Ask HN: Would you work for a company if you do not use their product? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious if other folks have considered this:  I see a lot of career/job opportunities that look interesting/exciting, but I have not seriously considered them because I don't use/believe in the product they are developing.
One example could be Facebook; I don't have an account (I never have), and generally don't believe in their product.  That said, I'm sure it's a great place to work, and would be a great opportunity.
How do you folks reconcile that? <comment><USER2> There's a whole mess of stuff out there that might be really interesting but that you'll never 'use' personally. Math geeks might love working in a derivatives company, working on software and algorithmic stuff all day long. Not one of those geeks might ever deal with derivatives outside their day job, ever.

While having a belief in the company you're working for and what they're doing is valuable, I don't think you need to be a 'user' of a company's services or products to work somewhere.

Perhaps that's not what you're asking, or perhaps you're only looking to work at consumer-facing public web service companies?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point, I was picturing customer facing businesses when I wrote the question. I think it is probably less of an issue when you're working on something that you really could never be the customer of.

<comment><USER2> To be clear, every business is a customer-facing business. You just probably aren't the customer for most of those. Perhaps you're meaning 'consumer' ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that is indeed what I meant. Specifically, tech/web companies who's product you could use, but choose not to for some reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you mean _believe_ in the product or _use_ the product? Your post says both and they're not the same thing.

I work for a company that builds machinery that costs close to $1M. I'm not likely to ever use one of them (but I wholeheartedly believe in the product: medical instrumentation).

If you only look for jobs where you would have used the end product, you're likely to spend a lot of time unemployed.

</comment><comment><USER4> This really boils down to your personal priorities. Do you _need_ to believe in the product to enjoy work or are interesting problems/fun workplace enough for you?

Currently, I'm trying as hard as I can to get a hold of the most difficult projects I can find in the workplace. If that means working on a technically challenging product that I kinda-sorta believe in, then so be it. My goal is to get my technical chops up. I suspect that as time and my experience progresses, the actual product will mean more to me.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have been working (coder, project lead, product owner) in the gaming industry far too long now. I hardly ever play computer games, I hate most of them, and some of the products I was involved in were, simply put, just very very bad concepts.

Yet, I derived motivation and pleasure from the technical challenges and the creative atmosphere created by the crazy geeks I have the privilege to work with. Besides, the rather short development cycles with hardly any maintaining after release make for fun projects: Code and forget.

Something else to consider: If you don't like their product, you may be able to help them to turn the product into something you can enjoy as well, and with this they may be able to open up to new audiences. Sometimes, the naysayers can actually be useful, or so I like to believe.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're an expert in the field, your expertise may be needed for the business, but you may not need the product.

For example, many of the big name financial companies have a higher premium because of the service and knowledge of the financial experts (or at least perceived knowledge).

There are many financial firms that offer less expensive options but have less customer service, etc... So I expect many Morgan Stanley and Fidelity financial analysts to have a portfolio from a different company.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think one of my favorite jobs was working on IBM Information Archive, a piece of hardware that I will never use.

On the other hand, I've taken one job with a company whose "product" I found counterproductive to society. I got so depressed I could barely work, and was drummed out in 6 months.

It's almost never worth it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I could work for a company where my reaction to the product was "meh, whatever." But I doubt I'd work for a company whose product is something that I find morally reprehensible or something that I think is just absolute crap.</comment>


Some things I love about Hacker News (and a few I don't) - <AUTHOR> http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/09/some-things-i-love-about-hacker-news-and-a-few-i-dont/ <comment><USER2> What I like most about HN is that it's an incredibly efficient filter for reading.

For instance, if I come across a fairly controversial article, or a fascinating new data set, I no longer spend as much time pausing to critically think about it - I instead open the HN comment thread and read all the intelligent for/against arguments that arise, naturally, in the comments.

In simple terms, HN becomes a secondary brain for me. And that saves me time.

Of course - this doesn't happen in a vacuum. The beauty of HN is that if you've read an interesting article, and there aren't many comments at that point in time, it's your duty to add your thoughts to HN, because sometimes you can see things that nobody else can and that's valuable.

And the mutual thinking, the group powered fact-checking and the argumentation - all this is contributed to by all, and enjoyed by all.

<comment><USER3> _For instance, if I come across a fairly controversial article, or a fascinating new data set, I no longer spend as much time pausing to critically think about it_

This strikes me as a tragedy.

<comment><USER4> Only in the same sense that calculators are a tragedy, when the simple takes less effort, there is more effort left for the complex. The analogy of an externalised group brain is actually a pretty good one, and one may contribute to said brain as much as one benefits from it, to boot.

<comment><USER3> Maybe this is my own prejudice, but I think there's a big difference between practicing basic math skills constantly, and exercising critical thinking constantly.

<comment><USER4> Sure there's quite a big difference, but it's the same basic idea, a concept which through independent enquiry may only occur to you after period of time x has elapsed instead is presented to you in a shorter period of time than period x. That doesn't necessarily mean you don't critically analyse the presented concept, or that you don't analyse other aspects of the problem space merely because you have neatly parcelled answer handed to you, it's just a single aspect which you did not independently need to construct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I enjoyed this article, but I would suggest a minor correction: PG is phenomenal, but I don't believe he is responsible for shifting the balance of power from investors to founders. I think that's a function of technology and the Internet itself, as barriers to start a startup continue to be lowered. In fact, PG himself said in a TC interview there was a time (not long ago) when you almost literally had to ask permission from investors to launch a startup. That has changed, and would have been the case with or without PG, I'm fairly sure. I do, however, believe PG seriously helps to educate, encourage, and facilitate startups on the road to success within this natural function, a handful directly as YC companies, and many more through everything else he does, like his essays, Startup School, and HN.

One thing I'd add to the list of dislikes of HN is how some downvoting is applied. I think downvotes are great as a mod tool for shunning comments that are hollow, trollish, or otherwise don't contribute to the discussion. What I dislike is seeing downvotes applied carelessly because of casual disagreement with a commment which is otherwise well thought out. I'd rather people actually reply expressing their dissent, which at least gives the chance for rebuttal and further debate. Downvoting is the easy way out, and tends to look rather insulting to me, because being at zero or sub-zero relegates serious commenters to the same class as trolls. I don't think that encourages a healthy commenting community.

<comment><USER6> Back in the day (1980s, 1990s), only a closed circle of serial entrepreneurs knew the ins and outs of the business/legal side of launching and building a startup and the paucity of information available to those outside this circle was a _major_ barrier to entry for young entrepreneurs, even within Silicon Valley. Beyond that, you basically had to be _in_ Silicon Valley, or in one of only a very few other centers within the United States, to have a ghost of a chance of putting together a credible team for a startup. When you add to that the capital-intensive requirements for any credible startup back then (usually, a need for $2M to $4M out the gate to fund server purchases, etc. and to put together a quality team of high-priced engineers who, mainly for lack of knowledge, were not otherwise drawn to the startup world as they are today), most doors were closed to young founders, other than as they were willing to become supplicants at the VC entry point into this world.

All that has changed, and decisively so. I would say that PG, as innovator, funder, and philosophical guru for the new breed of entrepreneurs that no longer faces the old barriers, _is_ a major symbol of that change and a major contributor to it. I agree, though, that it is inaccurate to say that he single-handedly or even primarily made it possible.

It has been fascinating to watch all this occur over the years. Founders were once little more than grist for the VC mill. All that has changed, and I don't see it ever going back. Investors remain invaluable to the process but today are required to deal with founders on terms tipping much closer to equality of bargaining power than ever before.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you and the parent, and just want to point out that I did say that PG was _helping_ shift the balance of power. I think having someone with power and money and influence in the valley who consistently demonstrates that hungry startups can build great things with almost no money _must_ have some kind of effect.

<comment><USER5> I did notice you said "helping". The reason I continued with the post is I still think what PG does, his money, influence, etc. has little if anything to do with the power shift, even in the context of helping it. VCs (and Angels to an extent) are primarily interested in doing things in their own best interest. It's probably true that many investors give YC companies more respect in terms of the deals they do, but, as PG points out, that's because it's in their own interest to not turn YC against them for future deals. That's not a shift of power, just a case of privileged treatment. Non-YC startups are still quite subject to getting screwed by VCs. Where the actual power shift occurs is in the leverage investors once had over founders for pushing any project forward. It used to be that for any given idea (which is accepted to be fairly valueless at that point) carrying it forward meant investors _had_ to be involved. Why? Well, let's look at the things a startup has to have...

1\. Development - this is often the biggest cost and challenge. Unless the founders themselves were developers one would have needed lots of investment capital many years ago to develop even what we consider standard applications today, like ecommerce sites. Today powerful, efficient open source platforms exist, like Magento. Publishing platforms like Wordpress have meant even hobby writers like Michael Arrington could create, publish, and build a blog reaching millions of readers, as he did with TechCrunch, by simply pointing and clicking. Development costs are much lower, and outsourced and/or collaborative development is now more viable than ever before. Nothing to do with PG here.

