business idea, for example, for the same reason that we have grocery stores and shopping malls. However, I don't really want to spend all afternoon on a point-by-point response.

<comment><USER12> >The ad industry is not some diabolical entity that conspires to brainwash citizens of the world.

Yes, this is exactly the point.

Advertising is most certainly a "negative externality." Its cost is not fully borne by the firm, but rather imposed on intermediaries and externals. For example, there is _no cost_ to the advertising firm for promoting blatantly incorrect or dangerous statements that must latter be corrected through costly education.

See for example the statistics about sugary-beverage advertising, and how society must ultimately pay for the health consequences [1].

>You could, instead, possibly make the argument that advertising is a prisoner's dilemma.

Advertising is not an issue of prisoner's dilemma (in which two players who _benefit_ from cooperation are driven instead by rationality towards destructive outcomes).

It is more similar to a problem with asymmetrical information, i.e. the "market for lemmons." All of the posts in this thread about how "advertising is helpful for bringing information to the people who are looking for it" are talking about the very few instances of advertising improving the efficiency of an information marketplace. Instead, the marketplace is full of "lemmons," i.e. instances of advertising that are not aligned with true information flow, but with manipulation. The ad market is like shopping for used cars. Use caution.

[1] [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sugary- drinks-f...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sugary-drinks-fact- sheet/)

<comment><USER42> > For example, there is no cost to the advertising firm for promoting > blatantly incorrect or dangerous statements that must latter be corrected > through costly education.

I disagree somewhat, as there is certainly a regulatory cost. Now whether FINRA is stringent enough is an entirely different question, and one that would be more fruitful to discuss.

Moreover, you'll see toward the bottom of my original comment that I don't think misleading advertising is a good thing. My comment mostly dealt with the author's discussion of consumer attention as a resource, to which I strongly disagree that there are externalities.

> Advertising is not an issue of prisoner's dilemma (in which two players who > benefit from cooperation are driven instead by rationality towards > destructive outcomes).

I defined cooperation to be a firm not advertising and defection to be a firm advertising. It certainly seems like the definition of a prisoner's dilemma to me under the way I'd set it up. But we're free to disagree. I agree that this is an asymmetrical information issue, but that quite literally applies to the entire business world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> ok, wow. First, let me point out how ironic it is that a news agency that makes most of it's revenue from advertising is the source of this article, and also that ABC is owned by Disney corp which is a pervasive media company creating advertising, receiving revenue from advertising and spends over 2 Billion annually on advertising[0][1].

Services we use daily are funded by advertising. Virtually all news and media companies. Sure, it is a bit nefarious to do some of the things that get done on the internet like trackers and info siloing and such, but seriously? Is not seeing an advert a moral imperative?

> I want to keep using this free email, social network, enhanced and > personalized search capability, free cloud storage, document collaboration, > real time news updates, weather, be entertained by television, be > entertained by blogs, participate in an online community, etc

ok awesome, pay us money then, $1 a month per website/service you use?

> no

Or even the more infuriating, of course I would do that. Would you? Would you pay for google, facebook, twitter, reddit, HN, new york times, bloomberg? Maybe, but how much would you pay to that website your friend linked in an email? How many of you have apps or work at companies that get paid by advert revenue?

In a world where is is insanely easy to block ads, or to just ignore them, surely this isn't a question of morality. More of triviality and annoyance. I have 3 adblock extensions + uBlock as well as a DNS killer. I HATE ads. The reason ads are so annoying is because I have all of these things. So now companies search exploits to get my data to sell it and load tons of JS libraries to break through all of the blocking software I have. The situation sucks, but it isn't morality.

tl;dr If you think Axe body spray will get you laid, you are weak minded. Advertising pays for everything you use on the internet, and entrenched protocols are hard to disrupt. Get adblock, ublock and don't buy things you don't need.

[0][http://www.businessinsider.com/the-35-companies-that- spent-1...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-35-companies-that- spent-1-billion-on-ads-in-2011-2012-11?op=1) [1]I still think comcast is a shitty company

edit: As pointed out NBC is owned by comcast, ABC is owned by Disney corporation and I have edited to reflect that.

<comment><USER44> "Entrenched protocols" like slavery got disrupted precisely because a moral dimension was brought into play.

Everybody has weaknesses and exploiting them to sell ads is no more an art - it's a science - that is working at a speed and scale that we have never witnessed before. Advertising is more than just selling body spray. It's about selling anything to us - from our leaders to wars to taxes. I wont be surprised if ISIS is buying FB ads - target muslim youths in low income downtown areas - ad tech can do that for you today.

