Results of Findland's basic income experiment - <AUTHOR> https://stm.fi/en/article/-/asset_publisher/perustulokokeilun-tulokset-tyollisyysvaikutukset-vahaisia-toimeentulo-ja-psyykkinen-terveys-koettiin-paremmaksi <comment><USER2> Better wellbeing is so important. Less health cost, less safety service costs (police for example), better performing people, less sick people at work, and so on.

It is unfortunate most countries today are reigned by short term money while happy people means long term profit.

<comment><USER3> Better _reported_ wellbeing is not that important.

I would also report being happy if I think saying the opposite could cost me this nice additional income.

<comment><USER4> That's a rather pessimistic and evil stance to assume other people to have. At the same time: if that was someones incentive, wouldn't that also cause happiness or well-being to increase anyway?

<comment><USER5> What makes it evil? That word is thrown around too easily. If there is an incentive, it has to be considered as a possible explanation

<comment><USER4> It is evil to assume everyone else is evil and the only difference between people is those who have been caught doing evil things and those who are hiding it well. It assumes there are no well-intentioned people or people who wouldn't feel the need to lie.

<comment><USER3> Why would you assume that I'm assuming everyone is evil?

I'm just assuming that people generally follow incentives and thus averages will reflect them. If you need any evidence for "People follow incentives", we have full branches of studies built on that premise.

My guess would be that you're assuming I think people would lie, and you find lying reprehensible (I don't).

In any case, IMO the biggest problems here are that apples to apples comparisons are very hard to make, and long term effects are essentially unknowable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I fully support basic income, I don't feel a survey is very insightful.

I mean, we have to work with the tools we have got, but it's not like this was a blinded result. All survey participants would have been aware: 1) they did get money or not 2) the survey is being used for a study about potentially getting money in the future, if it shows positive impacts.

People are smart, they know what the "right answer" is to have this declared positive.

Maybe if the study was run 30 years people would forget the effects or something.

I don't think a short term study of basic income looking for survey results was ever going to give us insight into whether we should do it.

Again, I support basic income, but as a more efficient and fair redistribution tool with fewer malincentives and as a necessary tool to morally give people a minimum quality of life.

What was interesting was the increased work hours from the pool that got basic income. To me that is the only meaningful signal from this study.

</comment><comment><USER7> Please correct "findland" to finland.

<comment><USER8> Came here to protect my neighbouring country's pride by saying that. Thanks for not making me the first and only one. :)

<comment><USER9> Hello fellow Baltic Sea inhabitant .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In short, people with basic income work less, feel happier, produce less. Nothing too extraordinary.

"The response rate for the survey was 23% (31% for the basic income recipients and 20% for the control group), which is typical for surveys."

At least they should answer the study they were enrolled into :| This shows the recipients have little consideration for the tax-payers.

<comment><USER11> Did you read the article? The result was that recipients had a modest increase in employment compared to nonrecipients.

edit: to be clear, there was no effect either way in the first year of the test. The modest increase in the second year is complicated by something called "the activation module".

<comment><USER11> _" In accordance with the preliminary plan for the evaluation, the employment effects of the basic income experiment were measured for the period from November 2017 to October 2018. The employment rate for basic income recipients improved slightly more during this period than for the control group. During the reference period, the basic income increased the number of days of employment by 6 days and the basic income recipients were employed for 78 days on average.

However, the interpretation of the effects of the experiment is made more complicated by the introduction of the activation model at the beginning of 2018, which meant more stringent entitlement criteria for unemployment benefits asymmetrically in both groups."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe Im allowed to make a meta comment here. I would have anticipated more comments on this topic.

<comment><USER13> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23103251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23103251)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: London Based Y Combinator? - <AUTHOR>

Is there an equivalent Y Combinator incubator in London? <comment><USER2> There are some schemes, nothing quite as advanced as Y combinator. \- Seedcamp <http://seedcamp.com/> \- Launch48 Launchpad <http://www.launch48.com/launchpad/>

But there are lots of places one could hang out and work on an idea: \- Accelerator London: <http://www.accelerator-london.com/> \- London Hackspace: <http://london.hackspace.org.uk>

Shameless self-promotion, have a look around here about London based startup resources / opportunities (look at the schmoozing list!) \- <http://londonstartups.co.uk/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Another place to "hang out and work on an idea" is <http://techhub.com> @TechHub, a little like a KickLabs but without a fund. But Y-Com 'equivalents' would be Seedcamp (takes 8-10% of a startup) or The Difference Engine programme which is moving to Cambridge (just outside London)

<comment><AUTHOR> I like techhub, but I am talking about a investment/office space for n number of weeks

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know of a YC-clone in London. There's Seedcamp and <http://thedifferenceengine.eu> up north.

<comment><AUTHOR> an opening in the market perhaps</comment></comment>


IBM Unveils Cognitive Computing Chips  - <AUTHOR> http://hothardware.com/News/IBM-Unveils-Cognitive-Computing-Chips-/

<comment><USER2> Previous submissions of the same story:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2900685> (cnn.com)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2900593> (technologyreview.com)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2899885> (popsci.com)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2899850> (cbsnews.com)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2899643> (cbsnews.com)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2899299> (computing.co.uk) <\- some discussion

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2898229> (venturebeat.com) <\- lots of comments</comment>


Medicalising everyday life doesn't help anyone's mental health - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/medicalising-mental-health-ilnness-nhs <comment><USER2> I wonder about this as well. I see lists of anxiety symptoms shared and I meet every one of them, but I don't consider myself to have anxiety. Isn't it normal to be anxious in stressful situations or to be depressed when things are going poorly. Then I do some reading about it and I wonder maybe its not normal, maybe I'm not supposed to feel this way.

I'm sure there are people with mental health conditions that do need treatment, I won't argue that at all. I do think pinning down what is "normal" and should be just waited out and what is abnormal and should be medically treated, although easy at the extreme edges, is very difficult in the middle of the spectrum.

I agree with the article that we are trying to narrow the normal distribution of human traits by medicalising things that are a common occurrence for at least a subset of the population. I'm not sure where this stems from though. Is it the desire for extreme corporate efficiency and competition for resources. Is it a misguided medical system trying to make patients out of more people? Like anything sufficiently complicated its probably a huge confluence of factors.

<comment><USER3> Well, first of all, only certain professionals are licensed to administer those tests, and for good reason, because otherwise people would self-diagnose too much or too little.

> […] I don't consider myself to have anxiety.

Everyone has anxiety. Some people have anxiety disorders.

> Isn't it normal to be anxious in stressful situations […]

People with anxiety disorders are anxious in normal, non-stressful situations. They can panic when asking a bus driver which stop they should get off at, when talking to a new coworker, or in other ordinary circumstances. People with depressive disorders are depressed at times even when things are going well. People with severe depression can have a hard time just getting out of bed in the morning, feeding themselves, and going through the motions of ordinary life.

<comment><USER4> I don't think this was intended as a general purpose argument against ever treating mood disorders. Rather, the parent comment is describing the fact that anxiety and depression are conflated with their corresponding disorders too often.

I can somewhat relate from experience: I went to a doctor for terrible trouble sleeping, to the point that it was affecting my physical health, that we assumed was caused by anxiety/depression[1]. I was pretty shocked at the rapidity with which she suggested going on antidepressants, particularly considering the tapering periods and the seriousness of the dependency and side effects that they cause.

I pushed back a little but it turns out that my doctor's cavalier attitude towards antidepressants isn't out of the norm: they're considered a "try it and see what happens" first line of defense, without trying to get a better sense of the patient's specific issues and whether therapy or other interventions, sans medication, would be a better fit (though I should note that the doctor recommended that I go to therapy if possible in conjunction).

Tangentially, this fits with a larger disillusionment I have with the medical system: a combination of screwy incentives, bad lines of communication between generalists and specialists, and a serious institutional/cultural case of a God complex leading to a lack of critical thinking means that I'm at the point where I pretty much keep anything a doctor tells me as just another unreliable information source, weighted more heavily perhaps than my layman's understanding of the research but on categorically the same level.

Ive seen the same disillusionment kick in among my doctor family members: in our conversations over the years, my sister and her husband have gone from a central case of said God complex to as much as telling me not to take doctors' advice without a heavy dose of skepticism.

I should note that I don't actually consider this a criticism of any individual physicians as much as the realities of the system. One of the biggest factors is that the average person showing up at the doctor is simultaneously incredibly dumb and incredibly confident in their understanding of the medical problem. It makes sense for doctors to be a somewhat heavy- handed and reductive, and once you build those habits into your institutions and pedagogy, it's hard to turn it off.

[1] Turns out it was the other way around: consistently not sleeping causes some pretty crappy psychological problems

<comment><USER3> > Rather, the parent comment is describing the fact that anxiety and > depression are conflated with their corresponding disorders too often.

Agreed, and I would say that the answer to this is to have the licensed professionals guide the diagnosis. Don't just self-diagnose or read a Wikipedia page and think you have an anxiety disorder. (It's a good _starting point_ and you can take your self-diagnosis to a psych{olog,iatr}ist and explain why you think you have a particular disorder.)

