Custom bots for Unreal Tournament 2004 pass Turing test - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/uota-aig092612.php <comment><USER2> It seems strange to me to invoke Turing's test when discussing a highly defined problem such as playing a FPS. I think the strength of the original test is that a conversation is by nature very open. When you change the test to a game with clear scoring criteria, both humans and computers will tend toward optimization strategies that may become difficult to distinguish.

<comment><USER3> I think many people in IT want to believe in "AI that's as good as human" so much that they erode the notions of humanity to make computers pass.

For example, a chat bot can certainly behave as the worst chat user, but that doesn't mean they can hold an intelligent conversions, which is really what we should care about. AI should simulate human intelligence, but very often all we're seeing is simulation of human stupidity. That's what happened in this case as well.

To me, good AI would be characterized by ability to handle highly unusual situations, not by mimicking irrational behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have there ever been any studies done to look at the effects of any biases when you're actively trying to tell a bot apart from a human? My guess is that the judges end up looking for specific traits and characteristics. Bot developers can then include these in the AI. The issue is that those traits may not be even close to matching an actual person in other situations, but they're enough to provide a local maximum of sorts.

In this case, the fact that on average bots seemed scored as more "human" than actual humans is more of a sign of a critical flaw in the judging system than any great progress. It looks like they reduced typical human behavior to some very simple things, such as holding a grudge or other irrational behavior. If that was a major part of the judges' criteria (consciously or subconsciously) then all this contest proved is that bots can be programmed to be more irrational than human players.

<comment><USER5> I guess the ultimate test would be if they let the bots loose in an online multiplayer FPS environment and see if anyone noticed.

Bonus points if the bot can sing annoying, off-key pop songs in the pre-game loading screen, to mimic the true CoD Xbox Live experience.

<comment><USER6> Even more bonus if they can make it sound like a 13 year old kid that screams when he gets killed and yells insults.

<comment><USER7> Don't forget the racial slurs.

<comment><USER5> Maybe I should put together a google spreadsheet for HNers to play together on Xbox Live/Playstation network!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm suspicious of the game being UT2k4. It's a fast game with a steep learning curve that's long past its glory days - meaning a small player base. To someone unfamiliar with the game, even the AI that came in the box could be mistaken as human. To an experienced player, it'll be easy to identify newbie- ish patterns and see where the bots are straying from typical new-player psychology once they start toying with them. If the bot is acting experienced... Even the movement during combat in the game is complex, and there are a ton of areas an AI could trip up in.

If the judges were at a competitive level, colour me impressed - but if it was their first time, or even their first week, I'm a little more skeptical. I don't think a novice player would understand the game well enough to judge well. It would be like attempting a traditional Turing test with humans who can't speak English fluently and were raised in a non-English culture: impressive, but no indicator of bots reaching human-like levels.

<comment><USER9> I came here to post the same thing.

I use to play UT/CS competitively and worked for a startup that licensed our technology to id Software and Riot Games / League of Legends a long time ago.

UT2k4 was an amazing FPS game with a really steep learning curve. It's one of the only FPS games that I refer to as the "basketball" of online gaming. The diversity of movement, weapon tactics, and map control meant a seasoned gamer could really define their own style. But it also meant few people ever transitioned from public servers into competitive play because 1 pro could easily go Godlike and demolish an entire server, making it extremely frustrating and unexciting for casual gamers.

That being said, watching the videos included in this article signaled that these judges had no experience with UT2k4.

In a match with professional gamers, it wouldn't surprise me if those judges thought WE were the bots. 50%+ accuracy was not uncommon with prim shock or lightening gun.

<comment><USER8> Can't agree more with you. Just watched the video - definitely first-timers. Combine accuracy with (typical competitive) prediction of spawns and enemy movement - especially of novices - it would definitely appear to the uninitiated that there was a bot using autoaim and possibly hacks instead of a person - that is if they even survived long enough to see their opponent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I need to see more evidence. The two videos they provided from the viewpoint of the "judges" show that the judges had no idea how to play the game. No serious player stands in one spot firing nonstop. One video showed the judge had no aiming skills whatsoever.

What was the criteria? "That one must be human because it can move and shoot at the same time!"

This reminds me of the awesome days of the ReaperBot, that cheating bastard.

<comment><USER11> They don't even dodge, which is the staple movement in UT games.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If humans get a 40% of 'humanity', we have a problem with the definition of 'human' or with the rules of the game or whatever. I guess in order to pass as humans they should get a 'standard' score of humanity. Either that or the rules are strange.

<comment><USER13> In one online game I played, people accused me of cheating/using a bot [I never did]. The problem was that they actually were cheating and could see through walls and/or used an aimbot to improve their accuracy, but my reaction time was faster than theirs and I would get a headshot off before they could kill me. Of course, it didn't help that I used a shotgun which was ridiculously overpowered in the game.

<comment><USER14> My little brother once mapped the "fire" button to his scroll wheel when using the semi-auto weapons in Medal of Honor. He could empty a clip in half a second and was almost banned but he was able to explain things and then everyone used it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Human players received an average humanness rating of only 40 percent."

The judging system needs to be seriously reevaluated.

<comment><USER12> The judging system did not pass the Turing test...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't like the Turing test. It is nonquantifiable and is used to test something we don't even fully understand yet. It is also based on previous computing mindsets. It's like using a horse and buggy to determine whether a car is suitable.

</comment><comment><USER17> As long as the AI is running around like an idiot spamming rockets, getting run over by vehicles and generally wasting ammo, yep that sounds like most humans who played UT04. Not exactly the most difficult test to pass...

</comment><comment><USER18> If you like playing with chatbots and think this kind of stuff is cool, please shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com - I want to talk to you!

</comment><comment><USER19> Instagib CTF-FaceClassic ftw.

</comment><comment><USER20> Not quite but still cool.</comment>


Prolog Web Applications (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.metalevel.at/prolog/web <comment><USER2> Thank you very much for your interest!

Prolog is ideally suited for web applications: HTML and XML documents are readily represented as Prolog _terms_ and can be reasoned about very conveniently and efficiently.

For instance, let's use Scryer Prolog to fetch all article titles from the HN front page.

Put the following in hn.pl:

       :- use_module(library(http/http_open)).
       :- use_module(library(sgml)).
       :- use_module(library(xpath)).
       :- use_module(library(format)).

Then consult the file with:

       $ scryer-prolog hn.pl

and then post:

       ?- http_open("https://news.ycombinator.com", S, []),
          load_html(stream(S), DOM, []),
          xpath(DOM, //a(@class="storylink",text), E),
          portray_clause(E),
          false.

Yielding:

       "Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs".
       "macOS Big Sur Preview".
       "Most employees of NYT won\x2019\t be required back in physical offices until 2021".
       etc.

Scryer Prolog is a modern Rust-based Prolog system that conforms to the Prolog ISO standard and provides several libraries for web applications: [https://github.com/mthom/scryer-prolog](https://github.com/mthom/scryer- prolog). A key attraction of Scryer Prolog is its compact internal representation of strings as lists of characters, making the system ideally suited for the use case Prolog was designed for: Convenient and efficient text analysis, which is also required in many web applications.

Here is a short video about this topic:

[https://www.metalevel.at/prolog/videos/web_scraping](https://www.metalevel.at/prolog/videos/web_scraping)

Enjoy!

<comment><USER3> While this was instructive, tying together curl and xpath is not really the sort of thing I'd be worried about when picking Prolog for something like this. Any language looks good when all the heavy lifting is done by other libraries.

How would I run this across multiple cores? Handle exponential backoff for retries? Measure the response time for each submission? Store the result in a database?

<comment><USER4> While Mr. Triska evangelizes for Scryer (which I really hope will succeed in its endeavors), the more mature web framework still is in SWI prolog.

As for the database, this is where prolog shines: prolog _is_ the database. You store data in the internal facts database.

Concurrency is another prolog strength. For example: [https://www.swi- prolog.org/pack/list?p=spawn](https://www.swi-prolog.org/pack/list?p=spawn)

See also this very nice talk: [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DG_eYTctGZw8&ved=2ahUKEwi-z6LAqZbqAhVNC- wKHQfjBuUQo7QBMAB6BAgAEAE&usg=AOvVaw1sYxqfAt6-T-BJ-aviCSgS)

As for retries, I have only a blurry idea of what that's about, but from my limited understanding I suspect it's perfectly doable.

<comment><USER5> I do not know that much about Prolog. Only used it once or twice so far.

Would the internal facts database as storage be as efficient as a typical database, say SQLite or Postgres? What I mean by "efficient" is: Would it consume similar amounts of disk space or memory and would it be as fast in responding to queries with results?

<comment><USER4> Potentially yes, but current prolog implementations are mostly academic productions with few man-hours invested into them compared to more popular languages. So no, you won't build huge industrial websites on current prolog, but mid-size webapps are certainly within reach as modern prologs are much faster than people usually suspect.

Prolog huge data munging is a thing though. Check the "semantic web" and related for examples.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a decent prolog/SQL bridge? Being able to write applications and queries using SQLite or Postgres database as the fact set for prolog would be very nice.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps something like [https://www.swi- prolog.org/pldoc/doc_for?object=section(%27p...](https://www.swi- prolog.org/pldoc/doc_for?object=section\(%27packages/cql.html%27\))

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I'll check that out.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Context-based framework for Go commands - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cybozu-go/cmd <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote a blog article introducing the framework: [http://ymmt2005.hatenablog.com/entry/2016/09/03/Making_well-...](http://ymmt2005.hatenablog.com/entry/2016/09/03/Making_well- behaved_programs_in_Go_with_cybozu-go/cmd)</comment>


Cloudflare's Response to CSAM Online - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-response-to-csam-online/ <comment><AUTHOR> > "NCMEC's image hash"

I had never heard of this. If a web app leverages AWS / Google Cloud / Azure for file storage, is it safe to assume that the web host is already running these checks?