2\. Servers/Hosting/Business Location - the further we look back, the more it cost to establish a business presence. In the old days startups were almost synonymous with brick-and-mortar buildings. Even when the products became software which could be sold virtually, rather than physically, early dot com startups were expected to have a real world base of operations, especially when adding in the need for comprehensive server capacity. This costs money. Nowadays, entrepreneurs can meet virtually, develop, blog and pretty much create value in their pajamas from anywhere in the world. Platforms like the iPod/iPad further provide reach, distribution and act as little money collection windows around the world.

3\. Marketing - this is a big one, and probably the biggest reason investors played a key role early on. Reaching people costs money. In the early dot com days there were marketing budgets in the millions being thrown around at all manner of ideas. One needed significant money to even get noticed in such an environment. Today, social networks, publishing, and sharing platforms allow information to travel much more freely. Search engines have gotten better at identifying quality sites. Consider the Conan O'Brien anecdote where he explains that he sent out a single tweet directing people to a web page where they could buy tickets for his tour, which then sold out in a matter of hours. He couldn't believe he didn't have to go to a single radio show, or otherwise do any promotion.

I believe successfully traversing these three areas are crucial to any startup's success. As I've explained the further you go back in time, the more likely you were to need investment money to have any chance at playing the game seriously. All that has changed in the direction of favoring founders. PG, again, while great, really had nothing to do with this. Sorry I didn't elaborate all this the first time. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the things I like is that when you email someone here asking for help or advice they're quite nice about it. I've gotten some very thoughtful responses from people here when I've asked for feedback.

<comment><USER8> I even got a few emails, out of nowhere, furthering discussion that was started here. It was rather surprising (in a good way) and overall feeling I get when I talk to anyone from here (either here or email) is like that from a close colleague that I have respect for and whom I can trust.

One thing I've learned about HN though, don't write anything negative about Apple. Ever. :)

<comment><USER9> A solid rule if you care about karma. Except as regards to the iOS app store policies. Then you'll even find agreement when criticizing.

I think all Apple criticism will become more well-received over time as people have their Animal Farm moment and realize the pigs have become indiscernible from the humans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I know this probably seems like linkbait, but I truly didn't write it for that purpose. Just wanted to post it here to say thanks (truly) to everyone who makes HN such an amazing community. It's one of the best things about the Internet for me.

<comment><USER10> You forgot about Political Correctness. Despite all the intellectualism, we can't discuss things that are:

      - Outside of the realm of rainbows & unicorns
      - Inconvenient truths (about the world we live in)

<comment><USER11> _Inconvenient truths (about the world we live in)_

It's because any time someone uses this expression, they are trying to convince everyone that we should adopt their harebrained flat tax strategy, or something. When someone has evidence to assert their beliefs, everyone listens. When someone starts spouting garbage about the "inconvenient truth" about how the rich are being oppressed by a 20% tax rate... well, then everyone tunes out.

<comment><USER12> I think it's more inconvenient truths like "Your startup is overwhelmingly likely to fail". Those types of pragmatic posts/comments generally are hushed over in favor of the more exuberant ones.

<comment><USER13> I think that is politeness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You mentioned how bright and knowledgeable the comments are to posts and I'd like to add to that idea.

One feature of HN comments is the pseudo-anonymity. I can find out who folks are, if they share info on their ID, but the way the comments are laid out I'm usually reading the bolder toned conversations and ignoring who's saying it. That's a very powerful concept.

Only when a comment really stands out as awesome or terrible do I look at the author.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's true, but it's also fascinating to me that some people have built such a powerful voice here. I can't count the number of times I've been reading a really good comment and thought "this has to be patrick" and sure enough, patio11. And he's not the only one.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I find myself doing that, too.

In fact, I made this observation in response to one of his comments a couple months back.

I will also start reading a discussion thread that I'm pretty sure he will comment on and stop so that I can come back later to read what he has to say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love HN, but sometimes I wish it wasn't so obsessively focused on tech and start-ups. We're missing out on so many great people! It's awesome that we have knowledgeable comments on web page design and computer security, but where are all the hacker biologists, psychiatrists and gardeners? Presumably, they're turned off by the NoSQL debates and the Techcrunch drama.

This site is purportedly about "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."[1] Hopefully, we'll move closer to that ideal.

Otherwise, we might have to fork HN.

[1] <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<comment><USER17> _where are all the hacker biologists, psychiatrists, or gardeners?_

Err, we are here. You'd be wrong if you thought that everyone in HN is a startup person, or even a programmer.

However, this is _hacker_ news hosted on _ycombinator_.com. There is a prevailing standard focused on startups and even though I am not one of those people (nor do I wish to be), I do my bit to fit in with the community standard.

It's like you are walking in a park and there's a bunch of people having an interesting conversation. You might ask to join in, but saying "why don't you people have an interesting conversation about clock mechanisms instead?" would be kinda rude.

Saying "I love HN, but sometimes I wish it wasn't so obsessively focused on tech and start-ups" strikes me as saying "I love the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra but I wish it wasn't so obsessively focused on classical music".

[Later edits in light of comments below:]

The interesting question to ask is "why are the non-startup people here". I can only answer for myself: I came here to pick up interesting new sites (in that way I am a refugee from techcrunch - reading it felt too much like a lobotomy ). I stayed because of the quality of the discussion _and_ because even though the startup folks sometimes seem to think they have a unique ecosystem, a lot of their issues are really common to software and even wider technical groups outside the commercial sector, like my own.

So no, from that point of view I wouldn't go to an HN fork - I just can't afford another time sink, and I would still need to be on HN for my tech news.

As for non-software stories, there are quite a lot of really interesting stories submitted, but they often don't gain enough traction for the home page. But there is a lot of really varied stuff in /new if you look.

<comment><USER18> I agree that Hacker News shouldn't shift its focus. However, I also think the gp post has a good point that it would be nice to see a wider variety of topics (although I'd prefer it to be a separate community). Is there another Hacker News-like site that has the same quality of discussion?

Edit: fixed its.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> While it may be a bit of a time-sink, it's also very streamlined and efficient to consume. I love how visually simple it is: no images, the careful use of dark/light text, formatting of comments, lack of ads, etc. Compared to the other sites I still frequent, admittedly less and less since discovering HN, the differences are not minor. Definitely becoming a big fan though still very much an HN rookie.

</comment><comment><USER20> It seems to me that in 99% of the world, business people look down on programmers, so it's nice to see there's a little corner of the world in which it's the other way around.

<comment><USER21> Really? Why is that "nice"? I think it's sad-- and even sadder that you wrote that and people voted it up. If one minority is stepped on in a corner of the world, it is NOT justice if members of that same minority get to step on someone else across the globe. We should judge people as individuals.

For some (very rare) software companies, pure business guys aren't super useful in the early days (Dropbox seems like an obvious example, though they certainly now need a good finance person and senior bizdev person). For the rest, an A-level sales/bizdev guy can literally make the business. Do you think Groupon is a technological feat or a business feat?

They're just like programmers (and the rest of the planet). 95% of them AREN'T A-level players, but the rest are changing the world.

<comment><USER22> You're taking it a little too seriously. Its not about justice or anything like that.

Its better to think of it as it being nice to have a little part of internet, where your opinions as a hacker actually carry as much weight (if not more) than the typical business guy.

<comment><USER23> The problem with this is the community-supported techie-self-righteous attitude transfers to personal dealings with co-workers in a business or management role.

This is HACKER News, but part of being a hacker is understanding the problem enough to be able to decompose it and work efficiently. The lack of business- acumen and "self-blinding" that HN does merely reflects the age or experience of the community.

As Hackers, we should try to fully understand the business roles, the management, and _WHY_ we are choosing software to solve a problem. Before there were PCs, software wasn't a business model. Now we have it backwards, we build software companies, not businesses.

The only guarantee when you start a tech start up (or less misleading: a Software company) is that you will write software. It does not mean someone will by it or you.

As a hacker to the bone with a CS degree and no formal education in the other aspects of start up life I say we swallow our collective pride, admit we don't yet understand 95% of what other business units do, and actually apply ourselves to getting proficient at it.

<comment><USER24> I don't think I'm the Renaissance Man, I have just enough time to be good at what I'm already doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My major gripe about Hacker News is that the time you make a post disproportionately affects its likelihood of making it to the front page.

<comment><USER18> That seems to be inherent in the social news set up. Is there any way to account for the time an article was submitted and keep the front page fresh?

<comment><USER26> Instead of measuring time directly, make a post's "age" for the purposes of ranking be a function of page views. (Or submissions, or something similar.)

I worry that it might be easier to game: refresh a lot of times before submitting to make everything else older. Submissions might work better in that regard, and there are probably other things you can do to mitigate the problem.

<comment><USER27> That's a pretty terrific idea — and you could make it harder to game by having the page view count be a sum of how many logged in users over a karma threshold had viewed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yes, I think HN is especially valuable for young people not yet set on a career path (who seem to make up the majority of the readership) in opening their eyes to possibilities of entrepreneurship that also engages intellectual curiosity. It works well for much older people like me in getting a reality check on current trends.

</comment><comment><USER29> If you comment on the time-sink nature of HN you should at least mention the noprocrast option.

