After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2015/03/31/395829446/after-snowden-the-nsa-faces-recruitment-challenge <comment><USER3> I think people often underestimate it, but one of the biggest influences you can have -- I mean you, the HN reader! -- may be _cultural_.

People who work on building surveillance, people who have done it, people who may do it in the future, are your classmates in your CS program, your colleagues in your startup, your neighbors, your fellow conference attendees, _you_.

Folks who work at NSA (and all the other places that don't get so much press) read xkcd religiously, they go to DEF CON, they have Linux and math t-shirts, they read HN, they are reading this thread right now, and all the other threads.

If people like you in the cultures that you're part of decide that surveillance is cool and exciting, that's more talent to take the billions of dollars and vast intellectual challenges of figuring out how to eliminate the vestiges of privacy. If they decide it's uncool and sketchy, that's more talent that goes elsewhere and does something else.

There are many overlapping subcultures in technology and they don't all understand or talk to each other that much, and plenty of technology employers are recruiting out of many different subcultures, so you can't assume that the culture you create in your circles will _control_ the path of technology. But the cultural attitudes of people in the tech world can have a powerful effect on what people decide is worth working on.

<comment><USER4> Serious question: Do you include those working at Google and Facebook under this group? Or equivalently ad-driven services? Those two companies (and their siblings) are certainly the most fruitful of trees for surveillance organizations (government or otherwise) to pluck information from.

Further, they're not collecting this data for any purpose – vague, questionable, and slippery though it may be – of doing "good" or "protecting our country." They're doing it, solely and without an attempt at justification, for ad revenues. And they're taking tens of thousands (if not hundreds?) of some of the brightest minds in tech away from things like drug discovery, climate change, energy research, etc.

Not trying to start a flame war, nor am I drawing equivalencies between Facebook and the NSA. I'm actually just legitimately curious how you think we can segment this spectrum.

<comment><USER5> Ex-Googler here, worked with a lot of user data, including a project to collect more of it.

Within Google, data's collected primarily to _build better products_. Or at least that's what the majority of the rank & file believe, and personally I believe the executives believe it too. This has the effect of widening the moat between them and competitors, but it also has real, tangible convenience benefits for users. I can guarantee that the majority of folks are thinking of those benefits, not the additional ad revenue, when building new products. I worked in Search for 5 years and was explicitly told by executives to ignore Ads when making decisions; they have plenty of their own engineers whose job is to optimize revenue.

This may seem hard to believe for someone who's never worked at a place that improved a product based on data, but it's a really fundamental part of the culture. You see the headlines about the NSA or Google's threat to privacy; you rarely see any news story about the A/B test they're running or the new feature in Android/Gmail/Chrome/Search that you get to use because usage logs showed that it took you too long to accomplish your task and some engineer decided to fix it.

<comment><USER6> > data's collected primarily to build better products

That's may be true _today_ , but one of features that distinguishes modern forms of surveillance from what was possible in the past is that truly massive amounts of data can now be stored "forever"[1].

Google itself may change what it wants to do with its data in the future. Worse, the fact that data was captured at all means it will be available for a subpoena or "national security letter" and Google will have little say in what happens to the data.

[1] the value of "forever" generally varies by the size of the available budget, which is "large enough" in the case of nation-states and companies the size of Google (or Apple)

<comment><USER5> So I'm not here to say whether or not people's fears are justified. I don't know; I can't predict the future either. There have certainly been ample cases where a belief that was true of Google management once was not true the next year.

The original question posed, though, was "Why do people at Google/Facebook/NSA continue to collect all this data? What's their purpose?", which I think I answered. While it may not be true in 10 years, it's true _now_.

Also, I think that the sheer pace of change today may insulate a lot of people from the consequences of having data available on them. The data may be out there - but by the time it gets into the wrong hands, it no longer reflects reality, which makes it largely useless. That guy who talks about having his dick sucked by sororisluts [1] may, in a couple years, be the guy with 200 million users whose company you desperately want to invest in.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/28/confirmed-snapchats-evan- sp...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/28/confirmed-snapchats-evan-spiegel-is- kind-of-an-ass/)

<comment><USER7> Combine google profiles, facebook and 23andme and I think that the data will have repercussions even beyond the lives of those directly addressed by it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article doesn't truly address such a large claim -- it basically could be titled "After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge from 3 College Students".

The NSA has nearly unlimited hiring potential with just the pool of military folks alone that work there. There are constant hiring freezes for a year at a time, because a lot of buildings are over capacity.

If one of these college students were to apply to the NSA through NSA.gov (mandated as the only way someone is allowed into the agency), they would have to apply a minimum of 2-4 times, because the application stays good for about 90 days, and the average applicant waits 6 months to a year to get accepted. This is assuming they're applying straight through without having someone with hiring power pull their application from the queue. After that, the process to get a clearance could take anywhere from another 6 months to 2 years (possibly more in some exceptional cases) and costs the agency about 250k.

So, it goes without saying that bringing onboard a fresh college student who isn't going to even get to walk through the door at least a year after applying, can pale in comparison to bringing on someone who already has a clearance and training. The article assumes that the NSA relies heavily on its external recruitment, but the vast majority of folks working there just change out of a uniform into jeans and a shirt.

<comment><USER9> Salaries and pensions are no joke either. I was reading about how recruitment works. It seems they have a relationship with many CS and Math professors who recommend bright students directly to NSA headhunters. I imagine working on some of the problems they do can be very exciting. Not everyone feels this need to publish publicly.

I find it hard to believe there's any sort of recruitment shortage. The NSA does today what it did 5, 10, 15, etc years ago. People interviewing for those positions know exactly what they're getting into then the same way they know what they're getting into today. The whole "OMGZ SPYING ON MY MAY-MAYS" sells on here on reddit, but apparantly lots of people don't take that view and instead see sigint as a legitimate need, like having a standing military with nuclear weapons or intervening into foreign countries. Arguably, good sigint means less conflicts and more wins. Hitler's Germany was damaged greatly by sigint hero Alan Turing. Funny how we celebrate Turing, but a modern Turing today would be vilified instantly. The world, if anything, is much more dangerous today than in the 30s considering how many nations have nuclear weapons. Honestly, if I had the choice I'd rather work there than find new ways to deliver annoying click-bait ads at a place like Facebook or get kids hooked on some milquetoast WoW-clone.

The Chinese, Iranian, and Russian sigint guys aren't taking some moral stand either. They're just getting their assess to work the same way we do.

<comment><USER10> > Funny how we celebrate Turing, but a modern Turing today would be vilified > instantly.

For that comparison to work, we would need a modern Third Reich or World War as well. Tapping into European email in 201x is hardly the same as spying on the Nazis.

<comment><USER11> The point of omnipresent surveillance is to be proactive and prevent threats before they arise. There is no way to measure its success. If you oppose it, pick a better reason to base your argument on.

<comment><USER7> I have this banana in my ear...

Threats to what?

> There is no way to measure its success.

Convenient

> If you oppose it, pick a better reason to base your argument on.

If you support it, pick a better reason to base your argument on.

If success can't be measured then there is no success.

<comment><USER11> Unlike you, I don't believe success, or really anything, is necessary to justify the existence of the NSA or what they do. Realistically, that boat sailed the first time necessary and proper was invoked.

<comment><USER12> How considerate. As if the legal system matters at all to the existence of the NSA. Wikimedia's case notwithstanding, it's abundantly clear the spy agencies can only be peacefully resisted with privacy enhancing technology. It's obvious why they've been degrading public cryptographic standards and pushing for back doors.

<comment><USER11> It's abundantly clear that they can't, for exactly the reasons you mention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> History has shown that if you join an intelligence service, you basically forfeit your right to a fair trial if anything ever goes wrong.

Your potential future opponent can make anything secret and off-bounds that you want to present in court, has unlimited funds and no qualms to invade your private life and present anything bad about you, has unlimited funds to haunt you for the rest of your life, and has no conscience except to preserve itself, even if it was in the wrong. I've also got a hunch that their culture is not "let's all chill and find the truth" but has more of a clan-like "you're either with us or against us" vibe. And this organization has guns, lots of guns.

So in effect, it's a bit like joining the Mafia.

Considering this, one has to wonder why anybody would ever join such a service.

<comment><USER14> > History has shown

I'm not well educated in this regard, but my general understanding is that such agencies tend to protect their own. Police men will protect other police men. The CIA will protect employees against crimes they may have committed.

In general, you're only going to have a problem like this if you do something to piss off the rest of your organization. But as long as you conform they are more likely to protect you than turn against you.

<comment><USER15> Again, exactly like the Mafia.

Don't snitch. Give unconditional respect to everyone that's a made man or higher in the organization. Follow orders. Don't snitch. Pay your superior their cut of your business. Don't step on anyone else's toes [without getting permission first]. Don't snitch.

The unwritten rules for any corrupt organization are pretty simple. "Keep your mouth shut," is always one of them, and possibly the only unforgivable offense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is a feedback problem people don't realize when a moral filter is added to an organization.