The same BMW in Europe is marketing car clubs and car pooling to save the planet, while in China and India the message is total opposite about aspiration and horsepower.

Morality has to be talked about.

<comment><USER43> I almost feel like you are saying that forcibly exfiltrating someone from their land, packing them into a ship where ~15-30% die before even getting the "privilege" of being sold onto bondage[0] and serve the rest of their lives as property is remotely comparable to a person using gmail for free but retaining any right for such a company to profit from that data(which you freely give them)?

> Morality has to be talked about.

Logic has to be talked about. Your privacy and attention are your own imperative and outsourcing that is a fatal mistake. You will see adverts on a few trashcans but that is the price you pay for living in society. The choice is yours whether you want to sell your information to companies, you provide it, you have agency, stop.

[0][http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&p...](http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=446)

<comment><USER45> You're going a bit far there in protest of an analogy.

Even someone who supports slavery would likely be against kidnapping and mistreatment.

But why are you suddenly talking about corporate data use? Advertising happens with or without that data.

There's no real opting out of ads.

<comment><USER43> > Even someone who supports slavery would likely be against kidnapping and > mistreatment.

I mean, they didn't just show up one day. But yeah, I just met hyperbole with hyperbole.

> But why are you suddenly talking about corporate data use? Advertising > happens with or without that data.

I think you can opt out of a lot of ads. I don't watch television often and as stated have a large amount of blocking software installed. I don't read magazines and have limited exposure to billboards as I live in a rural areas.

Data is the scary bit and it was mentioned in the article. Selling user data is morally ambiguous. Gun to my head, I come down on the side that it is probably wrong. Seeing an ad briefly while you steal a taylor swift song off youtube is different than the permanence of someone owning a silo of your personal intimate data.

Also, this data is used to create a profile of you which (outside of the 1984 scenario) is used to sell you adverts. This is pretty shitty. Once again, I try to maintain my own privacy on the internet and try to safeguard my data as much as possible and while I think it is a shitty practice, I think people should be responsible for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Depends on your system of morality. For example, you could have a system of morality that has the axiom: "advertising is inherently bad." In this case, it's hard to imagine it would be justifiable. An opposite system of morality also exists, of course, that says advertising is inherently good.

Since there is no objective standard of morality, and since "morality" is just a fancy word for "things that people consider good or bad," we probably just have to look out into the world and see whether advertising is against the morals of most. Given that we see little great outrage over the use of advertising, even among those who are aware of its risks, I have to conclude that advertising is morally justifiable.

<comment><USER47> > _Since there is no objective standard of morality, and since "morality" is > just a fancy word for "things that people consider good or bad," _ we > probably just have to look out into the world and see whether advertising is > against the morals of most. Given that we see little great outrage over the > use of advertising, even among those who are aware of its risks, I have to > conclude that advertising is morally justifiable.

This is a bold statement ( _italics_ ) and you run into a circular reasoning by the end of that sentence (advertising is morally justifiable because some people are okay with it). May I suggest the following summer read: [http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason- Between/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason- Between/dp/0143126059/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=) and [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/moral-tribes- jo...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/moral-tribes-joshua- greene-review) and then [http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115279/joshua- greenes-mor...](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115279/joshua-greenes- moral-tribes-reviewed-thomas-nagel)</comment></comment>


Statement on Modernization of the Accredited Investor Definition - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/clayton-accredited-investor-2020-08-26 <comment><USER2> > The initial certifications include the Financial Industry Regulatory > Authority, Inc. (FINRA) Licensed General Securities Representative (Series > 7), Licensed Investment Adviser Representative (Series 65), and Licensed > Private Securities Offerings Representative (Series 82) certifications.

These are the qualifying certs to be eligible under the new guidelines. To take one of those exams to get the cert you also need to meet this req,

> Candidates must be associated with and sponsored by a FINRA member firm or > other applicable self-regulatory organization (SRO) member firm to be > eligible to take FINRA representative-level qualification exams.</comment>


Ask HN: Need advice on my Start-up - <AUTHOR>

Before I start playing with Adwords, I wanted to get some advice on my start-up.  I am selling DVD's to people who's TV screens (LCD/Plasma) have suffered burn-in or stuck Pixels.  I made it to fix the burn-in on my own screen, and it worked pretty good.
The site is: http://www.fixburnin.com/
My questions are: does it look to spamy?  What could I improve on my conversion rate off the bat? <comment><USER2> Just a quick review --

I like the funky look of it. Reminds me of how-to sites from the late 90s, before spam overrode everything. The one thing that bugged me was the $29.95 crossed out, with $9.95 written in. Whenever I see a discount that isn't "special" to me (due to a code, or a link clicked, etc.) I think, "this person is trying to anchor the price higher" and it feels a little underhanded.