<comment><USER2> Not at all a safe assumption. Ask your host if they are — you'll probably be surprised by the answer.</comment></comment>


Valleyball - <AUTHOR> http://valleyball.co/

<comment><USER2> From the sample leaderboard, this seems more like "which startup has the most employees voting for it?" (case in point, dmor: [http://valleyball.co/company/mattermark?cheat=1](http://valleyball.co/company/mattermark?cheat=1)) instead of "which startup is most likely to succeed?"

The problem with a fantasy startup league is the time horizon. No user is going to pay attention for _years_ for an event to occur, whereas in fantasy sports there's an event every day/week.

Relatedly, there's no good explicit definition for when a startup fails. (case in point, Yo has been dead for a month but this webpage pretends it isn't)

<comment><USER3> > Yo has been dead for a month

Are you sure? They released an update for their iOS app yesterday: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yo./id834335592](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yo./id834335592)

<comment><USER2> Yes. [http://i.imgur.com/dCgcaWX.png](http://i.imgur.com/dCgcaWX.png)

That first spike in overall ratings was the result of an advertising campaign where Yo literally gave away free car rides, and no one wanted it: [http://valleywag.gawker.com/gimmick-app-yo-offered- gimmick-c...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/gimmick-app-yo-offered-gimmick-car- service-and-no-one-1625237703)

So they tried to give away free Moto 360s, which was a PR disaster: [http://9to5google.com/2014/08/28/motorolas-yo-based- moto-360...](http://9to5google.com/2014/08/28/motorolas-yo-based- moto-360-giveaway-went-exactly-as-planned/)

Neither expensive PR stunt could stop Yo's descent into obsolesce. What would organic usage do?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hear hear, Buster is awesome!

Also wanted to point to a similar project we're building called Sand Hill Exchange ([http://sandhill.exchange/](http://sandhill.exchange/) ). By offering a fluid marketplace with real-time changes in price, we provide the daily feedback startup junkies crave.

<comment><USER5> It is not immediately obvious what your site is about.

<comment><USER4> Very true. We're finishing up a redesign that will hopefully make things clearer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Would be great if you could remove your guess, as I did not know it would publicly add my twitter handle.

<comment><USER7> Until I add this, feel free to email me (busterbenson at gmail) and I can delete stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> FYI - the three links at the bottom (Product Hunt, Yo, and Uber) just link to the home page, rather than the companies' pages.

</comment><comment><USER9> Once in a while I think "hey, wouldn't it be great if people in the bay area loved building great products more than they love raising money and selling companies?"

It's obviously a total pipe dream, but wow, maybe we could _actually_ make the world a better place.

<comment><USER10> I think the real effect you are observing is that people who love raising money and selling companies are more likely to raise money and sell companies.</comment></comment>


Bitbucket annoying bug with reviewers suggestion - robert-zaremba https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issue/8012 Bitbucket doesn't check the permissions first before suggesting them as a reviewer to the repo. <comment> robert-zaremba Bitbucket doesn't check the permissions first before suggesting them as a reviewer to the repo.

This can be really annoying when in your company you make all tasks resolution through bitbucket pull request.</comment>


Feedback needed on bottom search bar...click a result - <AUTHOR> http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/

<comment><USER2> This is a top right/top middle activity, not a bottom left activity. I only noticed it because you said so - usually I ignore all those bars at the bottom because they're often just for sharing stuff on social networks, etc.</comment>


I don't wanna do your dirty work. No more. - <AUTHOR> http://sudheendra.com/post/86211222640/i-dont-wanna-do-your-dirty-work-no-more

<comment><USER2> > Hey Sudheendra, Do you know Vivek? With 2.5 years of experience in PHP he > seems like a good fit for our _next big startup_. Thanks to LinkedIn, I > noticed you are his 1st connection. Would you mind connecting us?

Wow. "Uh, no"? "Go away"? "Leave me alone"? I'm not going to help someone spam my friends.

<comment><USER3> This. I barely want to deal with the people approaching _me_. Much less people I know. And what's more I don't think being a 1st level connection on linkedin really carries that much social proofing to the point where going direct is any worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps I misunderstand English but how is asking for a referral as in "Do you know any good developers?" a BAD way to ask for a referral? And how is asking about a specific person's abilities a better way to ask for a general referral?

If you are new to the area and are looking for a good pizza place: Good: "Hey, do you know of any good pizza places around here?" Bad: "Is Tino's over on 4th any good?" The later asks about a specific location, and doesn't tell you if there is anything better. Nor does it help you if the answer is "No"

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Chris, perhaps I should have put it in a better way. Asking for a pizza shop is different from asking for a developers. Pizza shops are everywhere and you can walk into any shop any day, developers are usually working on something. I can't randomly point all my developer friends to the guy asking for referral. I would need to talk to my friends first, do some research who is looking for a job and then make a referral. So, All I want people who are asking for referrals to do is find whom they want to connect to and why? HN/Github/StackExchange are some good places to find great programmers and LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter tells you how you are connected to them :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> hasjob.co is also there !

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep Harsh, but we are an exclusive hiring platform. You will find only really interesting and meaningful job opportunities at growing Indian Startups :)</comment></comment>


How I Made $13,490.50 With Adsense Last November - <AUTHOR> http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/how-i-made-1349050-with-adsense-last-november <comment><USER2> This article makes me nauseous. How on earth is this "hacker news"? And who the hell is voting this garbage up? Please tell me I'm not surrounded by SEO guys.

<comment><USER3> Yeah the keyword stuffing nauseated me. But I found the empirical information interesting.

I agree it doesn't feel "hacker-ish" per se, but despite the name, Hacker News has a broader following that includes startup people, i.e. the business counterparts of hackers (roles often shared by the same person). The core interest for them is in creating useful things that ultimately must generate revenue for sustainability. Online advertising, as superficially repulsive as it is, is a significant model for doing so.

Also, like most people, Hacker News readers are interested in individual- focused stories.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad you found my article useful. I tried my hardest to be factual and to back my observations up with data. ~ Scott (the website's webmaster)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Relevant paragraph, in case you're thinking of trying this next year:

 _> The year-over-year growth of TBFA had been extraordinary until this 2012 Black Friday because of a Google penalty. (Yes, I tried removing bad links, uploaded a disavow list, apologized and then resubmitted the site for reconsideration, but I have a feeling Google is putting off the reconsideration until they know it's too late for me this year... I submitted the reconsideration request on Oct 19th and followed up again on Oct 31, but still have not heard a word from Google.) This year, organic traffic is down 95% due to the penalty. It doesn't help either that Yahoo/Bing decided to globally deindex almost any site that had the words "Black Friday" in its domain name too._

It sounds like he was making good money until this year, and now he's scrambling to get reconsidered by Google after they penalized his site. I wish him luck.

<comment><USER6> This is an interesting play. Normally I'd assume you wouldn't go out and tell everyone, hey I make website X.com and it earns $Y every year during November. Clearly he's concerned about being penalized by Google and is trying to get a link juice boost; would love to see a follow up December 26th with what worked and what didn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure why this was posted on SEOMoz. Seems to me Scott is looking to get quality links any way he can due to his penalty from spamming and buying links.

While I find the post informative, I am extremely disappointed by his methods.

More can be found on Reddit: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/12wyk7/i_run_a_black_f...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/12wyk7/i_run_a_black_friday_ads_site_i_made_16k_in/)

<comment><USER4> Hi xpose2000, sorry to here you are disappointed. Like I said before.. I'm pretty big on sharing my knowledge. I hope my experiences can be used to help someone else avoid the same pitfalls I did. That's all. I'm pretty sure SEOmoz decided to publish my article because they saw value in what it was saying and figured their user base could benefit from it. ~ Scott

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> it's kind of funny that he puts on a bit of a mock indignation when he talks about getting his organic traffic killed yet goes on to explain that he was serving unoriginal ad farm content loaded with affiliate links. duh?

wouldnt a month long seo engagement working for someone with real products and/or content pay similarly and would have the bonus of not being completely without redeeming value?

<comment><USER9> It sounds like his website was pretty popular. People came to his website looking for something, and left having found it. That sounds like enough "redeeming value" to me.

<comment><USER8> I'm not saying they're impartial parties but the fact that he's been punished everywhere suggests to me that it used to be pretty low value at least before he made changes trying to get back on google.

it's not some across the board black friday penalty either, as four of his competitors rank above him for the terms in his url despite him being the only one that's using g+; [https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=thanksgiving...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=thanksgiving%20black%20friday%20ads)

<comment><USER4> Hi Trotsky, the site and content are not low quality. I understand what you are trying to get at, but it was really just my poor choice in linkbuilding activities that got my site penalized. Also, the fact that I have an EMD (Exact match domain) doesn't help as much either. ~ Scott

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I the only one who finds this incredibly sleazy? Basically he makes money by tricking people to click on ads disguised as content.