I observed in Financial Tech that when the world judged bankers as bad... it attracted self-identified bad people to become bankers. People who desired to do good filtered themselves out of the industry, leaving a really horrible selection of individuals running our national financial institutions.

Its really hard to digest, but I think self-identified good people MUST work at 'bad' places. Or else those places will become even worse as they become lost in a sea of real evil.

<comment><USER17> Places turn "bad" as-such when they are beyond repair. Do you believe that's it's possible to make the groups in power reform? If not, then it's impossible to make such a bad organization into a good one again, and we must start from scratch by cutting off the sections which have gone bad.

Moreover, it is wrong for anyone to rationalize complicity in injustices. It doesn't matter what our intentions or level of prior ignorance are. If you make your money off things connected to something wrong, your way of life becomes wrong by connection.

Perhaps these bitters truths are even more difficult to accept, and perhaps that is why people more commonly choose the more comfortable route of believing that they bear no responsibility for the company they keep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > _" there are some of them ... that puts them off or they have doubts." On > the other hand, Ziring says, the Snowden leaks have sparked other students' > interest. "[They say], 'I actually know some of what you do now, and that's > really cool and I want to come do that."_

I don't buy this. I find it just short of impossible that anyone is looking at the leaks and saying, "Yes, I want to be part of your wholesale abrogation of the Fourth Amendment. I used to think you were just a spy agency, but now I know you're the Information Nomenklatura and I want in!"

<comment><USER19> This is not to be underestimated.

Obviously patriotism devotion to country and Constitution was very much desirable for recruits. The problem is a few of those patriots actually believe in the Constitution which at this point would make them quite dangerous. They would need to be filtered out and/or continuously brainwashed and monitored.

"We want you to be patriotic, but not too much, just enough to swallow our brainwashing".

The problem is it attracts undesirable people. They already have tons of polygraphs which accept either extremely honest people, or psychopaths. This will attract people who would have been happy working for the Stasi, SS or KGB -- particularly vile authoritarian types.

Remember that even during the unpopular wars the military attracted people who just wanted to play with guns and kill other people. Same with police force. Bullies from high-school grow up want to keep bullying but they can do it within the law.

<comment><USER20> So they want redneck patriotism, basically?

<comment><USER21> Yeah, pretty much. The two guys I know who worked at the NSA were both rednecks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good. And to the folks still there: how about walking away? You should be one of the brightest minds anyway - find a better job!

Thank you.

<comment><USER23> Sometimes I wonder how hard it would be to find a new job if you can't talk about much, if any, of your work for the past 5+ years.

<comment><USER24> As someone who has had to do it: even in a supposed talent shortage, really fucking hard. Even in the rare instances I could get an interview I probably sounded like an idiot giving generic and slightly evasive answers.

<comment><USER25> To be honest I'd be leery of hiring a former intelligence agent regardless of technical ability. I'm sure if they wanted to plant someone it wouldn't be someone with NSA on his/her resume, but the thought would be hard to shake.

<comment><USER24> Interesting perspective. For the record, I was doing radar signal processing for a contractor for the Navy. While there I bumped into plenty of people who were in the Order of Secret Squirrels, and got the definite impression that once you join you never really leave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's funny how before the whole scandal was public (or at least, before I personally became aware of it), the NSA sounded like a hip place to work: for example, their keynote here was quite cool:

[https://www.openstack.org/summit/portland-2013/session- video...](https://www.openstack.org/summit/portland-2013/session- videos/presentation/keynote-openstack-at-the-national-security-agency-nsa)

EDIT: I mean just look at that guy!

<comment><USER11> I'd say a lot of the things that have become known since then, like Regin or the ANT exploit catalog, have only intensified that image.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Imagine being a mathematician at the NSA and working there for 10 years and then wanting to go to work in Academia.

And realise that you can't publish most of the things you've been working on for years because it's classified.

<comment><USER28> There's a flip side to this. Academia's hiring practices inherently prevent talented people from returning to academia. Hiring is slow (it takes at least six months), and it is absolutely contingent upon the candidate having a great publication record.

When you leave for more than a year or so, it's a one-way ticket out. As an academic, I would _love_ to have greater liquidity in the industry/academia job market.

<comment><USER15> I have occasionally applied for (non-academia) software development jobs at universities, usually in relation to the health care sector.

It takes all of them at least a month to even set up an initial phone screen, and some can't even manage that. Also, they tend to pay way below market wages.

It's not just the hiring practices for researchers and professors. That idiocy likely extends all the way down to the part-time gardeners. You can't afford to endure the process unless you already have a job.

The only reason universities can get away with this is because they are largely protected from competition, and are usually the largest single employer in whatever city they may be in.

<comment><USER29> I work at a university as a software dev. I got offered the job, interviewed, and started working in a couple weeks. It was actually a very seamless process. The pay for my area is comparable to private jobs, but I don't get all the startups benefits like pingpong and snacks. It's just a basic office job. The good part though is that there is no bureaucracy and I have free roam to develop in any environment I want.

I'm not an academic but I work for one. If that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Good!

(Even though the article is as close as it gets to a fluff piece. No solid data beyond a couple of stories)

There has been Zero meaningful change after Snowden's leaks. This means essentially that that NSA routinely spies on all Americans, scoops up all communications Worldwide, runs various programs to undermine the Security of computer & Internet systems and acts like a massive advanced persistent threat.

Imagine the same story with "After Snowden, the <biggest illegal hacker club worldwide> Faces Recruitment Challenge" Not surprising if you think that most bright people have a somewhat evolved moral compass.

</comment><comment><USER31> Edward Snowden had predicted a radicalization of a class of professionals. We're coming to the point where, similarly to nuclear physicists after Hiroshima, we decide as a community to not let our skills be used for unethical purposes.

<comment><USER32> One could argue that those skills actually prevent far worse unethical actions. Without Hiroshima, how might World War II have ended? How would the Chinese and Koreans feel if Japan weren't defeated? Spend a few minutes at the Nanking museum or perhaps read about Bataan or Korean comfort women and then the moral high ground gets a bit slippery. One might, if one were so inclined, make an argument that nuclear weapons prevented World War III due to the mutually assured destruction concept. The Cold War would have become very hot if the politicians of both the Soviet Union and the U.S. didn't have to fear for their own annihilation.

War and politics is dirty and not as academic as many people would like to think. It never is black and white. For example, if we take the moral high ground, our enemies won't. Pacifism sounds good until it's your sister getting raped in your living room or your parents being shot out of the sky.

<comment><USER20> The theory that Japan wouldn't have been defeated without the Bomb is contended, at best. A far more likely outcome would have been A) the Soviets invading Japan (leading to Japan surrendering to the Allies to maintain their territorial integrity) or B) massive depopulation as a result of the ongoing firebombing. Basically, they'd either have surrendered, or become mostly irrelevant (like North Korea if it weren't for China).

Yes, Japan committed atrocities in WW2, but the US wasn't the Good Guy either.

There are no good guys in war. It's all just propaganda. And the thing with propaganda is that in order to claim any moral high ground after the war you have to abandon your propaganda and deal with the facts. The US never did that. Instead it dragged itself from one war to the next while pretending to be at peace.

The US is at war. It has been for a long time. Only it has outgrown the need of having an enemy. There's probably a clever 1984 reference in here.

The US has become a servant to its warfare, sustaining a state of war perpetually, moving from one "enemy" to the next, churning out propaganda for itself and for its allies. Except the propaganda has shaped its culture so much its citizens not only barely notice it anymore, they unknowingly perpetuate it themselves. And our advancements in technology allow the warfare itself to become less and less noticeable to them, too. Instead of scared men in tanks, we are demanding casual suits behind joysticks -- because it makes the warfare so much cleaner and easier, for us.

The US isn't a mighty eagle. It's quickly becoming a scared canary in a cage, pecking at buttons to make the scary people go away.

<comment><USER5> I think you're proving his point, which IIUC wasn't that the Bomb was necessary to end WW2, it was that _there are differing opinions_ on whether the Bomb was necessary to end WW2.

The U.S. has always been highly morally questionable - after all, it's one of a few nations founded by a _successful_ genocidal campaign, which we called Manifest Destiny. The perks of being successful with genocide is that you get to define the story as you wish, since there's nobody to call you out on it.

We're not the only country in that boat either, as I think the grandparent post was trying to point out. Japan, if left unchecked, would've happily raped and pillaged all of Korea - they were well on their way already. Russia was just waiting to come in and crush Japan, payback for the Russo-Japanese war 40 years earlier. Germany, of course, started to war in an attempt to exterminate the Jews.

<comment><USER20> While we're at it, let's not forget about the Armenian genocide (which Turkey still denies), and the recurring genocides in Africa (in particular the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda) in more recent history.

What you seem to gloss over is that Germany's crimes still play a strong role in the politics and culture of present-day Germany (to the point of obsessive paranoia about any expression of patriotism).

Even Japan -- which compulsively avoids admitting any wrongdoing -- is regularly facing the crimes of its past.

