The Khmer Rouge: Genocide in the Name of Utopia (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://openendedsocialstudies.org/2016/06/24/the-khmer-rouge-genocide-in-the-name-of-utopia/ <comment><USER2> My last boss is probably one of the few people I know I would consider an actual genuine hero. He singlehandedly rescued his family from the Khmer Rouge and smuggled them out of the country through China, then to Britain and finally Canada. He started a business from nothing here and is probably the best employer i've ever had. His nephew was the manager while I worked there and is one of the greatest people i've met and became a good friend. Him and the rest of my boss' family wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for him. He lost a lot of friends and family because of the genocides.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I didn't appreciate this until I read about the survivors, but it's freaky to imagine that one day you go from living relatively normally, to being marched out of Phenom Penh at gunpoint by teenagers, separated from your family, and forced to become rice farming slaves.

And they were slaves, one story is about a person who was starving, just like everyone else, who dared to catch a fish that swam between their legs to eat. They were shot for that.

They also practiced eating the rich in the literal sense. For whatever odd cultural reason, they enjoyed eating human livers from people who were executed.

When the civil war ended, the king asked the people to return their guns. The Khmer Rouge kept theirs and intercepted shipments thereof, easily taking over the disarmed areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >As described in PBS's Frontline documentary series, "Instead of becoming pariahs, the Khmer Rouge continued to play a significant role in Cambodian politics for the next two decades.The Khmer Rouge would likely not have survived without the support of its old patron China and a surprising new ally: the United States. Norodom Sihanouk, now in exile after briefly serving as head of state under the Khmer Rouge, formed a loose coalition with the guerillas to expel the Vietnamese from Cambodia. The United States gave the Sihanouk-Khmer Rouge coalition millions of dollars in aid while enforcing an economic embargo against the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government. The Carter administration helped the Khmer Rouge keep its seat at the United Nations, tacitly implying that they were still the country's legitimate rulers."

<comment><USER5> This was aided by Noam Chomsky, who used his considerable influence to cast doubt on the idea that the genocide had happened at all.

<comment><USER6> This is not an isolated incident, unfortunately. He also praised Mao's policies shortly after they caused the worst famine in human history.

[https://newcriterion.com/issues/2003/5/the-hypocrisy-of- noam...](https://newcriterion.com/issues/2003/5/the-hypocrisy-of-noam-chomsky)

<comment><USER7> Chomsky hosts a transcript on the forum those quotes were taken from, and that article ignored any context for the remarks and edited their content to make them seem more objectionable than they are. Saying China does not deserve blanket condemnation as part if a broader discussion is hardly praising Mao's policies.

The butchering of the second quote is is even worse, omitting the line "But, as I said before, I don't think it was the use of terror that led to the successes that were achieved."

The article later moves on to defend the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory bombing, which is fittingly right after discussing Cambodia.

[https://chomsky.info/19671215/](https://chomsky.info/19671215/)

<comment><USER8> What is your own overall view of the Khmer Rouge, and ditto Mao? And have your views changed over time?

Let me say where I am coming from here. The Khemer Rouge and Mao had in common certain ideas. They were for socialism, and they were for achieving it through violent revolution. They believed in the Leninist ideas of vanguardism and party centralization. And they believed that it was possible to take a preindustrial country directly to industrialization and then anarchistic socialism without first having to go through a liberal, capitalist phase.

I think these ideas are mistaken, and whenever they have been tried the result has been a horror. And it is for that reason the Pol Pot and Maoist regimes were so brutal. So my question to you is, what do you think of these ideas?

<comment><USER7> Broadly, that they are both military dictators whose actions were more influenced by fighting off external and internal enemies than any ideals.

<comment><USER8> Yes, they were. What I am saying is they were that because they were Marxist- Leninists. Pol Pot and Mao started out as Marxist-Leninists and that lead them to establish military dictatorships. That set of prior ideological ideas leads inevitably to that sort of situation.

One reason I think it is important to stress this is that defenders of Marxism-Leninism say that regimes like this went bad because they fell away from Marxist-Leninist values, which implies it could have gone better, but I say the ideology always leads to that result.

So let me ask you, do you disagree? Do you think it is possible for a Marxist- Leninist regime to turn out good?

<comment><USER7> It's not clear. It may be a problem with Democratic centralism, but basically every example of it being attempted is immediately countered with extreme hostility from most of the world. Like in China, within two years of the end of the civil war the US had marched an army to the Chinese border with the ability to drop nukes on them. That kind of threat leads to a military dictatorship, no matter what economic policy you hope to try.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for giving an answer. But you know, the original idea of Marxism was that the revolution would take place in the advanced industrial states, which have the greatest military power and so would not face this sort of threat.

But when that failed to happen Lenin switched to the idea of revolution in preindustrial nations, which would lack that military strength. He predicted this would be safe for Russia because imperialism had run out of options and would collapse in the great war, and then revolution in the advanced nations would take place and protect Russia. And then when that failed to happen he was stuck with socialism in one country, but decided to go ahead anyway, with the predictable result that it came under military threat first from the fascists and then the capitalist countries.

In the case of China and Cambodia, military threat was predictable from the beginning.

So what is your scenario? Is it to wait around for the revolution to finally takes place in the advanced nations? And what about Trotsky's argument that Democratic centralism inevitably leads to dictatorship?

Also, since you defended Chomsky, does he ever directly discuss Marxism- Leninism? My impression is that he is not one, and if that is the case why did he think that M-L regimes might turn out good?

<comment><USER7> >And then when that failed to happen he was stuck with socialism in one country, but decided to go ahead anyway, with the predictable result that it came under military threat first from the fascists and then the capitalist countries

With Russia, within roughly a year every major player involved in WWI had declared war on the Reds. Threats from the facists came much later, when I'd argue the entire revolution was over.

In general though, Lenin's personal ambition had seemed to be his driving force for most of his revolutionary career, which is why I'm skeptical of it's ideal outcome as well.

>In the case of China and Cambodia, military threat was predictable from the beginning

I agree, but I think the hostility from capitalist countries has an overbearing influence on the kind of atrocity filled resulting states.

>Is it to wait around for the revolution to finally takes place in the advanced nations?

I don't really support a violent revolution anywhere, and have moved into the "slow change" side of revolution.

As for the rest, I also suspect that Democratic centralism is a flawed premise, and view Lenin's disbanding of the soviets as proof he was aiming for a dictatorship. As for Chomsky, I don't think he is one. This discussion was how he doesn't think the revolution was wholly bad, as the propaganda makes it out to be, but he was hardly praising it either. I'm not really sure why you started this conversation about Marxism-Leninism if I'm honest.

<comment><USER8> I started this discussion about Marxism-Leninism because I believe that Marxist-Leninist countries invariably turn brutal, for various reasons (and you seem to basically agree with me). That being the case, Chomsky should have assumed from the beginning that reports that Cambodia was brutal were probably accurate, and I assume he didn't because he has some mistaken ideological beliefs. And that being the case people should not be defending him.

I think this is part of a much larger problem. I think everyone should have an understanding of Marxism-Leninism and what is right or wrong about it. One of many reasons everyone needs to understand Marxism-Leninism is that China continues to be considerably influenced by it.