<comment><USER4> People click the ads on my site because they find them relevant. ~ Scott (Site's owner)

<comment><USER10> But don't you find it at least a bit disingenuous to make a site promising "these black friday ads were leaked" and then blending in other ads with those?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Usually folks will only reveal their Adsense/etc. secrets once the secret no longer works for them, unfortunately. You see it a lot with information marketing products (the slightly more legit version of "Make Money Fast", usually with hype-y titles like "Google Bullet" or "Facebook Frenzy").

<comment><USER4> Are you saying I only revealed my secrets because they don't work any more?

Actually, this year my ads are making me more money per visitor than last year, so the opposite of what you say is true.

~ Scott [ owner of thanksgivingblackfridayads(.)com ]

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pretty great case of being in the right place at the right time with the right website ;D Now if he could figure out stuff for the rest of the months he'd be sitting on a pretty cool fortune!

Still, a great and inspiring story of how to leverage certain ideas to strike it big. Makes me wonder though if affiliate marketing blackfriday deals would've resulted in bigger numbers than adsense.

<comment><USER4> Hi ashray, I'm the owner of that site / author of the article.

I'd love to do more of this Adsense and affiliate marketing stuff in the non- November months. My day job keeps me pretty busy though.

Doing affiliate links did make some good $, but really, the revenue from Adsense is where I make most of it.</comment></comment>


GDC 2014 Procedural Animation Video - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfire.com/2014/05/GDC-2014-Procedural-Animation-Video

<comment><AUTHOR> Submitting this because it's of interest to developers. The developer of the game Overgrowth explains how he made a very natural-looking procedurally generated animation system using only a few keyframes in this recording of his talk at GDC.</comment>


UBeam: what happens when VCs don't study physics - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/can-ubeams-throughtheair-phone-charging-system-live-up-to-the-hype <comment><USER2> >The company appears to have suffered an exodus of technical talent. With the exception of Perry, none of the engineers listed on uBeam's patents are still at the company, according to their LinkedIn profiles. What's more, uBeam engineers are said to feel as though they were being pressured by management to describe the technology in more optimistic terms than they were comfortable with.</comment>


Show HN: County level Covid-19 data, showing the virus's regional disparities - <AUTHOR> http://www.countycovid19.com <comment><USER2> If you want to compare county-level data, try the Julia-based tool [1] that allows you to compare states and counties. This tool allows you to plot multiple entities, shows deaths or number of cases, allows linear or logarithmic, and has other options. Note that [1] may take some time to start, since it's using Heroku

[1] [https://covid-county-dash3.herokuapp.com/](https://covid-county- dash3.herokuapp.com/)</comment>


Facebook intends to wiretap encrypted chats - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/07/26/the-encryption-debate-is-over-dead-at-the-hands-of-facebook/ <comment><USER2> Here's the thing... you don't have the source code to the client and the company behind it can't be trusted.

You're asking to get burned if you're doing anything important with this client.</comment>


Dropbox blocks API access for Boxopus over piracy concerns - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/dropbox-bans-bittorrent-startup-boxopus-over-piracy-concerns-120626

<comment><USER2> "[$30,000 USD] in developments costs have gone down the drain". It seems kinda silly to put 30k$ in a project that's looking for trouble and where all your eggs are in somebody else's basket.

Also, I don't know the nature of Dropbox's app approval system, but my instinct is that it's somehow naive to assume that you're all good just because your app was not rejected. It's like speeding on the highway, not being stopped by the first cop you cross, then whining when another one arrests you further down the road: 'But the other officer cautioned my speeding!' lol sure.

When I read the initial post (yesterday?), my first thought was "How long before Dropbox blocks their access to their API".

<comment><USER3> I don't think it's silly at all. How many app are at Facebook's mercy that cost well over $30k? All of Zynga. I do see there is some risk, but there are certainly plenty of valid, legal reasons to use Bittorrent. I'm sorry, but I certainly think that this really is going the opposite direction of Dropbox's goal of becoming "the internet's file system". This just seems like the natural progression. Maybe they can port it to Google Drive.

I just don't see why products can be held accountable for their users' activity. Should we sue Dell because some guy had kiddy porn on his computer?

<comment><USER2> There are plenty of valid and legal reasons to use P2P file-sharing network, I'll be the first to claim so. But in an objective manner, one can't deny the bad reputation (on the legal side of things) those networks have. And it's pretty easy to understand that Dropbox might not be interested in being related this kind of shenanigans.

I also think the Facebook argument doesn't work in the current situation. When you know the risk of being blocked is so obviously high, you don't go and invest 30k$. Facebook have their own rules and somebody who'd be playing on their border should expect and assume the risk of being blocked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This was a given [1] (TOS based API key was pulled). Too much liability for Dropbox to take on even if they were not the primary on this one.

No matter how much the tech (or HN) audience hopes to the contrary, Dropbox is doing what they perceive to be the best thing for their service in the long run.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4152595>

</comment><comment><USER5> There have been numerous arrests, extraditions, domain name seizes and seizes of servers for companies that do a lot of piracy stuff. How can TorrentFreak and Boxopus claim "It's totally irrational to be afraid of bitorrent" with a straight face?

<comment><USER6> Most of that piracy stuff was not based on bittorrent. Also, Dropbox is currently used for piracy without bittorrent.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but so is EC2, S3, RackSpace, Azure, MediaFire, FTP, etc etc. The difference is that Dropbox doesn't want to be seen as enabling a service that they think will _primarily_ be used for piracy.

<comment><USER8> The smark thing for dropbox to do is to create a service with similar price structure (perhaps a tiny bit more expensive), and allow this sort of supposedly grey activity to take place there, and brand it differently.

Extract as much revenue from their software and infrastructure as possible, while not tarnish their name.

<comment><USER5> Until AWS shuts it down. Or the assets of the whole company get seized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Blocking technology based upon the perception that it could be used illegally isn't sound reasoning especially from a company that advertises their file sharing feature as ideal.

</comment><comment><USER10> Put your hand up if you saw this coming.

O/

When I saw the post I asked myself how long it would take for dropbox to block them, it took about a day.

</comment><comment><USER3> Oh man, Dropbox is really losing it's luster for me. First trying to get rid of the Public folder and now blocking third party apps. It's really too bad all of the hard work put into Boxopus has to go to waste. They won't even have profit to offset their beta testing bandwidth usage. I was really looking forward to having this product at my disposal.

<comment><USER11> Someone chanting that "it's Dropbox's API and they can do what they want" in 5, 4, 3, 2...

<comment><USER12> Well... yeah?

<comment><USER11> The presumption behind the chant is that what is legal is also moral, but that's clearly not the case, particularly in our ever more corrupt legal environment.

<comment><USER13> No, the presumption is that it's their API and they can do what they want. It's obviously a business decision. I'm pretty sure Dropbox didn't say "We hate torrenters" or "We want to turn away potential customers". They said "We see a liability and want to mitigate it to protect our business".

I don't see how that can be portrayed as "immoral".

<comment><USER11> The subject is "should Dropbox block the API" not "can Dropbox block the API."

And yes, the saw liability and wanted to mitigate it -- at the expense of moral principle.

<comment><USER13> I still don't think you've done any work to show that it's immoral for Dropbox to do this. Even if it weren't in their business interests, I don't think you've done the work to convince me that there is a moral issue at stake.

<comment><USER11> That's because I was already doing that work in a different comment and don't want to repeat myself. Feel free to address my remarks there.

I'm not saying it's not a complicated moral issue, but in my judgement it's far simpler when you're talking about big corporations with a lot of money and power. If a tiny business was too scared to take the proper stand, that would be one thing, but the big mega-corp ought to at least _try_ to do the right thing, and then only back down when there are serious legal issues they can't get across (see Twitter vs. the US government regarding releasing user information).

<comment><USER14> ... Dropbox is a megacorp? They have something like 100 employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think it's important to note here that this is one of the main reasons that people shouldn't use cloud storage for sensitive stuff.

I'm pretty sure that the feds have access to your dropbox, google drive, etc. Even if they don't, in the case that you do get in trouble for any level of SUSPECTED piracy, all this stuff will be pretty open to them to snoop in.

That just sounds like bad news to me. In the whole cloud storage vs. local argument, I do think it's an important point to raise.

TLDR; don't backup your porn/torrented-stuff to your cloud storage :P

</comment><comment><USER16> I was just wondering the other day how this got approved by Dropbox :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Well, make it torrent-to-mail then. It's not like Dropbox was the only good choice for the receiving end of the service. You don't need to be a genius to find other replacements.

<comment><USER18> And you don't have to be a genius to see this coming. In fact you have to be amazingly tone deaf. Fanatasies about the great pirate revolution are fine but legitimate businesses have to deal with reality.

<comment><USER17> Given viable replacements for Dropbox, this is not a huge blow. I'd expect more legal trouble on their torrent end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 3 months with 5 people is a $30k investment?

Assuming full time, that's around 2500 man hours. I guess that's $30k if you pay them $12/hour.

</comment><comment><USER20> pretty smart move to protect their brand IMO

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't suppose Google Drive or Amazon's Clouddrive have an API?

<comment><AUTHOR> Drive does, yes. (<https://developers.google.com/drive/v1/reference/>)

<comment><USER13> They both do, my sarcasm sensor is going off for jeffool's post.

<comment><USER21> Not sarcasm. I genuinely didn't know. But the inference was very obvious and heavy, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Y'know, I'll bet Dropbox is small enough that one engineer with a resignation letter in hand could've reversed this before it was announced publicly.

<comment><USER14> Dropbox engineers don't owe Boxopus anything. Why would you expect them to jump ship?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Duh.