The US is not just built on the successful genocide of Native Americans. There is also the slavery and racial segregation (which _still_ reverberates throughout American culture and politics though everyone seems to pretend it's no longer an issue). Then there's the religious fundamentalism (resulting in the Prohibition, the Red Scare, the War on Drugs, homophobia, Creationism and all kinds of other systemic problems). The internment of Japanese Americans during WW2. The McCarthy era (which likely re-enforced the underlying causes of the social problems we still see today by persecuting left-wing activists). The various CIA assassinations and coups, especially in South America. The gaming of Middle Eastern countries (including funding Islamist extremists until 2001). Agent Orange and other crimes in Vietnam. The mass seizure of communication data of its allies (both political and civilian). The mistreatment of Muslim or Arabian-looking Americans after 9/11\. The blanket Authorization for Use of Military Force that cemented the US's permanent state of quasi-war. Drone strikes, including those against its own citizens abroad. Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and black sites. Detention of citizens and foreign nationals without any process or trial. Extraordinary rendition and enhanced interrogation (i.e. torture). Systemic police brutality (Occupy, Ferguson, etc). Interfering with Ukraine prior to the secession of the Crimean peninsula ("Fuck the EU", right?). And so on and so forth.

The US is not just morally questionable. It is morally reprehensible. And it's chock-full of itself. The only reason everybody else is tolerating this behaviour is that the US is armed to the teeth and willing to go down fighting. The US isn't on top because it's good. The US is on top because it is holding the world at gun point.

Here's hoping that when the American economy is eventually overshadowed by whatever powerhouse comes next (my bet is still on China or India) it won't do something incredibly stupid and hurt us all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Good. My fondest wish is that no computer science or math graduate ever chooses to go to work for the NSA again, ever. Screw those assholes. I don't care how much they cry "oooh, sigint is needed for national security" \- I'm more scared of our government than I am of any foreign (or domestic, as far as that goes) "terrorist" group.

The way I see it, these guys have created and are fighting an undeclared war on the American people... they've decided that "if you're not one of us, you're a bad guy". Fuck that.

</comment><comment><USER34> The NSA essentially had a recruiting office on campus at the University of Kentucky. Even being Pre-Snowden, I remember everyone having a general feeling that the NSA was probably doing bad things, yet a lot of people still went to interview with them. Hell, even I did.

It seems like that for some, the idea that the NSA was spying on everything was a big draw for them to join. They also liked the prestige, money, and benefits.

I am not convinced that the NSA is facing a huge recruitment challenge. If anything it might just mean that more bad people get recruited.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've a tough time believing they're having difficulties recruiting. Nothing has come from the Snowden leaks. Half of America has been very effectively turned against the guy. The rest don't care.

There's also no shortage of the morally bankrupt or patriotically brainwashed.

I don't know how those working with these entities can sleep at night knowing they're working to wreak havoc on their fellow American and further condemn their children and their children's children to a life under an oligarchy that listens to their every word.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's funny to me that even before Snowden NSA (like literally every other federal agency) was facing a monumental challenge because you can hardly find anyone with decent qualifications to accept the middling salaries and hard cap on potential compensation as a government worker. Why go to NSA as a GG-9 (there's other schedules than GS, guys) out of college when you could go to Google for maybe similar... and maybe actually get to share your work possibly?

The other part of the equation is that cost of living in the DC area has risen quite a lot and tech salaries in private sector have met the tide when most federal workers can't keep up with it. When it takes two federal workers at about $70k / yr each to have a chance at a comfortable living in the suburbs it's pretty sickening. Median house price in Fairfax County hit $700k the other year, and up in Anne Arundel County in Maryland it's maybe $550k last I saw years ago).

</comment><comment><USER37> Although I'm not American and disapprove many NSA privacy concerns, I can't blame their technical employees: they are choosing a stable high-paying job.

Articles like this try to put an ethical burden on analysts while ignoring the real actors and influences behind an ethical issue. Analysts are just doing their job and one certainly can't blame them.

<comment><USER20> One certainly can. Not to invoke Godwin's law, but you're relying on the Nuremberg defence (which was ruled invalid).

<comment><USER38> Yes, it was ruled invalid. That doesn't make it invalid. That ruling was pure evil. The trials were a sham, existing only so that a democracy could participate in dishing out victor's justice. It's revenge, pure and simple, coldly ignoring the pressure that people were under.

<comment><USER7> The whole idea is that no matter what pressure you are under there are some things that you can not get away with.

Following orders is not a 'get out of jail free' level excuse, though it might be used for mitigation.

So no, that ruling was not 'pure evil', it established a basic level of responsibility that applies even when acting under orders.

<comment><USER38> Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Nice. You'll change your tune if you ever find yourself in that situation.

<comment><USER7> I've already been in a situation where I could choose between serious jail time and refusing orders I did not agree with so I'm pretty sure which side I would come down on.

So, with all respect mr. Anonymous Coward you haven't a clue what you're talking about.

Principles come at a price, that's for sure.

I can see why you have a problem with this worldview.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8469353](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8469353)

<comment><USER38> Unless refusing orders would mean somebody else jails you, no you haven't been in that situation. The deal is that you follow orders and maybe get jailed/executed after losing a war, or you disobey orders and definitely get jailed/executed right away.

<comment><USER7> Having principles isn't free.

Quite a few German soldiers _did_ refuse orders and indeed some of them got executed or jailed. Those are the real heros.

And as I said before _yes, that is exactly the situation I 've been in_. So I don't give a rats ass what your excuse is but I know where I stand on this.

You don't get to escape from your responsibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> If anyone at the NSA is reading this, I urge you to consider following Snowden's example and help to further weaken the NSA and protect our constitution.

(case in point: I was slightly nervous writing this, but hopefully my VPN will keep me anonymous)

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder which is true -- this, or tptacek's assertion that this would be irrelevant to NSA recruiting, 2+ years ago.

I'm pretty amazed at how much the NSA story has remained in popular press and thinking. I really didn't expect it. That probably accounts for the recruiting problems.

<comment><USER41> You mean this comment, right?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185322](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6185322)

Think about it this way: other countries have no apparent problem feeding high-caliber talent into _overtly, unmistakably evil_ applications of offensive security. Look at China, for instance.

I don't think the Snowden saga had _zero_ impact on recruiting at NSA; I just think the long-term marginal impact to NSA staffing is negligible.

Worth adding: this article and my comment can't really falsify each other; they're somewhat orthogonal.

<comment><USER40> Yes.

I guess I mainly think about IA/defense. NSA blowback is keeping good IA/defense (and in particular, people building IA/defense tools) people from joining USG. Instead, those people join private companies to build tools to protect companies from, among other threats, USG, or work on actual privacy tools for end users directly aimed at defeating governments.

I don't know the people in the pipeline into TAO/offensive side well enough to speculate much about recruiting efforts. All the more kinetic offense people I know are there because 1) they believe deeply in the US/constitution/etc. 2) view the world in black/white 3) enjoy kicking in doors, so I assume the same is true in the TAO world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think the only thing I can say about this is..

Good.

</comment><comment><USER43> " On the other hand, Ziring says, the Snowden leaks have sparked other students' interest. "[They say], 'I actually know some of what you do now, and that's really cool and I want to come do that," he says."

These students scare me.

</comment><comment><USER44> That would be a true pity, because NSA serves a great and legitimate purpose. They do a wonderful job for our nation. Sure, some of that work is not what some folks would like—frankly, there's one allegation which, while neither illegal nor unconstitutional, _I_ don't like[1]—but that doesn't really matter: to the extent that the courts have deliberated, NSA has the national security of the United States of America at heart.

What really makes me sad, though, is not its putative recruitment challenge, but the unpatriotic attitude of so many folks. The NSA do good and important work; it is good and important to labour in the service of one's nation. You can't blame them for acting within the outer limits (but still within the limits) of the law, because that's how nation-states _work_. That's not even a bad thing: if you wish to reduce the power of the NSA, reduce the power of the State, _period_.

There's a very good chance that I'll be hell-banned for this post; if so, I've really enjoyed conversing with all of you, and hopefully I'll be able to converse with you again.

[1] I have neither seen nor heard any allegations of activity which is actually illegal or unconstitutional; everything I've seen has been stuff someone _wishes_ were such. Well, I wish some things illegal were legal, and some things legal were illegal. You can wish in one hand and spit in the other, and see which fills up first.

</comment><comment><USER45> All I can say is: GOOD!

If the government will not act then a talent drain might be the next best thing. The NSA has clearly strayed from it's intended goal (or at least the one they present publically) and is a black organization that answers to seemingly no one. I'd rather that talent go to companies I use daily to protect me against not only my own government but other governments. It's clear to me that our government doesn't care about securing it's citizens but rather weakening crypto so that they can monitor everything we do. I see the NSA as a hugely corrupt and frankly evil organization that I wouldn't consider joining in a million years. Any organization that can outright lie to congress (and the American people) without repercussions is one we should burn to the ground (figuratively).

I understand the need for secrets but there is difference between keeping secrets and monitoring every American citizen (and many people around the globe) without a warrant or cause.