I am in my 70's, and it used to be a fair amount of the population had this understanding, but nowadays very few people do. This has happened partly because the left, both pro-and anti-communist, has basically stopped explaining it to people. One consequence is mistakenly defending people like Chomsky when they go wrong due to poor ideological understanding.

I think there are various reasons the left has stopped explaining Marxism- Leninism, but I think it is very unfortunate and am angry at them for this, and I take every opportunity to explain it, and in fact I am planning on someday writing an article on it.

Let me add it's nice to talk to someone who understands these issues far better than most people do.

<comment><USER7> >That being the case, Chomsky should have assumed from the beginning that reports that Cambodia was brutal were probably accurate, and I assume he didn't because he has some mistaken ideological beliefs

From Chomsky's viewpoint, the drop in population had two likely causes. Cambodian atrocities, or the lingering effect from the known US atrocities/possibly still ongoing ones. When the only reports pinning it on Cambodia comes through refugee statements made to the US, Chomsky thought independent verification was necessary.

As for the rest of your post, I've made myself clear that I'm not a proponent of Leninism. That said, Marxism-Leninism never had the strong or lasting influence you claim. It was used to foster the revolution, and then pulled out for various political uses.

Any violence inherent in the ideology is shared by most revolutionary creeds. During the nineteenth century, it was assumed that any "liberal" revolution would also inevitably turn brutal as well.

And as for wanting the "left" to explain Marxism-Leninism, most of the left experience the same twelve years of propaganda on the subject as the right. I don't see this drastic difference between the sides.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for replying. I think a lot about these issues, but I haven't really talked with someone on the left about them.

Let me see if I understand what you are saying. First of all, I get the impression you are a democratic socialist. Is that right? And I take it part of the reason is that you see violent revolution as at least very often leading to oppressive regimes. On that I agree.

Ok, now that being the case, I say Chomsky should have predicted this for Cambodia, but he didn't. And that would seem to indicate that he disagreed with people like you on the idea that violent revolution leads to oppression.

And if that is true, then I think people on the democratic left who respond to Chomsky ought to make clear that he was wrong on the question of violent revolution and oppression. But I have read lots of things by leftists about Chomsky, and I don't think I have ever seen one that said that.

Maybe they are out there, but the left is sure not communicating this idea to people in the public who don't read leftist literature, but do run across lots of things by leftists in forums that reach a larger public.

So first let me ask you, am I right that Chomsky apparently disagrees with you on the strong connection between violent revolution and political oppression?

And if I am, would agree you that when the democratic left is communicating with the larger public about Chomsky, one of the things they should do is make clear that he is wrong about this? And if you disagree, then why not?

<comment><USER7> Democratic socialist is probably broadly what I would be, but I don't have much certainty on if it's the best choice, and I don't hold much stock in those kinds of ideologies.

On Chomsky, no matter how certain you are that violent revolution will lead to oppression, you need sufficient proof that it is happening before you condemn the government. Chomsky had, in my mind, legitimate reason to doubt the evidence coming through the US, and wanted independent verification. I doubt he thought Cambodia would never do such things.

Even when a state is run by a terrible tyrant, that does not mean they are guilty of every crime imaginable. Wanting sufficient proof of their misdeeds before any potential punishment is sane. Waiting may cause more oppression, but brazenly punishing may hurt more people overall.

To me, the Iraq War largely proves Chomsky's point. Hussein was a tyrant, and as he had used weapons of mass destruction in the past there was plenty of reason to suspect he had them. He did not have them though, and the Iraq War has ruined millions of lives.

<comment><USER8> Sorry I haven't responded. I've been busy. I plan to respond tomorrow

<comment><USER7> Going to add one more thing. I did a little research on what Chomsky's stated position on violent revolution is, and he feels it should be a last resort avoided if possible, as the welfare of the people often suffers. He generally advocates against all forms of violence.

<comment><USER8> That's good to know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a Vietnamese, one of the sad thing about this whole ordeal was how Vietnam's involvement in this was viewed under a very negative light by the world.

The year was 1978. Vietnam had just came out of the country's great war 3 years earlier, and was extremely exhausted to put it lightly. The last thing it wanted was getting in another war. But it had no choice. The Khmer Rouge crossed the Cambodian - Vietnamese border, looted nearby villages and massacred the people. You can read up on the details, but be warned the atrocities will ruin your day.

Under the circumstances which can be argued as an existential threat, Vietnam had no choice but to launch attack on the Khmer Rouge and swiftly got rid of them and liberated the Cambodian people, ending the genocide.

Yet the world's view on this has been incredibly negative. Even now, Vietnam is often seen as the invader, the aggressor in the conflict instead of the Cambodian people's liberator.

<comment><USER10> I can tell you that from at least this Canadian's perspective, using military force to eliminate the Khmer Rouge was no less necessary than using military force to eliminate the Nazi control of Germany. I think you'll find that among people who have extensively studied asian and southeast asian history and military topics, it's almost universally agreed upon how evil their regime was.

The full weight of the evidence for how many people they killed, which only surfaced by the mid to late 1980s, only further reinforces this.

<comment><USER11> Mind you, the Vietnamese government went to war with the Khmer Rouge because the latter attacked Vietnam, not because the killing fields became unacceptable.

<comment><USER9> It's true, and it's sad but that's just how it works. Unless a country is attacked, it's very hard to find justification to intervene in the internal affairs of another country. That said, once war is inevitable, the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge made Vietnam understand that such a regime cannot be allowed to be left alone, both for the sake of the Vietnamese and Cambodian people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I attended a university-based martial arts class in the late 1990s. A somewhat-elderly Asian lady (probably mid-50's) began attending classes and progressing through the ranks. She was kind of. . . well, a goofball. Transgressive sort of humor. Made jokes about people's girlfriends. Laughed through demos.

The only time I saw her utterly serious is when the instructor showed off some knife-defense techniques he learned at a seminar. She got a weird look on her face at the overly-styled techniques we were being show and very clearly said, "We did it like this in Cambodia." She grabbed the rubber knife from the sensei, seemingly teleported behind his back, clamped a hand over his mouth, and drew the knife across his throat. "So they no hear any noise," she explained. As a bunch of 20-something kids, we looked on in horror. She seemed to remember herself and looked embarrassed. Left early from class and never came back.

</comment><comment><USER13> My parents survived this awful tragedy. They shared stories of how they dealt with the intense hunger, exhaustion, and living in a state of perpetual terror. More often, they'd speak of the family that were taken from them-- uncles, aunts, and grandparents that I'll never meet. My grandpa was a musician that composed much of the popular Khmer music of the 60s influenced by American rock. Nothing has been more devastating than not knowing the whereabouts of loved ones. One of the most brutal legacies of the Khmer Rouge is the separation and destruction of families and communities.

Through a DNA testing site, we recently matched with an unknown relative, leading to a joyful reunion between my mom and an aunt who cared for her before the war.

DNA analysis has helped identify the unknown remains of Pearl Harbor service members[1], bringing closure for families. I'm certain this technology could do the same for many Cambodian families.

[1] [https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/Recent-News- Stories/Articl...](https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/Recent-News- Stories/Article/2033698/update-on-pearl-harbor-identifications/)

<comment><USER14> Sinn Sisamouth?