<comment><USER30> Once I found and enabled anti-procrastination I find myself arriving at the "sorry" page 4-5 times per day, getting back to work instantly instead of wandering off on a knowledge hunt. Definitely one feature which makes HN the great site it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've only recently joined, posted my first request for advice and received some great advice. In a world of social sites where people just tell you what they had for dinner, this site feels like a great find which is full of interesting articles and debates. My only gripe is that I would like external links to open in a new tab or window if anything.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wish he could be more detailed about the problems with HN. There is simply too much Wired magazine and/or Silicon Valley entrepreneur culture & group thinking around here and I think he didn't point it correctly.

Issues routinely bashed and ignored because they don't belong to this culture: anything Microsoft, global warming, market trends in the 3rd world & Europe, etc.

Irrelevant issues overly hyped just because they're loved by Silicon Valley "hipsters": the last time Steve Jobs went to the toilet, the newest irrelevant fad from Silicon Valley (Yelp, wtf?), libertarian-like conspiracy theories...

</comment><comment><USER33> I like:

\- community, of course;

\- minimal design.

I dislike:

\- only total score for comments (no up-votes vs down-votes);

\- no folding;

\- no tagging;

\- no way to "watch" discussions or comments;

\- "More" link at the bottom of each page expires (thus you have to start from front-page again, not nice if you read HN not that often);

\- no way to join discussions whenever someone find duplicates;

\- no contributions section (searchyc.com (which seems abandonware, btw), pages with best discussions by topic, etc.).

EDIT: I dislike HN not being able to format an item list.

<comment><USER34> "Abandonware" may be a bit extreme. How would you change SearchYC?

<comment><USER33> More than one request has been made to get quoted strings in queries, which would be very useful, without any feedback from developers. The website is still there, however it seems the developer have dumped the code and forgot about it.

<comment><USER34> I agree quoted strings in queries would be nice. There are some technical challenges in handling mixed queries where some terms are quoted and others are not, though.

<comment><USER33> Gosh, Her Majesty The Developer! Er... th-thanks for a-answering...

;-)))))

Jokes aside, thank you very much for developing SearchYC and making it available.

What would you think about adding a FAQ section where - among other things - you explain the "quoting issue" has indeed been considered, but dismissed because of difficult implementation? I guess every web-surfer has got used to quoting in searches, therefore not having it leaves him baffled.

Cheers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> HN has been a very good source of information and opinions on certain topics of interest to me.

Have come across some really awesome articles that were immediately applicable to my situation, some are absolute crap though.

The moderating mechanism has been a good source of constructive feedback for my communication skills, which are far from great. (still, long way to go)

Came across some great perspectives on some issues, as well as some crappy ones. Overall, I am glad I found it.

</comment><comment><USER36> dislike: target != new

like: everything else :)

<comment><USER37> Some people seem to agree with you, but I much prefer it the way it is: if I want a new window, I shift-click; if I want a new tab, I cntl-click; if I want to keep it in the same window, I just click.

This seems like the sanest choice to me, since everyone can have it work how they want, even if their preferences change from time to time. Or is it possible for everyone to get their desired behaviour even with "target = new"?

[http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_16_not_opening_new_wind...](http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_16_not_opening_new_windows.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I love that I can take a quick glimpse at the comments on an article before deciding whether it's worth spending the time reading.

</comment><comment><USER31> I also quite like the fact that the community moderates the content. Big plus point for me.

</comment><comment><USER39> I love HN and spend way too much time on here.

Three things that disappoint me:

* dog-pile downvoting on comments that are valid but that others may merely disagree with

* the practice of killing apparently valid stories with no explanation

* no 'target=' user preference so that external links could show up in another tab/window if so desired

<comment><USER40> Hold apple or alt when clicking on a link to open in a new frame.

<comment><USER39> Well, yeah. I just want it to be the default instead of having to remember to hold down the command key to open in a new tab. It's a petty complaint, I do realize. :-)

<comment><USER40> If they put a target, it would drive me crazy, particularly on my iPad. Without a target, you decide, just like you do on every other web page.

<comment><USER39> I'm suggesting something different: that there is an option in user preferences that would let you pick whether you get a new target or not. Default off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> My greatest pet pieve on HN: The comment field is unusable on iOS, and the rating targets are too small with no undo. I find myself composing in a notes app and pasting.

(Only a problem because I like HN and spend a lot of time here recently.)

<comment><USER41> I continue to hope pg will modify the rating targets thusly:

      [up arrow] X points [down arrow] by name y hours ago...

I suspect this would greatly reduce the number of mis-votes.</comment></comment>


Amazon EC2 vs Google App Engine - <AUTHOR> http://cloud-computing.findthebest.com/saved_compare/Amazon-EC2-vs-Google-App-Engine <comment><USER2> BTW, I'm never going to login on a site that makes me use Facebook to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not an expert at this, but isn't Google Compute Engine supposed to be the EC2 competitor, which is also IaaS not just PaaS like Google App Engine?

And even that data for Google App Engine might be outdated.</comment>


The "Big Ball of Mud" Pattern - <AUTHOR> http://www.laputan.org/mud/mud.html <comment><USER2> Hilarious! Yes, I have seen this _way_ too many times. Great find!

Here's a personal account of ball of mud code:

(from my comment on <http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/04/07/how-to-wreck- your-brand/> )

I worked with them [Sony] on the development of their <http://musicstore.connect.com/> site that was their attempted 'iTunes Store killer' (just saying that makes me chuckle). Wow, what a mess. Talk about spaghetti code that had mushroomed into a giant ball of mud. It was _way_ over budget and took much longer than anyone anticipated. And a year later, it still only supports Internet Explorer and Windows.

My take on what went wrong in this instance: they did not manage complexity.

They let it grow and grow and did not believe that 'code debt' was a reality. It soon took 10 times longer to make even the simplest changes because of the very poor state of the code.

I have seen this happen at several companies and it's usually the same story. There are B and C level coders that don't understand the dangers or code complexity or code debt and thus create loads of both. The A level coders that do understand this try to explain the growing problem to management. The management doesn't know any better, so they see code cleanup as a needless expense that will only slow down rolling out new features and so they side with the B and C level coders. Of course, the irony is that development will eventually crawl to a near halt because the code is undecipherable. Along the way the A level coders get so frustrated with the state of the code base that they leave the company for greener pastures. This is the critical turning point since the B and C level coders will only hire other B and C level coders - and the project will die a slow death as the cycle continues.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you've ever worked with mediocre developers, you've seen this.</comment>


Don't read this Less CSS tutorial, it's highly addictive - <AUTHOR> http://verekia.com/less-css/dont-read-less-css-tutorial-highly-addictive

<comment><USER2> "All your final CSS is here. So just click on it and Copy / Paste it to a new CSS file. You should also optimize and minify it using your favorite CSS compression tools for better performance."

Ugh less seems less and less impressive than sass.</comment>


Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/science/13tier.html?_r=2&ref=science <comment><USER2> _...would you want to start building a long-term relationship with a short- term drug?_

I tried it. A friend of mine was passing out tabs of X at her birthday party in Cincinnati. After it started to take effect, I wandered into the living room with the thought, "I'm going to give every woman in this room a massage." I never got past the first woman. It was like we had this perfect understanding of each other. It was like being the male lead in a chick flick. A disastrous 2 week pseudo romance followed.

It gets worse. I was devastated by the breakup, and I was wandering around the neighborhood thinking, "Please, God, I don't want to be alone. Send me someone, anyone!" Well, I walked into this cool little import shop, and there she was. The next two years were even more of a mess.

There's a reason why there used to be California bumper stickers reading "Don't get married for at least 6 weeks after X."

<comment><USER3> What happened after that? How did/do you cope?

Last night, my girlfriend of three years came home from work. Earlier, she was excited that we'd get that night to ourselves. Anyway, I was expecting that we'd have an awesome night together, so when she came in I immediately shut the laptop and pulled her towards me. Then I noticed she was crying. The oh- shit moment came with her sentence "we need to talk". And seemingly out of nowhere came "we have to break up. I'm sorry. I totally agree that we're very different people." Confusion, anger, and then utter despair ensued. It felt like a plane hit me while driving to work. Things like that just don't happen, you know?

I spilled my heart out to her and eventually talked her down. Instead of breaking up, she wanted to take a break for a week. It's incredibly difficult to put into words how terrible it feels to hear your amore you adore ask you to please spend a week at a friend's house. We talked for awhile, and she ended up leaving rather than me. After she left, and many tears later, I experienced the full force of the succinct-but-deadly phrase "Please, God, I don't want to be alone."

I literally could not function. I went into the bathroom and just stood there, lost in thought. The overwhelming silence made me feel claustrophobic. Then for some strange reason I began combing my hair. Halfway through that, I broke down again. So I jumped into the shower (1AM at this point) and tried my best to shut my brain off. Instead, I shut the water off after it got cold. Following that, I just sort of crumpled down into the bathtub and started to freak out. It was incredibly weird, and I was trying to make sense of the whole situation. But in matters of the heart, logic is about as effective as using a red cape against a bull. You can use it to dodge, but not to stop, and I had already been trampled at that point anyway.

So at about 3AM I grabbed a few sheets of computer paper and began writing. It was a drastic, desperate tactic to keep my brain occupied, but it worked. Slowly the despair began to fade away, but anger took its place. The letter didn't even start as a letter, just as a sequence of events. Then its tone ping-ponged between a breakup letter and a suicide note. (No, I am not suicidal, I was just caught up in the emotions. That kind of situation can temporarily alter a 20-year-old's view of the world.) After a few hours of being alone, I finally accepted that this really was the end, that the situation had permanently changed, and so I finished with "thank you for motivating me to do this now rather than later" right before falling asleep / passing out from exhaustion.