</comment><comment><USER11> On the one hand, this was predictable. On the other, it is unethical by Dropbox. What they said was telling:

"It's come to our attention that latest Boxopus features __could be perceived __as encouraging users to violate copyright using Dropbox."

"Could be perceived"? An apple "could be perceived" as a hand grenade by a sufficiently insane person. Only a blatantly corrupt legal environment would use "could be perceived" as a standard for punishing someone. Of course, that's the kind of legal environment we live in.

Should Dropbox take the risk? As an industry leader who is greatly benefiting from "The System", it is their duty to take the proper moral stand. Otherwise they are clearly just part of the problem.

<comment><USER24> Dropbox is taking a moral stand. They are taking a stand against piracy. They choose not to be part of the problem.

Sure, Boxopus _could_ be used for legal purposes, just as bittorrent _could_ be used for legal purposes. But everyone on HN knows that the vast majority of bittorrent use is not for legal purposes. Visit _any_ major torrent site. Look at the first 1000 torrents. Count the number of legal torrents. Checking the PirateBay, KickAssTorrents, and Demonoid, I count about 16 legitimate uses of bittorrent. The remaining 984 torents are ebooks, movies, software or games.

<comment><USER11> These rich corporations are de facto stewards of our political system. (That may not be the ideal way the political system should work, but that's how it does work, and the well-connected, well-funded fully exploit it).

And the problem here isn't piracy. It's freedom of speech and property rights. Might someone misuse their property? Sure. But that's no grounds for stifling them.

Dropbox is behaving in an immoral fashion. (For contrast, look at what Twitter's very morally upstanding behavior on a number of issues over the past few years).

<comment><USER24> Dropbox is behaving morally. They are choosing not to allow a product/service that they know will be overwhelmingly used for copyright violations. This is not theft, but it does cause meaningful and measurable economic harm to the owners and producers. Before you spout off about media company oppression, remember that the people most affected by piracy are the crews that work behind the scenes to make the movies and tv shows. The crews are the first people fired if movies and tv shows can't cover their budget.

Furthermore, freedom of speech is protection from _government_ censorship of speech. Private persons do not have to let you say anything on _their property_. Private persons do not have to let you use _their property_. Dropbox is a private company. It does not have to let other people use its API, website, service, facilities, or employees.

If you want to use Boxopus some much, _create your own Dropbox, from scratch._ Then you can do whatever you want with it.

<comment><USER11> While I agree with your free market principles, I do not agree with your application in this mixed economy context. Dropbox is not exactly a private company. The larger the company, the more it tends to be a branch of our government (via insidious corporatist mechanisms), so your standing up for their "private property" rights is dangerously misplaced.

An even more extreme example would be the telecoms, which greatly benefit from government privilege and where individual competition is prohibited. Saying "build your own telecom from scratch, don't complain" is just very deranged given the context.

Further, even if you were correct that it was a truly private company, your defense on the grounds of property rights is misplaced. A torrent is merely a technical way of copying efficiently, it is not a copyright-violating tool. Whether you believe it is often used for that purpose is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that there are users with legitimate needs for this service, and Dropbox is arbitrarily declaring it off limits because some other users might use it in a way they don't approve of. There is no moral principle that says punish Peter for what Paul might be doing; on the contrary, behaving that is viciously immoral behavior.

So, Dropbox is indeed behaving immorally.

<comment><USER18> Oh the noble pirate, Dropbox must throw themselves on their sword to be moral. You are way out on a ledge but your tinfoil hat fits well.

<comment><USER11> Is it your view that Twitter has "thrown themselves on their sword" when they went out of their way to defend the rights of their users against government subpoena? Or when they took a stand on software patents?

<comment><USER25> Twitter and Drop box can have independent "moral compasses". They don't have to have the same -just as you and I don't have to share the same. Not to imply that questioning subpoenas equates to questioning piracy. Piracy is not a right, while having protections against unreasonable searches is aright (depending on country, of course).

<comment><USER11> Well sure, they _can_ have independent moral compasses, but they shouldn't. They both depend on a civilized society. Dropbox needs to uphold and defend the values of civilization (which don't include a paternalistic authoritarian monitoring system), not thwart them.

<comment><USER25> I disagree. Just because I could open a grocery store which found it morally repugnant to sell animal-derived products does not mean everyone should share the same values. People and firms should be able to do the same within the framework of law

<comment><USER11> Animal-derived products are not morally repugnant, and the framework of law is no substitute for having a good moral sense.

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

<comment><USER25> >and the framework of law is no substitute for having a good moral sense.

Well, then, they're covered doubly. They are following moral sense and are also following the law. I.e. I do not see how taking this path breaks laws and I don't see their choice as being immoral.

W/re animal-derived products. You and I might feel that eating animal flesh is a-ok, morally speaking. Conversely I and others might feel otherwise -that's it's morally indefensible. (see animal rights activists, or "the sexual politics of meat", for example).

Dr. King used that phrase to make a point, he didn't say that to prove the legality of what Hitler did.

<comment><USER11> How you or others "feel" is not a moral argument. And you do not understand the point of Dr. King's quote.

<comment><USER26> Actually how people "feel" is about what makes up ALL of a moral argument. It's moral for you to waste an animals life when tofo rice and beans give you the same amino acids and proteins? It's moral for us to eat these things and spend a hundred times more for the chicken then for the rice? It's moral for us to do this when that money could be spent on a hundred meals for starving children?

Much like beauty, morality is in the eye of the beholder, it's what society accepts. There were groups which at one point thought it was morally acceptable to assault women if they were peasants, but not if they were royalty. Everyone at the time thought that was morally okay, since Kings chose their knights, and god chose the king. Sure some things will get a more broadly accepted morally wrong or right vote by people. (not many people today would say rape is okay for instance) but abortion, animal eating, stem cells and LBGT's are still accepted by some and wrong by others. It's called Freedom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Castles made of sand and all that.

</comment><comment><USER27> I point to this and I point to the arrest of Kim DotCom. That is all.</comment>


Zero latency communications - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@matthewsinclair/0080-zero-latency-communications-5fc314f4acec?source=linkShare-2d9370f7f6e1-1532160855 <comment><USER2> Zero latency noise, interruptions and distractions. There should be a nonzero- sum cost (ie getting up and walking to another office) for even informal meetings because meetings are time sinks, not getting things done. Better yet is to have an IoT "traffic signal" beyond headphones that indicates level of focus, urgency and/or social receptivity.</comment>


How to maximize revenue on iOS apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.brain-scape.com/blog/2011/10/app-store-revenue-optimization-class-slideshare-embedded/

<comment><USER2> Very cool, this is the first collection of info I've seen on this topic.

</comment><comment><USER3> definitely a must read for anyone with an app in iTunes. it got a great response from the rest of the crowd at general assembly.

</comment><comment><USER4> excellent advice</comment>


Ask YC: Great idea, but not too fond of the tech, is it still worth pursuing? - <AUTHOR>

So say you've got this brilliant and magnificent great idea that you know will get lots of users and everything. But it's specific or nichey enough that requires you to master/learn another language/technology to see it happen.<p>Would you still do it? <comment><USER2> Go for it, it is even more fun that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends on the effort/prospects ratio.</comment>


Google increases font size on search page - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/now-s-u-p-e-r-sized.html

<comment><USER2> You know this is from September, right?</comment>


America's First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971 (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377281 <comment><USER3> When Ronald Graham, a concerned friend and fellow mathematician, bet him [Erdos] $500 that he couldn't stay off his drug of choice for a month, Erdos accepted and easily won the challenge. When the 30 days was up, Erdos said to Graham, "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." Erdos resumed taking amphetamines and did so for every day of his life until his death 17 years later.

[https://turningpointtreatmentcenter.com/why-are- intelligent-...](https://turningpointtreatmentcenter.com/why-are-intelligent- people-more-likely-to-abuse-drugs/)

<comment><USER4> Does this amphetamine use constitute abuse? Drug abuse is typically defined as use that creates negative effects to the person's social and/or personal health. It seems to me his drug use gave him the ability to work at a high level and allowed him to derive self-worth from that work. He was also able to discontinue the drug use at will. Even if there were some negative health side-effects, I wonder if abuse should be the term used here.

<comment><USER5> "Use" vs "abuse" is generally an ideological choice, not really related to the actual use of a substance. If someone uses the word "abuse" in situations like that, it's clear that they are a prohibitionist, to whom _all_ use is abuse.

Of course, egregious examples can very well be classed as abuse. But if someone classifies examples like the one you reference as abuse, then they're a prohibitionist, plain and simple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps this is the answer to this question [https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/)

<comment><USER7> I tried to read it but didn't get the answer, I did get the good question: WTF happened in 1971?

I have a dark suspicion that it has something to do with the rise of computers, of information economy. When some people can take advantage of computers and others can't that leads to income disparity.

<comment><USER8> Primarily the site implies moving off of the gold standard in 1971 was main trigger. This decouples the growth of money, value of assets, wages, productivity, etc. which all tracked together in the preceding thirty years.

<comment><USER9> The years around 1970 are one of those inflection points that is a lot like the causes of the Industrial Revolution: it can't be summed into a few easy factors.

For me the defining thing is the emergence of the USA from the postwar politics and policies and into more of an assumed administrator of the globalization project, a status that it retained until just recently.

