Paul Krugman Goes for a Knockout Against Scrappy Austerians - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-krugman-battles-austerians/?cmpid=yhoo <comment><USER2> The GIFs are clearly the product of some effort, but I would've preferred if the article itself were a bit more thorough. In particular, it mentions several debates between Krugman and other economists that seem to have a basis in more or less factual allegations - whether switching to a different month as a basis for a comparison would indeed seriously undermine one of his arguments, whether he failed to predict such-and-such (really, in general whether he's been as spot-on over the years as he himself claims), etc. What I'd really like to read would be a Politifact-style third party analysis of the disputes. Of course, there is no such thing as a truly objective fact check, but an attempt would at least give me some idea of the reality of the situation. I could try to do the research myself, but I don't know the first thing about economics, so I expect it would be rather difficult... doesn't prevent me from taking a casual interest in the matter.

<comment><USER3> There are no GIFs, but I enjoyed the "Three Wrongs Don't Make a Right" article ( [http://fee.org/freeman/detail/paul-krugman-three-wrongs- dont...](http://fee.org/freeman/detail/paul-krugman-three-wrongs-dont-make-a- right) ):

"Krugman, armed with his Keynesian model, came into the Great Recession thinking that (a) nominal interest rates can't go below 0 percent, (b) total government spending reductions in the United States amid a weak recovery would lead to a double dip, and (c) persistently high unemployment would go hand in hand with accelerating price deflation. Because of these macroeconomic views, Krugman recommended aggressive federal deficit spending.

"As things turned out, Krugman was wrong on each of the above points: we learned (and this surprised me, too) that nominal rates could go persistently negative, that the US budget 'austerity' from 2011 onward coincided with a strengthening recovery, and that consumer prices rose modestly even as unemployment remained high. Krugman was wrong on all of these points, and yet his policy recommendations didn't budge an iota over the years.

"Far from changing his policy conclusions in light of his model's botched predictions, Krugman kept running victory laps, claiming his model had been 'right about everything.' He further speculated that the only explanation for his opponents' unwillingness to concede defeat was that they were evil or stupid."

<comment><USER2> I read the article. It's interesting, as it does point out situations where Krugman seems to have been somewhat wrong in hindsight - which may be more discrediting than it otherwise would be, despite the difficulty of most predictions, when combined with his constant self-praise. That said, the evidence is fairly subjective: for example, even as someone unfamiliar with economics I can be pretty confident that Murphy is overstating his case when he lambastes Krugman for talking about the zero lower bound, when it turns out that interest rates can go _slightly_ negative - it may be more than "nitpicking", as he says, but the zero lower bound turning out to be less than zero hardly vindicates the idea that the entire concept is a "mentality" Krugman is "locked into". Also, a prediction that 'X will push the economy in the wrong direction' is not directly contradicted by the economy going in the right direction in the presence of X; it's evidence against the relation, but not necessarily strong evidence in a complex system with many other factors - yet Murphy uses words like "revisionism" and "withering and irrefutable criticism".

Meanwhile, Wikipedia has links to articles where Murphy _has_ made absolutely worded claims that have turned out to be _completely_ wrong. That doesn't make Krugman right, but it's hard to take seriously anything about economics written by someone who said

"We can't know the timing of the impending monetary catastrophe, but it is coming. Smart investors will minimize their dependence on the dollar before it crashes. At this late date, no one should trust the government and media "experts" who assure us that the worst is over." [1]

Maybe two excesses average out somewhere closer to the truth? But I'd like a more neutral source.

[http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/killing- the-...](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/killing-the- currency/)

<comment><USER3> The argument isn't simply that Krugman is a human -- although that might be news to him -- but that, contrary to his claims, he hasn't been "right on everything" and has, in fact, been fundamentally wrong on the main thing he's been talking about for a decade.

> the zero lower bound turning out to be less than zero hardly vindicates the > idea that the entire concept is a "mentality" Krugman is "locked into".

Krugman's been arguing that at the zero lower bound the regular laws of economics don't apply. That's not a caricature ("When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly", [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/14krugman.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/14krugman.html) ). Krugman's tried to establish himself as somebody able to reason in this weird realm (although his recommendations always amount to "spend more and don't worry about the deficit"), so it seems important to know where the weird realm actually is. It's certainly true that the US didn't have any experience with the zero lower bound, but it's also true that there are a few other free market economies in the world that might have given a deep thinker something to work off of.

> Also, a prediction that 'X will push the economy in the wrong direction' is > not directly contradicted by the economy going in the right direction in the > presence of X; it's evidence against the relation, but not necessarily > strong evidence in a complex system with many other factors

But Krugman didn't say that austerity would simply cause headwinds, or just push the economy in the wrong direction. According to the Bloomberg article, he said people advocating austerity enjoyed inflicting economic suffering, and he coined the words "austerian" and "sadomonetarist." He routinely said that austerity would cause a new recession before we recovered from the first. Not that it would be hard to overcome austerity, but that it would be impossible to. Then, when the predicted double dip never occurred, he declared victory and claimed he'd been right about everything.

The only substance I can see from the original Bloomberg article is that Krugman enjoys a scrappy technique when debating other economists. But his record doesn't really justify his statements that people only disagree with him because they are evil or insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The whole anti-austerity argument has always sounded to me like the left's version of "grow your way out of recession/depression" or "trickle down economics".

Doesn't wasteful central government stimulus always just enrich cronies and banksters? The whole shovel-ready jobs being nowhere to be found/summer of recovery thing was kindof laughed off by the president, but that obscene $500bil stimulus still got spent.

<comment><USER5> Sure, 'wasteful' anything is probably, uh, wasteful. But there's a long history of successfully executed stimulus, VERY MUCH INCLUDING the recent one which was supposed to lead to hyperinflation and the end of society as we know it, but actually was highly correlated with a very nice recovery from near total economic meltdown.

Austerity has way better rhetoric, you can talk about wasteful spending and living within our means, blah blah, but the predictions have absolutely sucked compared to standard economics.

Edit: other austerity greatest hits:

* don't bail out detroit!

* qe will lead to hyperinflation!

* cancel infrastructure projects!

* buy gold!

<comment><USER4> I suppose 'wasteful' isn't descriptive enough. What I was thinking was something like, 'a big glob of money generally earmarked for boosting the economy and other do-goodery'.

Sure 500bln is a delicious shot in the arm, even if most of it is 'wasted' on the cronies. I can't predict what will trigger inflation, hyper- or otherwise, in this distorted economy. All I want to know is, just when exactly can I expect the payoff? Will there be growth or recovery such that the debt holders are paid back? No? Never can expect it, realistically? Ok, let's cut it out with the stimulus then, because I'm sick of bailouts and blatant cronyism.

<comment><USER5> You already got the payoff, look at some charts of gdp and employment figures from 2008-2012. The downward slide was stopped and the slow recovery started, exactly the opposite of what the naysayers predicted.

In other words there was a huge change in the derivative of those rates, downward change flattened and bent upwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The fact that anyone will still argue for austerity is mind-boggling.

It's been shown to have failed. You can't slash spending and increase taxes and expect the GDP to go anywhere but down. Greece is the poster child.

Most of the arguments made for austerity is for countries that modestly reduced some government spending in an otherwise positive economic state.

And let's face it, every 'developed' country's government spends a vast quantity of money, far more than most will admit. Here's a list of countries' government spending as a percentage of GDP: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_perce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_percentage_of_GDP)

The US is at 42%, Germany at 45%, Sweden at 51%, and France at 56%, and Denmark at 57%. Most of the countries at the lower percentages are '3rd world' or failed states... The idea that a 'smaller' government will lead to economic prosperity has no basis in historical reality.

<comment><USER7> I have no strong opinions on austerity (I think this tends to be a european topic that I hesitate to comment on because I don't have enough information), but I don't think it's that weird that people might disagree. Somehow Keynesian economics has become the dominant ideology, and while I think that rational people can certainly have differences with regard to his economic views, I think it's weird that his ideas have essentially become a religion, where arguing against them relegates one to the "fringe".

Of course, this article didn't help, because instead of advancing a thoughtful discussion, it tried to use animated gifs and "clever" web design to distract people from noticing that the content of the article was both vapid and internally incoherent.

I know people are probably thinking, "why do you care", and I don't particularly, but I think this article is basically an insult to all of us. This is bloomberg essentially stating: "this is what we think of you, if you're reading this, we think you're the sort of person that can be distracted by shiny stupidity". My previous feelings towards bloomberg were mildly positive, but I suspect moving forward any articles they write I will have a more critical view towards.

That said, hats off to the people that made the images. They are really good, and obviously the people behind them are very talented. I wish it had been attached to something worthwhile.

<comment><USER6> > I think it's weird that his ideas have essentially become a religion

If you think that's strange, read internet blogs based around the 'Austrian' economic school.