Here is to hoping that NSA becomes a graveyard of talent that eventually crumbles in on itself or is just so woefully equipped to compete with the private sector that we just do away with it. I cannot for the life of me come up with a single redeeming quality of the NSA in my life (I'm 24 so they may have done some good in the past but I seriously doubt it and even if they have the bad has FAR outweighed the good in my eyes).

<comment><USER46> >>If the government will not act then a talent drain might be the next best thing.

Is it? While the NSA conducts unconstitutional mass surveillance and has played a huge role in eroding privacy, it also performs a lot of legitimate duties. I personally don't want the country's primary intelligence agency to be populated with a bunch of mediocre people.

<comment><USER45> > it also performs a lot of legitimate duties

Does it? I'd be very interested in what duties it performs that are considered legitimate that are not part of larger system that erodes privacy. As is a program that does not target American citizens in illegal (illegal by everyone's but the NSA and their team of dirty lawyers) that serves a real need.

> I personally don't want the country's primary intelligence agency to be > populated with a bunch of mediocre people.

I'd rather that happen and the talent go to the private sector (Commercial and OS) because at least I have a say in which of those I support. As it is now a portion of my taxes fund this machine that infringes on our rights in the name of security.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> > the Snowden leaks have sparked other students' interest. NSA computer > scientist Ziring also helps lead academic outreach for the agency. > "[Students say], 'I actually know some of what you do now, and that's really > cool and I want to come do that," he says.

That's crazy. I'm inclined to believe they're just trying to avoid an awkward conversation with a grown man about how shitty his life choices have been

<comment><USER11> As someone who feels the same way, I don't understand how someone who cares about technology can dismiss that point of view so casually. Every single developer I know can at least admit that the NSA's malware is technically impressive.

<comment><USER7> Letting your fascination for technology lead you like this is a very dangerous thing.

More than anything such a fascination or simply the lure of money allows one to be controlled in ways that could easily lead to serious regret in the longer term.

<comment><USER11> How is it leading me anywhere? If anything, it's probably my belief in the obsolescence of privacy that makes it easier for me to appreciate what the NSA is capable of, rather than the other way around.

<comment><USER7> It's the same kind of fascination that gets people to work on bio-weapons and other singularly negative items.

I'm a bit less cynical than you by the looks of it and I definitely do not believe in the 'obsolescence of privacy', in fact I think that privacy is one of the most important rights that we have.

Appreciating what the NSA is capable of technologically whilst at the same time despising them for what they do to the world at large is entirely possible.

To me it is very clear that all these politicians and their plans would go nowhere without enablers.

<comment><USER11> I don't see your point. Most large projects require the combined effort of many people, especially if you want to be confident in their quality and get them shipped on time, as I'm sure the NSA does. Is that supposed to be a bad thing? Or did you just want to have fun by calling people enablers because they do something you disagree with?

As for your views on privacy, I don't expect that most people can change their fundamental beliefs like what constitutes a human right. Especially not as the result of anonymous internet comments. As always, progress depends on people with outdated views dying out naturally.

<comment><USER7> > I don't see your point.

That's fine.

> Most large projects require the combined effort of many people, especially > if you want to be confident in their quality and get them shipped on time, > as I'm sure the NSA does. Is that supposed to be a bad thing?

Not in and of itself, it all depends on the goals and the side effects.

> Or did you just want to have fun by calling people enablers because they do > something you disagree with?

No, I call them enablers because by themselves politicians typically can't do much. They _need_ others to do the work for them.

> As for your views on privacy, I don't expect that most people can change > their fundamental beliefs like what constitutes a human right.

Maybe they don't have to. Maybe we could set up a universal declaration of such rights. And maybe we could give it a sexy name, such as 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights'.

Oh wait:

[http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/](http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)

See article 12.

> Especially not as the result of anonymous internet comments.

Mine aren't anonymous.

> As always, progress depends on people with outdated views dying out > naturally.

I'm pretty happy with my 'outdated views' on such trifle details as privacy, and I plan on sticking around for a while still.

<comment><USER11> Wow, someone who actually takes the UDHR seriously. I didn't think people like that actually existed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This makes me very happy to hear that people are steering clear of the NSA. It often surprises me how easy it is to find people to do whatever you want them to do, regardless of the ethics of it.

How come there's so many people willing to work at a cigarette company? What kind of programmers are willing to help their government attack Github? How can so many smart people join the NSA and essentially attack the internet?

<comment><USER7> > How come there's so many people willing to work at a cigarette company?

\- Money

> What kind of programmers are willing to help their government attack Github?

People misguided by propaganda.

> How can so many smart people join the NSA and essentially attack the > internet?

\- Fascination with technology

\- Xenophobia

\- Patriotism

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> To be completely honest, I still think that the work done in the Tailored Access Operations group sounds like really, really interesting stuff.

<comment><USER49> Just because something is interesting doesn't mean you should be doing it.

To put it another way, far off in the future, will you be satisfied with what you have done with your life?

<comment><USER48> ...which is one of the major reasons why I haven't pursued this option. But it's still darn interesting, and I do believe that many of the NSA's missions are upstanding and moral.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I spoke to an NSA employee recruiting on campus a few years ago, well before the Snowden leaks. I asked him if he genuinely felt like he was defending America or if sometimes he felt like he was just a tool in someone's political agenda. His answer was, "no - I wouldn't say it _always_ about some political agenda". Conversation ended pretty abruptly...

</comment><comment><USER51> RMS now prefixes all his public emails with:

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]

[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]

[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

<comment><USER3> Not just his public e-mails. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> > Ever since the Snowden leaks, cybersecurity has been hot in Silicon Valley. > In part that's because the industry no longer trusts the government as much > as it once did. Companies want to develop their own security, and they're > willing to pay top dollar to get the same people the NSA is trying to > recruit.

And that's one way to fight back. Starve or own the talent pipeline. Buy them away from the NSA's front door. Similar to how Apple controls much of the manufacturing capacity for smart phones.

Until the NSA starts drafting people.

</comment><comment><USER53> On the plus side (for the NSA), this effect may filter out some of the people whose moral/ethical orientation would prove to be a liability in that organization.

</comment><comment><USER54> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw)

How Do You Like Them Apples?

</comment><comment><USER55> Snowden and the fact that two people tried to attack the NSA yesterday. NSA does not seem to be a very popular choice at the moment.

<comment><USER52> Two people did not try to attack the NSA yesterday. Three people met in a hotel room overnight, two of them stole the third's car in the morning, and as they were escaping they took a wrong turn into the NSA. The driver's decision or panic to ram the police car was one more bad decision; I doubt they even knew they were taking the NSA exit, and I _seriously_ doubt that attacking the NSA was their premeditated _plan_. But it's early days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Back in 2007-8, I went through the lengthy interview process to join the NSA. In the end, it didn't work out, and although I was devastated at the time, I'm glad the job offer was pulled.

When news of Snowden first broke out, the first thing I said was "there but for the grace of the gods go I".

</comment><comment><USER57> _The NSA 's tactics, which include retaining data from American citizens..._

What a fascinating choice of words.

</comment><comment><USER58> Why Shouldn't I Work for the NSA? (Good Will Hunting) - <USER2> [http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw)

</comment><comment><USER59> I imagine if they opened a Bay Area office they wouldn't have a problem.

</comment><comment><USER60> I wonder if they will still sponsor all the Top Coder competitions?

</comment><comment><USER61> And he wasn't even an NSA employee. I'm surprised Booz Allen Hamilton isn't yet mentioned in this thread. The NSA uses(or used) a ton of contractors. If they're giving top secret access to BAH employees, I highly doubt they're as sophisticated as they say (which I doubt anyway)

</comment><comment><USER62> "After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge"

Good.

</comment><comment><USER63> I would rather be part of the solution.

</comment><comment><USER64> Sorry, but what a fucking surprise.

</comment><comment><USER65> I wish companies like Google would systematically over-bid NSA offers to make it even harder for them to recruit.

</comment><comment><USER66> maybe they should stop with unscientific tests (polygraphs)

</comment><comment><USER67> oh, it fills my heart with joy reading this

</comment><comment><USER68> Well there had to be some fallout from the leaks, tech companies seem to be making more money than ever.

</comment><comment><USER69> I wish them mediocrity.

Hm, but maybe mediocrity led them to where they are now.

<comment><USER26> While I agree with the first half of that (I wish them mediocrity as well), Snowden's revelations make it pretty clear that they are not mediocre at what they do.

It takes some skill to deploy and run such a large-scale and pervasive operation.</comment></comment>


Experimental: Syntax AI with React.js - <AUTHOR> https://blog.codebox.sh/experimental-syntax-ai-with-react-js-67a35a757fe5 <comment><USER2> > We scrape the data from the public GitHub source code to generate a model > that stores prop type names and the type in which they have been set. Once > we have a huge set of sample data we then feed this into AWS Machine > Learning as a multi-class classification model.

I would literally pay for a tutorial on how that is done (not the scraping github part... that part seems straight forward)... the ML part.