<comment><USER13> No, but he did compose songs for Sinn Sisamouth, who often brought sweets for my mom whenever he visited their home in Phnom Penh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone who hasn't seen it, I recommend watching The Killing Fields. Obviously it's from a very British/American perspective. Since I doubt that the film production companies that made it are earning much, if any revenue from it these days, I don't feel bad about linking to a torrent of it:

[https://rarbg.to/torrent/cbm3x4z](https://rarbg.to/torrent/cbm3x4z)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields_\(film\))

<comment><USER15> Highly recommended. Haing Ngor won the Best Supporting Academy Award for his portrayal which also may have offended Pol Pot/the Khmer rouge enough to get him killed. [0]

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haing_S._Ngor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haing_S._Ngor)

<comment><USER16> "Defense attorneys suggested the murder was a politically motivated killing carried out by sympathizers of the Khmer Rouge, but offered no evidence to support this theory.[13] Kang Kek Iew, a former Khmer Rouge official on trial in Cambodia, claimed in November 2009 that Ngor was murdered on Pol Pot's orders, but U.S. investigators did not find him credible."

More likely just murder and theft, it seems.

<comment><USER15> Selective quote, much? The very next sentence is,

"Some criticized the theory that Ngor was killed in a bungled robbery, pointing to $2,900 in cash which had been left behind and the fact that the thieves had not rifled his pockets."

<comment><USER16> Nope, I just stopped reading there. But I still see no convincing link to the red khmer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My grandfather was a victim (he was educated and a well-to-do farmer). They beheaded him in front of the village. My mother and her family were forced to watch and clap.

<comment><USER18> That's tragic.

My mother-in-law lost her parents and six siblings all on the same day... she was the oldest and the only one to have moved out of the family home already. She had also recently had a baby and lost the child, because she herself was starving from the forced labor and could not produce breast milk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's enlightening to contemplate the impact of such a thing, all the way out to the song "Holiday in Cambodia." Imagine seeing a tree with a plaque on it stating that this was the place where they used to smash infants' heads against the trunk. They were always just one murder away from achieving perfection, and in light of such a goal, what is a single life?

I was recently remarking to someone on their Year Zero, their willful destruction of all that had gone before. Certainly we have seen it with ISIS and Mao encouraged it for that revolution, but this was much more thorough. Pagodas were turned into warehouses and statues were of course destroyed. It certainly seem to be a common thread in communist revolutions: all that has gone before must be destroyed.

Now I am going to see if I cannot find Spalding Gray's _Swimming to Cambodia_.

<comment><USER20> History is a series of bad remakes that should never have been made. The US seem to be going on a very good direction, toppling Washington and Jefferson's statues lately.

<comment><USER21> I take the Spike Lee approach, if people are going to violently vent their anger its better they destroy some object than end someones life. We can always make another statue.

<comment><USER22> I'm not really sure anger or violence works that way. Some would say that tolerating violence leads to more, or more severe violence.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So much of the tragedy of our times has been along those lines. Reading this book (amongst others) about the atrocities committed in service of the British idea of utopia in India evoked similar feelings: [https://www.amazon.com/Inglorious-Empire-What-British- India/...](https://www.amazon.com/Inglorious-Empire-What-British- India/dp/1849048088).

In comparison, the turn towards soft power in the 21st century on the macro (political) and micro (personal) levels is much appreciated, despite all of its ills.

<comment><USER24> Any particular reason you chose that example?

<comment> blaser-waffle Flog their book, push propaganda, or just someone projecting their feelings about a topic that is tangentially related to the main thread.

HN is targeted by agi-prop and marketing as much as any other social media site.

<comment><USER23> Please forward the list of acceptable books to discuss on HN so I can comply with it! I'm guessing Elad Gil, Peter Thiel... what else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My fianceé's mother was one of those children who was seperated from her parents in Cambodia during this time. What became of them is unknown, but it could have been any of the gruesome fates covered by this exposé. I learned a portion of the story from what she could share through tears, and thanks to this article I now understand more.

Thanks for sharing. One day I will need to go there and see some of these sites for myself.

</comment><comment><USER26> I still get chills hearing about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. This article struck me in a different way: the farmers vs urbanites. I never saw it this way before.

<comment><USER27> The Khmer Rouge weren't dumb. Pol Pot came from a wealthy family and was educated at the top French-Cambodian schools.

Similar to the North Vietnamese massacre of 3,000 civilians during the Battle of Hue, it's the doctors, teachers, professors and other elite who have the power to oppose you. The rural folks have little power or money to resist.

<comment><USER28> Maybe I'm not so paranoid after all about the hints of a sort of cultural revolution going on in the US.

<comment><USER29> Similar, to some of the stuff in the late 60's, America is being subjected to a textbook Marxist action. However, instead of using economic class stratification to sow societal collapse, Marxists are using race and identity.

However, I don't think they will succeed. If Trump loses the election, the media narrative will flip and things will settle down fairly quickly. If Trump wins the election, I think the weak-bonded BLM/Antifa/Black-bloc coalition will breakdown too.

<comment><USER30> It's no coincidence this is happening now. The seeds of Marxism were planted long before the Soviet Union died.

One of the most fascinating lectures by Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB defector, described 30+ years ago exactly what the long-term plans of the USSR were. It is eerie how much of it applies today: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=1FElIhOh_KI](https://youtube.com/watch?v=1FElIhOh_KI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is a great "follow-up" documentary about the reporter investigating his family's deaths and talking to Pol Pot's deputy "brother number 2" icymi

[https://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/](https://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/)

<comment><USER27> Holy god that trailer is chilling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm sorry I read about S-21 years ago because it stays with me to this day due to one thing: the lack of mercy.

It somehow compels me to go see it even though I have resisted the idea. I know I will one day.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think by far the best documentary on Cambodia is -

The Cambodian Space Project: Not Easy Rock'n'Roll (2015) [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4678238/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4678238/)

It ties the past to the present and it doesn't bring the whole country to that one incident but also acknowledges it has affected so much.

<comment><USER34> Oh didn't know there was a documentary, will check it out. I saw them do a musical in Kampot which was very interesting. RIP Srey Thy, too early.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There is an interesting video about this in the "Rare Earth" channel [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUCiADFjQG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUCiADFjQG0) (He has a more videos about Cambodia.)

</comment><comment><USER29> "In Washington, then-Representative Christopher Dodd of Connecticut averred: ``The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now.''"

"In the news columns of The New York Times, the celebrated Sydney Schanberg wrote of Cambodians that ``it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone.'' He dismissed predictions of mass executions in the wake of a Khmer Rouge victory: ``It would be tendentious to forecast such abnormal behavior as national policy under a Communist government once the war is over.'' On April 13, 1975, Schanberg's dispatch from Phnom Penh was headlined, ``Indochina without Americans: for most, a better life.''"

[http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/...](http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/1998/04/30/american_leftists_were_pol_pots_cheerleaders/)

<comment><USER36> The irony is that many will say the same about the US invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam Hussain.

Often there are no easy answers. Did Dodd know the full extent of the Khmer Rouge's crimes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I hope this gets thoughtful discussion.

The events are very tragic. I know people whose families were in danger of being sent to the camps —they escaped though laborious trudging through jungle at night, escape to Vietnam and then HK as boat people before moving on to better places.

How does idealism end up in such a dark ditch like this where your own neighbor thinks the horror is so bad they have to go in a clean things up, despite nominally being "on the same side"

<comment><USER38> That is why critiquing and opposing bad ideas is important. Idealism and altruism do not inherently improve or redeem goals or philosophies.