Anyhow, Keynes' theories weren't so much ideological as they were based on his observations of economic events and models. And they've been elaborated on in the current 'dominant' economic school, which is better called 'Neoclassical Economics', wrongly labelled as 'Keynesian Economics' by the naysayers (though of course much of it does develop on Keynes' ideas).

> while I think that rational people can certainly have differences with > regard to his economic views

The problem isn't so much people with 'different' opinions, but rather those who have opinions about economics but no coherent economic models, theories or observations of their own.

And I've found many of those who argue against Keynes' theories are also the ones who espouse things like a gold-backed currency, or eliminating government altogether. I've seen blogs that equate Keynesian economics to satanism... There's far more 'kooks' in the anti-Keynesian camp than in the Neoclassical camp.

<comment><USER7> > If you think that's strange, read internet blogs based around the 'Austrian' > economic school.

Well, I have. And I found myself mostly agreeing with them. That's neither here nor there, I wouldn't think someone was dumb if they didn't share my viewpoint.

> And I've found many of those who argue against Keynes' theories are also the > ones who espouse things like a gold-backed currency, or eliminating > government altogether. I've seen blogs that equate Keynesian economics to > satanism...

That's not really fair though, you can find kooks in ANY subject matter. It proves nothing other than that, kooks exist. Also I don't think people that argue for a gold standard are insane. I personally disagree with them, but they do have some valid points. I actually think it's kind of weird that the modern, relatively young system of governments printing debt with no tethoring to actual economic goods or work is somehow considered "obviously" right. We're barely a hundred years into this experiment and a lot of really bad thing have happened already, it could be entirely wrong.

<comment><USER6> > Well, I have. And I found myself mostly agreeing with them.

And that's not surprising, because most 'Austrian' economic tenets are a part of micro-economics. Opportunity cost, marginalism, consumer preference, and other concepts that form part of neoclassical economics originally come from the 'Austrian' school. No one disputes that, and these all are taught in economics courses.

The problem with modern 'Austrian' economists is that they generally don't have a coherent macro-economic model, with the more modern 'Austrian' economists (do any real ones exist?) veering into ideology, philosophy and politics. Most reject the advances made into econometrics, mathematic models, and modern neoclassical macro theory.

And that's not to say there's no disagreement in the neoclassical camp. But pretty much everyone who actually attempts to practice economics as a science, generally falls into the neoclassical camp.

Edit - there's a reason Hayek is more frequently cited by right-wingers and libertarians than by economists. Most of his writings were political, and many of his predictions false.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I think that's mostly true. I find myself agreeing with the austrian's diagnosis of present economics, but the medicine they suggest does not always seem appealing or correct, and I think worshipping hayek is basically as dumb as worshipping keynes. Don't get me wrong, big ideas worth reading about, important people, but I strongly suspect they were both significantly wrong about some big things.

Still though, when I hear commentary by someone like Peter Schiff, I find it very hard to ignore. Perhaps his ideas are "out there", but so were the people that suggested that the sun does not revolve around the earth. I guess that's a long winded way of saying I don't think they're obviously batshit insane wackos, they have ideas that should be heard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You know you're finally an adult when mainstream business news companies try to package themselves in a way that appeals to people your age. Are 16 bit- style animated loops like the "Dennis Hopper in a motorcycle jacket" for millenials? Are we going to see mutual fund ads like this in 20 years?

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing to remember about Krugman is that his specialty in college was trade theory. That is what he studied as a graduate and what his thesis was about. He made landmark advances in that field, and I respect him for it. However, this also means he is not an authority on monetary or fiscal policy and his views on these things do not have the weight some think they do. He is widely published in mainstream news only because he is an talented writer.

<comment><USER10> Yup. If anyone wants to read some high quality Krugman, check out his recent posts on TPP. I think he does a great disservice to his intellect by wading into political economy and his constant partisan mudslinging. I think it's the one thing standing in the way of him taking the baton from Milton Friedman.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I read it as ".. Against Scrappy Austrians" and thought finally Krugman showed some guts to debate against Austrian school economists.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sheesh, am I the only one who actually enjoyed the visuals? The idea of having economists in an arcade brawl is basically parodying their usual blogpost battles and treating it as if it were real fighting, so I found it humorous.

The article itself, however, is queer--it ends in an unsatisfying ambiguity: apparently Krugman wins because he is both "ref as well as combatant". In fact, the article seems to imply he loses three arguments (there are three gifs of him getting hit) and wins two, although with Osbourne, it's a little ambiguous there who is right. So, 1.5/5...So he...wins?

<comment><USER7> > Sheesh, am I the only one who actually enjoyed the visuals?

Pretty much. The pixel art was well made, but the point of design is to convey an idea. The only point conveyed to me here was "I can't read this because things are flickering in the corner of my eye", and the parts I did manage to read did not seem worthwhile of the effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was disappointed, although I've read many of those debates (to some I could answer easily myself heh) but this nice street-fighter-like gifs and the short text without any sort of arguments/data is kinda ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER14> I hate that Bloomberg is trying to be Buzzfeed. This could be the most amazing though provoking article of all time, but I'm not going to read it when it starts with an animated Krugman GIF

<comment><USER7> Yeah, it's entirely unreadable, but I suspect for the target audience reading is not the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When you throw as much money at the problem as we did in 2008-09, of course there's going to be a "recovery". I'll believe Krugman was right only if we go another 15 years without a major economic collapse.

I believe all we did following his policies is kick the can down the road, and will eventually pay a bigger price in the future.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is interesting as an art piece, but I think it is easy to intuit from the presentation that the authors are not being very careful thinkers.

The truth is that the question of austerity is a fairly complex one. The reason it seems so cut and dried is that the modal promoter of austerity has no training in macroeconomics and is making arguments that are clearly not supported by theory. That said, to portray Krugman as definitely correct on the matter of austerity is very misleading.

There are basically two camps of people opposing Krugman, "mainstream Austrians" and market monetarists. Mainstream Austrians isn't really a category, but this is people who make arguments based on analogies with household budgets, and worry about hyperinflation from out of control spending. Most of them have economic theories that are not well-supported empirically. These people say austerity is better and will lead to stronger growth, possibly after a painful period of economic adjustment. Often these are head economists at small banks or other pundits that get a lot of airtime for their opinions. They probably don't actually identify as Austrians 95% of the time, but in this particular instance they are following Austrian thinking.

The other major camp is market monetarists, whom Krugman is very dismissive of, despite the fact that their arguments are compelling and their empirical support is probably as strong as pro-spending Keynesians. In his arguments with market monetarists Krugman has been almost dishonestly evasive, initially claiming that the American austerity would be the ultimate test of market monetarist thinking, but then posting no follow-up eating crow after the test showed strong macroeconomic growth "in spite of" the austerity.

The fundamental issue of austerity under market monetarist thinking is that of monetary offset. The central bank has an inflation target, and they are targeting it no matter the fiscal policy of the country as enacted by legislators. If the legislature authorizes dramatically higher spending, monetary authorities increase interest rates to slow down the economy and bring inflation back in line with their 2% target. If the legislature instead goes after austerity policies, the monetary authorities lower interest rates to increase economic activity and again hit that 2% inflation target. In America, when our austerity came into effect, our central bank started a round of additional quantitative easing, which is functionally similar to lowering the interest rate when it is at zero, and this lead to us having continued growth despite the slowdown in government spending.

One of the things about monetary offset is that it only applies to countries that have independent monetary policy, i.e. they have their own independent central bank issuing their own currency. Market monetarists and Keynesians agree that austerity is a terrible policy for countries in the Eurozone, because they do not have independent monetary policy to make up for their decreased spending. The problem is that Keynesians also apply that thinking to countries that have independent monetary policy like the UK, Switzerland and the US. The fact that Krugman does not address this explicitly is one of the best demonstrations of his unwillingness to intellectually engage with his market monetarist opponents. It's much easier to bash on the people making the worst arguments on the other side, rather than those making the best arguments, and he is obviously very political in his thinking, and thus very tribal in his politics. Krugman is a very careful writer, however, so he rarely says anything that's outright wrong, he just chooses not to address the best arguments against his viewpoints, or says more by implication than by direct statement.

For more on market monetarism, one can read the blog of Scott Sumner at [http://www.themoneyillusion.com/](http://www.themoneyillusion.com/) or as one of the blggers at [http://econlog.econlib.org](http://econlog.econlib.org) and in particular one can read recent posts at [1], [2] and [3] on this topic:

1: [http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/06/the_other_thing....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/06/the_other_thing.html)

2: [http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/06/russ_roberts_vs_...](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/06/russ_roberts_vs_1.html)

3: [http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29692](http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29692)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is quite possibly one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. First off, the form. I did not appreciate the fact that hitting the down arrow on the keyboard made me scroll right, and the right arrow did nothing. I'm amazed by people that go to great technical lengths to fuck up scrolling. My browser works fine by default, stop doing shit to break it.