Besides the information systems, international containerization standards were settled around this time and jet travel was becoming more affordable. A lot of pieces were in place to renegotiate trade and labor deals. And there was a break with numerous social policies; the calls from think-tanks to reinstate a stratified society started coming out at this time too. Big public infrastructure projects mostly died out in the 70's, and the narcotic drug trade from Mexico and the resulting "drug wars" picked up in the late 60's, conveniently just in time for amphetamenes to fall out of favor.

So, the move away from gold is just one of numerous things that changed in a surpisingly short time frame.

<comment><USER8> Gold was the inflection point. It wasn't just the US economy you will find a similar inflection point around the world. Even if all the other factors remained the same but the world had stayed on Breton Woods, the economic change that could have occurred since 1970 would have been orders of magnitude less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Definition of iatrogenic : induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures

</comment><comment><USER11> One thing I hardly find documented is: what is the daily usage of the hard core users? How does it compare to the 10-60 mg daily dosages prescribed for ADHD

<comment><USER12> With high doses every day you can develop an insane tolerance to amphetamines. 500mg in a day wouldn't be that unusual.

<comment><USER13> Even at low, prescribed, dosages, I find myself needing to take a day or two off each week to avoid building a tolerance.

I'm not sure if others experience the same thing, but I can absolutely feel the effects slipping away, even after just 10 days of continuous use.

<comment><USER14> For what its worth I've had good luck switching to Modafinil (And extra caffeine) on the weekends, to keep my tolerance down. I also like to take ~4+ day breaks every ~3 months or so, which helps a ton.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting read. I've always assumed that prescription drug pushing and addiction problems were a modern phenomenon, so it's interesting to read about drug companies developing and pushing addictive drugs almost a century ago.

<comment><USER16> In addition to Coca-cola famously using coca leaves in its original recipe, 7 Up contained lithium citrate, a mood stabilizer.

<comment><USER17> Believe me when I say lithium isn't particularly enjoyable

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's always interesting to me how illegal drugs wax and wane in popularity.

We like to blame opioid over-prescribing for the surge in opioid use, but there was also a heroin "epidemic" in the 1970's that slowly petered out as cocaine became the focus in the 80's.

<comment><USER18> > as cocaine became the focus in the 80's

Well, we know more about this one now, thanks Reagan and Iran-Contra.

<comment><USER19> That cocaine didn't buy itself.

<comment><USER20> That cocaine that people purchased didn't manufacture and distribute itself across international borders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Do you want to reduce drug addiction? Make the world a better place. Everyone suffers so much. Loneliness, depression and anxiety and becoming more prevalent. These are increased risk factors for addiction.

<comment><USER22> Are you familiar with the rat park experiment? You're making claims directly supported by its findings.

One of the most interesting was that happy rats who had pleasant quarters and social interaction would choose not to take drugs (morphine, iirc) even if they had used them previously. Pretty interesting stuff.

<comment><USER19> The opposite of addiction is connection.

<comment><USER21> Addiction is a disease of loneliness.

<comment><USER23> Avoiding and staying out of HALT situations is an addiction recovery motto:

Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired

<comment><USER24> Working on quitting nicotine right now, the only problem is when I don't have it I'm all of those besides Lonely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> (throwaway just in case, although i do not keep it a secret from friends)

tl;dr; No, amphetamines are not pleasant/euphoric for everyone. Not everyone get high/wired/"sped up" on it. Not a wonder drug for everyone. May help with depression induced by anxiety induced by not getting shit done (not necessarily by getting something done, but instead switching attention away from things not done).

My whole life I was not able to do much of mental work during the day, with my most productive time being around midnight +- 3-4 hours. I kinda just lived with it considering it being due to the way I grew up. I got my first full time job at around 25 yo (before that it was freelancing) and got hit hard with a "normal" schedule (be at work at 8am, leave office at 5pm, try to fall asleep at 11pm to be ready to wake at 7am next day). That was a time I started drinking coffee. It used to give me goosebumps, even at a small sip from a typical office low-end brewing machine. Did not really helped much, but I think it gave me that initial boost and I stuck with it. Nowadays I almost never drink tea (used to be my exclusive brewed beverage) and mostly drink coffee.

Fast forward in my earlier 30ties. I get quite regularly severe depression- like (never diagnosed) periods. Trying different things, reading a lot online. Eventually meeting with psychiatrist explaining what is going on (can't do stuff during the day, getting depressed quite regularly about it, bunch of other shit) suspecting all of that causing anxiety which metamorphosing into depression. Honestly, I wasn't quite sure if it is true physiological condition or just some period in my life where my habits and life stage got in conflicts with each others. I read about ADHD and it seemed quite familiar. I also considered bi-polar condition, but psychiatrist ruled it out.

As for ADHD, psychiatrist was very reluctant to write such a diagnose given that I had relatively good life (good income, lack of destructive impulsive actions affecting life quality, family, job, etc). He started me at 5mg extended release. It did literally nothing. Over months trying he bumped it to 25mg XR and after that failed to produce any noticeable effect, he suggested to try 20mg instant release twice a day. Safe long-term maintenance dose accordingly to FDA is 70mg. At that point I certainly felt some effect, but I am not quite sure it is what everyone think it feels like.

First of all, very counter-intuitive - amphetamine often makes me sleepy and tired. But if I try to take a nap, I almost never can truly fall asleep. Most of the time I just end up laying in the bed with closed eyes. The whole experience doesn't feel energizing or euphoric at all.

Secondly, on many days it appears to reduce anxiety about "getting something done" to the point where I did not experience my regular depression episodes this year.

With instant release, I have to take it twice a day. I often forget to take second pill. Sometimes I forget to take a first one. I tried nicotine vape earlier, and i dont think i ever forgot to take vape mod with me, or keeping it full and charged.

With 20mg instant release I sometimes experienced "locked down" feeling, which I found quite unpleasant. Not sure if it is that "focus" feeling everyone is talking about, but it certainly was different from focus I get when I am "in the zone" (the pleasant one). My solution was to break 20mg in half and take 10mg each 2hrs. Downside - I get more chances to forget about it during the day.

Going higher than 20mg twice a day seems to be pointless, as I already prefer to break 20mg twice a day to 10mg four times a day. It also raises blood pressure noticeably, and I would expect higher dose will do it even more. Effects of it are certainly not pleasant enough for me to even consider taking it recreationally. But it seems to help with depression/anxiety episodes - <USER2> far one year, will see how it will feel next spring, as it is the time I had the most of these episodes. So it seems this crutch is helping me somewhat.

</comment><comment><USER26> What's next, "America's caffeine epidemic"?

Interspersed with all this pedantry is a smarmy judgement towards stimulants and COMPLETE LACK of context of the times, and a lack of any societal or species context that recognizes the BREATHTAKING ACHIEVEMENTS during said times of "Oh so bad bad we should be ashamed it's an epidemic!" There's an undercurrent here that is almost criminal.

The sin is not excess, certainly at 5mg a dose. The sin is not 'euphoria', which often turns out to be psych-speak for 'a simple will to live'. What people crave with caffeine and amphetamine is mental alertness. Caffeine delivers, speed delivers more. And with that people can do, have done, incredible things.

Aside from the specific physiological effects like chronically overbearing hearts that also plagues athletes, the worst mental effects of stimulants are often blamed directly on the drug -- not abusers' lack of discipline -- and result from a LACK OF or DISRUPTION OF sleep. Stimulants do NOT, in themselves, make you crazy.

<comment><USER27> I dated someone with a meth problem for five years and would disagree with you. Meth completely changes a person's personality.

I think all drugs should be legal and think humans have done amazing things with/on drugs. I've also seen this go horribly awry and witnessed some absolutely insane things from people on speed. There's a lot more to it than simply a lack of sleep.

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

<comment><USER28> Sorry, but that's just one person. In what situation would you trust a study based on one person?

I know, lots of people go crazy on meth. There is also god knows what else in street meth. There are so many people taking amphetamines that are successful and there are people taking prescription methamphetamine as well.

Personally I wouldn't want to be on stimulants, long term, on a daily basis. But just because you know one person(or maybe more) that went crazy and had a personality change on meth, does not mean that there isn't successful use.

There are also plenty of people successfully using opiates as well. So many people use drugs daily and live a normal life.

<comment><USER29> >In what situation would you trust a study based on one person?

Anytime someone else makes a blanket statement with no study (example: amphetamine doesn't make you crazy)...all you need is n=1 to disprove that.

<comment><USER28> But that goes both ways...

<comment><USER29> Proving and disproving a hypothesis are entirely different standards.

For example I have a coin with heads/tails, I hypothesis if I flip it it always lands on heads and we flip it 1 time (n=1), and sure enough it lands on heads that doesn't prove my hypothesis (its very weak support at best), whereas is we flip the coin 1 time (n=1) and its tails that disproves my hypothesis (or at least is strong support my hypothesis is wrong).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Most people would think the government is responsible for all these drug epidemics: the DEA jailing minorities on minor infractions or the CIA hustling cocaine between countries (look it up).

But really the true culprit is just the youth, and always has been. Ever since the early 1900s traditional family values and social community/cohesion has been seriously on decline. Say what you will about Ted Kaczynski, but his essay/book _Industrial Society and its Future_ is a wealth of knowledge on this subject (strange I know coming from a Christian woman).

But look at it this way: people resort to drugs because reality sucks. Why does reality suck? Well, we live in a society, and this very society (and its implicit social network) causes our youth to suffer.

Just look at how much the new Joker movie resonated with kids, teenagers and young adults! Heck, my niece of 12 years was itching to put on a mask and march in the street after she walked out of the theater. It was terrifying.