Waking up was difficult. Not because I felt tired, but because it was a shock. I was blissfully pain-free, then I wondered why she wasn't next to me, then I remembered what had happened. It was 6:50AM; I woke up from the sound of someone coming up the stairs. My heart raced and I have never hoped for anything more than I hoped at that point that it was her... but it wasn't, which plunged me back into the quicksand of despair. So I picked up the pen again. I started a theological conversation with myself about why people who believe God exists would respect him so much even though he is apparently a cruel, heartless bastard. Then she came back, and in an instant all of the anguish evaporated, as if I was being tazed and then wasn't.

We're going to a movie tonight, and I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll work through this. It's hard not to resent her for ambushing me like that, especially when I'm doing a startup. But I'm overwhelmingly thankful that she came back.

But this all begs the question, palish/Shawn, why the heck did you post this? Answer: I don't know. stcredzero's situation strongly resonates with me, and it's interesting how relationships in general share so many similarities with drug addiction. I'd imagine that the above experience felt similar to Heroin withdrawal. I wonder how very different my life would currently be if I had popped an anti-love pill right after she said "we have to break up". Or how much pain I'd currently be in if she had popped one right after she left.

<comment><USER4> Okay, let me give you some advice: if a girl pulls the breakup card on you, do _NOT_ make yourself available to her over the next week. Do not try to convince her to stay with you, do not plead with her to spend time with you to "talk things over", do not discuss friendship after the breakup. Going to the movies with her is a huge fucking mistake on your part, and you really ought to pull out of that if you can.

Stay away from her for at least a week. Ignore her calls and generally blow her off. Change the locks if you live together. (Let her in if she needs to get anything from your place, but don't say a word to her.) If she's serious about the breakup, this won't do any additional harm (she already feels bad and that she "deserves" this). If she's not, then this is what's known as a "shit test"-- she's unconsciously testing you for how you respond to bad behavior-- in which case you must let her know that the break-up-and-get-back- together cycle is, under absolutely no circumstances, acceptable, and that she risks losing you forever if she tries it again. Become so distant to her that she never does this to you again. If you make yourself available to her after she pulls the breakup card, you're basically rewarding her for being bitchy and she will misbehave again.

It will be a miserable, hellish week for you, but consider this to be inoculation against a permanent breakup, which is inevitable if you let her get away with this. (Bottom line: if you let a girl walk all over you, you lose her respect, often permanently.) Exercise. Get outside, even if it's -10 degrees, just to get some sunlight in your eyes. Work, or at least try to do so, and if you can't, take a walk. Meditate. Go out with your friends and meet new people. Consider this an opportunity to train your mind and soul in happiness despite adversity. Enjoy it as much as you can, though it's not easy. This is one of the most difficult things we experience, this side of sickness and death, and it's pleasant for no one.

Regarding post-breakup misery, my experience is that it peaks very early. After 3 days, the worst is pretty much over. After about 2 weeks, you'll be back to your normal happiness level, except when you think about the ex. It'll probably be 2-4 months before you can start dating in earnest again; rebound relationships considered harmful. You shouldn't try to be friends with the ex until 6 months have passed. Also, know at all times that time is on your side. Breakups hurt the worst at onset, so you _will_ feel better every day. By the end of your week apart, the worst of your post-breakup misery should be over, and you should be able to function normally. Then, if she comes back to you wanting to resume the relationship, then _you_ will hold the upper hand, whereas if you seek her out or let her choose when to have "the talk" about getting back together, she will. Blow her off the first time she wants to have "the talk" and make her wait at least a week. You're busy, and you were spending time on other things. (Sorry to make this sound competitive, but the fact is that she is either serious about the breakup or she is not. In the former case, it doesn't matter; in the latter case, she attacked you, and you need either to make the decision to break up with her, or to win the fight she started.)

One thing I remember about my most recent and hardest breakup is that the fond memories came flooding back and were a source of intense pain, because I realized that I was permanently separated from them. An insight I learned from my Buddhist meditation practice was that those memories were no more "gone" with the breakup than without. Or, put another way, they'd be just as much "gone" had the breakup never happened. They exist only in the past. The best I could get by continuing the relationship would be the potential to have more beautiful moments... but, of course, I still have that exact same potential, albeit with someone else. This made me realize that a breakup is, on the grander scale, not very significant.

<comment><USER5> This is great advice if you assume that there are many "right life partners", all about equally good matches, and that discarding any single one of them isn't disastrous. (I happen to basically agree with that assumption, but it's important to note it and ask if OP intellectually believes in that same philosophy.)

For my account, I had a tremendously important and drama-filled relationship in my late 20s/early 30s with an ex. I was dickish at times; she was <some adjective> at times; we couldn't make it work. It was extremely painful on both sides, and to this day I wonder how we could have managed the situation better. We're both now in our new "final" committed relationships and extremely happy with the outcomes, but I wonder what would have happened if I didn't follow time_management's advice above (or perhaps, if I'd followed it more precisely; the middle ground is worse than either extreme). We might have ended up together, and I can't figure that we'd be better off than we are now. But I also went through 4-5 years of hell between that breakup and finding my new relationship, so I don't know that the worst is over in 3 days is necessarily the case...

Your points about getting outside, getting exercise, and not becoming a 24x7 hermit are absolutely spot-on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems like the phrase "everyone belongs to everyone else" is about to become quite relevant.

</comment><comment><USER7> Why is this not an editorial?

Someone was depressed while writing this. I don't think people really want that vaccine.

Despite what they _say_ people really do want the up and down, and don't really want all the same - even though they say they do.

</comment><comment><USER8> The lead-in to the article (and real meat) was a bit long and tough to read through. Neat stuff overall however, can't wait to see the follow up studies.</comment>


Rands In Repose: The Makers of Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2009/03/23/the_makers_of_things.html <comment><USER2> Beautiful Bridge Photos.

This guys writing is really good, check out his other articles eg. "Most Startups Fail" about getting to v1.0

Thanks for the post.

<comment><USER3> Certainly. His article about N.A.D.D. (<http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2003/07/10/nadd.html>) was so spot on that I had to consume the rest of his writings. Very cool to see a true nerd brained person that connects so well with other nerds, yet has an awesome knack for understanding "normal" brained people as well. It seems like he would be a great boss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For anyone interested, the BBC produced an excellent series "The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World", one episode of which covers the Brooklyn Bridge.

It's available as a set of DVDs, but the book is also well worth getting. [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Wonders-Industrial-World- DVD/d...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Wonders-Industrial-World- DVD/dp/B0006B15JI)

</comment><comment><USER5> On a somewhat similar topic: [http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/03/programmers- designe...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/03/programmers-designers-do- your-research.html)</comment>


Show HN: Coisas – A Pure-JavaScript Serverless In-browser CMS for GitHub Pages - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fiatjaf/coisas

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, here's some late explanation about what is this:

The thing is simple: it loads markdown files from your GitHub repo, lets you edit them, then creates HTML from them and puts them back in your GitHub repo. The cool thing is that it runs totally in the browser. In fact, it runs in your repository with the edit.js file that is in my repository (of course you can fork and change that), but it is cool because you get updates (and new bugs) automatically.

So you can have a complete and multipurpose website (or even one, or also many ones, small website for a specific purpose) hosted in GitHub Pages without ever touching the terminal, giving access to your account to some hosted proprietary CMS or installing Jekyll.

It comes with a basic HTML template for all pages of your site, that you can customize with CSS and JS (by default the basic HTML template tries to load a `site.js` and a `site.css` from the root of your site). All the pages have the same HTML, but you can filter by parts of the full path of each in the css (as these parts of paths are added as classes to `<body>`) or by the full path (which is added as an id).

That said, you can also fork the thing and change the basic HTML, it is a small simple Handlebars template (I hate Handlebars, but it seemed like the tool for the job).