Anyone know of a tutorial on how to build classification models like that?

<comment><USER3> Many classification models are available as open source.

I'd start by downloading Weka [0] and play around with the different algos they have and feed in some training data, csv or similar.

When you find a model with a good result (for example, look at the confusion matrix) you can try to find an open source implementation of that model in your favorite language and take it from there.

[0] [http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/](http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are there any efforts to feed an AST into a neural net and see what comes out of it? Like a coding assistant that "understands" what your code does or something?

<comment><USER5> I work in this space. We have some pretty sophisticated pilots in process right now for such an assistant. We can talk privately if you want to learn more. Expect to see a lot of this coming out over the next few years.

<comment><USER6> Can you talk a bit on how you convert the AST to your NN input?

Do you traverse the AST and send it to a recurrent net? Do you compress the AST into a different representation first?

<comment><USER5> Well there are always trade offs. NNs aren't very good with trees, too symbolic so usually compressing it into a different format is better. We have a few we use depending on the goal, but always looking for trying new ones since this really is the crux of the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The ML bit seems to be very interesting, the more impressive part out of this.

Voice to code generation not so much these days. Esp with code such as React (easy boilerplate, standard component structure, uniflow of data from parents to children)

</comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of [https://kite.com/](https://kite.com/)</comment>


Programmers are born not made - <AUTHOR> http://swizec.com/blog/programmers-are-born-not-made/swizec/3369

<comment><USER2> One nice way of describing a good programmer is this: You give a guy just a few tools, and he already starts thinking on how those tools work and what he can do with them.

The guy I was teaching just learned about printing chars, loops and arrays in java, and in the next few days he wrote a simple console four in a row game with pretty good AI and everything. - he makes me proud

The funny thing is that he can't understand how other people don't understand what they're learnign.</comment>


Eating a manchineel "beach apple" (2000) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127797/ <comment><USER2> I simply cannot imagine picking an unidentified piece of fruit from the ground and eating it.

There are berries in the northeast that look much like cranberries, but as a kid I was told they are deadly poisonous. Regardless of the accuracy of that warning, the basic concept should hold: if you don't know what it is, don't assume it is safe.

<comment><USER3> This.

It just baffles me that a reasonably intelligent person would eat unknown fruit found in the wild in a foreign country.

<comment><USER4> If everybody had been as cautious as you two, nothing much would've happened.

<comment><USER5> There is a protocol for sampling unknown foods that I suspect aboriginal humans might have developed ad hoc. [http://www.wikihow.com/Test-if-a-Plant- Is-Edible](http://www.wikihow.com/Test-if-a-Plant-Is-Edible)

<comment><USER4> I've seen military manuals with basically the same procedure recommended. I wonder if there are some commonly known dangerous plants that would've slipped through these cracks.

<comment><USER6> Potato seeds slipped through the cracks for centuries! [http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/chris- mccandless-...](http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/chris-mccandless- died-update)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Really? Am I so weird that I don't just pop random things I find on the ground into my mouth? The statement, _" I rashly took a bite from this fruit and found it pleasantly sweet. My friend also partook (at my suggestion)."_ demonstrated at least two evolutionary negative traits; first eating random things when not starving, second not waiting to observe the effects of eating an unknown substance by someone silly enough to try it. That is right up there with trying to hold the brightly colored snake and big fuzzy spider.

<comment><USER8> The point of 'taste' is generally to find things safe to eat. It's not a 'random thing from the ground', but a fruiting body, which is almost universally safe to eat if it is sweet and not bitter.

<comment><USER7> Except the fruit in this article was sweet, AND highly toxic. I really don't think there is any scientific basis for the claim "safe if it's sweet".

<comment><USER9> That's _exactly_ why this tree is so notorious. It's actually very very rare to be both sweet and toxic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Perhaps few adults (especially a medically qualified one) would be foolish > enough to try eating an unknown fruit found on a foreign beach

That's what was going through my mind for the whole story. And then to sit around sipping piña coladas as their symptoms worsened? Quite an unbelievable story, true or not.

<comment><USER11> I bet they had a few pina coladas before this episode, as well as after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's not just the fruit, contact with the leaves is similar to contact with poison ivy or poison oak. Sometimes people take shelter under the tree when it rains and end up in bad shape.

I led a program for teens in the Caribbean one summer. One of my teens took a shit in the woods on an island, and unknowingly wiped his ass with a leaf from this tree. It was a long 5 weeks for him.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some of the trees in the more touristy areas are marked with warning signs:

[http://www.flownet.com/ron/trips/Amazon/Pages/526.html](http://www.flownet.com/ron/trips/Amazon/Pages/526.html)

Not only do the signs warn you not to eat the fruit, but also not to stand under the tree when it rains!

<comment><USER14> > but also not to stand under the tree when it rains!

Why? According to the sign: "It is also not recommended to take shelter under this tree when it rains, water that runs off the leaves is corrosive"

Frightening!

<comment><USER15> Dammit! The fruit looks so delicious!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Sadly, the pain was exacerbated by most alcoholic beverages, although mildly > appeased by pina coladas

This is a crucial finding. Clearly, public authorities in Caribbean countries _must_ now install refrigerators stocked with piña colada on all public beaches, as an urgent matter of public safety.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you are in a survival situation and need to know if something is edible, use the Universal Edibility Test: [http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/MILITARY/united_states_army...](http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/MILITARY/united_states_army_fm_21-76%20-%205_june_1992%20-%20part05.pdf)

(Do not repeat do not eat unknown fungi even using this test)

1 Test only one part of a potential food plant at a time.

2 Separate the plant into its basic components -leaves, stems, roots, buds, and flowers.

3 Smell the food for strong or acid odors. Remember, smell alone does not indicate a plant is edible or inedible.

4 Do not eat for 8 hours before starting the test.

S During the 8 hours you abstain from eating, test for contact poisoning by placing a piece of the plant part you are testing on the inside of your elbow or wrist. Usually 15 minutes is enough time to allow for a reaction.

6 During the test period, take nothing by mouth except purified water and the plant part you are testing.

7 Select a small portion of a single part and prepare it the way you plan to eat it. a Before placing the prepared plant part in your mouth, touch a small portion (a pinch) to the outer surface of your lip to test for buming or itching.

9 If after 3 minutes there is no reaction on your lip, place the plant part on your tongue, holding it there for 15 minutes.

10 If there is no reaction, thoroughly chew a pinch and hold it in your mouth for 15 minutes. Do not swallow.

11 If no burning, itching, numbing, stinging, or other irritation occurs during the 15 minutes. swallow the food.

12 Wait 8 hours. If any ill effects occur during this period. induce vomiting and drink a lot of water.

13 If no ill effects occur, eat 0.25 cup of the same plant part prepared the same way. Wait another 8 hours. If no ill effects occur, the plant part as prepared is safe for eating.

WARNING

Do not eat mushrooms in a survival situation! The only way to tell if a mushroom is edible is by positive identification. There is no room for experimentation. Symptoms of the most dangerous mushrooms affecting the central nervous system may show up after several days have passed when it is too late to reverse their effects.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you liked the beach apple story, perhaps you'll find this article about intentionally and regularly eating poison oak to be fascinating. [https://yankeebarbareno.com/2011/03/03/eating-poison- oak/](https://yankeebarbareno.com/2011/03/03/eating-poison-oak/)

<comment><USER19> My dad does this every year with Poison Ivy on his farm. Claims it works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you are going to pick up or poke, or scariest of all - taste, the local flora and fauna without first checking with a local, then I predict a very short existence for you in most tropical zones, or here in Australia...

<comment><USER21> Or Yellowstone. Very little of the wildlife there is petable. At least not more than once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Page 1/14 each having a few lines? Must be one of the worst mobile version I've encountered in a long time.

<comment><USER23> The pdf link produces a nice mobile experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is some good additional detail in this article, too: [http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/whatever-you-do-do- not-...](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/whatever-you-do-do-not-eat- touch-or-even-inhale-the-air-around-the-manchineel-tree)

</comment><comment><USER25> If you've ever wondered what evolutionary pressures make some fruits poisonous to humans/mammals, and some delicious, here is a good write up.

[http://www.kew.org/discover/blogs/archived-blogs/trouble- par...](http://www.kew.org/discover/blogs/archived-blogs/trouble- paradise-%E2%80%93-why-fruits-are-poisonous)

And a book from the same author:

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fruit-Inedible-Incredible- Wolfgang-...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fruit-Inedible-Incredible-Wolfgang- Stuppy/dp/1608872815)

</comment><comment><USER26> Maybe the most frightening thing is that this person apparently went through medical training and never learned rudimentary field biology. Tour guides in wild areas all over the world have a "this is not Disney World" or equivalent mantra. Life is not like television, unless it is the right television. As a child I watched [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_Across_the_Everglades](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_Across_the_Everglades) where the Burl Ives character kills a man by tieing him to a manchineel tree and will forever remember him wickedly proclaiming "The manchineel tree, the only tree that can carve its initials in you".