<comment><USER31> I would disagree that today's youth are suffering because 'reality sucks'. If anything the youth of today have it better than ever before. In 1950 [at least in the USA] a youth would not have had access to reliable information on possible career choices and outcomes apart from maybe a school counselor, now that information is available instantly on the internet. Likewise reality would have __really __sucked had the youth had the youth been female or LGBT, as reliable contraception and abortion were not available. Likewise suicide and crises services were not as available. Now we have things like the it gets better project, texting to social hotlines. This has vastly improved the options available to the youth of today for psychological support.

Of course reality will still suck for some, but it is vastly better than 50-70 years ago.

<comment><USER32> There is more to life than contraception and psychological counselling. A chance at a steady job, the ability to save money, the opportunity to start a family, the prospect of retiring with a Social Security check, and confidence in the ecological future of the planet come to mind.

<comment><USER33> Meanwhile new CS grads are regularly getting $170k+ annual pay packages at large tech companies.

There's a disparity of experience out there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your Day with Encryption - <AUTHOR> https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2019/10/your-day-with-encryption/ <comment><AUTHOR> I like how this is a very simple way to explain to NON-technical people how much encryption plays a role in their daily lives.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you leave a comfortable corporate job for career growth? - <AUTHOR> I spent the last 3 years (post-college) working in a very cushy corporate job. The culture is super laid back: Unlimited PTO, extremely flexible hours, work from home whenever and even a ping pong table haha. The only issue is that my actual work doesn't excite me all, in fact, it's kinda boring. Also, career growth in this company is very slow. I would essentially be in the same position for another three years at best. Also, my salary is about 10K less than what I would make elsewhere. Am I crazy for looking for other stuff or should I just appreciate where I'm at? <comment><USER2> Did this several times. Now in my dotage, looking back, I'd slightly lean against it. YMMV.

IMO, the biggest risk in switching jobs is the possibility that your new boss (or perhaps one of your close colleagues) will be a jackass/psycopath/etc. This can easily ruin a few years of your life and leave a good hole in your career.

I could double or triple my salary right now, but after having been burned a couple of times, I'm _very_ nervous about risking it again.</comment>


Zoom is being sued for sharing data with Facebook without explicit consent - <AUTHOR> https://www.jpost.com/International/Zoom-is-being-sued-for-sharing-data-with-Facebook-without-explicit-consent-623068 <comment><USER2> I wonder how many semi-popular apps there are doing the same but because they aren't that people no one is checking them the way people check Zoom nowadays.

<comment><USER3> Apps _and_ websites. jpost.com, the domain of the submission, is making calls to Twitter, Google, spot.im (???) and CloudFlare. I don't remember giving them permission to send my data there.

Bit ridiculous. I feel like browsers gonna have to get a lot better/locked down before we can actually enforce anyone to be responsible for sending data all over the place.</comment></comment>


iOS internationalization from day one - <AUTHOR> http://www.stephenbalaban.com/babatuba-ios-internationalization/

<comment><USER2> Potatolicious, you seem to be hell-banned even though you made the most valuable comment:

"There really is no excuse for not internationalizing your codebase from day one. Even if you intend to be English-only at the beginning, wrapping your strings in NSLocalizedString is just good form. It also separates your app's copy from your codebase. If your shop isn't purely staffed with programmers, it allows you to hand off a file to someone who is better at writing copy and have them edit it without assistance from you. Internationalization is easy too - there are shops out there that offer translation services that plug neatly into iOS. You literally upload a string file and they will hand back a string file translated into the language of your choice. I've used Tethras in the past with a good experience (all except the Greek translations... whoever they're farming the Greek out to is awful)."

<comment><USER3> Odd. I don't think I'm hellbanned, that'd be unfortunate. There was a weird bit of double posting with that comment though, maybe that's what's going on.

<comment><USER2> Hmm. This comment shows up fine indeed. HN works in mysterious ways sometimes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There really is no excuse for not internationalizing your codebase from day one. Even if you intend to be English-only at the beginning, wrapping your strings in NSLocalizedString is just good form.

It also separates your app's copy from your codebase. If your shop isn't purely staffed with programmers, it allows you to hand off a file to someone who is better at writing copy and have them edit it without assistance from you.

Internationalization is easy too - there are shops out there that offer translation services that plug neatly into iOS. You literally upload a string file and they will hand back a string file translated into the language of your choice. I've used Tethras in the past with a good experience (all except the Greek translations... whoever they're farming the Greek out to is awful).

</comment><comment><USER4> That Chinese doesn't make much sense in case anyone wonders.

<comment><USER5> It literally means swipe swipe (baba) image (tu) cafe (ba), which seems contrived but OK :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> i have no idea what this app does from site

<comment><AUTHOR> It lets you make grid images like these: <https://twitter.com/babatuba8></comment></comment>


How to write readable code? 5 Tips to improve your code readability. - <AUTHOR> http://www.makinggoodsoftware.com/2009/06/22/how-to-write-readable-code/

<comment><USER2> The best tip I've ever received is "Try not to write comments. Make your code speak for itself."

And I write a lot of perl.

<comment><USER3> I came here to say exactly the opposite.

I read a lot of code these days where people seem to think that descriptive variable and function names replace the need for any comments. But, even the most well written code is only going to make it clear _what_ the code it doing. The _why_ is likely to remain obscure. And without knowing why the code does what it does, it will often be impossible to know whether you can make certain changes.

<comment><USER4> You make a good point about _why_ vs. _what_. Still, my experience has been that if I ask myself when adding a comment, "Could I make the code say this instead?" the answer is "yes" 9 times out of 10. It is preferable to do so because code is much likelier to be read and maintained than comments are. Also, this question often makes me see flaws in how the code was expressing itself, so I end up with better code.

<comment><USER5> I think the best comment is one which explains an ugly edge case which forces the code to look like it does.

//window.update; is not used because of API bug #12345 see: bugs.mysql.com/12345 so use xyz instead.

Nine times out of ten I can read and understand good code with little effort, but code often starts out looking clean and becomes messy for a reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "3.- Use abstractions only when necessary (YAGNI and KISS)...You Are Not Going to Need It (YAGNI)..."

I would revise this to say "Use abstractions only when you can see a valid future use." I've spent days and weeks literally just thinking about how to architect a solution and wrapping my mind around all the possibilities. Months later, after making those decisions and writing the code, I inevitably need to add new functionality. Often, I can accomplish my new goal with a ridiculously small amount of code and it really gives me joy for the rest of the day.

I could have taken the easy route initially and just done "what was necessary", but I would have paid for it ten fold later...and sometimes do when I take the shortcut (which is thankfully rare.)

<comment><USER7> I'd restrict that further. "Use abstractions only when you can see a valid _present_ use."

I've also spent days and weeks thinking about how to architect a solution, and then been wonderfully gratified when I can add new functionality with just a couple lines. More often, however, I find that the new function ends up being something totally unexpected, which I would never have thought of at the time I was writing the code. And then I have to throw away all those carefully crafted abstractions, because they just get in the way and slow me down while the software changes in unexpected ways.

It's easy to remember the successes. But more often, initial overarchitecting just results in lost time and wasted effort. Worse, it can be actively counterproductive if you don't have the courage to throw away dead code that's no longer useful.

<comment><USER8> In fact, even at the danger of being annoying, I would rephrase that once again. "USE abstractions when you can see a valid present use". Not listening to your code asking for a common abstraction of several things which already exist just for the sake of not using an abstraction ("well, because!") will result in an even bigger mess than most abstractions cause.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _if it takes more than 5 minutes for the other programmer to have a high level idea of the design, assume that the code is not readable._

I'd argue that a high-level description of the system being easy to grasp is kind-of orthogonal to whether the code is readable or not.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps, but I'm guessing that what he means here is more of a rough structural understanding of the code. In other words, what pieces have what function, and in general how do they interact with one another.

While this doesn't necessarily mean the code will be readable, I'd say that there's a lot to be said for a code layout in which it's easy to figure out roughly which code needs to be touched to make a given change or fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Be brief.

When their are three ways to do something, do the one that takes the least code (assuming it's not completely obscure and ridiculous).

It's analogous to talking to people: the more you say the less they remember.

<comment><USER12> I agree. I prefer to attach a 5-line comment to 10 lines of code to writing 15 lines of code. If the reader knows the idiom great, if not, he can grasp it without going into the details.

Not everybody agrees, though.</comment></comment>


Is Facebook Innovative? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2011/12/20/is-facebook-innovative/ <comment><USER2> Of course: for one, Facebook has pushed the boundaries of what we accept in terms of privacy. They have changed the behaviour of the whole world (not single-handed, but they have really pushed). Their 3 steps forward, 1 step back approach to pushing new features works because they create products people want but don't necessarily understand straight off the bat.

Facebook surely would not be attracting the best developers, when Google offers more money, if they weren't at the cutting edge.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite Golang books? - <AUTHOR> I have been a heavy go practitioner over the last few years and think it's time to level up using some theory. If you've read a book on Golang that you enjoyed feel free to share. <comment><USER2> I personally found "Go in Practice" really good. What makes this book different is that it is very hands on. Rather than teaching the Go syntax, it goes directly into some practical aspects of everyday software, and explains them from the perspective of the language.