Suggestions are also appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's interesting but confusing :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, that's good feedback. Did you read the README? It made everything more confuse? Clicking the examples would make it more clear, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback is appreciated.</comment>


PayPal Beats Google Checkout To The Local Payments Market But Will It Work? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/31/paypal-beats-google-checkout-to-the-local-payments-market-but-will-it-work-tctv/

<comment><USER2> Interesting that the article mentions their "new" micropayment option. I've been using their micropayments system for quite some time now. I sell software for less than $10, so the micropayment fees save me a lot of money over traditional fees. In fact, the main reason I use PayPal as my primary payment method is because of the micropayments fee structure. So far only Amazon offers similar pricing.</comment>


International scientists formulate roadmap for insect conservation and recovery - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1079-8 <comment><USER2> We should have been doing this all along</comment>


Which Bay Area startup is the most exciting? - <AUTHOR>

I've just decided to leave my startup, and am thinking about where to go next. As part of that, I'm trying to figure out which startups in the Bay Area seem the most interesting, exciting, and disruptive.<p>7 years ago it seemed obvious to me that the answer to that question was Facebook, but now it's less than clear. So I figure perhaps HN can help - what do you think is the most exciting startup in the Bay Area, and why?<p>(As a guide, perhaps let's define a "startup" as having less than 50 employees and being less than 3 years old.) <comment><USER2> In 2005 facebook was just a way for univeristy students to connect. Myspace had 26 million users and facebook only had 11 million. I'm not sure without talking with the insiders personally would you have the insight to even guess what strategies they were thinking of using to get ahead. Liking, walls, third party api for games all of these things drove it's growth. all those things were influenced by outside ideas and probably weren't even on the list of things todo at that time.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, but it was pretty obvious to me early on that it had massive potential. I actually have an email conversation with Dustin Moskovitz from the Summer of 2005; I reached out and offered to help them expand to Europe (I was studying at college in England at the time) after I saw how crazy my Harvard friends were about it all. Unfortunately it ended up not working out :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As you can imagine, this is HIGHLY subjective. What is interesting to you may not be interesting to me and vice versa. From your Facebook example, aside from the fact that it had "huge" growth potential, I can't decipher reasons for why YOU personally found it to be the _most_ interesting for its era. That makes it hard to quantify or recommend anything. Perhaps you can elaborate a bit more? Sorry, wish I could give a better response at this time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, you're point on subjectivity is very true. I think Facebook had (and still has) quite massive societal as well as economic value. I think that's what I'm looking for. But interested to see what startups and areas are most exciting, and why..

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Definitely Leap Motion.

</comment><comment><USER5> The one you are about to start, right? ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> :). I hope so!</comment></comment>


The Media's Creepy Fascination with China's Fake Apple Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.chinahearsay.com/the-medias-creepy-fascination-with-chinas-fake-apple-store/

<comment><USER2> > Sorry to be the buzz kill here, but this isn't the first fake Apple store in > China. It might be the best fake Apple store so far, but I know for example > that there has been at least one fake Apple store here in Beijing for many > years. It never occurred to me that I should call the New York Times and > give them a scoop, though.

> OK, yeah, that is mildly interesting. But I could come up with a lot of > examples of other amazingly good fakes in China. Again, that's not exactly > news.

Translation: I am jealous that I didn't realize that people would find this interesting and win that traffic for myself, so in classic sour grapes fashion, I am designating this 'not news'.

Nothing to see here, move along.</comment>


Benchmarking the Turing Pi Raspberry Pi Cluster - <AUTHOR> https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/raspberry-pi-cluster-episode-5-benchmarking-turing-pi <comment><USER2> at $190 for the motherboard + the cost of the Pis, a performance comparison to a similarly priced NUC (running a cluster of VMs if you want to preserve the cluster aspect) would be interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good suggestion. I almost bought an NUC last year when I was working on a NAS solution but instead re-tasked a used Mac mini (since it could pull double duty for iTunes media sharing for my Apple TV).

But going back to something I looked at a little in I think episode 1, it's a little of an apples-and-oranges comparison, because the point of the Turing Pi cluster is less about performance vs. a single other computer, and more about the fact that you have some level of redundancy and hot-swap capability with multiple Pis on one board (vs an NUC, which is one machine, even if running multiple VMs).

In the end (and this will be part of my conclusion/review in the next episode), I think the Turing Pi with CM3+ is best for two classes of people: those who want to tinker and learn clustering, and those who need a very compact but somewhat capable 'edge cluster' board, which can be mounted in a Mini ITX case and have tons of GPIO options built in for things like remote location monitoring or small tasks that run and check in with a more powerful central cluster.

I am _really_ excited for the potential a Turing Pi 2.0 would hold, assuming there's a Compute Module 4 which has a processor that matches the Pi 4.

But even then, for raw performance (compared to a more capable machine), the Pi is not a great option. Especially if you want to do ML, crypto, etc. — the Pi is better for smaller tasks or when you are extremely power constrained (e.g. remote and solar/battery power).

<comment><USER2> Agreed about access to low-level hardware etc.

For learning clustering, I'm personally unsure: Yes, those setups give you a cluster of machines, but wouldn't a cluster of VMs on a physical host give you more flexibility in trying different machine sizes, network performance, ...? Or is that too complicated and gets in the way? I do not know.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a tradeoff. Having separate hardware more fully emulates a cluster you'd see in the real world where you have to deal with cross-machine network boundaries and potential networking limitations.

Sometimes those can be masked when you run multiple VMs on one host, especially if you rely on whatever VM management tool's automatic networking configuration sets up.

The other thing a single machine can't easily emulate is having a multitude of CPU cores available across different machines, or the ability to have swapping on one application instance not take down the entire machine (well... that could be mitigated somewhat but still).

<comment><USER2> Simulating a wide range of network conditions feels easier between VMs (they go from almost perfect, way better than especially the older Pis can offer, to as degraded as you want), but contention for other system resources is a good point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US avg wage has declined in every demographic but increased overall - <AUTHOR> http://smartdatacollective.com/davidmsmith/137531/great-example-simpsons-paradox-us-median-wage-decline

<comment><USER2> While the median -- which this article and its source headline refers to -- is _an_ average, its not the usual thing people think of when they here "average" (that would be the arithmetic mean). Its probably better to refer to the measure specifically as the article and its source headline do, because with the usual average, this is not possible.</comment>


A Walk in Hong Kong - <AUTHOR> https://idlewords.com/2019/08/a_walk_in_hong_kong.htm <comment><USER2> This piece is quite accurate - it really makes you feel like you're in Hong Kong during the protests.

References aside, as a US citizen in Hong Kong there are some things that I respect immensely and some things that really get on my nerves about HK.

I greatly respect the people and the cause. It reminds me of that one poem -

> Do not go gentle into that good night.

> Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The people here have a heart to fight for their own identity and for their well-being. It's actually really amazing especially with the immense challenges facing them and the great risks they have as a people.

At the same time, when two parties disagree in Asian culture, it rarely turns towards resolution. Most of the time it turns towards silence (separating, parting ways, or just pretending it never happened), violence (intense arguments, passive aggressive pay back, hatred and villainfication of both sides leading to all out war), or just a lot of stiffness / unwillingness to compromise, understand the other side or reach a deal.

This reflection is not just about the protests, although the escalation is due to the culture being this way. It happens everywhere, the biggest pet peeve of mine is that it's a normal, accepted practice. For instance, if you don't like your boss, you don't say anything, you just hold it in and then you send in your resignation. I wish the culture would be more willing to engage in conflict resolution type conversation and learn how to do it. It takes a lot of practice on both sides to do it.

<comment><USER3> What exactly is Asian culture?

<comment><USER4> The idea that "the other culture" is some sort of inscrutable, mysterious entity that's completely alien to any kind of understanding or bridging by foreigners is a common talking point of authoritarian, nationalistic and/or warmongering rhetoric. It allows to make a number of points, such that foreign country X is the enemy, immigrants from country Y could never integrate, critics from foreign country Z should shut up because they can't possibly understand OUR culture, etc.

This kind of mentality goes beyond countries or cultures, but also affects differences between generations, genders, sexuality, etc. It is far more convenient to explain away different behaviors as "It should be expected, she's X" (or the flipped "I can't help it, I'm X") than trying to work out and overcome differences on an individual level. We're all guilty of it to some extent as it helps build a sense of identity (notably among minority groups) but the normative aspect of it is very harmful.

<comment><USER5> Unbridgeable cultural gaps, as a general matter, are very real. I recently read _Record of the Listener_ ( [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1624666841/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1624666841/) ), which is a collection of stories published in China in the 12th century. And far and away my most common takeaway from any of the stories was "wow, I have no idea what I'm supposed to think about this". And these stories were published for their entertainment value!

Similarly, immigrant groups tend not to integrate, critics from foreign countries really are usually misunderstanding a large number of important points, and so on.

Between any two cultures, there is a huge amount of overlap. But nothing quite coincides, and the differences end up mattering a lot.

<comment><USER6> They are real but greatly exaggerated by people using the aforementioned rhetoric and completely surmountable. People who claim they aren't are either trying to push an agenda (usually on authoritarian, nationalistic, and/or warmongering grounds), or not very well-traveled or have very narrow social circles not involving foreigners at all.

Your 12th century stories are interesting and all but do not reflect the reality of the world we currently live in. If you live in a large city and have a medium-to-high salary, which is a reasonable assumption to make given HN's demographics, it is in fact easy to get acquainted to other cultures by traveling often (possibly living abroad), learning other languages and/or befriending (or dating) foreigners. Much easier than used to be a couple centuries ago, in any case. If you do, you will find that deep down beneath the veneer of culture humans are very much the same. I don't have data to back this up, this is only from my mere experience.

Pretending that cultural differences don't exist is harmful and condescending; acting as though they were insurmountable and irreconcilable is downright dangerous and leads to disaster.

<comment><USER7> They are surmountable if one of the cultures changes. There are cultures that think things we find deplorable are okay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of Maciej's best IMO. Informative and very entertaining.

I was struck in particular by: _" I can't get over the oddness of the situation. In one direction is bedlam, in the other complete normalcy, separated by a few hundred meters."_

In 2003, I was walking in Madrid one evening with my girlfriend when war protesters became engaged in some sort of battle with riot police. We had wandered amongst protesters up one street, just taking it all in (up to exciting but short of dangerous!), when suddenly masked protesters came running towards us, gas clouds and popping sounds behind them. We ducked first into the alcove doorway of a restaurant and then sheltered inside at the bar for the evening eating tapas. Within the restaurant, fairly normal dining. Across the road, police with shields dealing with rioters and damaged property.