<comment><USER23> agreed, authoritarianism is something we should leave in the 20th century.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Funny, did you find that from the "notice the skulls" reference in a certain subreddit?

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha yes I did!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Didn't Kissinger's atrocious bombing of Cambodia help pave way for the Khmer Rouge?

<comment><USER41> More than that, the Khmer Rouge were actively supported by the US.

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

<comment><USER27> Your article says "allegations", but you're stating it as fact.

<comment><USER42> It also has a section "Undisputed US support"

<comment><USER27> Which makes up about 5% of the claims and when you read it you're like "ok, they wanted the KR to keep their UN seat".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Well that was then. This time we got it right.

</comment><comment><USER44> Before Covid I was living out in Phnom Penh. I adore Cambodia and its people who are some of the friendliest people I've ever met in the world!

The Khmer Rouge were a mixture of Marxism and Khmer nationalism. Black lives matter is a mixture of Marxism and Black nationalism...

It's very apt to have this article here. I'll always challenge Marxism because I've seem the results and what it does to people. My landlord was a child solider his mother a lovely elderly women who's only English was "hello" with a very toothless grin. But if children walked past she would go silent because when the Khmer rouge were in power if children heard you say anything which could be construed as wrong you'd be murdered.

The Khmer don't talk of post traumatic stress they call it 'broken courage'.

I've met so many people who's parents did amazing things. My ex girlfriends grandfather fled to Thailand as he was a teacher and considered educated. Her father worked the field during the Khmer rouge period afterwards who got an education where he could and put himself through medical school and became a doctor. He's one of the most incredible people I've ever met. My ex keeps a picture of him in her purse on the back in written my hero my father.

You do walk around and see old people and the thought does wonder in your mind are you a victim of genocide or a war criminal. The Khmer have forgiven though and should be an inspiration to us all.

Black lives matter terrifies me because I look back in history and I've seen what racial Marxism does!

<comment><USER45> They will argue that true communism has not been given it's fair shake, the US intervention prevented it, and that this time they will get it right. They could not package traditional communism in a palatable manner so the Marxist went back to the drawing board and packaged it with social issues. Anytime the government get's involved in social issues it becomes a mess, personal liberties get infringed on and it turns out bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Does this skip over any bits or did it really go from "royal hanger on learns colonialism is bad in Paris" to "let's teach the kids how to torture people" really quickly in reality?

<comment><USER11> [deleted]

<comment><USER46> Please don't post generic ideological boilerplate to HN. An internet forum is incapable of treating this material in any way other than predictable, tedious flamewar.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20ideolog&sort=byDate&type=comment)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Article is from (2016)

<comment><USER46> Thanks! Added.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> > The Khmer Rouge believed that parents were tainted with capitalism, so they > separated children from their parents, indoctrinated them in communism, and > taught them torture methods with animals. Children were a "dictatorial > instrument of the party" and were given leadership in torture and > executions.

This sounds like it's taken straight out of Orwells 1984.

<comment><USER49> Wait until you read about the forced confession extraction in S-21 / Tuol Sleng...

<comment><USER48> I came back here in a hurry, having just read that part... where did they get this from? Why on earth would they be interested in forcing 'confessions' out of people, just to execute them later?

Maybe my initial comment should be that this _is_ taken out from [a book] that both Orwell, and the Khmer Rouge has read; which book would this be?

<comment><USER27> It's not an uncommon tactic. Identify the people you want eliminated, force a confession (whether true or not), then carry out "justice".

You're not opposed to justice are you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The US tends to play word games to where they never armed the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the same manner its easy to play word games to where after years of screaming headlines about genocide (which I guess does not include the US carpet bombing of Cambodia), as soon as the Khmer Rouge, whatever that is supposed to be, gets pushed out of power in 1979, the US begins aiding the KR in a myriad of ways, including in 1985 when it began somewhat openly, somewhat clandestinely, arming the Khmer Rouge. ( This marks the start of the heavy armament [https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/10/world/u-s-may- help-2-rebe...](https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/10/world/u-s-may-help-2-rebel- groups-of-cambodians.html) \- note all the denials that any of the arms are going to the KR - later reports showed they indeed were).

It's kind of amusing to watch Americans in hysterics claiming a group is committing genocide, then arming that group for victory in their civil war, then going back to tearing their shirts about this genocide they claim happened. If it happened, then the good old USA armed the KR after all the period it supposedly happened.

<comment><USER51> Do you have any evidence that the U.S. directly supported the Taliban or al- Qaeda?

<comment><USER10> They didn't, he's oversimplifying it greatly. The US armed the Mujahadeen throughout the 1980s (through the Pakistani ISI and Pakistani state), leaving behind a vast amount of unused weaponry in Afghanistan. This was during the period prior to the soviet ground forces' withdrawal from Afghanistan and prior to the ending of the Najibullah government, and the killing of Najibullah.

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

It definitely is a fact that during the 1980s the US pursued a policy of "the enemy of my enemy...", in which the hardcore fundamentalist/sharia law politics and religious ideology of some of the mujahadeen they supported (Bin Laden included), were seen as secondary or tertiary to the primary mission of killing soviet soldiers, and bringing about the end of the soviet-backed government.

 _Some_ of the former Muj, predominantly the very fundamentalist Pashtun factions, later became the Taliban which seized Kandahar in 1994, and then Kabul in 1996. At that point the US had not been supporting them for at least 4 years. After the Taliban became an actual "thing" the US shifted its support to the northern alliance/northern warlords such as Dostum and Massoud.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Marx on the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat, 1850:

"When the Democrats propose measures which are not revolutionary, but merely reformist, the workers must press them to the point of turning such measures into direct attacks on private property; thus, for example, if the small middle class propose to purchase the railways and factories the workers must demand that such railways and factories, being the property of the reactionaries, shall be simply confiscated by the State, without compensation. If the Democrats propose a proportional tax, the workers must demand a progressive tax; if the Democrats themselves declare for a moderate progressive tax, the workers must insist on a tax so steeply graduated as to cause the collapse of large fortunes; if the Democrats demand the regulation of the State debt, the workers must demand State bankruptcy.

Thus the demands of the workers must everywhere be directed against the concessions and measures of the Democrats.... to concentrate as much power as possible in the hands of the State. They need not be misled by democratic platitudes about the freedom of the Communes, self-determination, etc. Their battle-cry must be 'the revolution in permanence.'"

<comment><USER52> The phrase "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" used to trip me up. It is the will of the people: a true democracy.

As much as we call what we have a "democracy", we don't live in one; it's an illusion. What we have is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie that ignores the masses.

<comment><USER53> > What we have is a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie that ignores the masses.

Sounds like you've lost yourself in your wordplay. Where you draw the line between your "masses" and your "bourgeoise"?

<comment><USER21> And this tended to be the beginnings of violence in communist revolutions. It typically ends when the distinction between proletariat and bourgeoise dissolves into revolutionary and imperialist or party member and non-party member.

Take China for example. The country became relatively peaceful internally once it became acceptable to merely not oppose the communist party, compared to the "revolutionary times" of the civil war and cultural revolution.

I feel like good research on how and why revolutions arise, communist ones specifically, is lacking. We do not understand their initial conditions. Maybe we must turn to Marxists or communists directly for this understanding.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Steve Jobs Explains NeXT's Strategy (1991) [vid] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY <comment><USER2> worth watching...