You can check it out on Amazon ([https://amzn.to/2YLsBiN](https://amzn.to/2YLsBiN)) and support my humble contribution to the blogging world. Thanks!</comment>


Superintelligence cannot be contained: Lessons from Computability Theory - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.00913 <comment><USER2> This seems like a very big, pretty unreasonable assumption: "Assuming that a superintelligence will contain a program that includes all the programs that can be executed by a universal Turing machine on input potentially as complex as the state of the world"

This assumption is essentially assuming that "superintelligence" means "god- like intelligence" (god-like because it can compute anything about the world), which is not what the first AGIs that are even significantly smarter than humans would look like.

<comment><USER3> I think the author has the unstated assumption that "humans will continue to work on smarter and better machines until such a god-like machine is eventually constructed, OR that machines will be created that can self-improve until this state is reached." It doesn't seem unreasonable to me -- the alternative is that at some point in the future, we _STOP_ making machines smarter for good.

<comment><USER2> There is no reason to believe it is even possible to even create such a God- like intelligence. Even harnessing the energy of the sun would not give you enough energy to compute _anything about the universe_. We also have every reason to believe that even if this were possible, it would only happen in the far future (e.g. hundreds of years).

<comment><USER4> Only hundreds?

That's not that many lifetimes.

<comment><USER2> I was just pulling a number out of thin air. We're in scifi speculation territory so the numbers are all made up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fun post. There's some fluff on the way but the central idea that the general function Harm(R, D) is equivalent to the halting problem seems almost trivially obvious once you ask the question. (So much for the laws of robotics.)

My question is whether this approach even models the issue correctly. We humans have problems just defining what terms like happiness, harm, and other general concepts even mean. There's no reason to think that AIs will be any better, whether assisted by us or through their own methods of discovery.

Many successful systems humans have developed for reducing harm take the approach of building up rules for specific cases rather than trying to deduce the cases and their solutions from general principles. Every legal system I can think of works this way and they have by and large worked pretty well. The successful ones have a method for adding to case law in a systematic way, ideally without going to war in the process.

So maybe we should keep the lawyers around after all?

</comment><comment><USER6> I especially like the story at the end:

> More terrible than either of these tales is the fable of the monkey's > paw[12], written by W. W. Jacobs, an English writer of the beginning of the > [20th] century. A retired English working-man is sitting at his table with > his wife and a friend, a returned British sergeant-major from India. The > sergeant-major shows his hosts an amulet in the form of a dried, wizened > monkey's paw... [which has] the power of granting three wishes to each of > three people... The last [wish of the first owner] was for death... His > friend... wishes to test its powers. His first [wish] is for 200 pounds. > Shortly thereafter there is a knock at the door, and an official of the > company by which his son is em- ployed enters the room. The father learns > that his son has been killed in the machinery, but that the company... > wishes to pay the father the sum of 200 pounds... The grief-stricken father > makes his second wish -that his son may return- and when there is another > knock at the door... something appears... the ghost of the son. The final > wish is that the ghost should go away. In these sto- ries the point is that > the agencies of magic are literal-minded... The new agencies of the learn- > ing machine are also literal-minded. If we pro- gram a machine... and ask > for victory and do not know what we mean by it, we shall find the ghost > knocking at our door.

</comment><comment><USER7> Let's throw in a time factor here, and change the way we define our machine: "Assuming that a superintelligence [SI] will contain a program that _can efficiently infer /deduce_ all the programs that can be executed by a universal Turing machine on input potentially as complex as the state of the world". This seems much more reasonable in terms of how thinking gets done.

We see links to the Halting Problem pop up at times when discussing compilers. Now, compilers try to interpret code in the most perfect way possible. But of course, finding the optimal solution is just the Halting Problem in disguise, and instead they opt for a more pragmatic solution. While none are perfect, some of them are also really, really good, though ([http://lemire.me/blog/2016/05/23/the-surprising- cleverness-o...](http://lemire.me/blog/2016/05/23/the-surprising-cleverness- of-modern-compilers/)).

Now this is just an analogy, but I think the parallel can be drawn back to the SI scenario. We might not have SIs that never cause harm _perfectly_ , but this does not preclude them from being really, really good at it. Because if you admit the definition above, you're also implying that it will efficiently infer/deduce its harm function.

</comment><comment><USER8> Cute cartoons, but the entire argument rests on the _insane_ assumption that "a superintelligent machine could simulate the behavior of an arbitrary Turing machine on arbitrary input" (pp.4-5) (!).

<comment><USER9> ...thus being itself Turing-complete? Why is this unreasonable?

<comment><USER8> Because of the (implicit) assumption that it runs _efficiently_ (as in, at most in polynomial time) _even_ on "arbitrarily complex" inputs... Otherwise the "superintelligence" would not be any different from your run-of-the-mill Turing-complete interpreter!

<comment><USER9> > Because of the (implicit) assumption that it runs efficiently (as in, at > most in polynomial time) even on "arbitrarily complex" inputs...

Uhm... I have no idea where did you get this assumption, because it was not expressed in the sentence we're talking about. Even Turing machine doesn't run in polynomial time on arbitrarily complex input with an arbitrary program.

The super AI doesn't need to surpass the Turing machine, it only needs to efficiently _emulate_ it, i.e. _interpret_ its program. If the TM program was inefficient and ran in exponential time, super AI may run in exponential time as well.

> Otherwise the "superintelligence" would not be any different from your run- > of-the-mill Turing-complete interpreter!

Oh. You mean that my mind is not any different from my computer? Because I _can_ run Turing machine (with a little help of external memory, like paper). That's something new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thank you! I've been saying as much for years - albeit with fewer proofs and from a more paternal bent.</comment>


What You Can't Say (2004) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html <comment><USER3> Closet conservatives (and other moral minorities) across the Valley are now virtually guaranteed to shut their closet doors even tighter.

Post election, I recall my timelines erupt with emotion -- outrage, despair, betrayal -- then subdue to reflection. Some called for the need to truly reach out to those across the aisle and to listen and understand, earnestly lending an ear even to views that we strongly oppose.

Recent events will be a step back in such relations, as dissent has been dismissed demonstrably without such considerations.

When the people we must understand in order to reach bipartisanship go into hiding for fear of being outed, broadening our perspective becomes difficult.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that reasonable political opinions motivated by nothing resembling hatred are being targeted as indicative of hateful thought.

A perfect example is the stand one may take that 'Sanctuary Cities' are bad. Voicing opposition to sanctuary cities can get you labelled as a racist, which is ridiculous.

<comment><USER3> In a separate thread I wrote this excerpt, which is related to what you are getting at:

 _We 've always conflated moral leanings with truth. Previously, "the truth" was right leaning; it is now left leaning. Unfortunately, many people find (and have always found) that all it takes to dismiss an opposing moral position is to point out that their opponent's position is untruthful, and the discussion (or lack thereof) ends there._

<comment><USER4> Well said. The challenge is that good politics is not always nice.

As a general principle, much of modern Western thought seems to be obsessed with minimizing any sort of discomfort in the present moment, regardless of whether that discomfort is a temporary and necessary phase one must pass through in order to reach a better future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can say whatever you want. You can be as loathsome or virtuous as you'd like on your own time and dime. But the moment what you say goes contrary to the shared expectations of the company you belong to or negatively impacts how business is done, you're finished.

Is this a difficult or arguable point?

<comment><USER6> It's neither difficult nor arguable, but it's a bit of a cop-out. Google is, of course, well within their legal rights to fire the employee. The 1A applies only to government restrictions on speech.

But the larger question, of whether it is good that a particular political ideology, adhered to by a small minority of the country, should hold such sway over public discourse that to challenge any of its dogmas is to commit career suicide, remains. This is a trend that is only accelerating, and it's going nowhere good.

<comment><USER5> If he held his opinion purely in the public sphere, I'd agree with you - <USER2> he posted it in an internal companywide manner that directly impacts how he'll be able to work with his coworkers.

Being divisive at work isn't good for business.

<comment><USER7> Brendan Eich got fired from his CEO position for the offense of privately and silently donating a few thousand dollars to a PAC which was against prop 8.

The above sentence is a fact but I am compelled to write it with a throwaway account since even mentioning the idea that this may have been unfair puts my career at risk. That's how bad it's gotten.

<comment><USER5> Brendan's situation was very different - he's a public figure and you no longer belong to yourself at that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> (2004)

Prior Posts:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=what%20you%20cant%20say&sort=b...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=what%20you%20cant%20say&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

This one has 291 comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7443420](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7443420)

Follow-up: [http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/resay.html)

Follow-up thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=956884)

<comment><USER9> Yes... things were different back then, weren't they?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So much comes to mind:

* hate crime laws are institutionalized double jeopardy.

* much of kitchen hygiene are just rituals.

* early infanticide isn't so bad.

(Avoiding gender stuff because that's been done to death)

<comment><USER8> In his follow-up, he makes the point that producing this sort of list gives a false sense of comfort as (almost by definition) you produce controversial opinions that are nevertheless acceptable to say. I personally have views that are far more controversial than those, and which I am absolutly not willing to post publicly (even pseudo-anonymously).

Having said that (and falling into the de-railing track):

>hate crime laws are institutionalized double jeopardy.

How so? I am not an expert (and only have any knowledge of the US system), but aren't hate crimes considered enhancers to existing crimes. That is, to be found guilty of a hate crime, you must also be found guilty of an underlying crime; if you are found not-guilty of the actual crime, then you can not be tried for the hate crime. Being found guilty of a hate crime only serves to increase the severity of punishment for a normal crime that you have been convicted of.