Also, it's not clear from the beginning that you're selling a product. I'd make it clear that the only way to fix burned in pixels is by using your product.

</comment><comment><USER3> Your site looks pretty old-school. You could definitely improve your conversion rate by even paying someone on elance a few hundred bucks to customize some template.

That being said, your product sounds pretty useful. I have never heard of this type of DVD (although I have never looked for one) but I assume you could do better with an updated look.

You could also consider a shopify storefront.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> The site looks super spammy.

To improve your conversion rate you should have more information on your site. use a different payment provider (paypal is the choice of spammers. non- spammers too but mostly spammers) try shopify. add some analytics from mixpanel to see where people are dropping off. You should also increase the price of your product, i mean you are offering to fix my screwed up plasma tv, i've never seen that i would pay $30 for something like that. If you feel bad about charging that then throw in a wicked movie for people to watch after they fix there tv.

</comment><comment><USER5> What a neat little product idea. Your biggest worry will be SEO savvy tricksters that will order one of your DVDs and start selling copies, as well as ripped copies showing up as torrents.

You'll be siding with the mpaa soon ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> You could definitely increase conversion rate by making the overall design better. Perhaps try out something like <http://www.yola.com>

In a startup like yours, its pretty easy to spend all your time working on the product and skimping on the marketing web page. While your layout/design isn't bad, it can certainly be improved by 120%. Save yourself some time and offload that to someone else who is a better designer. Just my friendly opinion.

</comment><comment><USER7> i am not sure if the demand exists for such a product/service. anyways if it really has a purpose. anyways your web site looks fine. i would just advise you to change the order button area ...</comment>


Battery with inbuilt 'fire extinguisher' developed - happy-go-lucky http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38637357 <comment><AUTHOR> The reason for recent battery issues have been primarily because manufacturers are pushing for tighter tolerances to make more energy dense batteries and smaller safety spaces in battery compartments. At the point they build in a fire extinguisher, why not go back to roomier batteries and compartments? Does this built in fire extinguisher impact the battery size and tolerances or does it replace existing materials? It was disappointing to not see that covered in the article.

<comment><USER2> If my skimming of the journal article ([http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601978.full](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601978.full) ) is accurate, they really only built a prototype.

So it's more of a demonstration that the flame retardant can be placed in a battery separated from the electrolyte by a heat activated membrane than it is a fully engineered end user battery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was wondering whether it would make sense to put some very smelly gas, just like you do with bottled gas.

Battery leaks would be then easily detectable by human nose.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanethiol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanethiol)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If only they could do this for 18650 batteries which goes into vaping device that would be great, so many careless users blow up their face while vaping because they have no knowledge of battery safety or ohm law when building their coils.

<comment><USER6> I don't know anything about the vaping space, but have seen some of those horror headlines of them exploding in people's pockets.

Why do people have to build their own coils? Do they have to do some DIY, or can you just buy a vaper off the shelf?

I don't need to know Ohm's Law to use my cellphone, etc. Why for this product class?

<comment><USER7> People don't have to build their own coils - there's plenty of devices on the market that take factory-produced cartridges with a coil & wick all set up for you, you just swap out the cartridge when it gets old. Most casual "vapers" just use those, for convenience as much as for safety.

But building coils is a hobby in its own right - there's lots of different variables you can tinker with (coil diameter, number of turns, wire gauge, wire material, wick material, wicking style, multiple coils in parallel, ...) and get slightly different results. It's fun to experiment, and there's a sense of achievement when you get a complicated build working just right. It appeals in the same way that overclocking your computer does, for example, or tuning your car/bike engine.

Also, all those cartridges will eventually be discontinued as the manufacturer moves on to new devices - but you can keep using a rebuildable device as long as you can get suitable resistance wire (Kanthal A1, Nichrome, or a certain grade of stainless steel) and wick (organic cotton, cellulose fibre, or silica yarn). And those raw materials cost basically nothing per coil, compared to a few dollars for each of those cartridges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have had to dispose bulged batteries, which are classified as household hazardous material. Craigslist forbids doing business involving such materials so I could not hire someone to do a dump run. Had to go all the way to a dump transfer station myself.