This is vid 1 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dmcRbuTMY> and this is vid 2 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn3Ex-5dPAo&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn3Ex-5dPAo&feature=related)

What is interesting is that even though his approach in these videos is correct, Jobs would have lost if Apple didn't have the large pool of cash to do something with Next's technology when Jobs came back to Apple.

Just goes to show that you can be smart and know exactly how to achieve a goal, but luck and timing are just as important.

<comment><USER3> > Just goes to show that you can be smart and know exactly how to achieve a > goal, but luck and timing are just as important.

Yeah, it's fascinating to watch this and think that as this video was being made, the Internet (well, WWW) was just about to change everything (directly or indirectly anyway).

<comment><USER4> I think that his strategy was sound at the time. The market he was talking about did grow. But he missed a critical point.

He was thinking of it as a split in the workstation marketplace. Sun had a 50% market share. He thought he could beat Sun. In effect, this marketplace became dominated by PC players & PC users (EG Mac Pro). A subset of the PC market really. Publishers, animators, designers, architects etc.

He did pick them up in the end with Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> He _is_ a smart guy. That's a very rational non BS marketing brief for a CEO. (at least my stereotype of one. I don't know many). This a gist from the 2nd tape:

They are interested in consumers being pushed form the PC to the workstation market. These are the reasons:

1* - Custom Apps - * The key is having the best development environment. (he thinks they do0

2* - productivity Apps - * The key is productivity apps using the networking capabilities so they can tie people together'*

3* - Interpersonal Computing - * This he says, is the long term strategy.

</comment><comment><USER5> Even in 1991, Steve Jobs was wearing jeans and a black turtleneck.

<comment><USER6> As far as I know he's been wearing it for much longer:

<http://folklore.org/projects/Macintosh/gallery/popsci.jpg>

"The following collage is from an article by Steven Levy that appeared in the February 1994 issue of Popular Science, commemerating the Macintosh's tenth birthday. It's based on pictures taken by Norman Seiff for Rolling Stone Magazine in January 1984."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an amazing find. Steve Jobs is definitely one of my role models, and I'm sure a role model for many of the people on this site.

Macs have completely revolutionized every piece of consumer technology, and have set new industry standards in everything that they do.

I really enjoyed watching him pitch this startup, I have always wondered how Steve Jobs was as an early-stage entrepreneur.

Good find.

</comment><comment><USER8> man its amazing how much the guy aged in 17 years.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sell company to apple.</comment>


Why are big banks pulling out of investing? Is it fin tech? - <AUTHOR> Today the NYT highlighted (link below) that Goldman Sachs is one of the only banks still investing and trading heavily, and they're seeing massive loss in profitability. What is causing this? Is fin tech automating it? Is someone else moving into the space?
 Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/business/dealbook/goldman-sachss-profit-and-revenue-tumble-in-quarter.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share <comment><USER2> I don't know how is the situation in GS but in Europe many investment banks are under serious trouble, even if we exclude the effects of periphericals debt crisis. Turnover in primary markets has stagnated due to excess credit capacity and a (structural) small number of companies wanting to go public. On secondary markets, trading in equities and bonds has reached a plateau ages ago with liquidity seeming more and more artificial and regulations decreasing risk taking massively. Costs are also increasing due to regulation (huge in Europe) and necessary change in outdated technology. Asset management starting to feel the heat from indexing and ETFs... Fintech is not there yet but at some point it will cause massive disruption because margins are going to be way way lower. It sure looks like a death by a thousand cuts... CLSA analyst Mike Mayo has nailed it perfectly not only for GS but for the industry as a whole: "You danced pretty well the last three to four years without revenue growth. But it seems like you're getting to the end of what you can do."

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. As a total amateur in this area, does this mean that: There is so much cash available that betting on everything makes more sense than bets on individual things based on analysis?

In other words, the cost to upgrade tech, follow regulations, etc. is higher than the margin between an index and a managed fund? If that's the case—wouldn't that mean that there are fewer people actually setting the price for any given stock by analysis, and wouldn't that end up bloating the market with potentially bad companies/vehicles continuing to get investment because they are in the main indexes?</comment></comment>


Amazon Dark Patterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.netinstructions.com/amazon-dark-patterns/ <comment><USER3> Prompted by this post, I wanted to check what happened to the 1-star review I have left 6 months ago. (Product worked for 3 days and then stopped, and after a replacement, the same thing happened). Sure enough, I have 0 comment in my profile, and I just checked, it has also disappeared from the product page.

This is shady as hell, because I am 100% sure I wrote this review. I even wrote it twice, once on amazon.com and once translated on a local amazon site. This is slightly infuriating.

<comment><USER4> Consider the other side of this argument: should reviews be timeless?

Many times a (good faith) vendor will make small, incremental changes to a product that addresses concerns that low-star reviewers point out. However, the product page remains the same - it does not distinguish between "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch A" and "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch C". It simply says "Seattle Coffee Beans".

So if you leave a review for Batch A, but the product being sold is now Batch C, should the review still be displayed?

<comment><USER5> Sure they can, but what about some of the products on Amazon which are mostly immutable like for example: Books.

A bad book is a bad book. Batch B of the said book is mostly a new "product" listing on Amazon with its own set of reviews and ratings.

Also if Batch C is being sold or something similar (to batches), a better idea would be (IMO) to have the product owner comment on the review, saying we have fixed this in batch 2 or batch B or something

<comment><USER6> This is OT but books can vary in quality too - specifically the paper used and the print quality. I was looking at "Physically Based Rendering" ([http://a.co/bL8bjUw](http://a.co/bL8bjUw)) after seeing the post here about rendering a scene from Moana and was disappointed to see comments about bad print quality. Hopefully this is fixed in a later print run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I once wrote a 1-star review on amazon for a top-selling product that had almost only positive reviews. The review was published but they quietly changed its contents. They replaced some words (I guess it was too strong language like "crap" or something) but even worse they removed at least one whole sentence and after that the review didn't make much sense anymore and it looked like I wrote it like that.

Then I watched the statistics about how many people found this helpful. At that time this was in two numbers: people who think its helpful and people who don't. Over months that ratio kept the same. Started with 1 helpful, 3 not helpful. Then 10 helpful, 30 not helpful. Then 30 helpful, 90 not helpful. I found that highly suspicious.

Since then, amazon reviews are dead to me.

<comment><USER8> Wait amazon edits your reviews? That's shaddy as hell, I can understand removing a review for "strong language" but changing its content without asking the author is borderline scammy.

I couldn't find similar stories online (although admittedly that's pretty hard to search for). I'd think it would be a big deal if Amazon was caught doing that, wouldn't it be?

<comment><USER9> Obviously a retailer like Amazon wouldn't outright edit user reviews because it would be incredibly easy to catch, and would be a massive scandal if true.

The guy you're replying to probably just forgot what he wrote.

<comment><USER10> > Obviously a retailer like Amazon wouldn't outright edit user reviews because > it would be incredibly easy to catch...

To be fair, you're also giving them the benefit of doubt on this, for which the dark patterns don't seem to justify. It could just be a scandal that hasn't broken, yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> An alternative explanation for this is that Amazon is struggling with identifying fake reviews, which could explain both why there seem to be many fake reviews and why one would get blocked from writing reviews (basically falling victim to a false positive of their fake review detection).