Second, I can't even find the point of this article other than like, Paul Krugman wins at something and they have illustrated this by showing him punching people? Is that really the standard now? Jesus Christ. Even before this I thought Paul Krugman was generally an idiot, and while I don't know if he endorsed this nonsense, it doesn't help my opinion of him.

Third, the animated gifs made this unfucking readable. Even if I wanted to focus on the light weight content, I couldn't, because there's this goddamn gif blinking in the corner of my eye every three seconds. If you're making me queue up an ad blocker to block a thing that's not even an ad, you've failed at web design.

<comment><USER17> Applause, on all points.

I've got the article open in w3m to see it's even worth reading.</comment></comment>


Show HN: anonymous SMS with physical numbers and Zcoin - <AUTHOR> https://phitbone.com <comment><AUTHOR> SMS was proving to be an anonymity bottleneck, and SMS with physical / non- virtual numbers in particular. So I made a thing. Hope it helps.</comment>


Big publishers are fleeing from Facebook's Instant Articles - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/16/15314210/instant-articles-facebook-future-ads-video <comment><USER2> Facebook is sitting on the largest audience of real-world identities and hasn't entered the market of microtransactions in exchange for content (like news) yet [1], even though they could single-handedly wipe out the half a dozen or so other firms -- the likes of Flattr, Brave, Webpass, the rebooted Medium, the half-thought-out never-advertised-then-mysteriously-vanished Google Contributor -- the ones who had to build their audience while trying to make this model work for years. This is just bizarre.

Instead they let themselves caught up in the 'fake news' fiasco (a factor absent from the article), re-prioritized personal posts, and deprecated their previous actually-kinda-nice attempts to give a proper home to professionally- written journalistic content, such that it's not jarringly intermingled with memes, baby photos, and humblebrags.

Part of their problem, perhaps, is the insistence on using the Facebook brand for their homegrown stuff, which is ironic considering they run parallel services under different names. No doubt a lot of it comes from having to harness the idle time of massive numbers of Facebook users sitting in their flagship website or app, but if they started a news portal with micropayments, cross-pollinated with their network of apps and backed with their identities, they would still do more volume within a month than any of their competitors managed to do so in years.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13375917](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13375917)

<comment><USER3> > Flattr, Brave, Webpass, the rebooted Medium

I can't imagine Facebook going up against those household names.

<comment><USER4> Some of the people at Flattr probably live in houses.

<comment><USER5> Savage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 98% of my facebook timeline is pure shit. I once went to facebook to keep up with friends and family. Now, all I see is clickbait and memes.

<comment><USER7> My Facebook feed is nothing but ads, low effort clickbait, and liberal anti- Trump news pieces. I'm pretty liberal myself but I just find the incredible level of groupthink to be completely insufferable.

Content from friends and family is rare to nonexistent these days.

For finding clickbait, memes, etc., reddit is pretty much strictly superior to FB.

If I want to follow the news, my FB feed is one of the most biased sources on the internet.

In short, FB has almost no purpose for me anymore.

<comment><USER8> Installing an ad-blocker could save you a ton of head aches.

<comment><USER9> Why? Adblockers are useless for filtering out think pieces and low effort clickbait. They're not even very good at targeting Facebook Ads.

<comment><USER10> While I haven't added anything for memes and clickbait, some of the noise can be filtered out with Sadblock ([http://sadblock.io](http://sadblock.io))

<comment><USER11> This is a great example of an extension I'd love to try out if the security model for extensions wasn't so broken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > One former employee familiar with the matter said media companies' business > models had initially been all but an afterthought. "The idea that these > products could meaningfully impact the revenue of the news industry just > didn't really come up," the former employee said. "I don't know that anyone > [at Facebook] took that piece all that seriously."

Whoops! Almost accidentally destroyed the business model of a free press! Good thing we encouraged all those bullshit clickbait meme Facebook pages to grow on our platform. They'll do the hard, non-profitable accountability journalism.

<comment><USER13> > Whoops! Almost accidentally destroyed the business model of a free press! > Good thing we encouraged all those bullshit clickbait meme Facebook pages to > grow on our platform. They'll do the hard, non-profitable accountability > journalism.

Well, Buzzfeed (which grew to its size mainly due to FB) for example doesn't just produce clickbait crxp, but also high quality journalism these days.

<comment><USER14> Is that sarcasm? Really?

<comment><USER15> Yes, Buzzfeed has a well staffed news operation that has covered some huge stories.

In fact, Buzzfeed seems like one of the few news operations with a business plan: clickbait and "sponsored content" successfully subsidising actual news output. The problem comes either when a news story conflicts with an advertiser's promoted content, or when shareholders start insisting on better returns and look at the news operation as a liability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It isn't a popular opinion, but my feeling is that publishers' power in the marketplace is severely underestimated. For those of us on HN who do use Facebook, the content experience is pretty similar: a few juicy friend updates per [day? week?]. One or two good articles. Then a morass of terrible, spammy content.

It's clear that actual users don't put enough into the FB ecosystem to make FB interesting for people each day, despite FB's best efforts. Content owners therefore have quite a bit of power. Because if FB suddenly stopped surfacing one or two great The Atlantic pieces per day, FB gets _noticeably worse_ for me as a single user.

The old economics of journalism are: publications get 100% of ad revenue. The Google economics (2001 - 2012) are that publishers get ~65% of revenue and Google gets ~35%. That is self-evidently failing. [1] And Facebook built instant articles on those now-failing economics. The price system is working. Which is why IAs are getting less popular.

Maybe a decentralized web isn't such a bad thing.

[1] I'm self-interested: I cofounded a software company in this space, premised on empowering content producers.

<comment><USER17> I see your point. It does not help that .01% of the general internet population create most of the web's useful content.

<comment><USER18> I would posit that pretty much all useful content is generated by .01% of people across all mediums.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I recently deleted my Twitter account. Probably in the next few weeks, I'll log onto Facebook, request email addresses, and delete my account there too. Facebook has taken on too much of this "take over the world" corporate attitude.

<comment><USER20> All I have Facebook for is to connect with family. I don't _like_ brands and I don't follow anybody I don't personally know.

Twitter is where I follow people and organizations for which I don't have a personal connection.

This separation works pretty well for me.

<comment><USER21> You should invest in a phone line, those are great way to stay in touch with your family. Direct interaction works way better that going through a middle man.

<comment><USER20> Why would you assume I don't use a phone line?

Maybe this didn't occur to you, but I also want to share photos and video. I mean, I can describe my daughter's piano recital, but they seem to enjoy seeing and hearing it as well.

> Direct interaction works way better that going through a middle man.

Who has time to lay all that copper and build their own telephone exchange? I'm happy to pay for middle men to help me out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good, I don't go to Facebook for news, or really any shared article or video. It's a social network, I want to keep up with my social circle, not get pulled into political fights between family and friends.

<comment><USER20> I think this is good as well. I hope news organizations realize that what Facebook and Google (with AMP) gave readers was a page that loaded quickly. News orgs don't need AMP or instant articles, they just need a little self- restraint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If people on facebook enjoyed reading long, information rich articles and commenting on the content in an enriching way, i'd probably never have left that platform. But here I am.

Images, gifs and short videos seems like a logical step forward for mass consumption. Can't really blame facebook for heading in that direction.

<comment><USER24> Who knows, in my extended circle, Facebook is increasingly being viewed as: "for old people". So we may not get to the direction they are heading towards.

<comment><USER25> I keep hearing that from younger friends, but have yet to hear from a single one of them that doesn't open it daily.

How many in your circle have actually quit FB (including Messenger)?

The impression I'm forming is that these younger people see FB as something like my generation viewed the phone company.

<comment><USER21> They don't quit, they just move their thing elsewhere and stay behind because mom and grandma want them there.

[https://backchannel.com/a-teenagers-view-on-social- media-1df...](https://backchannel.com/a-teenagers-view-on-social- media-1df945c09ac6)

[http://mashable.com/2013/08/11/teens- facebook/](http://mashable.com/2013/08/11/teens-facebook/)

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/10/24/faceb...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/10/24/facebook_and_teen_user_trends.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I solve the quality issues of my facebook feed by "unfollowing" all of my friends. There is a section in facebook settings where you can do this all at once.

The resulting feed has no post and displays "no more posts to show".

It is still possible to use messenger and to browse profiles. But this empty feed has been a massive time saver!

<comment><USER27> I did the same too, unfollowed all friends and pages. Then from time to time when I miss a friend I go check out his page for updates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> If your friends are the sort who post, and like to read, actual textual comments, FB is happy to show that to you. I have some friends who posted mostly photos and/or videos but by unfollowing only _them_ my feed became interesting.