Lithium ion or lithium polymer batteries can become dangerous through overcharging and overdischarging, manufacturing defects, damage, etc.

It is a good idea to take a look at it once in a while and if it is bulged, dont use it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd be inclined to skip this sort of thing on handheld-scale batteries.

It only makes sense when a large battery serves as a power store for something like a vehicle, where a fire extinguisher stands between a cabin full of concussions and a cabin full of charred corpses.

Cell phones are sold to us as disposable trash, that corporations and governments use to eavesdrop on our lives. We're trained to sneer at a cell phone more than a year old.

From Wikipedia:

      However, an increasing number of studies
      have linked exposure to TPP with reproductive
      and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity,
      metabolic disruption, endocrine effects, and
      genotoxicity. TPP has also been found to
      induce significant estrogenic activity

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

There aren't a lot of teeth to regulations for responsible battery disposal. Even in countries with healthy recycling programs. If I threw all my old cell phone batteries into landfill today, I could safely gamble with any punishment risked.

Now add unspent fire suppressant to the list of things that go in the garbage with last year's cell phone?

<comment><USER10> Halogenated fire retardants are some of the worst persistent organic pollutants, so like you I looked up triphenyl phosphate to see if it's likely to become a problem in its own right. It looks pretty safe to me when you consider all factors.

In active batteries triphenyl phosphate remains separated from humans. In proper recycling processes it remains separated from humans. In improperly landfilled batteries it can escape containment, _but_ it has negligible vapor pressure at ambient temperatures so it won't spread by air. It rapidly biodegrades in the presence of water so it won't lead to human exposure through waterways or groundwater plumes if a landfill leaks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I could understand this for larger batteries, I'd hate to see the damage a Powerwall or something similar could do when someone lets the work experience kid do QA for a few hours.

<comment><USER12> See for yourself: [https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test- saf...](https://electrek.co/2016/12/19/tesla-fire-powerpack-test-safety/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "If a lithium-ion battery cell charges too quickly or a tiny manufacturing error slips through the net it can result in a short circuit - which can lead to fire."

How about solving the obvious problems?

<comment> rm_-rf_slash So, guarantee 100% reliability forever? Sounds obvious, but is it easy, or even possible?

Better to stop the reaction in its tracks and allow the engineers to see where things go wrong than to assume the battery will always work. I'm sure the engineers behind the Boeing 787 and the Galaxy Note 7 also believed with confidence that their batteries would be fine.</comment></comment>


Launchbox 11.3 with experimental Linux support through WINE - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/launchboxapp/status/1298692622907629569 <comment><AUTHOR> Additional info on running LaunchBox with WINE are in this forum thread.[1] I mostly posted this because I'm curious on how people feel about Linux support through WINE.

[1] [https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/56154-running- launchb...](https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/56154-running-launchbox- and-big-box-on-linux/)</comment>


Ranking News Items with Upvotes - <AUTHOR> http://www.evanmiller.org/ranking-news-items-with-upvotes.html

<comment><USER2> Nothing said about random votes and how they affect the outcome. The equations should factor in votes which are mere noise. This could be from users accidentally upvoting, or scripts which bulk-vote topics with certain keywords.</comment>


Deposit checks by taking a photo . . . - <AUTHOR> http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_14455307

<comment><USER2> Why are we optimizing physical paper check cashing instead of streamlining Consumer/Business to Consumer/Business fund transfers?

<comment><USER3> The real answer to your question is that the system is highly regulated. Paypal survives by being just enough of a hassle in terms of limitations and fees to avoid being suitable as a 100% replacement for existing banking. And nobody has the balls to do a ground-up rewrite of the way banking should work in the modern age of ubiquitous telecommunications and computing. So instead people work toward tweaking the existing systems just a little bit, because that's safe and won't get you burned at the stake by the regulatory agencies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Even after all these years in the U.S., I find amusement in technological innovation for cheques.

<comment><USER5> I'm amused that USAA has had deposit via scanner for about five years, and it's still considered an innovation.

That said, american style bank accounts are obscenely silly legacy products. I keep hoping the US will boldly jump into the 1990s and implement a saner system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What are checks needed for?

Was just thinking it would be easier to enable people to pay you directly via their phone, instead of them having to write you a check.