</comment><comment><USER27> So what should the protocol be then? First rub a little of the juice on the skin, wait a few hours, and see if it stings? And if not, then proceed, but how?

<comment><USER28> From another comment: [http://www.wikihow.com/Test-if-a-Plant-Is- Edible](http://www.wikihow.com/Test-if-a-Plant-Is-Edible)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Cool article. I wonder if the beach had any pertinent information/signage regarding the fruit. Obviously if the locals are aware then they wouldn't need it, but visitors would probably appreciate it. I wonder if it's more helpful to put information directly at the beach, or back at the airport in documentation in a variety of languages that people can carry with them?

</comment><comment><USER30> Traveling in a foreign country, a "medical" person found "some green fruits among the scattered coconuts and mangoes lying on the beach" and proceeded to eat the only one (s)he has never eaten before.

Fast forward a decade.

That medical person is now a surgeon. While performing routine surgery, our "medical" person saw a lump he'd never seen or read about before.

Guess what Einstein did?

<comment><USER31> (S)he.... ate it? Not sure where you were going with that story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Before my honeymoon in Barbados I read a travel guide. It was mentioned not to shelter under one during rain. I don't think the ones we saw were bearing fruit at the time. All of them were marked with a dark read stripe painted on them.

</comment><comment><USER33> So, having medical training fails to provide you with the most basic survival skills.

</comment><comment><USER34> What the heck is up with the pagination on that site? I'm befuddled as to why anyone thought it was a good idea to spend any amount of effort on that...

</comment><comment><USER35> "We ate a weird fruit and got poisoned. True story."

Why is this on the front page of Hacker News?

<comment><USER36> I guess it helps you to remember that no matter how reasonably logical you think people might be, there are plenty of people out there who will eat random food they find off the ground

<comment><USER35> So, in the context of Hacker News, is it an analogy of how we tend to dive head first into new technologies which some times end up poisoning us? ;}

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Darwin loves you.</comment>


The Inequality Speech That TED Won't Show You - <AUTHOR> http://roundtable.nationaljournal.com/2012/05/the-inequality-speech-that-ted-wont-show-you.php <comment><USER2> From Chris Anderson's justification for not publishing it:

> But even if the talk was rated a home run, we couldn't release it, because > it would be unquestionably regarded as out and out political. We're in the > middle of an election year in the US. Your argument comes down firmly on the > side of one party.

So now it's unfairly partisan to point out that the evidence supports one party's position but not the other's? Really?

What on earth is the point of taking an evidence-based approach to public policy issues, if not to draw conclusions about which public policies we should support?

<comment><USER3> This is what saddens me the most. We are no longer able to have _any_ real discusion about _anything_ anymore because pretty much everything can be stuffed into a "partisan" pigeonhole.

       -- Shrinking Middle Class == Partisan
       -- Failing Healthcare System == Partisan
       -- War on Women's Rights == Partisan

Now, on the face of it, sure, any of these topics can be construed as "partisan", but I had hoped, especially with outfits like TED, that we could get beyond that and focus on the "grey areas", the "parts in the middle", and try to have an honest intellectual debate.

But we're not allowed that anymore, even _Intellectualism_ is partisan now since it's "so Elitist".

Welcome to the era of Politically Correct Stagnant Decline.

<comment><USER4> There's also something to be said about the _novelty_ of the information that is presented.

TED is about exciting ideas (or at least, that's what I understand them to be).

From the talk: "In a capitalist economy, the true job creators are consumers, the middle class. And taxing the rich to make investments that grow the middle class, is the single smartest thing we can do for the middle class, the poor and the rich."

That is his "exciting idea" -- something that pretty much anyone who is interested in tax reform has heard before. There was nothing groundbreaking about it, no new information, and certainly no unique solution to the problem. It was literally a reiteration of political talking points that have existed for a very long time, which to be frank, is not very interesting. I even remember Mark Cuban blogging about this very same topic a few months ago, and this is an idea that isn't particularly _unique_.

Still, since he was invited to speak, I think his video should be part of TED's web site, but saying that he was bringing any _new_ discussion to the table is quite generous.

Instead of implying that its motivations were political, TED could have simply said this: "The talk was interesting, but we had other talks we wanted to feature first." Boom. Done. No PR headaches.

I think this is a more generous summary of Anderson's intentions from the article: "Nick, I personally share your disgust at the growth in inequality in the US, and would love to have found a way to give people a clearer mindset on the issue, without stoking a tedious partisan rehash of all the arguments we hear every day in the mainstream media."

The talk didn't present anything _new_ , so it doesn't need to be featured.

<comment><USER5> Not all the speeches make it from the conference to the website. My TedX speech also didn't make it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with this argument is that job creation _most definitely should not be the goal_ of any policy.

To illustrate how silly it is to make job creation the goal, let me share with you a very simple policy that would eliminate unemployment: Outlaw grain combines.

Without grain combines, hundreds of thousands of workers would be needed to pick things like wheat, corn, etc.

If you look at economic issues with the idea that employment is a goal, then you are bound to arrive at policies that move in the direction of this absurd idea.

Job creation != economic growth.

<comment><USER7> How about the creation of _good_ jobs?

<comment><USER8> That would be disaster.

Good jobs are essentially highly paid office jobs with good benefits -- and the easiest way to create more of those is to outlaw the computer, which would mean that thousands of workers would be needed to do reports for companies, the federal government, etc.

But it would also destroy a great source of real wealth.

<comment><USER9> _Good jobs are essentially highly paid office jobs with good benefits_

Where do you get this? Take a look at the median-salary multiple for buying a house 50 years ago vs. today. Used to be you could be a grunt _and_ buy a house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I won't nitpick the astronomy bits, but I would like to add something historical to the discussion.

In "The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples," Herwig Wolfram asks the question of why the Eastern Roman Empire outlasted the Western Roman Empire by so long. The answer he comes up with is that the Western Empire had much greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the senatorial class. This meant that it was hard to collect taxes to pay for things like an army, and at the time of the invasions of the Goths and Franks, the Eastern Empire was collecting three times in taxes what the Western Empire was collecting, and thus spending more on their army than the Western Empire was collecting in taxes.

Without sufficient tax revenues he military machine could not sustain itself, and when three senatorial households had a budgets that combined equalled the entire tax revenue of the Western Empire these super-wealthy were just too politically powerful to tax. Wolfram also suggests that this is what doomed Ostrogothic Italy when they fought the Byzantines.

</comment><comment><USER11> Too controversial? Really? This is a pretty mainstream point of view, although perhaps not the one in political ascendancy at the moment. Hardly the stuff of censorship.

I strongly suspect there was some other reason it wasn't posted.

<comment><USER12> I dunno.

The New York Times regularly posts hand-wringing debates between "the usual suspects" on this issues.

Everybody in these debates seems to take it for granted that taxing the rich will hurt economic growth, but maybe just maybe there are some benefits to equality that will make up for that.

Nobody mentions that an economy has a hypothetical failure mode (like the game of Monopoly) where all of the money ends up in one person's hands -- and then trading stops.

<comment><USER13> _Nobody mentions that an economy has a hypothetical failure mode (like the game of Monopoly) where all of the money ends up in one person's hands -- and then trading stops._

Huh? I'm having a really hard time imagining how this could possibly happen. Does that person not ever need to buy anything? If they don't buy things they're taking that money out of circulation, and if you have a central bank targeting anything (or free banking, or most banking systems humans have tried) the people who can make more money will make more money in order to hit their targets. I'm pretty sure that nobody mentions that because the idea is, well, pretty ridiculous.

<comment><USER14> The single person owns robots who perform every task he desires at a cost lower than human subsistence wages.

Of course, even at that point the remaining humans can just form an economy among themselves which the rich man doesn't participate in...

<comment><USER15> Someone having money doesn't preclude someone else in the economy from CREATING VALUE. Hacker News is a site filled with people who understand that it's possible to create value out of nothing. Your scenario is impossible, but assuming someone acquired all of X currency and refused to let anyone else have any, that currency is effectively nonexistent - currencies are only worth what they can be exchanged for. People would trade using something else.

<comment><USER16> People would, but that wouldn't alleviate the overarching economic failure of excess concentration. Look at places like North Korea; there's an underground economy, but virtually all economic power is vested in the state, with dreadful effects for the population at large. Well, you say, that's not a free society in political terms; but preservation of ownership is essentially a political good. Indeed, it's one with a high cost for the American economy: <http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/GarrisonAmerica2007.pdf>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've seen a few mentions about this fairly inane speech -- smells like PR/astroturfing to me.

Frankly, whenever I hear the phrase "job creation" I tune out immediately, because I know that nothing intelligent will follow that phrase ever.

People hire people to do things when they have work to do. You "create jobs" by increasing economic activity. The problem is, business these days is all about consolidation and labor arbitrage.

<comment><USER18> You can't just declare a speech insane without a good reason, especially if it more or less agrees with what you state just next...

Edit: although i don't know how to read (insane vs. inane), this does not fundamentally changes anything in context...