Obviously there is also some bad UX thrown in for good measure (being able to write a review without being able to send it), but we aren't necessarily looking at dark patterns here.

This could just be Amazon struggling with and failing at a task (avoiding fake reviews).

Not all bad UX is a dark pattern, sometimes it's just bad UX … (a dark pattern is bad UX with a positive consequence for the person or company offering up the UI or maybe just and intended positive consequence, even if the UI doesn't achieve that goal)

I think it's a stretch to argue that Amazon is really benefiting from any of this and long term this erosion of trust is not at all good for Amazon. I do honestly think that if Amazon could snap with their fingers and remove all fake reviews they would do it. (Which is not to say that Amazon does not employ dark patterns elsewhere.)

<comment><USER12> If your maybes are valid it simply means that these Amazon guys are new in the business and will figure out how to design user interface once they have the resources.Lets give them a slack, aye?

Seriously though, I canceled my prime after I got a fake SD Card that was sold by Amazon. There was no straightforward way of returning it, had to contact customer support.

Later I looked closely and I noticed the reviews warning against fake SD Cards but these were buried in enthusiastic 5 star comments celebrating their new SD Cards and trying to tell the world what a good purchase that was.

Maybe it's just due to the scale, maybe it's in the business model but dealing with fakes wasn't working for me. If I wanted the eBay experience I would have been buying my SD Cards from eBay.

<comment><USER13> What? They make returns very easy to do. There's a form that pops up and many choices for reasons.

<comment><USER12> There was no return option on the SD Card, it was marked as "not eligible for return" so I had to deal with the customer support.

I actually went ahead and dug out the conversation for you.

This is my refund request: [https://imgur.com/bthMMoN](https://imgur.com/bthMMoN) This is the response from Amazon: [https://imgur.com/xWK8FVH](https://imgur.com/xWK8FVH)

Yeah, they refunded me without a fuss but I prefer an experience where the items arrive in expected quality and I keep them.

I think I actually kept the Prime membership for a while but I found myself disillusioned and felt uneasy when shopping at Amazon and later canceled as I was no longer buying stuff from Amazon.

<comment><USER9> So all it took was an email, they didn't even require you to return the product before refunding you, and you're unhappy with that for some reason?

<comment><USER14> Absofuckinglutely. Anytime you end up with a fraudulent counterfeit it's a hugely unhappy situation for a number of reasons. The biggest for me would be: What if I hadn't caught it? Maybe I'm using some inferior counterfeits right now that I don't know about that Amazon ripped me off on, that might fail catastrophically. And also, there's plenty of times where you need a product by a specific time, and not having it at that time because you wasted a whole shipping cycle on a counterfeit is painful.

When you end up with a counterfeit, you are being _defrauded_. How could anyone be happy in that situation just because your money was refunded? I just wanted what I was trying to buy. I didn't want free junk that wastes my time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was looking for a 2nd USB C charger for my new MacBook and found one[1]. It had 378 5 star, 'verified purchase' reviews. All filed on July the 12th, 2018!

I reported this to Amazon via Twitter on July the 18th [2] (Sorry, German).

I checked yesterday and despite Amazon promising to look into this, all reviews where still there. So I tweeted to them again and, at last, they're deleted today.

But why is this not detected automatically? 378 verified 'customers' that all review the product, with five stars, on the same day?? What are the chances?

And the language of the reviews was also so similar that even a Markov model could be used to detect they must be from the same person (or bot). No machine learning needed.

[1] [https://www.amazon.de/MAOFINE-MacBook-Adapter-Charger- Replac...](https://www.amazon.de/MAOFINE-MacBook-Adapter-Charger-Replacement- white/dp/B07DKC7XS6) [2] [https://twitter.com/virtualritz/status/1019741791422173185](https://twitter.com/virtualritz/status/1019741791422173185)

<comment><USER16> >378 verified 'customers' that all review the product, with five stars, on the same day?? What are the chances?

Depends on the product. For a highly anticipated release like a video game or an iphone, pretty high.

I would say that this sort of thing should raise an automatic ticket in a moderation queue, but I wouldn't autodelete the reviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> An interesting dark pattern (albeit unrelated to the review flow) is during the standard checkout process. on the last screen before the purchase, the Amazon logo image / header no longer links back to the Amazon homepage like the rest of the site.

I guess keeping the user captive leads to more sales

<comment><USER18> Recently I wanted to purchase something from prime now, I added the product and during checkout where I put in the OTP ( 2FA is mandatory in India ), I changed my mind about purchasing and quit the app, knowing the purchase would fail. Amazon then quietly changed the order from prepaid to cash on delivery without asking me and went through with the order.

I thought that was a shady way of closing a sale.

<comment><USER19> > 2FA is mandatory in India

Well you did just show that it's not :)

<comment><USER18> mandatory for card transactions.

Unless you were joking, in which case, whoosh me.

<comment><USER19> I must have misunderstood your comment. I was under the impression that 2FA was mandatory for all purchases, not just card transactions.

So I thought you had figured out a way around that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This rant is not well written. The first issue looks like a bug on Amazon's side. I'm not going to assume malice without something pointing in that direction. The author writes "What would have happend if I had left a more positive review? Would that be allowed?" Well, would it? I see no indication it would.

Those reviews are indeed suspicious, and Amazon should do a better job of detecting fake review accounts.

The third issue is the author complaining about the shipping in a product review. An understandable mistake, but Amazon is right not to publish it. When trying to learn about a product it's annoying to scroll past shipping reviews like "Arrived quickly, five stars!"

In total, I see no dark pattern at all.

<comment><USER21> I can actually verify and tell you why. Amazon will not allow you to criticize Amazon or their platform in a review (they said as much). Only the product. They probably do automatic sentiment detection for negative phrases containing Amazon and don't allow them to be posted.

The platform and shipping are relevant in a product review.

<comment><USER22> To a certain degree. There really should be two ratings. Shipment rating and product rating.

I don't want to get a TV that gets shipped badly, sure. But if the only problem with shipping is that it is slow, maybe I'm still interested in the product because I don't get it anywhere else and I can wait. In that case I'm mostly interested in the product review.

<comment><USER21> Which is why you, as a human, can read the review and ignore the part where a reviewer says "the shipping was slow".

I recently ordered a poster through Amazon. They sent me the wrong item _3 times_. I gave up. And I can't post a negative review despite it clearly being Amazons fault (not the shipper). I tried. Couldn't. At least they have excellent customer service, they didn't jerk me around and each resolved the issue as best they could.

<comment><USER23> > you, as a human, can read the review

Yes, you can, if you ever get to the review page. The ratings on reviews average out into the product rating. If there is a zillion one star "shipping is slow and Amazon customer service sucks" reviews, the product (which might be of very high quality otherwise) will have a one start rating. So you are not likely to see the product, since it will not make it into any sort of rating based list and even if you do see it you are likely to ignore it based on its one star rating.

<comment><USER21> It sounds like you think there are more products hidden by one star reviews on shipping than boosted by fake 5 star reviews. The former is not presently a problem on amazon (because they block shipping comments). The latter is a real problem that you will face every time you search for any product where there is any competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Having recently unsubscribed from Prime, I can say their dark patterns don't stop there. About 5 pages to complete the process, in which the CTA to confirm bumps around the page, gets less prominent, and is given such lousy loss- aversion labels as "Give up my prime benefits".