Problems might be no phone connection, and no immediate verification of the transfer (as typically banks take their time to process). But might be solvable (also remembering that credit card reader for the iPhone).

</comment><comment><USER7> How quaint. Meanwhile the rest of the civilized world will continue to use EFT as they've done for the last decade.

</comment><comment><USER8> It seems like it would be very easy to just photoshop in a new value, and drain someone's account. Much easier than doctoring a physical check.

<comment><USER9> You realize that all you need is the routing number and account number and you can print a demand draft which looks nothing like the original, write "AUTHORIZED BY ACCOUNT HOLDER" for the signature, and just deposit that demand draft, right? No doctoring skills required, and the information needed to drain the banking account is handily written on _every single check drawn on it_.

Checks are among the least secure payment methods ever devised by man -- that is why banks are trying to kill them. (The fact that banks subsidize them instead of earning fat interchange fees on their usage doesn't hurt, either.)

<comment><USER10> Incidentally, this is why Don Knuth stopped giving out checks. <http://www-cs- faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news08.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have the USAA app, and it works quite well, but I've mostly reverted to their java-based deposit-via-scanner application.

The problem is that with the USAA app, I've had two instances where something was wrong with the picture and I was directed to deposit via mail instead.</comment>


My Favorite Chart on Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Reformed-Broker/2011/0118/My-favorite-chart-on-Earth

<comment><USER3> All very interesting but the author fails to discuss the survivor bias inherent in the Dow Jones Index (or any other index, for that matter). This is the results of the companies that survived. A lot of companies have dissappeared over this time, both through poor performance or going bankrupt. In fact, GE is the only company that has remained on the index since it's inception.

So unless you're buying index funds that track the DJIA, the chart loses it use. Because when we look at this, we see that the stock market always goes up with time. But what we are looking at is the fact that the 30 largest/most successful companies in the USA keep pace with inflation. Which is hardly a shock.

Note that I'm not arguing some of the authors points, I'm just encouraging an open mind when viewing graphics like this - you've got to know what you're looking for.

<comment><USER4> There is not actually survivorship bias in the DJIA, because changes to its composition are not retroactive. If an index member goes bankrupt, it will absolutely bring the index level down substantially.

<comment><USER3> That is if they are high flying one day, and bankrupt the next. What usually happens is that they slowly sink in size until they are excluded from the index, and some other up-and-coming company is included. It's not common for a company to go bankrupt and be delisted, but it is common for companies to sink lower and be removed, and then perform very badly from then on as index funds sell them down.

So you're correct in that bad performance by a firm in the DJIA will affect the index, however, really bad performance by a company will not be completely reflected in the index, only the first part of their decline. And that will be somewhat mitigated by the inclusion of their replacement, which is usually a growing company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Of course Korea and First Gulf War are not here, since they would ruin the author's argument. Cue the chorus of people arguing why Korea and First Gulf are "different."

<comment><USER6> I don't know if I'm the chorus you're talking about, but they were both much shorter than the ones marked (gulf war 1: 90-91, korea: 50-53). If he shaded those boxes as well to the graph, I don't see it "ruining" his argument. The growth in those four years wasn't exactly spectacular. Very slightly up at best.

<comment><USER7> The U.S. was only in WWII from 41-45. It was only in WWI from 1917-1918.

Also saying "The war on terror" is kind of misleading since troop levels have varied greatly. To give one example the initial Afghan offensive only involved about 1,300 ground troops. As of 2003 that number was still only at 10,000 ([http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/01/ap/government/main...](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/01/ap/government/main5850224.shtml))

That's around the same number we had in Somalia (5,300), the '89 Panama invasion (30,000) and several other conflicts. So the fact that the chart starts to level off as of 2001 while these other conflicts don't seem to have made an impact undermines the implied point

<comment><USER8> _Also saying "The war on terror" is kind of misleading since troop levels have varied greatly._

Only if you believe the cause is troop levels. There are lots of things about a war that could be responsible for a correlation that are not directly correlated with number of troops deployed.

<comment><USER7> The author is contending that armed conflicts have an impact on the economy. I'm offering other conflicts with similar troop levels to disprove that theory. I'd be open to any other factors you think distinguishes the Afghan conflict from these other conflicts but just saying there could be other unnamed factors doesn't further the debate.