<comment><USER9> I'm from Belfast. This is exactly the case. There is almost never total constant omnipresent conflict. Nor does it spread randomly. Almost all conflict is highly localised at any given moment.

I imagine even during the war in Afghanistan there were plenty of farmers and families going about their busines while Taliban, local and international forces were live firing mere miles away.

Even soldiers cannot sustain a continuous battle. Wars are a collection of separate battles with a shared end goal.

<comment><USER10> People went out to picnic on the hills to watch one of the first battles of the Civil War in Virginia.

<comment><USER11> It didn't work out all that great for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A few years ago a Chinese man on the BART tried asking me for directions. His english was poor. With the aid of google translate we were able to do some basic communication. Over the course of 10 minutes I learned he was trying to visit the Wikipedia headquarters. I mentioned I was surprised he could access Wikipedia in the mainland. He told me that many know how to access Wikipedia.

Let's be clear. Authoritarianism is not culture; it is an evil political ideology that the people of China are subjected to.

<comment><USER13> There's honestly quite a lot of misinformation about how people live their lives in China. Many of my friends are perfectly capable of accessing blocked websites, and they're by no means computer experts. They all have been able to travel because of their increase in wealth, and most of them are in contact with foreigners from all over the world. To them, they live in a society with restrictions, but they've all benefited immensely from it in the past decades.

<comment><USER14> This is such an absurd reasoning. Just because people have circumvented the Great Fire Wall has no bearing on what the parent comment is talking about - GFW is the consequence of the evil things an authoritarian government is capable of doing (amongst other freedom of speech and press issues such as banning books, independent journalism, etc.) - whether people circumvent it using potentially illegal means (VPN in this case) is irrelevant. The government can arrest you for this reason alone.

<comment><USER13> You're missing the point of my comment, and the parent comment. The parent comment isn't talking about how the GFW is a consequence of an authoritarian government, it's talking about how he wasn't aware people could get around it.

Where I'm pointing out that this kind of unawareness is quite common, and until you've actually been to China, or have lived there, you'll have a totally different picture painted by the media. (This really goes for all countries)

<comment><USER14> It is downplaying authoritarian rule by saying that they've made is easy for people to bypass it and as you said, many people live their lives "normally" in China. The parent clarifies this by reaffirming the core subject, i.e. quoting - "Let's be clear. Authoritarianism is not culture; it is an evil political ideology that the people of China are subjected to."

<comment><USER13> You're turning this into a political discussion for the sake of discussing politics and pushing your opinion. Nobody is downplaying authoritarian rule, merely pointing out how unaware people are about other people living in different countries. You could take the exact same comment, change Wikipedia and China to something else, and I could make the same argument that I've made before; that until you actually live in a country, and talk to the people, you'll never be fully aware of how things are. Wether it be government imposed restrictions (which, let's be honest, all of us are subject to), or cultural differences, if you only use the media to build your view of a country, you'll almost always be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am in Verona (Italy) at this time, and I'm in a hotel where some tourists from Shanghai happen to be as well. I'm alone, so I hang out in the lobby a lot. I just engaged in some small talk with some of those tourists, and the discussion somehow shifted to the Hong Kong protests.

Basically what they sad is that western culture in Hong Kong clashes with the chinese culture. They don't seem to say that the chinese way is the right way, or that the western culture is the one to accept. They just say that they are different, and that of course a shift in culture is difficult for Hong Kongers. They think it will all pan out somehow: Hong Kong has to accept that they are Chinese now, and accept all the consequences that come with that.

I understand that the viewpoint of hn, a very USA oriented site, is different, and that most people here think that the libery of HK people should not be taken away from them because democracy is the only way, but I think the chinese point of view should be heard as well, and should be taken into consideration to get a better understanding of everything that is happening.

My personal opinion on this is that China should just let them keep their autonomy, and let them be Hong Kong: a state by it's own with it's own rules and laws.

<comment><USER14> Let's replace China with X so there is no xenophobic rebuttals.

X is an authoritarian regime that has no rule of law, president has self declared perpetual status in the office, piracy is rampant, no respect for privacy of others, there is an app called ourchat that is effectively owned by the government and is increasing becoming a necessity, no media let alone any kind of investigative journalism especially against the government, your social score goes down if you buy a particular book, you cannot sue the government or even think about it, punishment can include selling your organs for arbitrary reasons, the list goes on and on.

If X were an impoverished country like Somalia, the tune would change and most people would condemn such a society. I want to do so fearlessly but sometimes people see it as an attack against the Chinese people. I've been to China and have spent many months there, made lifelong relations, etc. I have no room for any concession or bargain for the argument that authoritarian rule has benefits - yes it does but at aforementioned costs. China has risen above due to government's iron grip over every aspect of the country. It is doing so at a cost. Fundamentals don't change even if one sees the strategy panning out. An eagle in the world of doves can kill a lot of doves and have short term evolutionary imbalance. But soon, the marginal cost of turning into an eagle is so small so there are new eagles popping up in the population all of a sudden. This balance oscillates in the short term, but evolutionary pressure returns it back to an equilibrium. Fundamentals of eagle and dove dynamics don't change even though the state of this system shows "success".

I'm in the position to criticize any authoritarian regimes in the strongest way possible - be it China or any other country, it doesn't matter. I don't want to die seeing this world turn into a power grab for a few with a consequence of a dystopian society. I wish the next superpower would be a country such as Norway or Sweden, it would set such a utopian example for the world to move into the right direction.

<comment><USER5> > An eagle in the world of doves can kill a lot of doves and have short term > evolutionary imbalance. But soon, the marginal cost of turning into an eagle > is so small so there are new eagles popping up in the population all of a > sudden.

This looks like a reference to the Hawk-Dove game. For those who haven't heard of it:

You have a population of two groups, hawks and doves. When they come into conflict (say, over a source of food), two doves will spend a lot of time staring each other down (each incurring a minor fitness penalty), and two hawks will fight (each incurring a major fitness penalty), but a dove facing a hawk will immediately surrender, incurring no penalty at all.

Depending on the amounts involved, there is a percentage of hawks which maximizes the total benefit enjoyed by the population, and that percentage is more than zero. A few hawks save a lot of doves time they could spend doing more productive things.

What I find interesting about this game is how it interacts with some popular notions of government. A traditional utilitarian perspective is that the purpose of government is to maximize the welfare of society. As applied to the hawk-dove game, that would mean the government should anoint some people "hawks" and set rules that mean a hawk in conflict with a dove automatically wins, regardless of the merits of the conflict. This is a pretty traditional aristocracy setup. It would then be the business of the government to make sure the number of nobles stayed within an appropriate margin relative to the number of commoners.

But another very popular model of the government says that it should make sure everything is fair. ("All men are equal before the law.") That would mean abolishing the concept of the nobility's inherent superiority to commoners, ensuring that everyone is a dove. It sounds better, but in terms of societal welfare, it's worse.

<comment><USER16> >It sounds better, but in terms of societal welfare, it's worse.

Within the very contrived confines of the hawk-dove model sure, but I highly doubt that the hawk-dove game is a particularly useful model for society as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is the first time I hear about the term "zeroth world". A quick Google search did bring up some results, but not much. Wikipedia does not seem to cover that. Of course it covers 1st/2nd/3rd world ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three- world_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-world_model), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World), [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World)). The terms "developed", "developing", and "underdeveloped" are somewhat analogue to that (e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country)). There is also the term fourth world ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_World)). Putting countries (or cities) into these categories is hard of course (and maybe does not make sense).

It seems that the term zeroth world naturally is used to say that such countries/cities are more developed than the first world. More specifically, more developed than USA. Countries/cities like Taipei, Singapore (in this article) or Norway ([http://www.chaosnode.net/blog/2018/06/17/life-in-the- zeroth-...](http://www.chaosnode.net/blog/2018/06/17/life-in-the-zeroth- world/)) are such examples (you probably can add some more to that list, e.g. Switzerland).

Other articles ([https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america- is-r...](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is- regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people)) argue that we maybe can just downgrade USA to a developing country (i.e. like 2nd world).

<comment><USER18> I think he uses the term creatively, it's not a standard term I've seen elsewhere.

Having spent a decent amount of time in both mainland China and Hong Kong, and living in San Francisco and previously elsewhere in the USA, I can definitely relate. So many things about China feel much more modern than the USA. I get better cell phone service on top of remote mountains in China than I do at my home in downtown San Francisco. Public transit is light years better there as well. Certainly there are things that are worse in China, the main one being air quality, but often coming back to the USA after an extended trip in China or Hong Kong is quite disappointing as I reacclimate to our crappy infrastructure.

<comment><USER19> At least peak air pollution seems to have been passed, so it'll only get better from here (it's still a long way down though).

The situation at the moment is a bit difficult in that reducing some of the emissions will actually result in more pollution, since the pollutant mix undergoes chemical reactions and some components deplete others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > The MTR is the one technology the Hong Kong protests could not do without, > an autonomous fiefdom that the police mostly stay out of. It is neutral > territory

This is a godsend. During Paris protest earlier this year the gov would just shut down public transports for about 5~10 km around and block main accesses so people couldn't massively join the protests.