You hit the nail on the head with poor communication between generalists and specialists. This is why it looks like drugs are the first line of defense—because you went to the doctor first. If you had gone to a therapist first, the first line of defense would have been therapy. The doctor understands medication as a lever that they can pull, they can guide you through the process of finding a medication that alleviates your symptoms without bad side effects, and do it all safely. The doctor generally doesn't understand the process of therapy or its outcomes because it's not something they administer (except some psychiatrists). I would add that the side effects of modern antidepressants are surprisingly manageable.

This is reasonable to me. Like if you have complaints about your husband and talk to a divorce lawyer, you'll get a different set of recommendations than if you go to your therapist, your best friend, some strangers online, or a priest.

Sleep problems in particular are troublesome, because so often they are caused by a complex set of factors that we have varying degrees of control over. The doctor's ability to prescribe you medicine is one of the very limited number of ways that the doctor can help you get sleep. The other ways to help you get sleep might involve moving, modifying your house/apartment, changing your daily habits regarding exercise/eating/alcohol/screen use, therapy, accommodations at work, or a hundred other things.

I could just as easily diagnose myself with "having a crappy boss" and switch jobs, but the doctor (usually) won't tell you to switch jobs. That treatment option comes with a hell of a lot of side effects, too.

> [1] Turns out it was the other way around: consistently not sleeping causes > some pretty crappy psychological problems

That may be the case for you, but psychological problems do cause sleep problems for many people (including myself). There's often some positive feedback loop / death spiral involved in any ongoing problem.

<comment><USER4> > You hit the nail on the head with poor communication between generalists and > specialists. This is why it looks like drugs are the first line of > defense—because you went to the doctor first. If you had gone to a therapist > first, the first line of defense would have been therapy.

IMO and IME this is a really bad idea. My experience with specialists is that they're far, far more myopic than generalists: eg if you have symptoms that manifest in the feet, podiatrists or foot orthopedists won't solve your foot problems, they'll provide foot solutions, whether or not these solutions are relevant or helpful. This stems from the same rotten root of the endemic myopia and lack of critical thinking among medical professionals[1].

As I mentioned above, the problem didn't even end up being with anxiety, so going to a therapist would have been worse than useless for me. My complaint is that my conversation with my doctor was very brief, during which I mentioned fairly strong symptoms of anxiety, and the doctor was immediately gung-ho about anti-depressants. I should also note that this was a GP who (at least nominally) was somewhat specialized in mental healthcare issues, so it's not like this was throwing a case at a random doctor and expecting them to be a specialist. On top of that,using a GP as an entry point to the healthcare system is, roughly speaking, their _only_ job, and what's shocking is how widespread a basic lack of competency at this sole task is.

> The doctor understands medication as a lever that they can pull, they can > guide you through the process of finding a medication that alleviates your > symptoms without bad side effects, and do it all safely. The doctor > generally doesn't understand the process of therapy or its outcomes because > it's not something they administer (except some psychiatrists). I would add > that the side effects of modern antidepressants are surprisingly manageable.

I may have failed expressed myself clearly, but this is sort of my point: the bar that I'm setting is one that I think anyone with fundamental critical thinking skills could clear, barring a gross case of apathy towards patient welfare. It's been my unfortunate experience that this minimal combination is pretty lacking when it comes to doctors, either specialist or generalist. The notion that a doctor should jump to prescribing medicine because it's all they know how to do is insane to me, since it completely rules out the possibility of understanding the patient's case further instead of grabbing whatever hammer happens to be lying around.

Now granted, I have a fairly limited sample size personally, but I've seen the same thing play out with family members whose care I've been involved in, and my empirical anecdota are theoretically supported by conversations I've had with doctor friends/family over the years. At the very least, I've _personally_ decided to treat doctors as nothing more than legal impediments to prescription medicine, an incomplete chatbot UI to medical knowledge, and an occasional source of novel medical information. This has worked out _far_ better for me than the alternative of assuming that a typical GP has a baseline of competence (I've made more progress on my sleep issues in the last year than the previous half decade by taking this approach, and dealt with some niggling minor medical issues that every GP I've ever had completely failed to address).

> Like if you have complaints about your husband and talk to a divorce lawyer, > you'll get a different set of recommendations than if you go to your > therapist, your best friend, some strangers online, or a priest.

Just to reiterate, the complaint is not that your best friend would have something different to say from your priest, but that either of them would respond with a stock answer instead of listening to you and thinking about it. If your pastor says "Say ten hail marys" to any person's request for advice, the problem isn't that he has a narrow view but that he's a shitty priest. If you can replace a doctor, or a priest, or a best friend with a post-it note or a first-page Google search, it seems almost tautological that they're somewhat incompetent.

[1] (though again, I don't think this is because they're dumber than the average person or anything like that; rather, the institutional pushes in the other direction that they get are strong enough that the only doctors I know (sadly, not as a patient) that do think critically about their patients' issues are the very-intelligent ones that would probably excel in most fields).

<comment><USER5> > _As I mentioned above, the problem didn 't even end up being with anxiety, > so going to a therapist would have been worse than useless for me._

I wouldn't go that far. Therapy is a broadly-useful non-medical intervention that can increase across-the-board mental health. It bridges the gap between medical intervention, where specialists act as necessary gatekeepers to otherwise-dangerous courses of action, not that they're always successful at reducing the danger, and self-help, which is thoroughly hit-or-miss.

There is an established body of psychological research that the therapist brings you in contact with that the medical community is only tangentially aware of. Sure, you could read up on this stuff yourself. But it's the talk therapist's _job_ to know about it. And even if you don't find purchase on your stated problem, you might find other problems that you didn't realize you'd had.

If you can afford it or get it covered, I highly recommend regular sessions for a few years.

<comment><USER4> Yea, I wasn't making a blanket indictment of therapy; I have plenty of friends who passionately describe it as something that anyone could benefit from, and I'm inclined to believe them. A combination of a familial mental health history and some childhood trauma due to same means that I'm sure I'm not a paragon of mental perfection (but again, no one is). But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the time and expense of a treatment that wasn't relevant wouldn't have been a good thing during an overwhelmingly pressing medical issue, at the very least to the extent that it was time spent not addressing or investigating the real problem, exacerbated by the fact that impaired executive function was one of the biggest challenges of addressing a sleeping disorder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I couldn't get a vitamin B12 injection, the materials cost of which is less than £1 with no negative side effects, more often than every 12 weeks from my doctor. Despite feeling awful at 8 weeks onwards, to the point of not being able to work, and better again every time I had the injection.

I didn't care if it was placebo (although why it would be placebo at 8 weeks but deemed not a placebo at 12 weeks I struggle to understand), I felt I needed it more often and eventually found a doctor willing to try it. For me, it works.

What got to me though, is while the doctor wasn't willing to try a vitamin slightly more frequently, he offered anti-depressants at the drop of a hat. He couldn't have been more forwards in offering them and didn't take the hint when I told him I didn't really want them - I had to give him a firm _no_ in the end!

<comment><USER7> Curious, why do you need an injection? I thought only vegans had issues with B12, and only if they weren't paying attention to what they ate.

<comment><USER6> I've heard it's possible due to poor diet, but I'm not vegan and even then it's very rare - AIUI your body stores some 2-5 years worth of what you need, so if you're low it's probably because your body isn't absorbing it. Which also means supplements aren't going to work for me.

Why it's not absorbed varies, I was tested for pernicious anaemia which is a relatively common cause but I don't have that. That seems to be the end of the line for investigations on the UK NHS, they pretty much just said you can't get it from your diet, it doesn't matter why, so we'll inject it.

<comment><USER7> It's still worth at least quickly evaluating your diet to check. You probably know already, but generally speaking B12 comes from fish, meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. Nothing else.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I think I'm in the clear there. I had milk on my cereal which happens to be fortified with B12, some chicken bite things for a snack, scrambled eggs for lunch and beef burgers for tea just yesterday. (With some fruit and veg). That's not an atypical day for me.

That my mother and siblings, and we all live apart, also have it and they don't seem short of dietary B12 either seems to add to the picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Alternative take: some mental illnesses, anxiety disorders in particular, are exacerbated by knowledge of them and their immediate effects. Anxiety is much easier to deal with when you're not anxious about the fact that you are or will be anxious.

Maintaining a "stiff upper lip" means learning to ignore unpleasant symptoms, which can both reduce their frequency and severity. There is usefulness in "manning up", to use an increasingly unpopular turn of phrase. I disagree with the increasingly common idea that suppressing one's negative emotions is generally harmful.

<comment><USER9> It can also increase severity while reducing frequency, or cause transfer onto others or psychosomatic.

You cannot recommend it without an actual trial, it is not safe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _> One of the things that is most protective to mental health is not to spend too much of our lives consciously obsessing about it._

That last statement is rather asinine and seems at odds with the rest of the article. I think it's fair to say negative emotions aren't the same as mental illness, but ignoring those negative emotions and keeping a "stiff upper lip" can lead to much bigger emotional problems down the road. There's a middle ground that involves accepting & experiencing the lows along with the highs as a part of life.

<comment><USER11> > _ignoring those negative emotions and keeping a "stiff upper lip" can lead > to much bigger emotional problems down the road_

To me, keeping a "stiff upper lip" isn't so much about ignoring negative emotions, but more about behaving in the right way even when emotions pull you the wrong way. In my experience, exercising that skill doesn't create emotional problems, but solves them.