<comment><USER6> Rereading the article, I don't think the author is claiming that at all. The wording of the original yc comment framed the question in terms of whether wars are good or bad or what constituted a war, etc., and that's how we followed, but all the author claims is that wars=inflation and that good dow years follow inflationary spikes.

I would imagine that the only reason why someone would posit this correlation would be to say something on how to view our current situation, and I think he's saying that we've had a bad 10 years (logarithmicly speaking), but once we're out of this war (by him, inflationary) period, things will be great.

I'm not sure if I buy this argument or its implications, but the omission of korea, panama, gulf war 1 and somalia and the inclusion of the GWoT don't "ruin" it for me, at very least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Note that the chart uses a logarithmic y-axis, so it is most useful for relative comparisons. Don't try to get absolute data from it as our brains aren't built for doing exponential graph transformations.

<comment><USER10> A logarithmic graph of money! A newspaper (book?) that actually gets it. It's astonishing how many linear graphs of money exist - and they are all worthless and misleading.

And if you need proof that linear graphs of money are misleading then compare:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components_of_US_Money_sup...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components_of_US_Money_supply.svg) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components_of_US_Money_sup...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components_of_US_Money_supply_\(logscale\).svg)

<comment><USER11> Is there a simple explanation for non-economics types like me of why the linear graph is misleading and the log one is not?

<comment><USER10> Yes, here are a few explanations:

Because of compound interest money grows exponentially - the more money you have, the faster it grows.

Suppose I start with earning 10,000 a year, but my neighbor earns 20,000. Now suppose we both each 5% raises each year. After 10 years I earn 16288, and he earns 32577.

Now graph my income over the years and look at the gap between our incomes. In a linear graph the separation keeps getting larger and larger (we started with a 10,000 separation, and now have a 16289 separation). But that's wrong - <USER2> are both gaining equally as well. In a logarithmic graph the separation will stay exactly the same (and notice how when we started he earned twice as much as me, and he still earns twice as much as me after 10 years).

Suppose I'm in the business of selling stuff.

If I earn $1 per widget, and I can afford to keep 1000 widgets in stock, then I earned $1000. My neighbor however can stock 2000, and earns $2000. Now suppose both our profits go up to $1.50 per widget - now I earn $1500, and he earns $3000.

Now compare: In a linear graph he had $1000 more than me, and now has $1500 more than me. If you graph this over time he will look like he's doing far better than me - the income gap will keep growing - but really, he's doing exactly as well as me, it's just he has a higher base.

A logarithmic graph will show the relative difference between us - he has twice as much as me, and that doesn't change at all.

These explanations would be so much better with some graphs - is there a web service that will plot these things for me as live data?

One final example:

Suppose we are both businessmen, and we want to see who is better, I start with $100 and manage to grow it to $200, my friend started with $300 and grew it to $450. Who did better? I earned $100, but he earned $150 - clearly he did better right? But if you notice while I doubled my money, he only 1.5'd it. I'm clearly the better businessman, yet I earned less money.

On a linear graph it will look like he did better, since he now has so much more. But on a logarithmic graph the truth comes out - I did better. (And over time I will far exceed his income, and a logarithmic graph will show this correctly, but a linear one won't.)

<comment><USER11> Great explanation, thanks! It's that miracle of compound interest turning up again.

<comment><USER12> The most powerful force in the universe, they say. I love that quote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love how economists make all sorts or ridiculous claims by looking at the historical stock market. Two or three data points is not a trend, if you have 3 users and they all register, that doesn't mean your conversion rate is 100%.

Sometimes we forget that 100 years of data is nothing compared to human history and does not signify anything about the future.

<comment><USER14> remember Moore's law? that was based on two or three data points :)

<comment><USER15> a reference to back up this particular claim maybe?

<comment><USER16> Moore's diagram's in his origonal paper, presumably. However, while he only plotted a few data points he presumably used his experience with the semi- conductor industry in general and so actually had more.

ftp://download.intel.com/museum/Moores_Law/Articles- Press_Releases/Gordon_Moore_1965_Article.pdf

<comment><USER14> most industry insiders will tell you that Moore's law is a marketing law that drives timelines more than anything else.

sure he used his experience, but CEO's have also been known to make wild and extravagant statements :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Large version of chart, here: [http://www.thereformedbroker.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/01/...](http://www.thereformedbroker.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/01/My-Favorite-Chart-on-Earth.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER18> Out of six or seven wars, he picks the ones that make his case. This guy (and anyone tempted to draw any conclusions from this chart) should read A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

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

<comment><USER19> Which other relatively long or expensive wars are missing from this?