<comment><USER19> Buy a dictionary :-)

<comment><USER19> Realy Guys I give the poster who did not know the diference bwtween inane and insane - some valid feedback instead if insulting his lack of knowledge of english and I get voted down?

<comment><USER20> Perhaps he simply misread, it happens. To assume he doesn't know the difference and then suggest he "buy a dictionary" is a tad bit rude, which may account for the downvotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> yesterday's comment thread on reddit pretty much covered this:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/tqi15/too_hot_for_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/tqi15/too_hot_for_ted_income_inequality_teds_organizers/)

basically, this talk is mostly partisan and not supported by a lot of data. this TEDtalk, on the other hand, is:

[http://blog.ted.com/2011/10/24/how-economic-inequality- harms...](http://blog.ted.com/2011/10/24/how-economic-inequality-harms- societies-richard-wilkinson-on-ted-com/)

<comment><USER22> From the reddit thread (which I just read through) a TED organiser responds [http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/tqi15/too_hot_for_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/tqi15/too_hot_for_ted_income_inequality_teds_organizers/c4p0ll4)

"TEDChris 21 points 9 hours ago

Chiming in here, as TED's Curator..

First of all, thanks for all the attention. Glad you guys care.

We do too. Income inequality is a huge issue. Most of us here at TED are pretty passionate about it.

The trouble with this talk is that it tackled the issue in a way that was explicitly partisan, framing it as a critique of "an article of faith" for Republicans. TED is avowedly non-partisan. We want to share ideas in a way that brings people together, doesn't throw sand in their faces.

We release one talk a day on our home page, and that talk is pretty much guaranteed 50,000-100,000 views within 24 hours. Every day there are numerous amazing talks competing for that slot. We have to make the best call we can. Talks that aren't selected aren't being censored, any more than the NYT (or Reddit) is censoring a story it decides isn't appropriate for its home page.

The text from this particular talk is already out there. You can make your own judgement.

Thanks, and let the discussion continue. We're listening. "

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> False dilemma fallacy

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

You can't attribute the existence of "jobs" exclusively to "businesses" or exclusively to "consumers", because "trade" definitionally requires the existence of two parties.

<comment><USER24> I don't think this is the issue addressed in the talk though. The question he was responding to was "does having lower taxes on the rich create jobs?". He argues that it does not, but that lowering taxes on the lower and middle class probably would.

It's not about putting all the blame on one side or the other, it's about the factual question of whether a particular policy improves or worsens the job situation.

<comment><USER23> He argues that position by repeatedly making the assertion that consumers create jobs and businesses do not:

> _only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand > and hiring._

> _the true job creators are consumers_

It's a tad nonsensical, all economic exchanges definitionally require the existence of two parties to occur, both parties are essential regardless of the good or service being traded. One can easily take the opposite position to the speaker, that production precedes consumption, because in the state of nature man must first produce and labor for his or her own survival before surplus exists with which to trade. Either way, it's not a sufficient basis for asserting normative proposals in regards to tax policy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> _"So here's an idea worth spreading.

In a capitalist economy, the true job creators are consumers, the middle class. And taxing the rich to make investments that grow the middle class, is the single smartest thing we can do for the middle class, the poor and the rich."_

Not saying I disagree, but I remember a few years ago when the economy was booming all over the world, there was this discussion about how bad "consumerism" is for our societies.

So which is it then? Is consumerism a bad thing because it makes us buy all sorts of dumb things, or is it good because it enriches everyone? Or is there another alternative?

<comment><USER26> I think it's a bit nuanced. Consumerism, from an economic perspective, can be a fast, efficient driver of economic growth. However, it often isn't sustainable growth (not just ecologically -- the American "Manifest Destiny" growth wasn't sustainable because explorers hit the Pacific and ran out of land).

In addition to the lack of sustainability (adding back in the ecological issues), consumerism seems to drive a general cultural malaise wherein the people try to find meaning by buying crap, rather than living fulfilling lives.

IMO, consumerism is detrimental in the long run to people's mental health and the environment (and it's not sustainable); however, it has been shown to be a solid driver of economic growth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> >That's why I can say with confidence that rich people don't create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small.

This argument only considers half of the problem. Yes consumers are needed to create jobs but what is needed to create consumers? Jobs. You can't be a consumer without an income, and for the vast majority of people, you don't have an income unless you have a job.

Therefore for failing to acknowledge this fundamental, very simple and might I say, quite obvious fact, I think it's fair to say Nick Hanauer's reasoning is at best weak, and at worst disingenuous.

It makes one wonder what his motivations really are. Attention seeking contrariness? A desire to ingratiate himself with the 99%?

<comment><USER18> Yet you just made no argument for why his arguments are weak, while yours are: jobs create consumers and consumers create jobs, but in your equation absurdly rich people and increasing inequality does not seem to be needed...

<comment><USER27> My very first sentence explains why I think his argument is weak.

I agree, I have stated no position on the absurdly rich and increasing inequality. I think it is unnecessary to stray into this area in order to prove or disprove whether businesses or the wealthy create jobs. Either a business or a wealthy person can or cannot create a job regardless of the taxation laws du jour. He has categorically stated that they cannot. I think this is totally incorrect.

<comment><USER28> > _"He has categorically stated that they cannot."_

No, he stated that they _do_ not. Businesses don't hire employees they don't need. They _can_ , but if they try it at any appreciable scale relative to their business, they will go _out_ of business.

It's not about what _can_ happen. It's about what _does_ happen. And what _does_ happen, is that employers hire employees when they _need them_. Not just because they've made money, nor just because they got to keep more of the money they make via changes in taxation.

They _could_. But they don't. There's decades of data and research on this. It's not really debatable. Tax cuts do not translate into jobs. It's never happened. The increase in wealth of the wealthy does not translate into jobs. It's never happened. Consumer demand and business expansion to meet that demand, _does_ translate into jobs. It _always_ happens.

The question is how, or even whether you should try, to stimulate consumer demand when unemployment is high. (And the follow-on: what problems does that (in)action create)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Well, for those who agree with the talk's sentiment, it having not made the cut is probably the best thing that could have happened to it. Now it will reach way more people under the false assumption that it was "censored".

</comment><comment><USER30> Chris Anderson just tweeted this link to a blog post explaining the story from his side. The taped talk is linked from there. <http://bit.ly/KU2Rmu>

</comment><comment><USER31> The shrinking of the middle class is something we should all be concerned about.

But it isn't caused by tax policy: outsourcing and automation of traditional "middle class" jobs are a much bigger force.

We really need to figure out what the middle-class jobs of the future look like. What is above menial service job like retail, and below specialized trades like software?

Even people with college degrees struggle to get into the middle class these days. That should scare us all.

I have no answers to this, but I'm pretty sure tax policy isn't going to fix it, nor would protectionism.

<comment><USER32> Economists know a lot about how to _create wealth._ They know very little about _creating jobs_.

Jobs are temporary inefficiencies and a lot of economic growth comes when you get rid of them. We've automated most of our farming, but we don't have 90% unemployment because all the farm jobs went away.

One thing is how fast technology grows related to how fast workers can adapt. 'Race Against The Machine' is a thesis that technology is now growing so fast workers can't keep up. I don't know if I buy it, but it's something to keep in mind.

<comment><USER33> I don't know if your statement about economists is intending to be a factual statement of economists' view of the state of economic science, or your opinion on what modern economic theories are good at. It's not clear to me personally, to be frank, that economics know a lot about how to create wealth either.

That said, this is not an acknowledged weakness -- Keynes' _magnum opus_ was _The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money_ , which spells out in great detail how these things are related. The core of this theory is still widely held in economic circles, which is why the mandate of the Federal Reserve keeps shifting from "controlling inflation" to "maximizing employment" -- because this is thought to be something that is controllable through manipulation of interest and money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I was under the impression that the rich pay a much greater share of income tax than when their rates were higher. Can someone check me on this?

<comment><USER35> Technically that's correct, but it's a red herring. The top 1% currently take a little over 20% of the total income in the country and pay about 40% of federal income taxes. From the end of WW II to the 1980's, the top 1% took between about 8% and 12% of the total income in the country and their share of the tax burden was lower. The federal tax base was also much wider since there were far fewer tax credits available to average people and there weren't any common refundable tax credits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If less taxes for rich should create more jobs, then, why is there more unemployment than ever, while we have lesser tax for rich than ever?

I can't understand what is wrong with this question? Its based of real world data, right?

<comment><USER32> The short answer is that "making jobs" is a complete mystery to most economists. Aside from the government directly hiring people to bury jars full of money, no one knows how to make it happen.

It doesn't stop politicians of all stripes from pretending that they have the magic answer, and that the politicians from the other party are a bunch of nincompoops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Gee, you mean to say that what we've been doing is the wrong thing? Funny, because all the rich greedy people seem to be loving it.

Greed will be the downfall of western civilization. This message will not reach those with the power to fix it. It's their death, they know it, and they're just in a race to bleed the USA out and run. Or maybe I'm giving rich people too much credit and they're really just greedy idiots who don't see the consequences of their actions. In any case, we're screwed.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is the most important part of the talk:

"I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated."