<comment><USER12> This is what I feel is meant by stiff upper lip:

Be like a rocky promontory against which the restless surf continuously pounds; it stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet. I hear you say, "How unlucky that this should happen to me!" Not at all! Say instead, "How lucky I am that I am not broken by what has happened and am not afraid of what is about to happen. The same blow might have struck any one, but not many would have absorbed it without capitulation and complaint."

<comment><USER9> And thus status quo, however evil or bad, is kept.

This stance is immoral in many ethical systems. Not to mention everyone has a breaking point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know how much he knows about mental health or how it's practice in the US. But in the US there are things that are classified as clinical and those that aren't. The DSM-V is a guidebook to those issues and people who make those determinations has to go through a graduate program (Masters, Ph.D. etc) with a certain period of training akin to residency (these requirements do vary from state to state but in California it is fairly extensive and strict). I can't speak to what's going on in the UK but one can't simply show up to a therapist or psychiatrist because one's having a bad day and start getting drugs or some long term therapy program.

</comment><comment><USER14> Author seemed to have some valid points - issues that are part of the normal healing process are being diagnosed & treated via antidepressants.

The part I'm not so sure I agree with is the "system is too jammed up so don't come," sentiment.

I think if someone is having a hard time & they want to reach out to a medical professional that's probably for the best.

Unfortunately that does shift the burden onto the system to train professionals to determine the difference between prescribing antidepressants or talk and time therapy. It's a lot easier to write someone that prescription than hear them out.

<comment><USER15> He's talking from the perspective of the UK, where he is a physician. The public health system in the UK has been under extreme and increasing stress. It's underfunded, understaffed, overburdened, and things are getting worse.

In a related article [1], it was mentioned that 70% of children with mental issues do not receive treatment because lack of resources - high rates of mental illness mean there's simply not enough healthcare to go around. Even those that do receive treatment end up facing "unacceptably long waits." The current ambitious goal in restructuring the system would still leave some 65% of those with diagnosed medical conditions, without treatment. Wiki also has a number of decent citations for further information. [2]

When things are provided through public funding there is an obligation of society to ensure that they are utilized in a sustainable way. If that obligation is not met, the systems become, quite tautologically, unsustainable.

[1] - [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/mental-health- cris...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/mental-health-crisis-nhs- counselling-waiting-time-children-mp-public-accounts-committee-a8721646.html)

[2] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service#Fundin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service#Funding)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone feel like their scraped knees and head colds are "medicalized" because there's treatment available and medical terminology for talking about it? You can take your scraped knee to your family doctor or an urgent care clinic and get a bandage applied to it, but people rarely do, and having the option doesn't freak anyone out.

So why are people bothered by their anxiety or reoccurring blue moods being "medicalized?" As far as I can tell, it's just the stubborn lingering stigma associated with mental illness. The fact that a person's cold is a physical illness feels harmless to them, but the idea that they might be suffering from a "mental" illness, even a mild and common one, feels way more momentous and scary than it should.

 _Clearly I am not alone in my sense that we have already hit the boundaries of how far we can sensibly apply the paradigm of mental health as a means of understanding and addressing human misfortunes._

This is ridiculous. We certainly haven't gone far enough when people identify "mental health" with an inability to function without professional support. How ridiculous would it be if people denied having a physical injury when they had a scraped knee, because they felt denial was the only way to avoid seeing a doctor? How ridiculous would it be if people didn't brush their teeth because they didn't want to give up their precious self-reliance to "dental health" professionals? We reduce our reliance on professionals by applying knowledge from those professions, not by denying their relevance.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have the greatest problem with this in early childhood. The extent of psychiatric involvement in the classroom, including drug interventions, is really alarming. Diagnosis, which is extremely inconsistent and forms disease categories with extremely thin bases, has a formal place and is required for special learning dispensations. Future generations will look back in horror at all this.

</comment><comment><USER18> I have never seen a group of less mentally-healthy people in my life. Mentally healthy people don't drink that much.

The whole stiff upper lip nonsense is the problem. Neglecting and suppressing emotions for long periods of time cause mental health issues.

The problem is that we don't have a clue about mental health in general, the blind are leading the blind.

Antidepressants don't cure depression. In fact, they can make it harder to process emotions. They reduce the symptoms and make it easier to ignore the environmental issues that are causing it.

Actually treating depression requires understanding and addressing the true cause. And the true cause is not a chemical imbalance or people not being tough enough.

Self-pity or using issues as a crutch does not help, but it is also not the cause.

</comment><comment><USER19> Reminds of this paragraph of Mark Fisher in Capitalist Realism:

"I want to argue that it is necessary to reframe the growing problem of stress (and distress) in capitalist societies. Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatization of tress that has taken place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so many people, and especially so many young people, are ill? The 'mental health plague' in capitalist societies would suggest that, instead of being the only social system that works, capitalism is inherently dysfunctional, and that the cost of it appearing to work is very high".

<comment><USER20> Mark Fisher's entire work can be summarised without much loss by saying _" It's all capitalism's fault!"_ How is this interesting? I met him personally a couple of times, I don't think he would have been able even to say what e.g. fractional reserve banking was, or the labour theory of value, not to mention Böhm-Bawerk's famous critique.

Anyway, since I've just violated _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_ , let me finish by saying that Fisher had good taste in music.

<comment><USER19> I just know that in our economic system, humans are capital and anything that compromises their economic productivity is pathologized. Who Fisher was or what he did is irrelevant to this discussion.

<comment><USER20> Soldiers, children and old-age pensioners are not productive, yet not pathologised.

Whole swathes of jobs are not truly productive, e.g. marketing and advertising, psychologists, priests, yoga-teachers.

<comment><USER19> Aging has surely been pathologized. Childhood is an inevitable stage of development but the prevalence of ADHD and learning disabilities indicate how we have defined our priorities.

<comment><USER20> Aging and death was considered unpleasant long before the emergence of 'capitalism' and will be long after its demise. Indeed the very word "pathology" is from Greek, πάθος (páthos, "disease") and -λογία (-logía, "study of"). Both ADHD and learning disabilities are merely new names for ancient concepts:

\- ADHD = boredom

\- Learning disabilities = stupid

Again, no connection with capitalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Could it be that people aren't _just_ becoming more sensitive, but that aspects of modern society are _causing_ mental health issues to appear at higher rates? I won't say 'capitalism is making everyone mentally ill', but it does seem that a large blind-spot in most discourse around mental health is environment. In this sense, 'medicalising' everyday does, in fact, provide a useful lens to examine mental illness.

Just food for thought.

<comment><USER22> I would bet that the higher rates are about mental health issues becoming more widely known and less stigmatized.

<comment><USER12> Would you tend to feel that mental health issues are a result of nature, and not nurture then?

<comment><USER22> I think it is a mix of both, but I also feel that we are much better at nurturing than we used to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A friend of mine is affected by this, combined with her innate hypochondriac tendencies it makes her life very difficult and her sense of self-worth and confidence very low.

However, I am at a loss as to how to approach her to help her. Trying to convey this to her would sound more like an accusation of hypochondria.

<comment><USER24> This sounds very much like my ex. I thought I could help them. For a long time, I did... think I was helping. When a sequence of tragedies struck, I found myself needing help. We deteriorated quickly, as their self-worth was propped upon mine, which was defined in large part by my ability to help. We didn't have external support and we both crumbled.

I wish I could tell you how to help your friend. What my spouse needed was therapy from a professional, who could maintain appropriate boundaries -- I wasn't, and couldn't.

The awful thing I learned about 'hypochondria' is that psychosomatic effects, and stress, can have real physical consequences. I never did learn how to navigate that conversation without causing distress

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Alternatively: we can stop referring to these as medicines and treat them like iodized salt, fluoridated water, or cell phones. They seem to be completely safe in short and long term. They make people's lives better. How do you tell articles like this apart from luddite stigma?

</comment><comment><USER26> It is sad that British society is losing the belief in a stiff upper lip.

I think it is becoming accepted to make excuses everywhere. For individuals and groups, it is now seen as as okay to not to aim higher.

There are so many hard working people who were never handed anything, have actual physical disabilities, and they still work extreme hours to take care of their families and not be a burden.

I always think of how we construct Kobayashi Marus to tell ourselves and others that there are no-win scenarios, in some odd attempt to justify limiting ourselves to only grim options and schadenfreude for those who fail to echo acceptance.

What if this belief in a gritty realpolitik is an excuse for not wanting to think harder to achieve what is right? That individuals and groups willingly believe in a local maxima, because the hill climbing required to get the right outcome is accepted as fantasy?

<comment><USER27> What's your point? Is your thesis that those with mental illness make excuses everywhere?

<comment><USER26> My point is that excuses are being legitimized.</comment></comment></comment>


CHSM: Concurrent Hierarchical Finite State Machines - <AUTHOR> http://chsm.sourceforge.net/

<comment><USER2> When I see concurrent, how is it different from NFA? Non-deterministic finite state machines also have concurrent multiple paths.</comment>


Google+: Android and iOS [Screenshot Tour] Side by Side Comparison - <AUTHOR> http://lifebyexperimentation.com/2011/07/google-plus-android-ios-screenshot-tour/

<comment><USER2> It would be more fair to label this a comparison of the Android App vs. the mobile site than Android vs. iOS.

When the iOS app debuts, a comparison between those two will show useful information in the mobile phone wars. However, at this point the comparisons here are more relevant to the native vs. web debate than Android vs. iOS.