Wouldn't the length of a war be difficult to estimate at the outset, and hence be priced in to stock market growth over time? In my economics class they taught us that war is bad for the (real) economy because the country is relatively more invested in the engines of destruction than production, and thus productivity growth in things that make life better is lower. The conclusions of this chart stand to intuitive reason based on that teaching, but I'm by no means an expert.

<comment><USER20> Korea.

But to be fair, Korea was dwarfed by WWII and Vietnam in cost and public awareness. For example, did you know that we're currently technically still at war with North Korea? There's only a cease-fire, no treaty. We still even have troops over there...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder how the graph will continue if we add one possible scenario.

That the war on terror will last for decades to come, escalating conflicts in other locations, say Pakistan or somewhere in the gulf (again)

World wide war without end.. The assertion that the war in Afghanistan is winding down, doesn't strike me as accurate.

In addition the period after the second world war, was marked by a US economic dominance, as Europe was in ruins and the soviet block stifled economic development in almost half the globe for several decades including the Vietnam period until glasnost started to get a footing (in that curious uptick around 1988 perhaps), right till the fall of the Berlin wall.

Things are different now. slightly.

</comment><comment><USER22> Some similar charts here, such as S&P Composite since 1871, adjusted for inflation (much more useful in my opinion):

<http://dshort.com/articles/SP-Composite-pe-ratios.html>

</comment><comment><USER23> In war time, the economy appears to stall, since the growth is concentrated in war-related products which do not influence indicators like the consumer price index. After the war ends, the industry goes back to normal and the CPI `catches up', making it look like the war boosted economic growth.

That's how we explained it when I studied economics, at least IIRC.

Edit: just noticed the website name. "The Christian Science Monitor". I feel slightly cheated.

<comment><USER24> I don't think the performance of the stock market varies depending on whether the person reading the numbers is a Christian Scientist. If it did, that would be even more remarkable and weird than if Christian Science were correct in, e.g., its claims about disease.

(For the avoidance of doubt: No, I am not a Christian Scientist.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This suggests that we are in for a long period of inflation.

<comment><USER26> True, but look at the bright side, following the long period of inflation there will be fantastic growth! But really, are any of us keynesians surprised?

I'm more apathetic to this surprise. Everything looks like linear growth when plotted on a long enough time line, in log log with a fat marker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The graph is titled (roughly) "500% rises follow inflation". It could just as easily be titled "500% rises are followed by inflation" from the same data.</comment>


Microsoft Kills Flight Simulator, Fires Entire Dev Team - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21981 <comment><USER2> I wish companies would release the source code when they decide to kill their products. Now it is dead forever, and nobody can bring it back. If the source code was open, the dev team could try to revive it on their own dime. (If they were so inclined.)

Oh well, at least FlightGear is open source:

<http://www.flightgear.org/>

<comment><USER3> I dare say they have a bunch of licensed code in there that they'd have to find and remove; why would they invest the resources? By keeping it closed they also leave open the possibility of them bringing it back at some point in the future without creating a competitor to their own product.

I note X-Plane is going cheap in response to this:

<http://www.x-plane.com/order.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was kind of expecting that.

I think they will move the FS franchise to XBOX. FS was not a casual game, and the player must be a sim fan.

I guess the gamers will have to buy new good (expensive) joysticks, and they will buy extra scenery as DLC. The latter puts much more money in MS' pocket than the retail system, and restricts piracy.

And you get to play on your 50" plasma screen.

</comment><comment><USER5> A little off topic... but every time I hear Microsoft Flight Simulator, it reminds me how hardware vendors used to use the game to test the hardware compatibility.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible> "At first, few "compatibles" other than Compaq's models offered compatibility beyond the DOS/BIOS level. Reviewers and users developed suites of programs to test compatibility; the ability to run Lotus 1-2-3 or Microsoft Flight Simulator became one of the most significant "stress tests"."

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how this will fare for X-Plane. As far as I know, it's still mostly written by one person and provides a simulation that some argue is superior to Msft Flight Sim. I just bought X-Plane a few weeks ago, but have never used MsftFlightSim, so can't really compare.

Anywho, sad to see MsftFlightSim go, I gather it had quite a following.