This is what some people fail to understand and it boggles my mind.

<comment><USER16> To which the standard debate-derailing answer is 'raise taxes, and nobody will be able to buy private goods, therefore more taxes are bad.' A great many tax objectors have convinced themselves that they are already groaning under a massive tax burden.

I agree with them in one respect: there are too _many_ taxes, fees, levies etc. People overestimate the amount of tax tax they pay in many cases, but they see so many government charges (whether federal, state or local) that they feel they're being nickel-and-dimed to death.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> TED can't show this because they're supported by advertisers, which means they'll never really be free to spread ideas if they go against the will of these companies: <http://conferences.ted.com/TED2012/sponsors.php>

</comment><comment><USER40> Americans tax payers are a trampoline for globalizing these corporations through subsidizing their R&D, bailing them out and soldiering their resources abroad. These corporations have global consumers now, the health of the American consumer isn't a priority.

</comment><comment><USER41> Not particularly interesting. Just someones opinion, the masses won't push for any major change around any possible wealth divide (if it exists or not). No one goes for extremes

</comment><comment><USER42> Sigh... This thread, again?

<comment><USER43> I had missed the previous one; for anyone else likewise having done so, here it is: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3983598>

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> time for an OpenTED</comment>


Ask HN: Is it typical to be required to supply a passport to be paid from China? - <AUTHOR> I have a client right now and I'm only about 90% sure of their legitimacy.
They showed me the product already - it's in a very early stage.  But not vapor.
But they want me to do a ten-day contract with an NDA (which is not terribly invasive; I may be willing to sign it).
But they also want me to send over all my banking info for a wire transfer and a scan of my passport.  They're claiming that the only way to pay anyone electronically in China is to have a copy of their passport.
I can't seem to verify this with a cursory search.
Anybody? <comment><USER2> Your question sparked my curiosity. I did a little digging and came across these two pages that may benefit you:

[http://www.chinalawblog.com/2013/01/service-companies-in- chi...](http://www.chinalawblog.com/2013/01/service-companies-in-china-how-to- get-paid.html)

[http://abovethelaw.com/2015/03/want-to-get-paid-by-a- china-c...](http://abovethelaw.com/2015/03/want-to-get-paid-by-a-china- company-do-these-three-things/)

Based on these articles it does seem that is the case. To be extra sure, you may want to speak with your bank directly to find out, or even get the name of the bank of your client and contact them directly (get their contact info off the Internet and not from your client to avoid getting a fake contact).

I would be curious to know the answer myself.</comment>


Reminder: please post links to single-page articles if possible - <AUTHOR>

On sites like nytimes.com please post links to single-page articles instead of ones with multiple pages. Sometimes people open links in browser to read them later when they don't have internet access. When you forget to check this it is frustrating to find out that an article has more pages and you don't have internet access. <comment><USER2> but sometimes the single page versions are missing photos, slideshows, and other multimedia/interactive elements. i like words, but i also like the other stuff.</comment>


The benefits of light to moderate drinking might have been exaggerated - <AUTHOR> http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/put-down-the-booze-drinking-may-not-be-good-for-you/ <comment><USER3> Funny ambiguous title. Until I've opened the article I thought that light somehow helps to moderate drinking. I haven't thought about it before but it could make some sense too, considering that most of us drink at night when it's darker.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the general conclusion isn't just "If something looks too good to be true, it should be treated with great caution" but "If it relates to food or drink, we know diddly squat". And even less if the purveyor of said knowledge is not even a full-time research scientist. Or heck, not a scientist at all. Sadly that seems to be the source of 90% of diet "wisdom".

Now let us get back to honestly saying that we like to drink to get sloshed, without any excuses of health or even just taste.

<comment> T-hawk My general conclusion is more like, if it relates to food or drink, there's both positives and negatives that can be spun either way.

Take eggs, an easy example. The protein is good for muscles, but the cholesterol is bad for arteries. A scientific study will balance these variables in depth. But the clickbait headlines that filter up to public internet visibility will polarize on one or the other because that's what gets the clicks and attention.

Moderate drinking: good for stress, bad for the liver. Easy to frame a headline to highlight either aspect.

Agreed that the real problem is 90% of diet "wisdom" coming from clickbait headlines rather than seriously considered science.

<comment><USER4> Bad science reporting is yet another bad commercial exploitation of the scientific data, but quite often you don't even have to go that far. We're talking about _really_ long-term effects and _lots_ of variables. It's quite rare that you can just _watch_ something happen metabolically and draw your conclusions from that. Most of the time, we're talking about surveys or small studies. And it's not like the people surveyed are getting in-depth tests every single day. Then add some bad statistics and interest groups on top of that.

Your example ain't that easy, either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one who thinks this article contradicts itself? Starts off leading towards some great conclusion that any amount of alcohol is bad for you, then tails off with this:

"The team found there's at best a small decline in mortality rates for men aged 50 to 64 and women aged 65 and older. Former drinkers, meanwhile, had somewhat higher mortality rates than others, suggesting that past claims light drinking was good for your heart were based on faulty comparisons. After all, some of those who'd quit were probably heavy drinkers in the past, and, compared to them, light drinkers had likely done less damage to their hearts."

In summary, it appears to be saying that there's a small benefit in light to moderate alcohol consumption but heavy drinking is probably bad ... uh no shit, that's what people have been saying for years?

<comment><USER6> For years we've known that people who drink no alcohol at all have worse outcomes than people who drink some alcohol. We also thought that drinking a very small amount of alcohol - a glass or two of wine per week - <USER2> protective but we didn't think more alcohol than that was protective.

Recently a study was released and heavily reported.

One reason we thought that tee-totalers had worse health outcomes was the number of people with alcoholism in that group or people with other severe health problems. This new study claimed to have corrected for that and only included healthy people in the teetotal group. The study then said that drinking no alcohol was associated with dying sooner than drinkin alcohol. The curve they released showed most benefit to people drinking one drink a day, but showed benefits over not drinking at upto about 5 drinks a day.

That was different to what we thought before.

It turns out this new study has a bunch of flaws. There are some interesting effects. Older women who drink do see some protective benefits. But the health benefits of moderate drinking for most people are not at all clear.

It's pretty important to publicise the corrections because of the heavy reporting of that flawed research, and because of the misunderstanding (that you repeat) that moderate drinking provides health benefits.

<comment><USER5> I'm probably being dense, but that did not help me understand it at all.

I understand the perceived flaw in the previous studies that former heavy drinkers, now teetotalers, were included in the non-drinking bracket and therefore negatively skewing the results for non-drinkers, HOWEVER, is the article still not claiming that even having adjusted for that that the results still show benefits from small amounts of alcohol?

<comment><USER6> Yes, that's right.

The study claimed to have removed people who can't drink alcohol for medical reasons and then it claimed that people who drink upto five drinks a day live longer than the corrected non-drinking group.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for clarification :). /files under 'non-story'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know of anyone who drinks because they think it's healthy.

<comment><USER8> I know some older people who justify drinking wine because of the stories of how it is good for heart health.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've never understood how something that interferes directly with GABAminergic parts of the brain was supposed to be beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER10> So I need to go back to heavy drinking then? Fair enough, if I have to...!

<comment><USER11> Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. - Oscar Wilde

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The trouble is, alcohol is addictive, so the tendency; health benefits or otherwise is not to drink in moderation. The tendency is to drink more and more.

<comment><USER13> Yay for generalization

<comment><USER12> I said 'the tendency'. Also are you suggesting that alcohol isn't in anyway physiologically or psychologically addictive?

<comment><USER6> Most people who drink problem do mot have any addiction to alcohol. That includes many of the people with increased risk drinking. ("Increased risk" is an English health thing. It includes men who drink more than about 21 to 28 units per week but less than 50 units per week; and women who drink more than about 14 to 21 units per week but less than 50 units per week. Four bottles of wine (with an ABV of 13%) would be 39 units.)

I'm not sure that the tendency is for people to increase their alcohol level over time. (Apart from the obvious increase after they start drinking at about 18).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's great news actually, and I hope scientist will keep studying this topic. We need less drinkers, not more, even if the dosage is moderate.

<comment><USER13> > We need less drinkers, not more, even if the dosage is moderate

Why? Because you don't like it?

I'd say the fact that humans metabolize alcohol (have evolved it) it's a pretty good hint that there was an evolutionary pressure selecting for it.

I'd also hope for more study, but it's not like moderate uses of alcohol are significantly bad (as opposed to a high consumption, of course)

<comment><USER15> >> it's a pretty good hint that there was an evolutionary pressure selecting for it

Or it is just a random mutation that we never got rid of. It could be either way.

<comment><USER13> A random mutation that suffers no evolutionary pressure is usually spread randomly across the population. Eye color for example.

As opposed of something that gives an advantage (like lactose tolerance or falciform anemia) which usually spreads quickly, while those that don't have that advantage died out.

<comment><USER16> It might look entirely different if you take social pressure into account as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>