</comment><comment><USER29> Facebook is the packaged shallow tabloid version of the web, I've always felt it would be hard to make the leap to anything deeper.

</comment><comment> Trill-I-Am Why do so many of the complaints I see about Facebook in almost all forums seem to instead be about the complaintant's friends and family and the things they share? Why you would be Facebook friends with someone who shares stupid or uninteresting things? And if you feel obligated to maintain that friendship, why would you complain about it? How is it Facebook's fault that your friends and family share stupid content?</comment>


Dr. Fauci interview 7/16 on TWIV podcast - <AUTHOR> https://pca.st/episode/5d1e7e18-c627-4300-ad3d-878d81b6cd72 <comment><AUTHOR> TWIV - This Week In Virology</comment>


In men, high testosterone can mean weakened immune response, study finds (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/12/in-men-high-testosterone-can-mean-weakened-immune-response-study-finds.html <comment><USER2> Isn't this already well known? Don't all steroidal hormones weaken the immune system as a side effect of they're anabolic effects?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I was hoping to start a discussion.

Hypothetically: would chemical castration in men stop the assault of infections..specifically virulent fast spreading ones.</comment></comment>


Jordanian citizen was denied re-entry to the US on eve of his PhD defense at JHU - <AUTHOR> http://cs.jhu.edu/~ccb/publications/letter-to-the-president.pdf <comment><USER2> I wonder if this is one of those vague "security" problems. It seems like if people get denied for normal stuff (overstaying, violating their visas, etc) they're told and can at least fight it a little.

But when you get a black mark against you it seems like you get stuck in an administrative blackhole where nobody is authorised to tell you WHY or they themselves don't know.

It was the same way with the no-fly list for the longest time too, but because that wound up impacting a few powerful Americans it was eventually sorted so now you can at least fight it a little or do additional background checks to get off of it.

The worst part is that these security black marks seem fairly easy to get: family member or friend a "terrorist?" Share a name with someone "bad?" You're now on it. And nobody you can actually talk to can either tell you why or has the authority to remove you.

I would blame it on bureaucracy, but that is an easy out for a policy which is partly intentional -- Americans don't want people visiting, working, or studying on their shores. They have made that abundantly clear over the last ten years.

<comment><USER3> > Americans don't want people visiting, working, or studying on their shores.

This is utterly false and unfair. Please don't lump the entire US population with a few ignorant morons who have not seen the world five miles outside their home town. A quick look at our universities is proof enough that what you are saying is incorrect. The last time I visited MIT it almost felt like I was outside the US.

<comment><USER4> Case in point: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign- bo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign- born_population_in_2005)

<comment><USER3> Nothing like real data. The US has over three times more immigrants than any other country.

I should also note it is my belief --my belief-- that most people in the US, outside of certain groups, are for LEGAL immigration. Don't come here illegally or with a student visa and then cry foul if not welcomed.

EDIT: the reference to student visas is about using them illegally to get in and then stay. It is NOT about not allowing students with proper visas to come in and study.

<comment><USER5> What's this about a student visa?

A student visa is a completely legal way of entering the US.

PS. Post the Boston bombings the immigration officials at the port of entry are _required_ to verify valid student status before letting students (F1 visa holders) into the US. This means the chances of people entering the country illegally through a student visa are slim to none.

<comment><USER6> It's fairly common to come in on a "Student" visa to study at a community college or take night courses while also holding a full-time job. It's also common to skip the facade entirely - Use visa to gain entry, take job on forged credentials, stay past expiration. The student visa does allow the holder to work, but it is intended to be secondary to the education, and history has shown that it is not.

<comment><USER5> This is not as easy you make it sound. First, when entering the US, the immigration officials verify whether student status is valid using the SEVIS database. Second, all changes to student status _must_ be reported to the SEVIS database by the school. If the school finds out that a student is doing unauthorized work, or if they find that the student's academic progress is unsatisfactory (likely if they are working full-time) they are _required_ to terminate student status and report this to SEVIS.

The generic issue of using forged credentials to get an unauthorized job is applicable to any visa. And if I wanted to overstay my visa, it would be dumb of me to choose a visa that was as carefully tracked and monitored as as the F1 visa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can understand what he's feeling as i'm in a very similar situation.

I was offered a job by a San Francisco-based startup in January. I applied for a visa at the local US embassy, the interview went fine and the consular officer said she was happy to approve it but that I had been flagged for an additional background check which should take about two weeks.

Five months later and i'm still stuck in "Administrative Processing". All enquiries have come back with a blanket "matter of national security, we can't give any more information" cover. It's extremely frustrating. What makes it even worse is just the incompetence of it all. I have been going back and forth to the US for nearly ten years to see family pretty much every summer without a problem, why am I only now subject to an extremely lengthy background check?

My wife quit her job and we gave up our house in anticipation of our move and we've effectively been in limbo since.

If anything, the way we've been treated has made me never want to step foot in the US again.

<comment><USER8> Well, it's not recommended to quit the job before you're sure you can go (securing the visa, etc)

I'm not blaming you, but visas have a non trivial chance of being denied

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The one thing I'm taking home from that letter is this:

        the embassy called him back to say that they had found
        the problem. They said that if he came in, they would fix
        it. Instead of fixing it, they stamped CANCELED across
        his student visa without explaining what was wrong, and
        refused to answer any questions as to why.

In short: The american embassy has no compunctions whatsoever to lie to citizens of other countries.

For me as citizen of another country, this means that i will need to treat anything any representative of the US-american government says, no matter how high, or more importantly, low they are on the totem pole, is highly subject and likely a lie.

<comment><USER10> This part is breathtakingly bad, but also largely subjective - we may never know what they _really_ said...

<comment><USER11> If only we had records...

<comment><USER12> 1). LOL 2). They did fix it - they stamped cancelled on a visa the guy (allegedly) shouldn't have. Fixed. Seems to me, that's the American way, no? :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As an immigrant in the US, watching HN lately has been enlightening. Absolutely none of this is new- and it's also almost entirely unrelated to PRISM. Despite the fact that tech companies have been struggling with insane visa rules for years, it's only _now_ that we start posting about individual injustices, now that we can file it under the banner of _" government bad"_?

<comment><USER10> Why would this be unrelated to PRISM? As this guy doesn't know what he's accused of, and we have no idea what PRISM is looking for, assuming they're unrelated is as fallacious as assuming they are related.

<comment><USER14> This sort of stuff has been happening forever. I'm sure if you found some people who were international students in the 80s or 90s they would have similar stories about capriciousness with regards to student visas.

The rules basically say that embassy official should only give out student visas if they are confident that the student meets the terms of the visa, particularly that they have no intent to overstay or permanently immigrate to the U.S. I.e. the default is not granting the visa, rather than granting the visa.

The rules are bizarre: while you're on a non-immigrant visa you have to prove that you have no intent to immigrate or seek immigrant status, yet ultimately many people will seek green cards. Indeed, there is plenty of talk that the U.S. should actively seek to encourage international students to stay permanently, while at the same time the rules say that visas shouldn't be granted to international students who might possibly be considering staying permanently.

<comment><USER15> Yes and it explicitly says that visa applicants are guilty until proven innocent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are we going to trawl up and link every single case of someone being denied re-entry to the US? It's just getting rather tedious.

Though as the constant karma farming off similarly tedious and usually poorly researched and written blog posts of the last week continues unabated perhaps I am in a minority of readers who gets their news from decent sources and likes to come to HN for interesting technical articles.

<comment><USER17> I think HN is seriously at risk of having jumped the shark for good. This NSA thing blew the lid off - the front page is completely full of articles about politics, with more each day about all kinds of different things.

I suppose things may settle down again - they have after other big events, but... I worry, I worry.

(And for the record, for those who conflate not wanting to see every article about this with not caring about it - I care about it deeply)

<comment><USER18> The PRISM scandal remains a threat to US tech businesses. Long after it fades from HN, it will be a drag on growth. Since government credibility will be hard to repair, a big part of the solution is likely going to be stronger technical measures against any kind of snooping.

<comment><USER17> I do think it's relevant, and not some completely off-topic political thing. However, it's given way to a bunch _more_ politics - people denied entry to the US, "there are nukes in the netherlands", and so on, and filled the front page, crowding out pretty much everything else.

I just get a feeling that this is a turning point for the site, but only time will tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Their decision was probably based in some way (assuming it's based on available information, which is admittedly risky) in his marriage to a foreign national while expressing interest in moving to the states, and the embassy's reluctance to chance him violating his visa permissions and in some way moving here with his wife in a permanent resident-alien w/o a visa type manner.

Not claiming to know anything special, but if that really is the only perturbed variable, it most likely hinged on that. Or familial ties that are somehow inscrutable. All conjecture, but I find these single cases to be ridiculous, because there are competent individuals in government who oft do what they're supposed to, even if the whole government mechanism appears corrupt and broken. Most likely there was a legitimate reason, and of course we only have one side of the story here, by an associate professor and his PhD student.