<comment><USER3> It's entirely fair, as these are the best options present on these two top mobile OS.

Since there is no idea if Apple will hold up the Google+ app like they did with Google Voice app, a side-by-side comparison of apps may never occur.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It wasn't until I had g+ that I tried the web interface so maybe it's always been the case for gmail and other google services, but I have to say their interface in mobile safari is a joy and far better in UI/UX terms than some native apps I've used.

<comment><USER5> Google actually overhauled much of their mobile web apps on the launch day for G+, as Gizmodo documented: [http://gizmodo.com/5817102/googles-looking-real- nice-right-n...](http://gizmodo.com/5817102/googles-looking-real-nice-right- now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great article! Thanks for being so prompt on this info!

</comment><comment><USER7> Google+ may have an official iPad application before Facebook now...

<comment><AUTHOR> lol, good point. I wouldn't be surprised.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Find Places to Promote Your WordPress Products - <AUTHOR> http://outreachlistwp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Marketing your WordPress Plugins and Theme is hard. If you're a developer, marketing may not be your strong point. Outreach List WP gives you the tools to promote your products easier</comment>


To Gmail, Most Black Lives Matter Emails Are"Promotions" - <AUTHOR> https://themarkup.org/google-the-giant/2020/07/02/to-gmail-black-lives-matter-emails-are-promotions <comment><USER2> Seems to me that mass email for activism recruitment should go to spam

<comment><USER3> If unsolicited, sure. But requested mail is requested mail.

The real question is whether they file email from other causes similarly.</comment></comment>


Why does flat Earth belief still exist? - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/why-does-flat-earth-belief-still-exist/ <comment><USER2> Why does anyone believe it is round?

I have no horse in this race. I'm merely suggesting that this could be a simulation. We could all be in a space ship, plugged into some computer that is keeping our brains from going insane on our journey to another galaxy. Or perhaps our ship ran out of fuel and the system is just "keeping us happy" until the last power generators or solar sail power converters go offline.

I have seen way too many people that look and act related. It can't be in- breeding? I chalk it up to lazy programming. The best developers are lazy, right?</comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone learned to speak Hindi? - <AUTHOR> It doesn't look like its a particularly difficult language to learn all things considered, and at work would provide a very different and hopefully positive experience for someone like me, a stereotypical caucasian American.  Does anyone have any experiences or resources to share? <comment><USER2> Yeah I learned a bit some years ago. I used books and some online materials available from a professor at NC State University (not sure if those are still online).

It's a tough language to learn on your own, in part because the syntax is so flexible. You can essentially form a sentence with all the words in the wrong order and someone would still more or less understand what you're saying. Of course, formal Hindi does have "rules" but they aren't consistent across the materials I found.

Another issue is formal vs conversational Hindi. The materials all teach on formal Hindi, which is good, but on the other hand you'll sound awfully stuffy speaking formally to someone who's accustomed to, say, bastardized Mumbai Hindi (which itself is kind of an amalgamation of 3 or 4 languages).

The books don't teach you much that's very useful. I remember in one book I got, one of the first things it taught was how to ask someone how many siblings they had...

The NCSU materials were very "throw you in the water and try to swim."

Frankly I'd just go with Rosetta stone or find a tutor.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best way would be the movies. I learned to speak English the same way. While starting out focus on getting the overall meaning right instead of getting lost with semantics. good luck</comment>


Ask HN: Should I get a blog? - <AUTHOR>

I often find myself coming up with radical and interesting ideas throughout the day, most of which I never share. I have always wanted feed back on them but have never felt school was the place to ask for it, is it a good idea to create a a blog so I can get my ideas out in the open? Mind you these ideas are about theoretical physics, C programming, quantum computer science, politics and religion but still accessible to the average person(at least I think). Or they are at least interesting intellectual ponderings. <comment><USER2> Why not try? If you feel like it's helping, continue writing. If not, stop writing. There are many free blogging services that you can try.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have never written them down before, most of the ideas I have are so out there that I am not sure words are the right way to convey them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A better writer, a better thinker.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes.</comment>


"server" is hard to define - <AUTHOR> https://jvns.ca/blog/2019/12/26/whats-a-server/ <comment><USER2> I don't think it's that hard. A server, in all contexts, is a thing that "serves" information or resources. The X server serves a graphical interface. A computer can serve an environment to SSH into. Pegging the definition as "a thing that renders information or resources for use" is useful, and then when more context is needed it may be given - i.e. a web server (a server that serves resources to the web), a graphic server (a server that serves a graphical interface).</comment>


Clarify Expands Screenshots Into Tutorials - <AUTHOR> http://www.bluemangolearning.com/clarify/

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been toying with so many different ways of showing non-hackers how to do some of the things I do - especially like rooting Android devices. I haven't found anything that's as easy to use as Clarify though - I just checked them out after a Lifehacker post today and they look really legit. I'd love to hear what other solutions you guys may use to explain your hacker ways to all your other friends?</comment>


Philip K. Dick and the Fake Humans - <AUTHOR> http://bostonreview.net/literature-culture/henry-farrell-philip-k-dick-and-fake-humans <comment><USER2> previous discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16243067](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16243067)

</comment><comment><USER3> I just re-watched Total Recall for shits and giggles. It's worth it just for the "two weeks" scene.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY5KTVA_2ys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY5KTVA_2ys)

I was astounded at the number of product placements in that film!

And that there were obvious placements for competing products, like Coke and Pepsi.

Some of them were hilariously anachronistic, like advertisements for Fuji Film.

I can't remember any other movie that was quite so frequent and obvious about product placement, and I definitely didn't get the impression they were trying to be ironic and channeling PKD's social commentary on the advertising industry. It just seemed like good old fashioned shameless marketing.

I googled around and apparently I'm not the only person who noticed it. ;)

TOTAL RECALL and the psychology of product placement: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSt2Xbiypsk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSt2Xbiypsk)

He mentions that the book "Product Placement in Hollywood Films" estimates there are 55 appearances of 28 brands in Total Recall.

Best Western wasn't happy with the how their logo was used in the Martian Red Light District next to a pink neon ADULT MOVIES store sign, and how they only got 2.5 seconds instead of their expected 5 seconds of exposure.

[https://imgur.com/a/aSaoN0w](https://imgur.com/a/aSaoN0w)

<comment><USER4> I have some Fuji Film on my desk right now, I'll have you know! But I get what you are saying. :)

I always thought the Total Recall product placement was intentional and looking around our present future it was spot on.

<comment><USER3> Well I guess it succeeded artistically in giving me the impression that it was totally shameless marketing and not just another PKD conspiracy theory.

In this universe, maybe Fuji Film instead of Kodak is in still business and on your desk today, if only because of that shrewd giant blinking billboard of a product placement, that made them seem "futuristic" to generations of Schwarzenegger fans. (Not exactly the butterfly effect, but the stockholders will take it.)

[https://imgur.com/a/3jHzwl6](https://imgur.com/a/3jHzwl6)

Here are some Blade Runner product placements:

[https://productplacementblog.com/tag/blade- runner-1982/](https://productplacementblog.com/tag/blade-runner-1982/)

I love the Atari placements:

[https://productplacementblog.com/movies/atari-in-blade- runne...](https://productplacementblog.com/movies/atari-in-blade-runner-1982/)

Apparently product placement in Blade Runner is a curse:

[http://mentalfloss.com/article/67956/10-fascinating-facts- ab...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/67956/10-fascinating-facts-about-blade- runner)

10\. IT'S CURSED.

It might not be quite as hardcore-cursed as Poltergeist or The Omen, but Blade Runner has a curse of its own … on the businesses whose logos appear in the film. Atari, Pan Am, RCA, Cuisinart, and Bell Phones all suffered severe business problems in the years shortly after Blade Runner's release, as did Coca-Cola, whose 1985 "New Coke" experiment was less than successful. Members of the Blade Runner production team refer to this as the "product-placement Blade Runner curse."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This type of article about PKD comes around more and more often these days.

What Dick really got his fingernails under was the idea that our subjective reality, our semantic map of the real, has become more real to us than any objective reality. He probes this at many levels, from that of our individual perceptron driving our subjective reality (eg. Dr Bloodmoney, A Scanner Darkly) or even the perceptron of others or another being so overwhelmingly powerful that it drives our reality (eg. Flow my Tears, Our Friends from Frolix 8). He also explores more directly manufactured realities, as in Ubik and The Simulacra, where forces actively set out to deceive, both out of compassion and cruelty - and sometimes just because.

Jean Baudrillard formulated much of PKD's weltanschauung in his Simulacra and Simulation, which is as mind-bending a collection of essays as one is ever likely to read.

A particular recurrent topic for both is the idea that "The Empire Never Ended" - that we live in the latter-day Roman Empire, having inherited our fundamental western Judeo-Christian semantic symbol set from the commingling of Roman culture (Mithratic cult, god co-option, etc.) with first century Palestinian culture. Our map of reality is that which was last substantially updated then, and everything we have done since is on the map, rather than the underlying reality.

It all gets very gnostic (another favourite theme of PKD's), but I do think that there's a fundamental and valid observation that is made and expounded upon about the malleable nature of human reality.

In today's world of ubiquitous hyperreality, sensationalised and manufactured narratives, instantaneous and often wildly speculative coverage of ambiguous events so far removed from us yet seemingly right on our doorstep, this philosophy becomes deeply compelling.