<comment><AUTHOR> MSFS advantages:

\-- visuals (though X-Plane 9 closed this gap a fair amount)

\-- licensed scenery content (scenery library)

\-- large developer/add-on community (Level3, etc)

X-Plane advantages:

\-- Flight Model (geometry based, not lookuptable based)

\-- Mutli-Platform (Win/Mac/Linux)

\-- Networked operation out of box (vs 3rd party payware FSUIPC)

\-- Developer relations (all major devs maintain blogs, etc)

\-- Scenery/aircraft development tools (open-source AC3D plugin, WED, DSFMaker)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Somehow this does not have me too worried, if they'd fire the entire Office dev team, now _that_ would be a shocker.

<comment><USER8> Indeed - although Excel used to have a working flight simulator as an easter egg.

Shame to see Flight Simulator go - was really an amazing product a way back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I believe they can try to find a job in some other group at MS.

<comment><USER10> According to [http://www.futuregpu.org/2009/01/end-of-era-aces-studio- and-...](http://www.futuregpu.org/2009/01/end-of-era-aces-studio-and-flight- sim.html) some got fired and some have 60 days to find a new job within MS:

 _There was an all-hands meeting, then people got 1 of 2 emails from HR:_

 _1) your last day is Jan 23 ( 24 hrs notice ) and your badge and email will stop working at 7:00 pm on the 23rd._

 _2) you have 60 days to find a job, your badge and email will work until Mar 23. If you find a job great, if not that is your last day._

In any case, "You can try to find another job at MS" in no way guarantees that they will find a job.

<comment><USER11> So essentially, the members of the dev team will be competing against their old colleagues if they are searching for a new job at MS. Now that isn't a nice way to go.</comment></comment></comment>


Use Bundler Instead of RVM Gemsets - <AUTHOR> http://krnlsndrs.blogspot.com/2013/04/use-bundler-instead-of-rvm-gemsets.html

<comment><USER2> I'm a fan of both approaches. On my development machine I use rvm and project specific gemsets because it gives you a sandbox development solution per project. On my production servers I prefer to use a compiled version of Ruby and manage gems with Bundler for the performance benefits.

The power of Bundler really starts to shine once you wrap your head around the versioning constrains and policies <http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/16#page74>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to see a side-by-side, line-by-line comparison of Bundler-only vs RVM-gemset approaches.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it important to learn C/Java before Python? - <AUTHOR> I am completely new to programming (Though I'm familiar with basics and few facts). I want to start my way into programming with Python. Is it a good idea? Or should I really need to learn C/Java and other basic languages first?
I don't have too big career goals with programming as I'm already in another field of work. I just always wanted to learn programming and hence decided to start now.
As I will be learning this from home in my free time, please suggest few resources to get started. Books, communities, or anything a beginner should know of. <comment><USER2> No. In fact I explicitly recommend _against_ learning C first (and I wouldn't recommend Java first at all; too much ceremony before you can actually get to programming).

Personally I'd go for [https://learnpythonthehardway.org/](https://learnpythonthehardway.org/) but there are a ton of options and it's not necessarily a big deal when you're just starting out.

That said: if you decide to _keep_ programming I'd recommend learning _something_ about C (not C++) because it's good to know what's actually happening in Python, and how much it does for you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not at all, in fact in a lot of places Python is taught first. Best advice would be to pick one language and learn it thoroughly. Later on learning your next language will not be so difficult as you'll find a lot of the concepts are shared, so you can build upon what you know and just look for the differences. Your third language will be even easier again as you have a bigger 'toolbox', so to speak, to draw on yet again. And so on.

</comment><comment><USER4> Go with Python.

Python and C/Java share a lot syntax-wise, but python is higher-level, more beginner friendly language - it's got REPL, big community, lots of intro books and libraries.

And even if you decide not to start with Python, avoid C. As a beginner, you don't want to deal with manual memory management on top of everything else that you have to learn to be a coder.

Most importantly, have fun! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, you cleared up the confusion between C and Python.

I asked this above too: Would you like to suggest few resources to get started? Books, communities, or anything a beginner should know of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Python is pretty good start for people who just want to learn basic principle of programming.

It will be much easier for beginner to install a good text editor(like sublime text or atom) and python itself. After that you can just sit in the front of your computer and start code, experiment as much as you want. Without any worries about memory leaks, that can show up in C/C++.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the answer. Would you like to suggest few resources to get started? Books, communities, or anything a beginner should know of.

<comment><USER5> You may start with official python site [https://www.python.org/](https://www.python.org/) Just go into "Documentation" section.

Python docs really well written, there are working code examples as well.</comment></comment></comment>