<comment><USER20> I have been told by other foreign graduate students that getting married in another country (possibly even married at all) violates that student visa agreements. One girl is French and marrying an American, she was told that if she goes to France to have a wedding ceremony that she would not be allowed back in to America. This sounds exactly like what happened to this student. It's shameful and bizarre, but it appears like these are the rules however poorly they are communicated (my friend had NO idea as the university filled out her visa application and did so incorrectly 4 years ago).

<comment><USER21> > marrying an American, she was told that if she goes to France to have a > wedding ceremony that she would not be allowed back in to America.

My cursory reading of the USCIS website tells me her fiance would need to apply for a K1,K3 visa. Being married she is entitled to rights the typical J visa holder does not have.

This is where the immigrant/nonimmigrant visa process breaks down. USCIS makes it painfully expensive to change a nonimmigrant visa into an immigrant visa. I guess what they want to avoid is having people jump the greencard queue, and marriage moves you right to the top, by flying in on a tourist visa, find a willing US citizen to marry.

<comment><USER22> A 'marriage of convenience'[1] in that sort of situation is typically treated as fraud, with potentially high penalties (deportation for the incoming, jail for the citizen). I've heard from more than one recently married couple that they've been separated and intensively interviewed about their personal lives, marriage, and backgrounds. IIRC one was returning to the US, and another was entering Canada. In both cases one of the couple was a native citizen.

If that were the actual reason, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a standard form letter or actual reason for denial. I suppose 'Go Away, We Can't Talk About It' might get used in marginal cases or when the appropriate authority can't be bothered doing the actual research.

Or they just lost at Top100 Terrorist Names Bingo.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well, this "problem" with sort out itself, eventually. Taking the ridiculous border controls, the economic situation, disregard of human rights (specially for foreigners), it means that the US is rapidly becoming an unattractive place to work, study and even go on vacation. Before long, you won't have many people trying to get in.

Guess where the entrepreneurs, scientists and highly skilled workers will go? Hint: not the US. What that means for the future of the country is left as an exercise to the reader.

I can't believe that in 2013 we are still worried about which piece of land someone were when he got out of the womb.

<comment><USER24> _Before long, you won 't have many people trying to get in._

Wanna bet?

<comment><USER23> Sure! Are there any reliable sources of immigration statistics?

The effects might take a while to be felt. Some green card categories have a backlog of more than a decade. Tourism might be easier to measure.

<comment><USER25> the fact that H1B yearly quota is used in hours ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Unless you walked through Alaska on a land bridge, you too are an immigrant. We can either embrace the strength of a democracy to turn the huddled masses into a productive force for good or we can choose to turn inward. Guided by fear, we are making the wrong choice.

<comment><USER27> > Unless you walked through Alaska on a land bridge, you too are an immigrant.

Uh... isn't that _also_ immigration?

<comment><USER28> To extend this line of thinking - you are (possibly) not an immigrant only if you were born in Africa - our place of origin.

<comment><USER29> Even "origin" is a misnomer here. It's not clear if the neanderthals were wiped out, or simply assimilated. Many were already living in modern-day Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> ...not sure what sort of "moral debt" (second bullet point) Omar had to the country - is there some reason he should have had to contribute anything to the US economy? Its not like the military where you commit to extra years of service for the financial inducements attached to further study. He's probably already contributed more than most Americans just in his research during the years of his PhD. As an American doing a PhD in the UK, I don't feel I owe a "moral debt" to contribute to the economy here when I am done.

<comment><USER31> Yep, but why would you want to live in the US now? Just look at it.

Stay with us, mate.

<comment><USER32> Where do you live, where the government either isn't cooperating with the US or its allies or else doing its own spying and censorship, and isn't a corrupt, money-hungry beast? I might just pack my own bags and go myself. Assuming there are jobs for foreigners.

<comment><USER31> IMO the US is with China a step ahead everybody else Russia included. They also have the resources for this and control over the main companies spearheading these developments. Couple with a shadow federal government with absolute power, and the most sedated, naive, "cooperative" and docile population in existence.

It's really a scary place to live. Surely IT jobs do pay well there though.

<comment><USER32> Just because the United States happens to be better at it at the moment, doesn't mean other governments aren't complicit or wouldn't jump at the chance for total information awareness themselves.

<comment><USER31> It's a good reason to avoid the US now.

In the long term, we're all dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Perhaps because recent events have me grasping for sources of positive news from Americans, I am touched by the sincerity and tone of this letter. I would much rather believe that the attitude expressed in this letter is that of most Americans.

<comment><USER27> Is this most Americans? Yes it is. Americans paid $250 grand for this "Omar, PhD" but their purchase was lost in shipping. It's time to start yelling at a few parcel carriers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> He sounds like a brilliant student. However does anyone find it the least bit noteworthy that the US government is paying for foreign citizens' tuition and stipends while many of its own citizens are forced to go deeply in debt?

<comment><USER35> PhD students, especially in the sciences, don't pay tuition.

<comment><USER36> Nice to know my taxes pay for the lofty education of people who may have no intention of working in my country.

<comment><USER37> If you don't want them, other countries will be more than happy to take those unwanted Ph.D. students off your hands.

Ph.D. students don't pay tuition because the remuneration they get for their work is part tuition waivers, part money. If they do not work for the university and are not eligible for tuition waivers, they have to pay tuition instead (both foreigners and US Americans).

In practice, they are basically inexpensive (for their qualifications) temporary employees in teaching and research; what they get out of it is a degree.

<comment><USER36> If they are a net benefit to US taxpayers even when they plan to leave the US, that's a good point. We should give them a green card in advance though, plus ask their intention. There's got to be plenty of supply of worthy foreign students who intend to stay here. Taxpayer money is surely being left on the table if we are educating foreign students regardless of their intention of staying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This article strikes home for me. I came to the US to go to college, while here I got great grades, a job and eventually married a US Citizen and obtained citizenship myself. Due to the fact that I followed the rules My sister (Medical Doctor in our country of origin) would get harassed and accused of wanting to stay ("like your brother" they would say) every time she came to visit me (For the record she has never overstayed her visas). Eventually when it was time to renew her tourist visa she was denied and told to never set a foot at the US embassy again.

Quite sad really but there is no winning against USCIS.

</comment><comment><USER39>
      America when will you be angelic?
      When will you take off your clothes?
      When will you look at yourself through the grave?
      When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
      America why are your libraries full of tears?
      America when will you send your eggs to India?
      I'm sick of your insane demands.

From Ginsberg's "America" ([http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html](http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/america.html))

<comment><USER40> Uh... what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Wow! This really saddens me. But I experienced something similar. When I got married a couple of years ago (in India) I really wanted my one cousins (who I was really close to) to come to my wedding. Unfortunately, his lawyers advised him no to come stating that given the current state of affairs, his reentry to US might be jeopardized. This is in spite of the fact that he had lived in US for over a decade and paid huge taxes during that time.

</comment><comment><USER42> The bit about the flight staff tearing up his ticket is a real problem. Flight staff act like they're Border Control. I'm a Jordanian with an O1 and they usually give me hard time when I try to board a plane to the states. I once almost missed my flight because they made me buy a ticket back in the same year, even-though my visa was valid for three years.

<comment><USER43> According to my understanding, for passport control flights, the airlines are heavily fined and have to bear the cost of return flight if a passenger is denied entry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> When the US has access to approx 10 billion 'metadata' from Jordanian citicens (probably more, I am quoting from memory), it means it has access to ALL their communications.

So if this poor man just happened to have the wrong social graph...

"We found the problem with your visa [silence]".

The [silence] means: there should be a 'CANCELLED' stamp on it. Why bother?

</comment><comment><USER45> Having been through the system I can probably guess what he did wrong. F1 status requires that you show no intent to stay. If he had declared that Microsoft was sponsoring an H1B prior to re-entry and we as attempting to enter with a F1, then he broke the F1 rules.

If you break any rules you are pretty much SOL.

</comment><comment><USER36> My taxes pay for the expensive university education of foreigners, without guarantee they can stay? Great.

<comment><USER29> Many, if not most developed countries do this. Don't be such a jackass.

The idea is that these students enrich the university, and there's a chance they'll stay on as professors.

Billions are spent chasing foreign students that can throw a football and you chose to save your rage for this?

<comment><USER36> It's hardly being a jackass to wish that my taxes weren't wasted, in any way whatsoever.

<comment><USER29> It's not like you're footing the bill for all foreign students single- handedly. There's this thing called society. You're part of it.

If you think your taxes are being "wasted" on foreign students, as if those freeloaders are being forced on institutions like MIT by the government, take it up with your representative or senator.