That reminds me - Hypernormalisation, an Adam Curtis documentary, provides a light introduction to many of these ideas, if a bit of Baudrillard is a steep start.

<comment><USER6> > What Dick really got his fingernails under was the idea that our subjective > reality, our semantic map of the real, has become more real to us than any > objective reality.

[Warning, will discuss spoilers about a PKD story]

He does this well in his short story Total Recall. The objective reality is written over by memory implementations. However, he still feels the desire to go to Mars because no memory implantation can override his inherit nature. The Grand Truth is so bizarre that during it's first uncovering everyone believes it is a fantasy. When objective truth is proven true it terrifies those that know it.

<comment><USER7> > The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human > mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance > in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should > voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto > harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge > will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful > position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee > from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The issue is more that corporations rather than governments themselves are the ones controlling the masses. It's closest to a fascist dystopia through its context of regulatory capture.

<comment><USER9> While corporatocracy is a grave ill, it is not moreso than the bigger picture present in the article, which is that the nature of reality is bending in a PKDish fashion. Reality and the unreal are infecting each other. This is a Baudrillardian simulacrum.

It's not even proper to say it's constrained to fascism as the unreality springs from non-authoritarian sources like flat-earth memes, wikipedia wars and distraction leading to an _amnesia of how to actually live properly and we 're doing to ourselves._

FTA: Dick believed that we all live in a world where "spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups—and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into heads of the reader."

FTA: Most notoriously, the current U.S. president recently retweeted a flattering message that appears to have come from a bot densely connected to a network of other bots, which some believe to be controlled by the Russian government and used for propaganda purposes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Nor have we been lulled by Soma and subliminal brain programming into a hazy > acquiescence to pervasive social hierarchies.

I mean I guess we did, by a different kind of SoMa...

</comment><comment><USER11> did PKD predict the rise of the NPC?

<comment><USER12> A common theme in several of his novels and a number of short stories were simulations (simulacra, automatons) being integrated into our cultural concepts. Even to the point that people _believe_ that their leaders are real, while really they're just simulated characters putting on a show.

So, yes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [deleted due to irrelevance]

<comment><USER11> that doesn't really have anything to do with this</comment></comment>


Announcing Sourcegraph 3.0 - <AUTHOR> https://about.sourcegraph.com/blog/sourcegraph-3.0/ <comment><USER2> Sourcegraph CTO here. We're incredibly excited to announce Sourcegraph 3.0. This is a big release for us, with new language support, more extension APIs, significant performance improvements, and contributions from almost two dozen folks in open source.

Many thanks to our users, customers, and contributors. If you have any questions, we'll do our best to answer them here!</comment>


Ask HN: Are Waitlists Scummy? - <AUTHOR> Should you always have an MVP before "launching"? Or is creating a landing page with a waitlist (even before MVP) a better way to test for validation? <comment><USER2> If I did a search for some product I wanted, ended up on your landing page, and discovered that you currently had nothing to solve my problem, I'd consider it to be a waste of my time. I wouldn't call it "scummy" though, as long as the landing page was honest about the product not actually existing yet.

I wouldn't sign up for a wait list unless there was a clear time frame for when to expect a working product. If I have a problem I need to solve today, being able to have your MVP product six months from now doesn't really help me.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's nothing dishonest about a waitlist for a product that no one can use yet. As long as you don't lie about other things -- like saying "x,000 users!" \-- then you're fine.</comment>


Universal basic income: A nonprofit is about to test it in a big way - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/04/14/universal_basic_income_this_nonprofit_is_about_to_test_it_in_a_big_way.html <comment><USER2> > we're planning to provide at least 6,000 Kenyans with a basic income for 10 > to 15 years

It's great that this is going to be ran at scale, and over a long period of time - the hardest part is going to be waiting on the results!

<comment><USER3> What will they do about births and deaths?

Will the basic income be extended to a child or will children be left poor while their parents get BI?

If babies get added to the BI payroll, doesn't this incentivize baby making?

<comment><USER4> It seems fairest to give BI to all adults. That way you don't incentivize pregnancy but people will receive their own BI when they come of age.

<comment><USER5> But then the BI might not be enough to support families. It's a tricky problem.

Edit: the point being that children are the ones who suffer most from poverty, and investing in them has the most long term potential. But of course we don't want people to have kids just for the money, hence the difficulty.

<comment><USER4> I don't think having children is a natural right which society has the obligation to subsidize. Perhaps an additional subsidy should be provided for those who have children when the study begins, but no new children should receive that benefit.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "I don't think having children is a natural right which society has the obligation to subsidize."

Whether society subsidises it or not people are going to continue procreating, many irresponsibly (don't have financial ability to support their children). However are you arguing then that these children who happen to be born into poverty should then be left in it without government/societal help?

<comment><USER4> > However are you arguing then that these children who happen to be born into > poverty should then be left in it without government/societal help?

First of all, UBI should ideally be enough to eliminate poverty. Parents might have to make some sacrifices to take care of the children (forgoing personal luxuries or taking a low wage job). Once the child is of age, they would receive their own basic income so there wouldn't necessarily be a cycle of poverty.

Moreover, we _should_ incentivize child transfers by subsidizing adoption.

<comment> k-mcgrady I think the UBI should cover the majority of families but there are still going to be irresponsible people out there. You're definitely right that the children should get out of poverty once they are old enough to receive their own UBI but I think there should still be some sort of program in place to protect the children of irresponsible parents throughout their childhood. I'm not sure of the best way to do that but overall their is probably a net benefit for society as poverty will inevitably lead to crime and physical/mental health issues.

<comment><USER4> > I think the UBI should cover the majority of families but there are still > going to be irresponsible people out there.

If they're so irresponsible, why would giving them more money necessarily help the children to live a better quality of life?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To participate, you can donate here: [https://givedirectly.org/give-basic- income](https://givedirectly.org/give-basic-income)

(They're also listing fee-less Alternative Donation Options there, but I can't quite figure out how to use those to donate to this specific experiment.)

<comment><USER7> This is awesome, are there any list about other similar experiments?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is missing perhaps the most controversial part of the Universal Basic Income: that it's funded by the same population that it's helping. This isn't a fair test because it's being funded by "outside" money, from a much richer source (investors and donors from the richest country on earth). It's a charity moreso than a real investigation of Universal Basic Income.

A more realistic test would be to take those 6,000 Kenyans, tax them in some way (e.g. take 2x from 3,000 people), then distribute the money equally. And it would have to be done in one localized area to take care of the homogeneity problem (if the money is too sparsely distributed, prices won't reflect the new money distribution).

As much as they talk about how scientifically the study must be done, and the rigorous testing, it seems that there are some holes in the experiment.

<comment><USER9> I don't know why you're being upvoted. Your argument, to me, is meaningless.

Basic income is about having enough money to eat and get shelter, without ANY need to work - and see what happens to human beings in that condition. If the same human being has to fund its own basic income, what's the point?

Basic income, to me, HAS to be funded by someone other than the recipient. Otherwise, it's no experiment at all.

<comment><USER8> I get the "point" of UBI, but there is the problem of who pays for it. The answer of "other folks" is very difficult, and to me, the most controversial part of it, which is what I said.

To make sure we have the same premise, Universal, by definition, means everyone within a certain boundary (e.g. citizen of a country, city, state, whatever) receives the money, regardless of their income, location, etc?

To be functional, the money that is doled out needs to be collected from somewhere. It isn't that each specific person needs to fund themselves, but the set of people that receive the "Universal" basic income needs to generate the income needed to pay for it. If an outside set of people pays for it, then it's not a universal basic income, it's something else -- it's taking money from one set of people to give to another. I believe the whole idea of UBI is that everyone gets that same money.

The real problem is the collection problem: if you have a set of these 3,000 people who receive, say, $100/mo (made-up number), then I think a true test of Universal Basic Income is that the income has to come from that same set of 3,000 people.

In what way is that meaningless? I think it's a valid question to ask.

<comment><USER10> > The real problem is the collection problem: if you have a set of these 3,000 > people who receive, say, $100/mo (made-up number), then I think a true test > of Universal Basic Income is that the income has to come from that same set > of 3,000 people.

That clearly isn't how a real UBI would work. If you literally take $100/month from everyone and then give it back to them, _nothing happens_. It would have zero effect.

The way UBI works in practice is that everyone gets a fixed amount of money and then everyone pays a fixed percentage in taxes, so that more of the UBI is funded by the wealthier people who pay more taxes. Which is what the experiment is doing.

In theory to make it accurate they should also impose a "tax" on the participants based on how much money they make from external sources, i.e. if one of the participants has a job paying $200/month and we want to emulate a 20% tax rate then they get a $100/month UBI but the funders take back $40 (20% of $200) as "tax" to "fund" it. Obviously that wouldn't work if someone had above average income (i.e. they made $1000/month in Kenya and would have a "tax" exceeding the UBI) because nobody would volunteer for a study that cost them money. But you could at least see what a UBI would do for poorer populations, which would seem to be the interesting question, because for richer people it just looks a lot like any other "take from the rich and give to the poor" welfare program.

<comment><USER8> Right, I'm not saying that everyone pays themselves $100/mo; clearly that's not going to do a thing. I'm saying that I think the same set of people who receive the money should be taxed to pay for it. The thing of UBI is that it will be paid by your average person who isn't wealthy, it will be paid by the upper middle class.