<comment><USER25> Strangely it wasn't so bad for me, I live in the UK. I wonder if EU rules are different?

I have to say for all the people complaining but still staying with Amazon, there's a simple solution that will force their hand if enough people act:

Stop buying from them.

Personally I cancelled my Prime subscription because no service is worth enough to me to force other human beings to pee in bottles to avoid work breaks for fear of being sanctioned.

<comment><USER26> I'm from germany, cancelled two days ago and can confirm that the process was bafflingly bad.

[cancel prime membership]

...

"do you want to terminate your membership?"

[ask me later][keep me signed up][terminate]

...

"you'll lose [x], do you want to terminate?"

[ask me later][terminate][keep me signed up]

...

"but even shipping will cost!"

[keep me signed up][ask me later][terminate]

...

you're now unsubscribed

[sign me back on][ok]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The dumbbells being damaged during delivery reminds me of an other annoyance with amazon reviews: they won't let you distinguish between actual issues with the products and issues with the delivery/Amazon after-sale services etc...

I can't count the number of low-star reviews where it says something like "the guy tried to deliver at the wrong time" or "I bought the wrong product by mistake and Amazon wouldn't take it back" or whatever. That doesn't help me at all.

<comment><USER27> You can't blame the users though. If I have a bad delivery experience, I'm going to leave a bad review. It's Amazon's problem that they don't let you differentiate between product issues and delivery issues.

<comment><USER8> Oh yeah, I'm definitely blaming Amazon, they should let the user categorize their complaints.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I also had to implement this pattern for app reviews.

Show a custom review dialog, if the user gives 4-5 stars send them to the app store for the real review, if not just say "thank you" and close the dialog. Repeat until one day they'll give you a good review.

<comment><USER29> I hope you at least anonymously reported that behavior to appropriate authorities. And started searching for a new job.

<comment><USER30> You don't always have the choice of just up and go. I developed a system for an american startup that gathered everything it could get its hands on through their Gmail accounts. Did I think that's unethical? Yes, but just quitting wasn't an option and it was perfectly legal. I switched to a new company when I could afford it and am now much happier. But suggesting to just quit the moment your company behaves unethical is a little optimistic.

<comment><USER14> It's not perfectly legal if you ever do it to an EU user, now. This is why GDPR has some upsides -- it changes what was formerly just unethical into being illegal, which means that we as software engineers can push back against it more strongly.

<comment><USER30> We actually developed a GDPR module for about three weeks to catch that case. So we are legal again, since we provide all the tools you need to delete your data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I Was recently purchasing Macbook Battery from Amazon.in it was Rs.3100 and when I checked out and reached payment it showed 4199!

I said WTH did it happen? I cancelled payment and found that Prime Membership Renewal was added to the cart without my permission.

When I didnt want to renew it why did Amazon add it on its own?

One more similar experience with AWS: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17652134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17652134)

<comment><USER27> This is better than what Google play music does. It just auto renews. Fuck 2 factor auth. At least Amazon gives you that chance.

<comment><USER32> Why wouldn't you expect a subscription to auto-renew?

<comment><USER27> I just don't like the loss of control. At least in this case, my approach seems to be beneficial. I didn't have to deal with the hassle mentioned here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17651882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17651882)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have a trick - looking at 4 star reviews. They are overally positive, but at the same time - talk about shortcomings (some of them may effect my decision, while others are not an issue). Typically, these are balanced. And totally unlikely to be faked.

For the same reason I avoid 1 star reviews on some services (especially recommending books or movies). They are often related to a strong, emotional reponse, rather than a balanced option that can be reused.

In general people use maximal, and minimal, score in a diffrent way that all other options. For a stricking example, see: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt)

<comment><USER34> A company I know was aware of this tactic, and bought their own items (through proxies) ~20 times, and two of those had to use 4-star reviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> At first I thought the only way to genuinely avoid these kind of bots is to have reviewers posting videos, maybe hosted on YouTube to save costs. Videos are the only thing that can't be faked as easily (but they can with 'deep fakes'). But this won't actually solve the problem. These reviews may be fake but they're probably real people being paid to write them, and those real people can just as easily make real review videos.

I don't think there is an _automated_ solution to "liars will lie for money". I think the only _real_ solution is brand trust. We have to go back! Back to a time when you knew something was good because it proved that it was good, and word of mouth spread to let you know it was good. Don't trust anonymous word of mouth either.

<comment><USER36> Or only allow paying Prime members to leave reviews. That would cut out the fraud pretty darn quickly.

<comment><USER35> No, a scammer can say to 10 people "here's $10 to buy get an account, now leave 100 reviews and I'll pay you $1 for each" and that guy himself gets paid $10 per review directly from the seller. The people each made $100, and he spent $110 on each of them, losing $1,100 total, but he made $1,000 of each, so $10,000 total. At the end of the day he made $8,900 by acting as a middle man.

<comment><USER37> You're not factoring in the fact that if a Prime member participated in this, Amazon could suspend their account without any reimbursement. For most people, chump change is not worth nuking your $99 Prime account.

Also, the idea that sellers would pay $10 each for a 5-star review is laughable.

It's easy to make something economically viable when you're numbers are complete drivel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I also see this very often with Apple's App Store. About 30% of the time, my negative reviews are deleted. Even when I re-submit the reviews, they're often deleted. This doesn't happen to any of my positive reviews.

I opened up several helpdesk tickets about this and got no answers. In fact, they had the audacity to tell me that it's impossible to remove reviews and that it was probably user error.

<comment><USER39> I may be mistaken, but I heard reviews are deleted when the dev pushes an update to their app.

<comment><USER40> Yes this is correct. Apple added the option last year so developers can choose to reset all reviews when they release a new version or keep the old reviews.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/ios-app-developers-will- be...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/ios-app-developers-will-be-able-to- keep-app-store-ratings-when-releasing-an-update/)

<comment><USER41> Sometimes this may make sense. I know of an app that decided to start from scratch due to the amassed bad reviews. Too bad for those who already paid for the buggy version, no updates now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Whenever I see one- or two-star reviews on Amazon (or Newegg) I make sure to read as many of them as possible to gauge what the problems with the item might be. This allows me to judge whether the people reviewing the items are overreacting or if there is a legitimate defect common to all the reviewers. The fact that Amazon is removing or not posting critical reviews in the first place is a red flag for me personally.

<comment><USER43> I'm the same way. a 5-star review saying the item works like you expect is almost useless but a 2 star review pointing out that some product uses non- standard dimensions, or uses non-replaceable batteries with a terrible lifespan is massively helpful.

I always tell people who ask me for store/product recommendations that I can't really give an honest opinion of something until they've fucked up some how. Its pretty easy for a business to look good when everything goes well, but when something goes wrong it is extremely telling about how they respect their customers by how they work to remedy the situation.

\- Company shipped the wrong item? Keep it and we'll ship you the correct one! --> Great!

\- Company shipped my product with the wrong service (when I paid a premium)? Here's your refund! --> Also good!

\- Company failed to send half my order (or it got lost during shipping)? "You're a liar, get bent" _hangup_ \--> Avoid avoid avoid!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > Note that I only got this message AFTER trying to leave a 2 star review. > What would have happend if I had left a more positive review? Would that be > allowed?