<comment><USER10> The enhancement aspect is jurisdiction-specific. I should have added "federal" in front.

Most often when we hear about hate crimes, it is regarding a separate federal case, prosecuted independently from the local or state case.

<comment><USER8> Ah, that makes sense.

Still, this is a more general issue that hate crimes. Each state (and the federal government) are considered separate entities, which means that double jeopardy does not prohibit being tried for the same crime multiple times, so long as you are being tried by different states (or the federal government). It is not nessasary to have a hate crime for this principle to be invoked. It is also not unreasonable by modern standards to disagree with this; it is just an odditiy of the American legal system that most people never think about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What you can't say: True democracy doesn't have elections. In fact already the ancient greek knew: "It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election" (Aristotle, Politics), see also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition))

</comment><comment><USER12> > So another way to figure out which of our taboos future generations will > laugh at is to start with the labels. Take a label—"sexist", for example—and > try to think of some ideas that would be called that. Then for each ask, > might this be true?

Might it be true that women are just naturally much less attracted to STEM than men?

For the record, I think even among men, being attracted to STEM or even good at it is rather rare. It's probably even rarer among women.

EDIT: I wonder if the downvotes are because I'm going offtopic or because I can't say that?

<comment><USER13> > Might it be true that women are just naturally much less attracted to STEM > than men?

No.

In India in 2015, 45% of CS undergrads were women[0]. In the US, in 1984, it was 37%[1], as opposed to 18% in 2010. The downvotes are because you can tell the answer to your question in about 5 minutes of Googling.

[0]: [http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf](http://www.hcixb.org/papers_2017/hcixb17-final-37.pdf) [1]: [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened- all-w...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-all-women- computer-science-1-180953111/)

<comment><USER12> I've noticed in third world countries more women go to STEM than in the west. It's probably because of economic or social pressure. There's also no culture of "following your passion"; instead people follow what they think will give them a good career.

There's less economic or social pressure in the west so people tend to choose more to their liking and "follow their passion".

<comment><USER14> > people tend to choose more to their liking and "follow their passion"

Not to have a go at you personally but this is revealing of a highly middle class bubble that a lot of people are trying to reason from within (including that silly kid at google). It's like a moral and socio-political version of the Blub paradox. It's the same reason that it isn't possible to be racist against whites (in the West) or sexist against men, and why that is hard to understand if you are white or a man (you don't know you are in the privilege bubble and it seems inequitable).

<comment><USER12> Not having a go at you personally, but saying it's not possible to be racist against whites is an obvious tell that you want to make policies that discriminate against whites, and therefore you are probably racist.

(I'm not even white).

<comment><USER14> Yeah that's what I thought until a black friend very kindly and patiently spelt it out and it still took me a while. It's counterintuitive and nominally smart people don't get it - and are much more adept at finding justifications as to why their thoughts are right, and taking down anything which challenges that. 'Honky' doesn't carry the offence of 'nigger' and there's a good reason for that. (I'm white and I don't really care what people call me.)

<comment><USER15> Have you ever considered the option that your black friends was wrong? (Hint: if he was saying you can't be racist against whites, he was wrong and, funny enough, racist.)

Edit: to expand on the above point, the funny thing is, people peddling this kind of bullshit _know_ it's bullshit. For example, feminists want " _social_ justice", and try to redefine "racism" as " _institutional_ racism". But, obiously, by prefixing other adjectives to the words, they're modifying the words themselves - "justice" is just "justice", if you're talking about " _social_ justice", you're obviously not talking about _actual_ "justice", because if you were, you'd simply use the word "justice" without any additional qualifying adjectives. But then, most people respond to emotional arguments way more than to rational arguments, so that's where the war is fought, and it keeps escalating until we get Trump.

<comment><USER14> > Have you ever considered the option that your black friends was wrong?

Yes of course, it was the first thing I thought and I held onto that. If both parties were on equal ground you would be quite right and there would be equivalence so you could just flip the roles, but they aren't. Middle class white men have greater opportunities in society. Racism and sexism are oppressive by definition, and redressing inequality of opportunity isn't oppression.

And btw talking about institutional racism is the opposite of an emotive argument. It's a more precise way to highlight that the issue is systemic and not the result of individuals being deliberately racist.

<comment><USER15> > Middle class

That's the key word, not "white" or "men". I fully support redressing inequality of opportunity... as long as it's not sexist or racist.

<comment><USER16> But black people are more disadvantaged than white people, so obviously any programme aimed at reducing inequality will have more focus on black people.

[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility- memos/2017/01...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility- memos/2017/01/13/trump-won-white-voters-but-serious-inequities-remain-for- black-americans/)

<comment><USER15> That's fine. I'm in strong support of any such program, as long as skin color is not an explicit factor. Such program won't be unfair (e.g. Obama's daughter won't benefit from it, but the poor straight white orphaned guy from the worst neighborhood will), and automatically self-adjusting (at the beginning it will be disproportionately aimed at black people, but eventually - if the programme succeeds - the representation of its beneficiaries will tend to reflect the wider society).

Edit: in other words, if you want to help poor people, help poor people. If you want to help black people, help black people, but don't pretend you're helping poor people, and don't be surprised when you're called racist (like white supremacists, who help white people) or when you receive backlash from non-black people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's interesting how an upvote is "invisible" but can say so much.

<comment><USER6> And telling how quickly this post got flagged off the front page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Who is voting this off the front page?

</comment><comment><USER19> God, I hope people get over this shit soon!

</comment><comment><USER14> The irony of this post when you will get reported and hellbanned for questioning libertarianism on HN. As for "political correctness" it was a term that was first popularised by the right to attack college activism and shut down people challenging the status quo.

I'd wager good money I'm a lot closer to that Conrad character than the author will ever be and from where I'm sitting it's pretty clear that tech culture has started becoming completely toxic. The article reads as if written by a psychopath (and one begins to wonder whether Evgeny Morozov has a point about SV's movers and shakers). Putting aside the shallow and barely informed notions about fashion and art themselves, dismissing morality as no more than a seasonal fad or craze is itself an unwitting confession of a deep-seated amorality.

<comment><USER8> >The irony of this post when you will get reported and hellbanned for questioning libertarianism on HN.

When has this happened?

>As for "political correctness" it was a term that was first popularised by the right to attack college activism and shut down people challenging the status quo.

Actually, it was a term first popularized by the socialists, to attack the communists.

<comment><USER20> ...and hellbanned again for comments in this thread actually. HN doesn't like disturbances to the appearance of right libertarian consensus it would seem.

(That's completely fine in the context of a private community with its own specific set of values but it should be clearly advertised so that participants understand it's not a wider consensus in the world at large and that they aren't getting anything like an open discussion with a range of views.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I suspect this getting up-voted is about the Google engineer's diversity essay. How about instead of framing it in terms of what you can't say politically, let's rephrase it another way:

Imagine you make a post inside your company Slack complaining all your colleagues are stupid and unqualified. You'd probably be reprimanded right?

Didn't that guy basically just do that but only about his female and minority colleagues (and future female and minority colleagues)? Don't we all monitor our words at least a bit at work for the sake of the day going smoothly?

And if he's so correct about Google's diversity initiatives being a problem and/or failure why doesn't he start a company that only hires men to take advantage of the market inefficiency in hiring (if you say hiring laws would get in the way, when is the last time a company paid a serious price for failing to have diverse hires)?

The most upvoted HN comments on threads about the diversity manifesto reek of protecting the status of the people already at the top. And are as flimsy and irrational as they claim the liberal values they decry are. White men have traditionally been in power in this country and suppressed the rights of women & minorities to vote, educate themselves & work for years. How can we know that another group wouldn't be historically more powerful without a control group study where each group is allowed to be a historical oppressor for an equal amount of time?

<comment><USER12> > Didn't that guy basically just do that but only about his female and > minority colleagues

No, actually quite the opposite.

When a company/university/country enshrines diversity quotas, they are basically telling minorities that they are by default stupider than average.

Also, enforcing these diversity quotas will create a (probably valid) impression that minority members who make it _anywhere_ did not do so on their own merit.

As a minority I would much rather know there are no diversity programs so that I know that where ever I get, it's based on my merit, not some charity. Even if I was the only one in the room from my ethnic origin (which is actually often the case).

<comment><USER7> Actually I think diversity quotas imply one of two things:

\- Underrepresented groups are by default less qualified than average

\- Hiring decisionmakers are incapable of assessing people objectively enough to overcome inherent biases

Are there other possible consistent implications? Honest question.

It seems to me either scenario is fundamentally toxic.

<comment><USER21> I firmly believe hiring decision makers are incapable of assessing people objectively.

<comment><USER7> The only people who will be receptive to working for someone who feels that way about them will only be those who have decided for themselves they are not capable of assessing people objectively either. A less charitable way to put it is these people have decided their own biases are beyond rehabilitation, so these are the people you are selecting for if you hold that view. (In reality, I think people who support these quotas agree with you but think _they_ don't have biases, it's everyone else that can't be trusted. An equally toxic scenario.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bill Gates: Only Socialism Can Save the Climate, 'The Private Sector Is Inept' - <AUTHOR> http://usuncut.com/climate/bill-gates-only-socialism-can-save-us-from-climate-change/ <comment><USER2> 0/10 Bad clickbait article is bad.

I recommend people who actually want to know what Bill Gates said to just read the Atlantic article ([http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/we- need-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/we-need-an- energy-miracle/407881/)) this piece refers to which was also mentioned earlier on HN.</comment>