The academic world is bigger than the US. It might shock you but there are some very capable students outside those borders and MIT would very much like to have them doing research at MIT rather than somewhere else.

<comment><USER36> Then let MIT pay for that, not me, when there's no likelihood the student will be paying me back in the form of US taxes. The research leads to patents that MIT gets compensated for, not me. My taxes are likely being wasted here, working against the society I support. It doesn't matter if it's only a dime of mine since all waste is bad and adds up to a lot. No I'm not going to take it up with my representative, falling on deaf ears. I'm going to make my point here on HN instead, where it belongs.

<comment><USER29> So should we be writing checks to Germany when a German-educated person comes over to the US and starts a business? After all, Germany should be compensated for their loss, right?

If an American chooses to move to Singapore to work for an international bank, then maybe they should be forced to pay back the subsidy on their education, right?

Here's the thing: Education is not a waste of money. It costs almost nothing to host a Ph.D. student, there just aren't that many of them. It would take _tens of thousands_ of Ph.D. students to add up to the cost of a single F-35 fighter jet.

Investments aren't about a guaranteed return, they're all about probabilities. I'm pretty sure that MIT's investment in graduate students, including the small number of guest foreign students, pays enormous dividends in terms of research and prestige.

Also if you can name _one_ Ph.D. student that's been given a signing bonus that's anywhere near the kind of money thrown at football players, please do. If you want to know where money's being wasted, it's on lavish stadiums, enormous scholarships, and all the associated pageantry.

Don't think you're the only "taxpayer". Virtually everyone who's ever set foot in the United States is a taxpayer in some form. I know I've paid my fair share of sales taxes just visiting.

If you want to cut funding to MIT so that it becomes a shell of what it is today, you're entitled to that opinion. Just don't complain if that happens and over time the US becomes completely uncompetitive, full of people with obsolete or inadequate education, reduced to having to import talent wholesale like Dubai.

<comment><USER36> Can you knock off the straw man arguments? Not wanting my taxes to be wasted isn't a valueless point just because I'm one of many taxpayers, or because the US doesn't compensate Germany when a German-educated person moves to the US, or because education is worth money to someone, or because money is wasted elsewhere, etc.

If the US taxpayers' investment in foreign students who may not end up staying here is a net benefit to US society and that benefit has been reasonably maximized, then I'm all for it. Otherwise I'm not. When a foreign student is given a nice education at taxpayer expense without so much as granting them a green card on arrival to increase the odds they'll stay here, I suspect that taxpayer money is being wasted, even if the return of educating foreign students is positive on net.

<comment><USER29> They're doing research in the US for a US university that collaborates directly with US corporations. What more do you want from the deal?

<comment><USER36> I'd want the universities to fund the students out of their $multi-billion endowments, rather than get my kids to work longer to pay for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This sort of event is shameful and near-indefensible but not new. If you're a foreign grad student in the US, be aware that this sort of thing happens all the time, and even trivial visa issues take a long time to resolve.

</comment><comment><USER47> What is a foreign graduate student in the US supposed to learn from this?

That he or she should not fall in love or marry an American while in the US?

            or

That if this happens he or she should not go back to renew the visa ?

<comment><USER48> That every time you leave the country, there is a risk you may not be let back in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> He probably pissed off some member of the royal family, whom are more important to the US than intellectuals.

</comment><comment><USER50> the best data i can find is here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign- bo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign- born_population_in_2005)

</comment><comment><USER51> What a top notch grad supervisor to write a letter like that.</comment>


Show HN: AI Grant – Get $2,500 for your AI project in minutes - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
Last year, we launched a non-profit AI research lab called AI Grant (http://aigrant.org). Our goal is to fund promising people around the world working on AI. No strings attached. We've since given away over $100,000 to 30 teams working on different projects. You can see some of them here: http://aigrant.org/#finalists. We just started accepting applications for our third batch!
The academic grant application process is burdensome. It's only avalible to a choice few. Applications take days to complete.
AI Grant is open to anyone on the internet. You can apply in under an hour. Fellows get:

  - $2,500 in cash.
  - $20,000 each in Google Compute Engine credits.
  - $5k in CrowdFlower data labeling credits.
  - ScaleAPI data labeling credits.
  - Access to the network of other Fellows
 Our long term goal is to build an online community of people working on interesting side-projects in AI, supporting each other. We've built some infrastructure around this (chatrooms, group video conferences). We'll continue to expand this over time. I'd be very curious to know what HN thinks about this idea, and how we might make it better.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Oh man, I just spent the last few hours writing my application and now it's asking me to complete "a 10-minute personality questionnaire, followed by a 20-minute brain teaser"

<comment><USER3> I guess "in minutes" is subjective.

<comment><USER4> Well, 7 hours are also some amount of minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few thousand smart people worldwide surrendering their more or less smart but however interesting AI ideas and their very own private psychometric data for a lottery ticket (say 1-2% winning chance) worth $2500 + unnecessary internet services? Come on YC, you can do much better than that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi DrNuke! A few thoughts:

> surrendering their AI ideas

Nobody is surrendering anything. The money is literally a gift. We have no rights in whatever they produce.

> private psychometric data

We have a personality test we're experimenting with for future batches. We're still making funding decisions based on the application for this batch. If you'd prefer to avoid filling it out, by all means!

> unnecessary services

I disagree! Money and $20,000 in GPU training time is worth a lot. Most of our prior Fellows put it to good use.

> Come on YC

This non-profit is unrelated to my role at YC. Please direct any frustration at me, not YC!

<comment><USER6> You'd be a cool kid, if you'd sign an NDA. (edit. personally I do believe that you are truly just trying to push the A.I. tech forward and to stay current with the best ideas in the field.)

<comment><USER7> Mnyeah. I guess you could call building a profile of your users (say, to sell to third parties) "staying current with the best ideas in the field".

Kind of like "the best minds in a generation are trying to make people click on ads" etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I completed the whole application and then it presented the quiz/survey. I didn't have time to complete it so I closed the window. I never created an account...does your application save automatically? Seems like poor design to have users fill out an application without logging in and then showing them a survey that they may not have time to complete.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Your application progress does save when you advance. You should have a link in your email to restore it. Please email me if you don't: email@example.com.

We will also communicate the upfront time investment more clearly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Part 2 of this application is weird.

\---snip---

Experimental Assessments

Thank you for completing your project description. Next you'll be presented two assessments: a 10-minute personality questionnaire, followed by a 20-minute brain teaser.

This part is an experiment. Selections will be driven by your project description, not your score on this test. However, you're required to complete this section to submit your application.

\---snip---

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! Some extra context: Since we're hoping to scale the program one day, we're looking for better ways to identify scientists we should support. Per the description, it's very experimental and we're open to any feedback you have.

<comment><USER10> I think the process is great! It's super fast. I hope you do get to glance at the "IQ" test results - if someone is four standard deviations (160 IQ - doesn't describe me) above the mean, then you should fund them even if you don't understand one word of their description. Maybe nobody does in the entire world except for them.

Kudos on the process. Nothing wrong with it.

<comment><USER11> all that IQ tests validate is how well someone can take an IQ test. It means absolutely nothing in terms of validity of ideas, business sense, self motivation, discipline, leadership skills etc.

<comment><USER12> That is not true. IQ correlates with basically every good life outcome.

Here's an example discussion of how this works, drawing on various studies: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/02/stalin-and-summary- stat...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/02/stalin-and-summary-statistics/)

<comment><USER10> You try a rebuttal, which I commend, but the approach of your rebuttal isn't strong enough! Height also correlates with "basically every good life outcome" but the application form didn't ask for our height: nor should it.

IQ is inherently different. I really support the IQ test they decided to give and I definitely think they should glance at the results - especially to basically approve any applications from people with great results even if the evaluators don't understand the proposed application exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have had access to the research version of Cyc ([http://www.cyc.com/](http://www.cyc.com/)) for over a year, and its capabilities are breathtaking. If aigrant.org had a subcommunity of people who were working on Cyc-related side-projects, I would definitely be interested in contributing to it.

What would be helpful is if aigrant.org could provide an account on a Cyc instance to community members.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious what you saw it doing. Cyc has been a vaporware product for many many years. It's had corporate backing on and off for a long time and produced next to nothing.

<comment><USER13> I spend 1-2 hours each day learning Cyc, and each day I see it do something new. For example, I just asked Cyc "Where did the 2012 Summer Olympics take place?" and this was its response:

      %cycl,microtheory="InferencePSC"

      (eventOccursAt
          (SummerOlympicsFn
            (YearFn 2012))
          ?VAR)

      %/cycl

          %output,mpversion=".257",preserve="false"
             #  ?VAR
            --- </comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---
              1 UnitedKingdomOfGreatBritainAndNorthernIreland
              2 England
              3 EasternContinent
              4 ContinentOfEurasia
              5 Occident
              6 MilkyWay-Galaxy
              7 PlanetEarth
              8 NorthernHemisphere-Region
              9 ContinentOfEurope
             10 CityOfLondonEngland
      .   %/output

<comment><USER15> Google, Bing, Wolfram Alpha, and Siri all parse that query properly and answer it perfectly. Do you have an example of something Cyc does that none of those services do?