Your example of people volunteering for a study that costs them money is exactly the problem that I am describing, and for a system such as this to work, that's how it would end up--taxes go up for people who this doesn't benefit, and as much fun as it is to assume that "other rich people" will pay for it, it doesn't work that way. That's why I think a better test is to select a group of people to self-fund their own UBI -- some people pay $140 and receive $100. Others pay $20 and receive $100.

<comment><USER10> > The thing of UBI is that it will be paid by your average person who isn't > wealthy, it will be paid by the upper middle class.

That's generally how all taxes work. The people with more money than average pay more than average and the people with less money than average pay less than average. But the people who make $1 more than average are only suffering a net loss of $.20, whereas the people who make $100,000 more than average are paying net $20,000.

> That's why I think a better test is to select a group of people to self-fund > their own UBI -- some people pay $140 and receive $100. Others pay $20 and > receive $100.

In other words what you think we should do is to actually make it a law somewhere?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In India I have tested this in my own small way, by giving money to some known poor people. My experience has been that typically women utilize the money far more effectively than men. May be India is a bit peculiar in terms of feelings of entitlement being higher among men.

Looking forward to the results of this test.

<comment><USER12> > by giving money to some known poor people

That is just welfare, if done on a governmental level, or charity, if you do it individually.

For it to be a true experiment about UBI, you would have to find an area that's somewhat autonomous, provide everyone indiscriminately with the same amount of money that would suffice for maintaining their basic living needs and guarantee the income for at least a certain period of time. Otherwise, well, good for you for helping the needy but it doesn't have anything to do with universal basic income.

<comment><USER13> That wouldn't have much to do with universal basic income either unless the money being provided was somehow extracted from the very same group of people. Giving away someone else's money is of course more likely to "work".

<comment><USER14> It's fairly close, it's just the "local rich" for whom the UBI is an additive rather than their main income source has been abstracted for donations. Based on the assumption that there'd be a semi-stable taxation system in place when people are earning more through trade/working, it'd be a reasonable way to test, no?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Now that's an interesting idea. Starting a UBI in a poor country has to be an awful lot cheaper than starting it in a rich one with a high cost of living; a small charity can do a comparatively large amount of good.

<comment><USER4> The ideal would be to give it to the entire population of a small, poor island nation. You could then get a very good idea of its impacts without worrying too much about perverse incentives and other outcomes. It's unclear to me how this study is going to deal with people moving into the UBI villages.

<comment><USER16> Looks like the study participants are fixed at the beginning of the experiment. People who move out keep their cash, people who move in don't get anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can't we have a new style of lottery, where the prize is not $1,000,000 or more at once, but instead just basic income for a lifetime?

The results could be useful for scientific purposes (even though the sample is somewhat biased towards people buying lottery tickets).

<comment><USER18> What you're suggesting already exists.

While lotteries in the US often advertise the lump sum winnings, many are actually paid out in installments over a few decades.

What happens is that winners demand the full lump sum. For the lotteries that offer it, the lump sum is less than the total winnings paid out over the years. (Something like 10% less.)

This has created a niche for businesses to crop up where the company will give you the lump sum total due, with a nice chunk extracted for themselves.

<comment><USER17> > This has created a niche for businesses to crop up where the company will > give you the lump sum total due, with a nice chunk extracted for themselves.

What prevents these businesses from approaching these Kenyian people?

<comment><USER19> I'd wager the gross value is too low to be worth the effort of going out there. I'm assuming a basic income for these rural Kenyans would be a very small amount in USD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No sarcasm intended here: Is the highest abstracted benefit of Universal basic income (other than the benefit to those that receive the basic income) that you cut out the middle person in social welfare distribution?

<comment><USER21> Partly. As an example, well-intentioned midcentury relief workers did a lot of damage to minority communities (like you see in Malcolm X's autobiography). Eliminating means testing and data collection saves money and is significant for the people involved in the program.

There are a lot of labor market benefits as well; one of the big problems with means-tested programs is that they screw up the tax structure at the low end of the income scale. If your options are being jobless receiving welfare or getting a job that forces you out of welfare, there's a large disincentive to seek work. You would be paying an effective tax rate of ~100% by losing that payment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Isn't one of the more interesting benefits of a UBI supposed be that it frees the people getting it to be madly productive in their passionate interests?

As Sam Altman said in a recent podcast (and I paraphrase here)..."its ok of 90% of UBI recipients sit around and smoke pot all day as long as 10% create awesome new things for society...its a net benefit."

Are these 6000 Kenyans in the technical position to create a new vision and application that benefits the world society? Can they build the next AirBnB or Uber?

I'm not saying they can't, of course...just wondering if the cultural and technical infrastructural differences between Africa and the US/Europe would create experimental distortions.

[edit] ok..AirBnb and Uber were probably poor examples and with more thought it makes sense the the effects would be much more localized in this case.

I guess what I was trying to say is that the 10% have a lot of work to do if they have to carry the weight for the other 90%.

<comment><USER6> I mean... AirBnB or Uber? If some of them set up schools or other things that benefit the local community as a whole, wouldn't that be far better than someone developing some app or something and probably moving to the West and earn shitloads of money?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> All other considerations aside, isn't this going to create some form of inflation? At least in the beginning (first couple years), I would think that a greater monetary mass (everyone has more money) would see an increased price tag on goods? I am no economist, just wondering what others take is on this?

<comment><USER24> It would do exactly that. Scarcity is relative, so giving everyone in the world a basic income will simply raise the prices of basic goods such that many again would be unable to afford them even on a basic income. The best way to end hunger is to grow more food, not to give everyone more money.

<comment><USER21> That really isn't true though. You can find the data on this almost everywhere: we produce enough food to feed the entire world's population more than adequately, but it doesn't get to the people that need it because of poverty. [1]

[1] [http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20f...](http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Does_the_world_produce_enough_food_to_feed_everyone)

<comment><USER24> You're advocating for demand-side stimulus by giving everyone money to spend on goods without increasing the productive capacity of the economy. This led to stagflation in the USA in the 1970s. There are other examples such as Venezuela today where simply giving out money does not improve welfare if the supply of goods and services does not grow as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There already is a long term UBI scheme in Kenya's poorest region around Lake Turkana if anybody wants to see what the desperate poor do with the money.

[http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and- africa/2165738...](http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and- africa/21657384-wild-ancient-and-oil-rich-turkana-shows-how-fast-continent- changing)

UK's DFID and Equity bank in Kenya pay out $50/mth to 10,000+ villagers there.

</comment><comment><USER26> The title of the article is COMPLETELY WRONG. UBI is _universal_. You don't just give it to the poor. Everyone gets it. That's an important part of the point.

</comment><comment><USER26> They are giving this money to poor villages. I wonder if that is going to provide a good testing ground? Do these people even have access to "higher- level" activities? If not then these people will just do what all the nay- sayers say they will do. Nothing. But not b/c they won't, but b/c they can't.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think the biggest unsolved question about ubi is will prices increase? There is no meaningful test if this question unless the test is conducted truly universally (I.e. this experiment will not resolve this). The potentially devastating consequence of increasing prices due to ubi is that it might relatively drag down individuals in the lowest income tiers (yes, even though they are also getting money).

</comment><comment><USER28> The point that makes universal basic income (UBI) unconvincing IMO is that it relies on a reality that it actually subverts, i.e. money. I'm not saying that we should eliminate money or provide UBI in a different, subsidiary, form. But maybe it is worth thinking on what the meaning of money, economy, markets, loans, etc will be in a world where there is a UBI.

</comment><comment><USER29> Finland is experimenting with this as well (Switzerland might too): [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/finland-basic- income/](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/finland-basic-income/)

</comment><comment><USER30> Basic income can solve many [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility) issues

</comment><comment><USER31> I'd like to point out that Libertarians do not support basic income. In this instance, the argument is simply that basic income is a better system then the current welfare system.

<comment><USER32> That's not true at all. Lots of libertarians support UBI (which this specific case is not).

It's a very capitalist solution to a post-labor world.

<comment><USER33> I am libertarian, and support UBI, though not _necessarily_ via state taxation and administration. Pragmatically, though, that is how it would need to be instituted in the real world, even if it could possibly work differently in my personal libertarian fantasyland.

I'd say that a significant fraction of all libertarians don't want to admit that their fantasyland and the real world are so far apart that they will never meet in any living human's natural lifespan, and therefore resist any idea which would tend to empower government to a greater extent in the long run.

By my personal estimation, UBI is necessary to avoid the accelerating concentration of more economic power into fewer hands, until the common man again becomes a "useless eater" that must be disposed of for the sake of efficiency. I fear that without it, or something like it, class-based warfare is inevitable, and war is more damaging to liberty than the welfare state. Given the choice between backing a step away from the way I wish the world could work, and running ten steps in any direction in a blind panic, I choose the one controlled step.

<comment> norea-armozel I think UBI is a band-aid on a bullet wound which is the notion of capitalism (note that I see markets as independent from the concept of private ownership of capital/land). All it does is delay the inevitable collapse of capitalism under its own weight.