At least the mainland gov. didn't get to touch that I guess.

<comment><USER13> Some stations have been shutdown several times in the past few weeks, I'm not sure if it was on the request of the police, or the MTR just decided to skip stations. However, this wasn't due to people going to protests, this was due to increased violence, and even attacks inside the stations.

Last week the HK police decided to fire tear gas within a station as well.

<comment><USER20> > However, this wasn't due to people going to protests, this was due to > increased violence, and even attacks inside the stations.

Yes, and it's legitimate from a business point of view.

But then, if the police wanted to shut down these stations, causing violences/attacks would also be a way to push MTR's hand (they've already hired mobs to stir the protests, trashing stations for strategic advantage wouldn't be out of character)

<comment><USER13> I believe the police have also requested the MTR to add additional train services, so that people could get out of affected areas.

There's been a lot of push back on the police operating inside the MTR stations, especially after what happened last time. It's one thing to try and push people to leave the area, another thing to fire tear gas rounds at the entrances of MTR stations.

The protestors have already shown that they can cripple the MTR network within a couple of hours, I doubt the MTR want to be on the wrong side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You can listen to this article here:

[https://www.listle.io/#/article/951265060](https://www.listle.io/#/article/951265060)

</comment><comment><USER22> > The protesters learned in 2014 that having leaders was a weakness. Once the > leadership was arrested, the heart went out of the occupy movement, and it > lost momentum. So in 2019, there is no leadership at all.

Another thing that's similar with the (still ongoing) Yellow Vests in France.

</comment><comment><USER23> > "It's okay," I tell them. "This is normal. I'm not dying—I'm Polish." They > edge away.

Funnily enough, myself being Polish, I found HK climate much more preferable than the Central European. I dread every end of summer; every winter kills my energy and work performance a bit more.

<comment><USER24> Even us locals suffer during the summer. It easily reached 35C with up to 90% humidity.

<comment><USER23> Yes I understand, peak summer is very sweaty. For me it's still nicer that freezing off and having to wear 4 different layers to survive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "All that prelude is to say, coming in to the Hong Kong protests from a less developed country like the United States is disorienting."

This sentence got me hooked. It must be so alien to the average American that there are more developed countries/cities out there.

<comment><USER26> I wouldn't put Honk Kong in that list though as much as I like the people and the city. I've been a few times and the infrastructure looks like it's falling apart. Electricity wires are hanging haphazardly, alleyways are dirty, and most facades of buildings are straight out of the third-world. The contrast between high-end boutiques interspaced with tiny mom-and-pop shops selling second hand stuff is a little surreal.

<comment><USER27> What you described is the exact impression I got when I first travelled to New York :)

"Is it supposed to be this dirty?"

<comment><USER28> Come visit downtown San Francisco :D

<comment><USER27> I go fairly frequently these days and am not surprised by much any more ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If anyone is interested, I actually happened to be in Hong Kong and attend the first wave of protests and took some photos: [https://500px.com/zensavona/galleries/hong- kong](https://500px.com/zensavona/galleries/hong-kong)

</comment><comment><USER30> The Hong Kong government/China have been completely inept at managing the housing situation and it is nearly at a breaking point. It is refreshing to read an article on the current situation that raises the issue.

'One of the deeper causes of the present crisis of legitimacy is the housing crisis in Hong Kong, another way in which the government has failed the people it is meant to represent, and you can see it in the extraordinary density of apartment buildings, each unit pock-marked with an air conditioner, tiny living spaces with some of the highest rents in the world.'

<comment><USER31> But this is how the Hong Kong government has traditionally made its money. Hong Kong's tax structure is real-estate sales. This is why Hong Kong is all about huge sky rise developments of ultra-small apartments... and because the island is all hills, it is also why so many developments are built literally on a cliff.

Hong Kong is a geographically difficult place... building new plots is expensive - and the government makes it more expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Hmm. I wonder how the protesters know who to trust in their Telegram groups and on LIHKG. There has to be a core of organizers, however anonymous they may appear to be.

Is there a way to track metadata exhaust from telegram for building a social graph or xss lihkg? Could be a way to ID them.

<comment><USER33> This is some serious "too interested in seeing if you could, and not stopping to wonder if you should" content. What possible positives are there in exploring how to de-anonymize people whose life and freedom requires anonymity, and who are fighting the good fight?

<comment><USER34> Telling those people how to improve their privacy before Beijing did this.

<comment><USER35> Slightly tangential since you're specifically discussing communication but I've noticed that the term "privacy" is often getting incorrectly used when discussing surveillance tech (e.g. face recognition).

There is no expectation of privacy in a public place.

But an important right in a free society is the right to anonymity.

A street is not a private place and, as said, there is no expectation of privacy there: Anyone and everyone can see you and what you are doing.

But you should have the right to remain anonymous as long as you do not breach the law. That's what called into question these days with e.g. automatic facial recognition.

<comment><USER36> > A street is not a private place and, as said, there is no expectation of > privacy there: Anyone and everyone can see you and what you are doing.

Only people physically there can see me and what I am doing. Modern technology enables them to record that and share it globally and across time. It's important to recognize that this ability is not inherent in it being a public place.

"Expectation of privacy" and that you can't have it in a public street is a US-centric concept. Other societies draw the line differently.

<comment><USER35> Expectation of privacy in public places has never been a concept anywhere. Privacy and public space are simply contradicting terms.

<comment><USER37> > Expectation of privacy in public places has never been a concept anywhere.

This is untrue. Naomi Campbell was in a public place, but courts found she had a reasonable expectation of privacy. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1461187/Naomi- Campbe...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1461187/Naomi-Campbell- wins-drug-photographs-case.html)

In England you can't just set up CCTV to monitor public space, you need to register that with the ICO.

<comment><USER35> Your link does not mention anything about her being in a public space, and it's difficult to comment on a specific case without knowing all the details.

In the UK there is no expectation of privacy in public places and anyone can film or take pictures in public. Case in point: the flourishing tabloid industry of celebrity pictures.

The ICO is about data protection. Even websites processing personal data must register with the ICO.

<comment><USER37> She was on the street. MGM tried to say, as you are here, that because she was on the street she had no expectation of privacy. English courts disagreed.

[https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2004/22.html](https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2004/22.html)

> In the UK there is no expectation of privacy in public places and anyone can > film or take pictures in public.

I've just linked you to a case where that was shown to be untrue.

> The ICO is about data protection.

Data protection is one of the laws that prevents people just setting up a CCTV camera to record public spaces. If you set up a CCTV camera in England that records the street you need to register it with ICO. What you can do with the images is limited because data protection law. You're claiming that because there's no expectation of privacy on the street someone can just run CCTV and do what they like with those images. They can't in England.

You said

> never been a concept anywhere

This is nonsense. See eg German or French law.

> In some jurisdictions it is an actionable wrong to publish a photograph of a > person taken without consent – see Markesinis and Unberath – the German Law > of Torts 4th Ed. at pp.75 and 445 and Dalloz 101 Ed. of the French Code > Civil, notes at paragraph 15 on Article 9 of the Code

<comment><USER35> There is no expectation of privacy in public places. You are trying to prove me wrong by subtly shifting the argument.

> _You 're claiming that because there's no expectation of privacy on the > street someone can just run CCTV and do what they like with those images._

I never claimed that. But I will say that there is no legal restriction on filming a public space in England.

<comment><USER37> I am not subtlely shifting the argument.

I'm giving you at least one clear example where someone in public had an expectation of privacy and that was upheld by English courts.

I've also showed that English data protection laws provide an expectation of privacy and restrict what type of filming and photography people do in public places.

> But I will say that there is no legal restriction on filming a public space > in England.

For fuck's sake, there are at least 3 and probably more.

1) Naomi Campbell case above

2) Data protection forbids certain kinds of filming in public

3) "This is a prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act" \-- try standing on a public street filming a location that has these signs up and see how far you get.

<comment><USER35> > _For fuck 's sake, there are at least 3 and probably more._

The Met Police (among others) disagree. [1]

Again, Naomi Campbell's case is not about filming a public space.

It's also clear that there might be special cases, e.g. for national security.

Data protection does not forbid filming in public.

[1] [https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and- information/ph/p...](https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and- information/ph/photography-advice/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Interesting to contrast this with popular demonstrations in US or France. No windows broken? Burnt city infrastructure? No beaten up police? All so quiet.

<comment><USER35> They seem to have spared private property, but windows were broken, city infrastructure was damaged (e.g. LegCo, police stations), and police were beaten up.

It's like in all countries. Some protests/protesters are peaceful, some are not.

<comment><USER39> Ehm, our Swedish rioters usually break all windows once getting started

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Except for 21 Jun and 11 Aug I join every protest I can made to. It is exhausting to fight a gov that do not listen because its power is from a colonial power on the north. Hk is in the forefront of the things to come. Look at Austria you know what the bully will do.

</comment><comment><USER41> This has probably given me more insight in the protests than any news article I've read so far.

Why is it so hard to find a decent source for what is happening?

<comment><USER20> Fundamentally it is not what western media think as "news".