<comment><USER16> And it's worth noting that Google and Bing generate that answer without human intervention, so no complex data engineering etc..

<comment><USER17> Not really, Google Knowledge Graph is an ages-old project and the side-panel "fact sheets" have involved manual curation of the automated results.

<comment><USER16> There's manual curation of the schemes which map some human-eneterd data on web pages to facts, but the extraction is automatic.

See [1], noting that human annotation is responsible for 250K of the 100 million high confidence facts in the system.

I believe they have some manual overrides in a few cases, but the system itself is automatic.

[1] [https://research.google.com/pubs/pub45634.html](https://research.google.com/pubs/pub45634.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just read a twitter thread about how American culture is negative about everything. [https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/981341257124397056](https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/981341257124397056)

And then I found comments on this. Most of them are very cynical.

These are guys who want to give money with no strings attached and its so hard for everyone to even believe something like this is even possible.

I'm more interested in reading thoughts of people who were previously part of aigrant.

Please don't get discouraged, there are several people like me for whom the money and the other credits are very valuable. These are definitely not nothing. Even though you can get cloud credits in other ways, they are not that straight forward. From what I see they are offering, everything is valuable.

"I was accepted by YC when I was an uncredentialed 18 year old. It changed my life. I've since been fascinated by systems that find promising outsiders and bring them into the fold. YC does a great job at this for companies. I'm wondering if it would be useful to do it for research ideas as well."

What I would like to know is, from the previous batches, how many do you guys think that fit this category.

I applied last time, but I don't know if I would apply now, mostly time constraints.

</comment><comment><USER19> Complete bobbins...avoid avoid avoid

Unless some of the existing fundees come forward with verifiable credentials I wouldn't give this a moment

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a fantastic idea, and I think I'll definitely be applying! Have you considered offering two tiers of grants? Most AI side projects don't necessarily require ~$30k in resources, but I'm sure many people, including myself, could benefit from ~$3k in GCE credit. Opening up the same total resources to more people would allow for a greater number of moonshots, which are what this grant seems to be about. :)

<comment><USER21> I could use the cash and some of the credits, but most of it wouldn't be used. But maybe I'm one of few doing AI projects not involving a deep neural net? Hehe.

<comment><USER22> >maybe I'm one of few doing AI projects not involving a deep neural net

You're not. While progress in machine learning is astounding and is going to do great things for humanity, it is kind of frustrating that "AI" to many people these days means neural nets, deep learning, high-end GPUs, and huge datasets. Not every problem needs machine learning as a solution, and there are still some of us solving hard problems with classical AI and old fashioned data analysis. But it's not trendy right now.

<comment><USER4> What kinds of problems are best solved by AI, but not deep learning/neural nets?

<comment><USER22> Natural language processing is a big area where classical AI is heavily used and machine learning is lagging behind. ML is terrible at teaching computers to read and/or produce human writing. Compare what the company Automated Insights is doing for news articles versus neural networks writing books and movie scripts (with humorous results).

Anything with a known and well-defined set of rules can also be programmed more efficiently with decision trees/Markov chain than through machine learning. There's no need to use tons of data to train a model to do something over time when all it needs is the rule book.

Machine learning is basically advanced pattern matching, neural nets often require you to brute force the problem with tons of data. There are plenty of places where you're not matching patterns and you don't have tons of data but the computer still needs to make a decision after analyzing the data that _is_ available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Of the finalists:

> Zbigniew Wojna (co-author of Inception-v3, one of the first better-than- > humans perception models), object detection and instance segmentation for > small objects

This looks really important. At the moment there's no way that Tesla's can avoid small animals and birds. This means that both the animal gets killed and it's likely that the human will crash after from the panic of hitting an animal.

The list in general is interesting as it shows what people are working on, so it's insight into current research even before a paper or results are released.

<comment><USER22> It's incredibly dangerous to brake, swerve, or otherwise alter your course for a non-life-threatening object in the road. People have died from this, and people have gone to jail doing this [1]. If people are likely to crash from panic after hitting a small animal, they're more likely to crash when the car swerves and then can't regain control afterwards. When you're about to hit a deer, the advice is to brake hard, but _never_ swerve. Because you're never going to keep control of your car when you're both braking and swerving, and if you hit someone in the oncoming lane while swerving, you are at fault.

I don't like it either, but occasionally hitting animals crossing the road is the price we pay for millions of miles of high-speed pavement crossing the country. Hitting small animals is the best outcome in that situation, as opposed to hitting larger animals like deer (where the driver can be killed or seriously injured too).

Please don't brake or swerve for small animals. You could very likely end up killing another person in the process.

[1] [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/17/canada-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/17/canada- ducklings-highway-fatal-court/20513845/)

<comment><USER23> Precisely why we want collision-detection to be able to spot the animal and brake earlier than the human could.

I agree swerving is a problem, but I see no problem with braking. If you brake and the car behind you crashes into you that is their fault not yours. Cars should be maintaining a 3-4s gap precisely because the car in front could brake suddenly at any point.

<comment><USER22> That's why I linked to an article where a woman went to jail for stopping on the freeway for a small animal. There is a problem with braking, and it's not always the fault of the car behind you if they hit you.

The law disagrees with you, and that's what matters.

<comment><USER24> > There is a problem with braking, and it's not always the fault of the car > behind you if they hit you.

The driver is too close if they cannot stop in time. It's not complicated. It is always the following driver's fault, unless the car in front has defective brake lights.

<comment><USER22> You guys keep saying that like your opinion on the law outweighs that of a judge.

It obviously is _not_ always the following driver's fault, or that woman wouldn't have gone to jail. You're wrong. It doesn't matter your argument. I provided proof that you're wrong and you're still arguing your wrong argument wrongly and continuing to be wrong.

You can argue with me until I give up and then you can declare victory but you're still wrong, and not only that, you're completely oblivious to the idea that you're wrong. The fact that a woman went to jail for _literally this exact thing_ proves that you are _wrong_.

Hopefully that makes it clear, even to those of you who didn't read the link that I took the time to find and provide to you. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but you're so obviously wrong and yet still arguing against the law that I feel like I have to make it very clear that you are wrong. Go back and read the link I provided. You're wrong.

<comment><USER23> She wasn't braking. She was _parked_. The car was stopped, there were no brake lights. She had no hazard lights on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 'in minutes' lol. Read the fine print folks!! This ain't no minutes.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps they're over stating it. But it's still probably an easier/faster way to get funding than traditional research grants.

<comment><USER25> To me it wasn't the time commitment, it was the deception. Felt like a sweepstakes eventually because they are not upfront, and you give very private information. They know what's up with how it was designed and marketed (headline) and if they don't I humerously question whether they should be doling out AI grants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Before I fill the form, can you please give a quick disclosure about any other interest that you have in this, if any, specially about the data. There are lot of threads about some suspicion here, but I can't find any direct response.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sigh. Hacker News is a suspicious place these days. We have no rights to anything you produce, or datasets you use. We just want to help budding scientists.

We are asking people to do a 30 minute quiz once the application is filled out. It's 100% experimental, but the long term goal is to try and see if there are any ways we can scale this program one day. For example: if it turned out that all the Fellows we funded did terribly on the test, we'd know the test is bad. If they did really well on one question, we'd know we found something that would help us find more people in the future.

We're not going to sell the applications in any way. Please email me if you have any concerns: firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER27> > Sigh. Hacker News is a suspicious place these days. We have no rights to > anything you produce, or datasets you use. We just want to help budding > scientists.

It's not HN, it's the world. We live in a society where you have to beg and scrape for healthcare and a job and shelter. Then when you have it, the only way for most to keep it is to sell their labor to a corporation, who doesn't pay you for what it's actually worth (they take a profit). Then, when you go home to improve you life on your own time, the corporation tries to claim ownership over your ideas you work on in your spare time.

What you're proposing, "no strings attached" is counter to almost every expectation we've had our entire lives regarding "a free lunch". i.e. there's no such thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Just finished questionnaire. The "brain teaser" at the end is full blown IQ test. Which got me an idea. I know its all nice to pretend that everybody is equal and all that jazz, but if you want to make real scientific progress and not just let some code monkey glue couple libraries together and fixing problems on stackoverflow, you need someone really smart. And IQ test is good filter for that. So if I would want to grant money to random people and I have 100'000 applicants, I would just sort them by IQ, keep top 1% and manually sort them and pick a few. If that's your strategy then I'm screwd, I was always too slow on IQ tests.