The better solution is to try to decouple capital ownership from individuals, corporations, or states. I'm not sure how that can be best achieved but honestly I think automating the economy itself may be the best approach. It can be done in a piecemeal fashion, but it's a question of whether the capital owners will give up the reigns of power to machines to decide how best to fulfill demands of people. I'm not so much arguing for the nonsensical approach of Jacque Fresco because his notion requires engineering wants of people and the abolition of money. For me, money and prices are good aggregators for demand, they just need to be adjusted in their use cases (probably away from capital speculation), but even an automated economy would need something akin to a price and a unit for which the price is measured in. Otherwise, how are goods created? I don't see happy thoughts and wishing being viable means to ration in any economy.

<comment><USER32> Just the opposite actually. UBI will entrench capitalism as the basis for the economy, and rightly so, into the post-labor future. It will put the final nail in the coffin of already the already obsolete ideologies of socialism/communism/anarchism.

<comment> norea-armozel "It will put the final nail in the coffin of already the already obsolete ideologies of socialism/communism/anarchism."

I doubt that very much considering that most of the western world is in some form of social democracy (Fabian-like socialism). If anything, capitalism is on it's last legs due to the fact it's unable to continue to exist without turning humans into the hover-pod marshmallow people from Wall-E. A species that has to consume everything in sight without any natural check to its growth will inevitably be constrained by the physical limitations of its environment and it's technologies.

<comment><USER32> Social democracy is very much based on capitalism, and it can't support it's social programs without taxing gains of the capitalistic economies.

Inserting the word "social" into "social democracy" is the greatest propaganda trick socialists have ever pulled. It lets them take credit for an existing, functional system that they want to destroy. It's classic bait and switch.

If anything, "capitalist democracy" is a far more accurate term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> One factor that can't be measured is what competitive advantage they will have over others and how much of an impact that will have on their quality of life.

</comment><comment><USER35> sample size too small, and the problem is not that people will blow it on drugs and booze.. the problem is affordability.

<comment><USER36> 6000 people is not an small sample size at all. I work at one of the research centers that evaluated the impact of Give Directly, and a sample size of 6000 is not small in any case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> >As it turns out, that assumption was wrong.

That's a bold assertion. Care to back this up? Because you know, I have an entire peninsula full of people to demonstrate that this is false.

<comment><USER38> The sentences following your quote provide plenty of links to back that up.

<comment><USER37> They were just bolded, not a terribly good choice to indicate a hyperlink, IMO.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you keep your toddlers busy during lockdown? - <AUTHOR> I'm interested to know what other parents do to keep their toddlers busy at home.
We've two daughters (2 and 3.5 years old). They are stuck at home for the last four months. In our case, we've to monitor them continuously because they do get into frequent fights even though they miss each other when one is napping. Going out during the day is not an option due to the scorching summer (TX).
Here are some activities we do

  - We bought/buy a lot of toys, puzzles but they lose interest after a few days
  - Make slime
  - Painting/finger painting
  - Playdoh/kinetic sand
  - Bathtub time (we do this multiple times a day mostly after slime and painting)
  - <USER2>
  - Playing with lego
  - Occasionally play with Sphero and robots around the house
  - <USER3>
  - Self-play until the sisters get into a fight
  - TV time when necessary (we want to avoid screen time, so no iPad, or phone)
  - The kids love asking Google Home Hub questions like make whale sound, etc. Even though YouTube and playing video is disabled, I think I've to hide it because they ask Google to see pictures of random things they pick up during the day.
 Our challenge is their short attention span, they lose interest quickly and have to wait a few days before reintroducing them, so I'm hoping to build a long list of activities to try.
Thanks!
Edit: formatting <comment><USER4> Only speaking from experience: my kids loved to be useful. They're a little past the toddler stage now, and still love to help with the chores around the house. Have them help pick up toys, clear dishes from the table, pick up sticks in the yard. You get the idea...little things that a 2-3 year old could easily do. Now that they're older (5 and 7) they still love to help but have graduated to real things like cleaning up their rooms, vacuuming, taking care of the pets, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank You!</comment></comment>


Apple shareholders OK 'Say on Pay' - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/05/BUT5VDFEC.DTL <comment><USER2> It's funny how, to add drama to the article, the author writes, "Investors and Apple fanatics from as far as Wyoming and Pennsylvania and at least one child packed the company's auditorium." Is the "at least one child" comment necessary?! She does talk about Al Gore in the next sentence. Maybe that's who she is implying. Hmm, I guess that reference to the child is really just political commentary.</comment>


Toilet paper physics - <AUTHOR> http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/toilet-paper-physics/ <comment><USER2> Bravo. Next I shall settle disputes with solid demonstrative examples.</comment>


Weird Glowing Capacitor - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma-jnmtR9VA <comment><AUTHOR> [https://youtu.be/ma-jnmtR9VA?t=51](https://youtu.be/ma-jnmtR9VA?t=51)

>"If you get a lump of Aluminum (foil) and jelly roll it up loosely, you'll get surprising capacitance on that, and that's because _on one of the plates, Aluminum Oxide forms_ ; the "other plate" is actually the electrolyte (Borax or Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda) solution), and the other bit of Aluminum in there is just acting as a contact for the electrolyte."

[https://youtu.be/ma-jnmtR9VA?t=95](https://youtu.be/ma-jnmtR9VA?t=95)

>"The idea of that actually came from early radio experiments when you can make your own _rectifier (diode)_ by using Aluminum, any other metal, Borax or Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda) solution."

(Also, avoid Copper as the other metal, as the whole thing apparently turns blue-green).

[https://youtu.be/ma-jnmtR9VA?t=280](https://youtu.be/ma-jnmtR9VA?t=280)

>"So this little setup, we can not only use it as a capacitor, but we can also use it as a rectifier, and as a glow-in-the-dark capacitor."

PDS: Now, here's the thing... if it's possible to make a diode (aka "rectifier") out of Aluminum foil alone, because (apparently) an Aluminum Oxide layer forms -- and when you've got a layer of Aluminum next to a layer of Aluminum Oxide, you've got a diode -- then it might be possible to create a _transistor_ \-- this way, or using a similar method, as well... it would be very interesting to see if that could be accomplished...</comment>


How Physics Falls Apart If the EMdrive Works - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/11/23/how-physics-falls-apart-if-the-emdrive-works/#1673149e4b0c <comment><USER2> This is such a bad article. The Emdrive working as advertised does not immediately imply that conservation of momentum does not hold.

There are a variety of more plausible alternatives, precisely because conservation of momentum is so well-tested. Perhaps the most famous one is that the Emdrive is pushing against virtual particles that arise from a quantum vacuum.

<comment><USER3> Towards the end of the article, the author says this: "The point isn't that physics is wrong, nor is the point that the Eagleworks team is wrong. The point is that this is the beginning stages of actual science being done to examine an effect. The most likely outcome is that momentum really is conserved and there's something funny going on here."

<comment><USER4> Yes, but "funny" may still involve new physics unless it turns out to be something mundane but very sneaky.

<comment><USER5> The most likely "cause" is (still) experimental error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow... what a particularly bad article.

The Emdrive is an experiment that has so far provided an anomalous result. If that result holds up to replication and deeper investigation, only then will we proceed to the theory stage.

There is presently no theory to explain this result, but there are many speculations and hypotheses. Only the most extreme of these invoke a true violation of conservation laws, and these as a result would be considered last after others had been ruled out.

Less extreme hypotheses include interaction with dark matter or some other normally invisible or weakly interacting medium, unknown physics surrounding gravity or magnetic fields, etc.

Personally my favorite is dark matter. Could this be a weakly interacting particle thruster? Perhaps it is somehow accelerating ubiquitous but weakly interacting particles, essentially using dark matter as a propulsive medium.

That could have massive practical implications and would also lead to new physics, but would not violate conservation laws since momentum is being transferred.

A craft powered by such a thruster would have a "jet wash," just one that is harmless and largely undetectable through normal means. It might also only work in the vicinity of massive objects or in other places where a sufficiently rich concentration of propellant is found. Planets and stars have been hypothesized as being surrounded by dark matter clouds, but e.g. it may not work well in interstellar space.

Of course it would only be useful for propulsion if it could be made efficient.

<comment><USER6> See the NASA paper - they have a hypothesis, which is that they're essentially pushing against the quantum background with pilot waves - which doesn't really violate anything but does mean we took a wrong turn on QM 80 years back.

<comment><USER4> Where does the momentum go when the virtual particles re-annihilate?

Even if it is pushing against QM background I suspect that could only be part of the story. There has to be an "and then" unless we want to toss a conservation law.

Many physicists think there is likely dark matter and that it is actual matter with mass, so I've repeatedly seen that thrown out as a potential answer for where momentum might be going eventually. Maybe messing with the QM background is how that happens... somehow. Maybe weakly interacting dark matter particles interact with the microwave background or something.

<comment><USER6> Maybe the quantum background ends up with the momentum. Honestly, don't have a better hypothesis, but if we're to accept pilot waves we end up back at luminiferous aether, so it's anyone's guess.

I still reckon there's an experimental error somewhere - but if there isn't, it's undeniably a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm with Sean Carroll here. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (Bayesian reasoning).

[http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2015/05/26/warp- dri...](http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2015/05/26/warp-drives-and- scientific-reasoning/)

<comment><USER8> Emdrive does not warrant any hype:

\- There is no reason to expect that it "works". Shawyer's original "theory" on which the design is based is wrong, the EW do not even mention it in the paper.