It is long, ultra detailed, first person, and doesn't cover the central point covered by other news outlets.

If a NYT editor was reading this it would cut it down to a fifth of what it is, have it reexplain the 5 demands, give a clearer political positioning etc.

We had that with french protests, standard news covering was cut so it was very digestible and non thought provoking (ton of focus on politics, the fights, injuries and non participant's reactions to the events), it felt like most places removed bits that could be too interesting.

We need both obviously, and I also share your view that more often than not when big event occurs the news coverage doesn't help much to give us a grip about what's actually happening.

<comment><USER42> > If a NYT editor was reading this it would cut it down to a fifth of what it > is, have it reexplain the 5 demands, give a clearer political positioning > etc.

The word "extradition", a key piece of information about current HK-China relations, does not appear in this blog. Let's not pretend it is deeper than something produced by a reputable newspaper. A newspaper can put out long form like this, or just straight news. In either case, any decent story teller will mention why the protests are happening.

 _edit_ please explain your downvotes, thanks

<comment><USER43> The reasons for the protests are well-covered elsewhere, they are full of nuance that I can't get right, and my assumption is that people who read through this post and are interested will be able to find lots of background on the protests through a simple google search.

I would normally have added reading links, but things are moving fast here and also I am on an unfamiliar travel laptop where it's kind of a chore to edit and write.

<comment><USER42> The protest started from a proposed law to extradite HKers to China. That point is not nuanced, it's just a contextual fact.

<comment><USER43> That is how the protest started. Why it continues, why it has grown, and why extraditing people is such a galvanizing issue, is complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Is anyone in Hong Kong proactively setting up communication channels to the outside in case the military cracks down? In a worst case scenario it'd be good to have reliable high-bandwidth communication channels to the outside world. The time to establish them has past I think, but there might still be some quick-wins to make.

They will shut down and disrupt all normal communications the moment their operations begin.

</comment><comment><USER45> > "It's okay," I tell them. "This is normal. I'm not dying—I'm Polish."

I chuckled more then I should as an east-european myself. If it's hot I do sweat a LOT.

</comment><comment><USER46> > I catch the briefest glimpse of a woman with no protective gear, dressed > normally, who is weaving her way upstream through the escaping demonstrators > with a placid smile on her face.

I liked the prose in this piece; it felt like a novel. And as someone commented before, I felt myself immersed in the story.

</comment><comment><USER47> _" This sounds like it shouldn't possibly work, but the protesters are too young to know that it can't work, so it works."_

Brilliant !

</comment><comment><USER48> Pastebin copy: [https://pastebin.com/gsiAqu4u](https://pastebin.com/gsiAqu4u)

<comment><USER49> Internet Archive copy: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190816070112/https://idlewords...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190816070112/https://idlewords.com/2019/08/a_walk_in_hong_kong.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is the most beautiful and tragic thing I have read all day. Is there a reputable place to donate?

</comment><comment><USER50> Judging by the comments here I wonder how many people on HN have actually been to many protests, even small ones. If there's a cause you support, local or global, there may be demonstrations in your city. Get out there and make a difference!

</comment><comment><USER51> Everyone is a sacrifice of ideology, it's easy to merge into one ideology then see the surface and judge the other, but if you look from the outside of ideologies, things could be much complicated than it seems to be.

I am Chinese people in Shanghai, and not happy about the status of democracy/free speech/privacy either. But I feel like things are improving, by the progress of economical development, but this is not my point, just feel some observations of the current China is biased.

My point is, The protest in HK is trying to stimulate Beijing to make an action, which will be a disaster for all people, except the politicians from the western world would love to see it, and some protester love to see it because that will prove China is evil.

The reason Beijing must take action is because the building is too tall to fall, just like US must send troops to Iraq, the ideology must prove itself is righteous.

</comment><comment> La-ang Amazing writing style. I felt walking Hong Kong and every emotion that ought to be felt there. [Trains are now running every seven minutes, instead of very two, and MTR regrets the inconvenience.] Ah the New York Subway :/

</comment><comment><USER52> Looks like a kind of mass mania.

</comment><comment><USER53> Maciej, this is amazing. thank you for posting it.

<comment><USER43> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Whips in the soul.

</comment><comment><USER55> Jesus. An amazing piece. Thanks

</comment><comment><USER56> Fu Guohao was severely beaten by black shirt protesters at the airport for allegedly being a mainland spy and a police plant. Why did the protesters do that? Why did they take away his freedoms? Why do these current narratives gloss over that fact?

You can accuse me of whataboutism, and I can accuse you of indulging in propaganda.

I can't imagine getting away with shining a laser in a police officer's eyes, let alone slinging bricks or molotov cocktails. The HK police are arguably kind.

<comment><USER57> This comment is by a green-name account, isn't responding to anyone in particular and has that online-commenter-army feel to it.

Genuine question for HN: what's the right term for this sort of comment, or commenter?

<comment><USER35> If political submissions are accepted then we should also accept comments expressing opposite and contradicting views on the issue instead of trying to suppress them by labeling them as "bots", "online-commenter-army", etc.

<comment><USER57> Yes we should be able to have a discussion, but I'd ask you to read the article and then read the comment. Does the comment look like it is responding to the article, or attempting to open a dialogue with the other side ... or does it look like a generic attempt at point scoring for the "pro-mainland" side?

If "abcdefghijklmn3" is really keen to engage with the HN community then I take back what I said. But we both know that the chances are pretty good that this person isn't into that.

<comment><USER35> In my view it is responding to the article because that article is extremely pro-protesters and that comment expresses the opinion that this isn't so black and white.

Engage with the point made instead of discarding the comment as "invalid", or just ignore the comment if you don't want to engage.

<comment><USER6> Sometimes things are black and white though. The Chinese government is bad, and undermining it in any way, including through violence, is good. Nuance for its own sake is not a virtue [1].

[1] [https://kieranhealy.org/publications/fuck- nuance/](https://kieranhealy.org/publications/fuck-nuance/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> It's interesting how food is always the most in demand and lowest supply commodity in socialist countries (or more accurately lowest variety selection since they can barely produce enough staple foods, so they shut down the production of nice things limiting the local cultures ability to express themselves and enjoy food). You see it happening repeatedly even today in Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, and historically in China and Russia.

You'd think farming would be something they could do right since they are obsessed with those types of workers, who are their bread-and-butter. But I guess it has more to do with the price controls (probably the worst way to make something 'cheaper') and inefficiencies in the centralized organizations who think they can plan this stuff.

The typical excuse used by socialists re: Soviet Russia was they were exporting food for guns (because evil America), but that doesn't equally to all of the socialists examples in history and is far more likely a direct result of their economic system.

</comment><comment><USER59> > The protesters learned in 2014 that having leaders was a weakness. Once the > leadership was arrested, the heart went out of the occupy movement, and it > lost momentum. So in 2019, there is no leadership at all.

This part seems a little naive to me. Protests that have produced outcomes (in atleast a power shift) have all had Leaders and new political parties forming. Whether in India after the anticorruption/gangrape protests in 2013-14, Greece economic crisis in 2008, Right wing rise all across Europe thanks to the immigration issues. All these movements have had leaders who got arrested multiple times.

</comment><comment><USER42> HK has come quite far, but if they can't stage peaceful protests without fear of reprisal from Beijing, then the brightest will still flee to the US.

This blog post's point seems to be, he had culture shock when he moved to the US as a child, and experienced it again when visiting HK because he feels it is more advanced than the US.

> Not everyone lives in a luxury hotel, man! I get it. But my eyes are like > saucers. I ask forgiveness of Hong Kongers if at times I am still that six > year old kid, dazzled by what to you is ordinary. You live in a kind of city > we Americans can only aspire to, and it's no wonder you love your home so > much you will take any risk to save it.

<comment><USER35> I believe quite clear that they can stage peaceful protests. Peaceful protests have never been prevented in Hongkong.

<comment><USER42> Perhaps you are unaware, China has produced videos of military units gathering near the border of HK. China is making very visible threats to peace.

 _edit_ next reply below..

"Let's not pretend" \- are you copying my language from another comment? weird or a coincidence.

Anyway we don't see eye to eye on this. In my view, Beijing's obstinance is causing all kinds of trouble in HK, for both the HK police and the general population.

This could all be resolved swiftly by simply retracting the extradition bill. The longer the disagreement continues, the more likely more people in China have a chance to hear both sides of the story. I expect that is a scarier prospect for Beijing than they would like to admit.

<comment><USER35> This is not a response to "peaceful protests", which are common in Hongkong without any problem, including on very sensitive issues (e.g. the annual gathering to commemorate the 1989 protests on Tiananmen Square).

Let's not pretend that what has been happening are just peaceful protests: There has also been violence, ransacking of the LegCo, and blockade of the airport. Any of which would not have been accepted anywhere.

Protesters have won on the extradition bill. It's effectively gone. Now they have just made sure that the mainland's public opinion rally against them and behind the central government. That has been a strategic mistake, IMHO.

<comment><USER19> Experience with many governments shows that they often just put these bills into a drawer and pull it back out at the next opportunity.

I feel we have to protest the same things every few years here, in a democratic state where we are free to do so.

Hongkong might not have the chance in the future, so I understand where they're coming from.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>