<comment><USER29> > If that's your strategy then I'm screwd, I was always too slow on IQ tests.

Right, this approach would just select those people who are good at completing IQ tests. Which is a pretty common criticism of IQ tests.

<comment><USER30> Why wouldn't the ability to quickly process information be considered an important part of intelligence? A proper IQ test is very general and just tests processing speed and working memory.

IQ has a higher correlation with future income than parent's earnings. If you had a choice between having 99th percentile IQ and being born into the 1% you'd be better off taking the IQ. The issue is that because IQ is highly heritable many in the 1% tend to be intelligent as well so the rich get richer.

<comment><USER31> I don't know about you, but if I had the choice between having a 99th percentile IQ and being born into the 1%, there is absolutely no way I'm taking the IQ. The streets and fast food franchises are littered with exceedingly smart people. Dumb kids of the mega-rich are still rich. A lot of things need to go right for success, those things have a better chance of going right if your parents are loaded.

It's important to note here that we're not discussing the well-off, two vacations a year types here, we're talking about the 1%. I would be extremely surprised if the correlation between your future earnings and your parents' earnings (if they are 1%) weren't -a lot- stronger than your having a 99th percentile IQ. Any sources?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I am cynical. What's your angle? I presume that the idea here is to find open source projects to become heavily "invested" in, and then find ways to extract out a commercial offering, whilst engaging in (free) open source labour? Sorry for the cynicism, but offering only $2500 (+things of variable value) sounds like you are trying to target desperate people to take advantage of almost. Ie. If an open source project grew a commercial element, it's going to be worth a bunch more than that. Please, I stand waiting to be corrected. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi laythea! That is an incredibly cynical take. Why are you so default cynical? Anyway, I'll share my hidden motivations with you, if you like. It's twofold:

1\. I am intellectually curious about AI research. I enjoy talking to researchers. I do it in my spare time. For fun. I would like to do more of that.

2\. I was accepted by YC when I was an uncredentialed 18 year old. It changed my life. I've since been fascinated by systems that find promising outsiders and bring them into the fold. YC does a great job at this for companies. I'm wondering if it would be useful to do it for research ideas as well.

Lastly, I completely disagree that GPU training time is "of variable value". It's a big deal for many researchers.

<comment><USER32> Hi, thanks for your reply. Yes, sorry for sounding a bit cynical, I will take a look at what you do in more detail, but the sponsors of this venture surely want some return? My, as yet uneducated, layman outsiders guess as to what that return may be would be some IP, derived from these projects? Kind of like growing a tree for birds to lay eggs in and then shaking it to see what drops out. No offense intended. Cheers

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a non profit! The IP you develop is yours!

<comment><USER32> Charities can and do steer activities in a commercially beneficial manner to suit certain stakeholders. I suppose, non-profits are similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am one of the AI grant fellows, and I have to say that they never asked me any thing in return - just our opinion and some help regarding the AI grant. I personally think the AI grant is particularly interesting to get some extra visibility (not only the money)!

BTW: our project is already available out there! :) [https://datasets.freesound.org/](https://datasets.freesound.org/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Is there any solid evidence of this being legit? The web sites [1][2]seem kind of thin, and maybe the whole game is to collect a bunch of contact info for AI researchers. I imagine one could sell that list to recruiters.

[1][http://www.cyc.com/](http://www.cyc.com/) [2][http://aigrant.org/](http://aigrant.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> No! I don't know anything about Cyc, but AI Grant is very real. I run YC AI ([http://ycombinator.com/ai](http://ycombinator.com/ai)). Nat is the VP of Developer Services at Microsoft. We're not doing this to sell info to recruiters. We're doing this because we're passionate about AI research. And because we think the best ideas often come from the fringe. We want to encourage others to take their side projects more seriously.

Feel free to message any of our existing Fellows and ask about their experience.

<comment><USER34> Sorry I voiced that musing. Guess I was just being true to my username.

<comment><USER35> Nah, these days, you can't always be sure that someone's running a grift. The internet sure as hell makes it easy and approaching $0 to scam.

And being cranky as well, I get it. But this is legit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Dani, thanks for doing this and I like your idea of building an online community working on interesting side projects in AI. I would apply this batch and recommend it to other researchers who are working on cool stuff to apply now, "only" if you take our feedback, which you asked for, into consideration which are:

1-Delete the personality questionnaire and the brain teaser. Keep it simple as you promised above "in minutes". Seems like everyone here hates it, including me.

2-Either in the application process or on your website, state how would you protect my idea. Ideas become things. In the application, I will give you my full idea that I am working on. You might get inspired by it, and build it your own. If you are really trying to attract top-notch side project, you need to do this.

</comment><comment><USER37> How often are these running? I'm currently taking the Udacity Deep Learning nanodegree and have some ideas I want to try out once I'm done. Having credits to train and generate labeled samples would be really helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> We hope to do a few more, but don't know exactly when. When in doubt, just apply! At the very least the process will sharpen your thinking on the project you're considering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why limit yourself to AI? And what exactly qualifies specifically as "AI"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Focus helps one make a great product (for example, domain-specific content and community). In time, we'll expand. If this strategy works, it can be an accelerant to almost _all_ areas of research.

We're liberal with the definition of AI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This personality test is interesting. I can see why YC would want this data.

</comment><comment><USER40> Does this apply to work that is deeply theoretical as well? (e.g. studying/experimenting with tiny Turing machines in an attempt to approximate AIXI-like algorithms)

<comment><AUTHOR> As long as you can articulate why your project would be useful, we're interested. Theoretical or not. It just needs to be useful to other humans. Or AGIs. (Kidding. Mostly.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Build us an atomic bomb and get $2,500.....

AI is dangerous.

If an AI becomes aware, what happens then?

I used to think that it was insanely unlikely that an AI would become aware. But after many deep thoughts on what consciousness actually seam to be. I believe it could happen at any time now just by random chance. We are closing in on the number of neurons that i believe is required.

<comment><USER42> What is a awareness and how will you tell?

Why is awareness necessary for an AI to be dangerous?

A swarm of armed, autonamous, UAVs is plenty terribad already, and Google's making them smarter. It doesn't take much smarts to "find squishy warm mobile things and put missile there".

<comment><USER41> > What is a awareness and how will you tell?

I have no idea :) But i am Aware and dangerous, but if that awareness was taken from me and i became unaware a mouse could kill me.

Not saying that awareness (whatever it is) is necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> We need grants based on the outcome of the project, not based on what technology is used to achieve it.

<comment><USER44> I don't think it's 100% of either of these (outcome vs tech used). If its true research, the outcome isn't known. There are major benefits in developing technology for it's own sake, which then provides tools that can be used towards other applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is awesome, I love the idea that you can be working on a side project and still get support.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is awesome! The apply link ([https://apply.aigrant.org/](https://apply.aigrant.org/)) is not working for me however.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, our DNS provider was having issues. Please take another look now. Thanks!

<comment><USER46> No problem, works now. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Has CrowdFlower renamed? Their website now redirects to [https://www.figure- eight.com/](https://www.figure-eight.com/)

<comment><USER48> Yes, they are now FigureEight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The description and intentions seems disingenuous from what I see and what others have commented. Please flag this.

</comment><comment><USER50> I would apply but I'm not sure how that will be considered as I'm on a work visa :(

<comment><AUTHOR> You can always decide not to take the grant if you're accepted. At the very least, the application process will serve as a potential way to validate your idea.

<comment><USER50> Good to know, thanks!

<comment><USER51> I am not a huge fan of NDAs but I wouldn't give your idea away to someone just for validation.

<comment><USER52> Shallow thinking. I personally believe the idea has value only in relation to how well it can be executed upon. If can be built easily, then it will be copied anyway.

<comment><USER51> I agree that it is shallow thinking, but this is some random application for the potential of a small amount of money. Some one else can validate the idea easily

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> So much for "in minutes"... "Applications take days to complete."

</comment><comment><USER54> Cloud credits are easy to get. But you are giving away cash - what's the catch?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sigh.

<comment><USER54> Yes, it's frustrating - but if the predominant response is doubt and confusion, you guys clearly didn't think this all the way through. AI tech is now easy and accessible, and you need to make a very good case why an AI startup would "need" you - along with the platforms you're promoting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> How many grants will you be given out this year?

</comment><comment><USER56> How many hours are there in a week?

</comment><comment><USER57> no confirmation email after applying?

<comment><USER58> hello! I had the same concern. I saved a PDF of my application just in case. Please let us know if there's anywhere we can confirm receipt of the application :-)

<comment><USER57> I copied my responses to a .txt file before submitting just in case

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> hmm.. unless the sponsors publish the names of successful recipients, there is nothing to say this is what it is presented as.. (I did not visit the site)

<comment><AUTHOR> Try visiting the site, I think you'll be pleased!</comment></comment>