\- Two other groups attempted to measure a similar device and published results. TU Dresden [1] people failed to get a signal, and the Chinese NWPU people reported failure (in the 2016 update [2], after debugging the first measurement). Both are consistent with null hypothesis that there's nothing to see here.

\- Bringing up "quantum vacuum plasma" and Bohmian theory, but failing to give a working argument why they would explain anything in the experiment, or even be relevant for it. The likely reason for the failure to produce something intelligible likely is that quantum vacuum does not help here --- it's a well- understood concept (perhaps not to EW), as is momentum conservation.

[1] [http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.2015-4083](http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.2015-4083) [2] [http://dx.doi.org/10.13675/j.cnki.tjjs.2016.02.022](http://dx.doi.org/10.13675/j.cnki.tjjs.2016.02.022)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hm. Seems to be about what I expected from a business/investment-oriented magazine publishing a scientific article.

<comment><USER10> The was the best explainer I've seen for what a lot of skeptics have pointed out: the science here is extremely dubious and by far the most likely explanation is experimental error.

The concepts in the article are pretty much consensus science.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That Emdrive paper has all the smells of bad science around it.

Like the original cold fusion papers, the experiment is way too complex for what it is.

<comment><USER12> > That Emdrive paper has all the smells of bad science around it.

I've seen this thrown around a lot but no one has bothered to mention what the papers shortcomings were.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> the cavity is asymmetric, has EM waves bouncing inside and isn't a Faraday cage - thus generates radiation outside (by Maxwell's classic theory, not virtual particles QM), asymmetric at this. EM radiation, ie. photons, have impulse, so according to Newton's and impulse preservation laws the EM drive should have an impulse in the direction opposite of the total vector sum impulse of that outside radiation.

The impulse is larger than the same energy would generate using visible light frequency photons in photonic drive or solar sail - that is obvious too because they use radio frequencies in EM drive, ie. much lower frequency photons. The same basic math works here like the one for specific impulse, thrust and energy relations in the classic situation of high by-pass jet engine vs. low by-pass vs. rocket engine.

Btw, for current working example of IR frequency photonic drive look up the slowdown of Voyager by IR radiation from its RTG bouncing off the back of its antenna (which is pointed to Earth/Sun and the RTG is behind it thus that IR photons bounce slows the Voyager)

</comment><comment><USER14> Can't wait to see Forbes ending up in Facebook's new fake news filter...

</comment><comment><USER15> > If you violate momentum conservation by different amounts, you violate > energy conservation, too; energy is not only not conserved, it's not > conserved by different amounts in different reference frames. The most > sacred law of particle physics — one that has been observed to apply to > every system and every interaction set in history — would be busted.

But we've known since the 1920s, when we started figuring out that spacetime changes, that energy is _not_ conserved.

Sean Carroll has a good article explaining this [1]. Some quotes:

> It's clear that cosmologists have not done a very good job of spreading the > word about something that's been well-understood since at least the 1920's: > energy is not conserved in general relativity. (With caveats to be explained > below.)

> The point is pretty simple: back when you thought energy was conserved, > there was a reason why you thought that, namely time-translation invariance. > A fancy way of saying "the background on which particles and forces evolve, > as well as the dynamical rules governing their motions, are fixed, not > changing with time." But in general relativity that's simply no longer true. > Einstein tells us that space and time are dynamical, and in particular that > they can evolve with time. When the space through which particles move is > changing, the total energy of those particles is not conserved.

(skipping some elaboration and examples he gives)

It is possible to interpret GR in a way that lets you still say that energy is conserved but it is kind of a hack:

> Having said all that, it would be irresponsible of me not to mention that > plenty of experts in cosmology or GR would not put it in these terms. We all > agree on the science; there are just divergent views on what words to attach > to the science. In particular, a lot of folks would want to say "energy is > conserved in general relativity, it's just that you have to include the > energy of the gravitational field along with the energy of matter and > radiation and so on." Which seems pretty sensible at face value.

> There's nothing incorrect about that way of thinking about it; it's a choice > that one can make or not, as long as you're clear on what your definitions > are. I personally think it's better to forget about the so-called "energy of > the gravitational field" and just admit that energy is not conserved, for > two reasons.

> First, unlike with ordinary matter fields, there is no such thing as the > density of gravitational energy. The thing you would like to define as the > energy associated with the curvature of spacetime is not uniquely defined at > every point in space. So the best you can rigorously do is define the energy > of the whole universe all at once, rather than talking about the energy of > each separate piece. (You can sometimes talk approximately about the energy > of different pieces, by imagining that they are isolated from the rest of > the universe.) Even if you can define such a quantity, it's much less useful > than the notion of energy we have for matter fields.

> The second reason is that the entire point of this exercise is to explain > what's going on in GR to people who aren't familiar with the mathematical > details of the theory. All of the experts agree on what's happening; this is > an issue of translation, not of physics. And in my experience, saying > "there's energy in the gravitational field, but it's negative, so it exactly > cancels the energy you think is being gained in the matter fields" does not > actually increase anyone's understanding — it just quiets them down. Whereas > if you say "in general relativity spacetime can give energy to matter, or > absorb it from matter, so that the total energy simply isn't conserved," > they might be surprised but I think most people do actually gain some > understanding thereby.

> Energy isn't conserved; it changes because spacetime does. See, that wasn't > so hard, was it?

So, getting back to the Emdrive, if it works it won't be it not obeying conservation laws that surprises me. It will be how simple it is.

From Noether's theorem, we know that conservation laws are equivalent to various symmetries in the laws of physics. Translation invariance gives conservation of linear momentum. Rotational invariance gives conservation of angular momentum. Time invariance gives conservation of energy.

The universe looks pretty much the same in every direction from our point of view, and when we look into the past (by looking at things farther away), it looks like the laws of physics are the same. If we do NOT have translation, rotation, or time invariance, the variation appears to be very small. Thus, I'd expect actually exploiting any such variation to require something very very big, probably galaxy cluster size at least.

[1] [http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-i...](http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy- is-not-conserved/)

<comment><USER16> I am not certain your argument holds for the system being considered here: it is important to mention that local energy conservation in a lab in flat non- expanding spacetime is very much a thing. And flat non-expanding spacetime is where this experiment is being done. Sure, if you are talking about cosmology and GR then some new effects appear, but is it reasonable to talk about those here - I doubt that the sensitivity of the equipment warrants talking about those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could we get a nice red background for links to forbes? That is a site which distributed malware at least twice [1][2][3] and tries to force users to enable JS.

[1] November 2014 [http://www.businessinsider.com/forbescom-was-infected-by- chi...](http://www.businessinsider.com/forbescom-was-infected-by-chinese- malware-2015-2?IR=T)

[2] Sept. 8 to Sept. 15 [https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat- research/2015/09/malvert...](https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat- research/2015/09/malvertising_attack.html)

[3] Possible distinct incident before January 2016 [http://www.businessinsider.com/forbescom-was-infected-by- chi...](http://www.businessinsider.com/forbescom-was-infected-by-chinese- malware-2015-2?IR=T)

<comment><USER18> Hear hear.

And they refuse to allow any access through their paywall for folks with AdBlockers, even for Google referrals.

I don't think we should be sending them any traffic at all.

<comment><USER19> Interesting, no problems here with uBlock Origin.

This whole thing about distributing malware, isn't that a widespread problem with any website that uses ad networks? Is it fair to single out Forbes in this regard?

<comment><USER12> Do the run their own ads like a lot of the bigger news sites do?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bublity: Get notifications or browse open topics, join live group chats - <AUTHOR> http://bublity.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Bublity is a group chat app that brings people together for a topic via push notifications by categories. The app gives topics for chat to people. Users can follow categories. E.g. Users can receive notifications when Game of Thrones on TV</comment>


Ask HN: Do you feel dumb sometimes? - <AUTHOR> Yesterday I was reviewing the formal definition of a limit (epsilon, delta), and it took me like 25 minutes to  understand it.
I understand the intuitive concept of a limit quite well, but the formal definition never clicked for me when I first learned it years ago. Yesterday I didn't feel the click either, it felt more like a forcing my intuitive understanding into the definition. I still don't feel satisfied about it.
When I learned to program, I got used to things clicking quite easily, it made me feel smart, like I could deduce the workings of any system from the bare first principles.
I feel really stupid now. Do you feel the same sometimes? Do you think I am dumb? <comment><USER2> Two things.

1) Humans are stupid. If we were not were not we would have long ago colonized the solar system. The technology is there but we rather not. We would rather fight, discriminate, and withhold knowledge which would, quite literally, save all of our lives.

2) Programming principles can be understood because they are based on concepts that are largely built upon a physical machine. Math can't really be understood, you just have to become accustom to it. Mathematics is simply too abstract to relate to things you already know like programming is. So when learning maths don't try too hard, just memorize, and familiarize. Once you start thinking you are smart you stop working and you stop learning.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some physicists openly admit not really understanding how a lever works. And not many people really understand the Pythagorean theorem at a deep level (as opposed to having memorized a proof of it). The important thing is to resist the urge to try and understand things and try to get used to seeing everything, not just science but literally all humans interactions etc as a formal abacus. Aim to simulate a certain set of behavior. Understanding is actually not conducive to this end at all.

</comment><comment><USER4> Feeling dumb while working on a hard problem is just stupidity leaving the brain. Those 25 minutes were well spent.</comment>