This is highly speculative, and without evidence it's pretty shady to suggest it, imo.

</comment><comment><USER45> This skips/avoids another really important but bs thing they do: Reviews that mention counterfeits ALWAYS get pulled. Seemingly by some automated system, even. It's like a forbidden review topic or phrase.

Yea, that's not shady at all

</comment><comment><USER46> This seems to be BAU with Amazon these days and why I no longer trust their reviews en masse. You can still field high fidelity reviews, but unless it is for a large purchase it seems to be a waste of time. Amazon bolsters cheap (cost and quality) products. I wrote a 1 star for a set of poorly constructed LED bulbs where one exploded and created a fire hazard. This review was accepted, however a review of a product I purchased that came with the wrong model product (mistake or deception?) in the box was removed and it didn't matter what I tried Amazon would not give me a reason why.

Amazon is a machine running off of too many fake reviews and so I've been significantly cutting back supporting them by purchasing from. I'm sure, eventually, my return requests will be revoked due to a low review or when their algorithm shows my purchase cadence declining. At that point I'll be done.

</comment><comment><USER47> I work at a sleep company and reviews are super important for our ecommerce site. We use: [https://reviewmeta.com](https://reviewmeta.com) to ensure that we remove fake reviews. Just paste in the Amazon link and it will check all the reviews and give you loads of stats.

</comment><comment><USER48> Amazon's big dark pattern: _" No, I don't want to save $25.72."_ You get that every time you order and don't pay for Prime. Also, the non-Prime "Free Shipping" option requires you to back up and click shipping type to get it. The default path makes you pay for shipping.

</comment><comment><USER49> One thing where they are right is your review of your weights. What has the seller/packaging to do with the product itself? You weren't reviewing the item, but the seller (which isn't allowed when the seller is Amazon itself). Unless you think that the neoprene was bad quality.

</comment><comment><USER50> This guy is having some truly strange experiences with amazon.

Why would he have to ship the damaged weights back? Amazon essentially _never_ insists on that.

<comment><USER45> This one seems to be random. I've had them insist i ship a fucking _mattress_ back

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I wonder if amazon is struggling with fake reviews and would rather have false positives on the negative side of the spectrum. To a seller there's no diff btwn their product getting a positive review and all their competitors getting negative reviews. A bot can just as easily do one or the other. But forcing the bots to be positive review bots benefits amazon in two ways. It makes all the products on their site look purchase-worthy and it contains all a product's review-warfare onto the product page itself, so they can clean it up later if they want.

</comment><comment><USER52> No need to look so far for dark patterns, the whole trick to get you to click to become a member for Amazon Prime, constantly, using all the dirty tricks in the book, should deserve a whole page in itself.

</comment><comment><USER53> I see similar behavior on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, even Netflix - <USER2> necessarily review gaming, but just unfriendly user patterns and opaque algorithmic behavior.

To me the core issue is poor communication. They could easily explain all of the processes, ML models, logic, and human interactions that are in place for review posters and readers. Then it'd be trivial to compare that with (for example) OP's experience and identify possible improvements.

But the fact that they don't at all is very telling. Clearly not impeding growth or revenue.

</comment><comment><USER54> Although they should have let him write the review, I don't think people should leave reviews for damaged/broken items before they've tried to remedy the situation with the supplier.

<comment><USER55> Why? When I receive a damaged product, this causes me substantial hassle (communicate with customer support, send item back, order replacement, ...). It seems very natural to write a review that reflects the poor quality of the product in this situation, and this review would be a useful signal to others.

<comment><USER54> My take is that damaged and broken items happen, particularly when items are new. I'm not saying that this information is irrelevant, but as a review of the product it isn't valid (as it's a review of a damaged product) and as a review of the supplier it isn't that helpful either (as I'm more interested in how the supplier responds to this situation: any supplier can send you what they have in stock, the true test is what happens when things go wrong). So, as per my original comment, I think you should seek remedy before reviewing, not after.

<comment><USER56> If a product is poorly packaged from the manufacturer or (more likely) poorly packaged by Amazon and that leads to a lot of people receiving a damaged product, then it is clearly beneficial to see that in the reviews before you purchase.

Or maybe the product just has poor QC, again, it should be allowed to show up in reviews.

If it's just a one-ff then it will be watered down by all of the other reviewers anyway

<comment><USER54> I haven't said otherwise. You haven't explained why you're writing a review before dealing with support rather than after.

Also, perhaps a higher percentage of people with bad experiences will write bad reviews than people with good experiences writing good reviews, so the watered down argument isn't perfect. I would have left out the word 'perhaps' but I don't actually have any hard evidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> And if you return too many of these garbage products, they close your account. The ultimate dark pattern.

</comment><comment><USER58> Same happened with me. Brought this shity fitness tracker called goqii from Amazon. Tried to leave a 2 star review and got the exact same message even though Amazon knows it is an amazon purchase. Similar to this article the same thing has more than 22k positive reviews which is unbelievable considering the extremely unlikely considering the quality. Also forgot to mention Amazon was also running a lightning deal on the same.

</comment><comment><USER59> Maybe we should build an independent, decentralized review page, where you can trust (PGP style) your friends and family and they can do so too.

When suspicious reviews appear, everybody can track down the accounts which abuse our trust (and let the bots in). That way we could provide blacklists for accounts that are untrustworthy and everybody can decide who (or which blacklist) he wants to trust.

<comment><USER60> This. I always have thought of something like this. Only trust person your know IRL and friends of friends... That way we could compute a "trustworthy" coefficients.

Needs a good business model though

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I no longer consider Amazon. Too many issues to note, but here's a few of them...

      1. Counterfeits mixed in with legit supply
      2. Fraud everywhere
      3. Fake prices ($.99 with $30 shipping)
      4. Fraudulent reviews
      5. the article - Dark patterns everywhere
      6. Not competitive with other e-retailers
      7. Scammy and fraudulent pricing (raises prices by 10% to have a 10% off sale.. Prime Day)

I've migrated to the following for my stuff:

walmart online (order and pick up at store for no shipping cost) eBay for random assortments aliexpress for a direct pipeline of electronic chinese stuff mcmaster carr for hardware that lowes and menards doesn't have Misumi for aluminum extrusion IRC topic groups (like freenode #reprap) for 3d printing specific stuffs from individuals Craigslist, but this is obviously realllly spotty

Amazon is unreliable, obfuscated, and scammy. I can't even guarantee that what I order is what I'll get. It's just not worth the effort or time.

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands I recently bought some new wireless headphones. After seeing a minimal amount of bad reviews, I bought them. When they arrived, I opened the package to find a note which said if I gave them a five star review, I could use this code for a 40% discount on any of their products.

Pissed, I wrote a one star review and how this was explicitly against Amazon's rules. It was up for a few weeks, then it just disappeared. I figured it would at least generate an apology via email, or something from Amazon about doing a better job of taking care of companies who do stuff like this. Never heard anything from either the company or Amazon.

I guess it was easier to just take down the bad reviews or keep a few negative reviews so it doesn't look completely nefarious. Seeing as how both companies and Amazon has a vested interest in keeping companies on board, I can only assume they're passively allowing this to happen.

</comment><comment><USER62> Speaking of bad reviews, trying to buy any kind of computer hardware off of Amazon is infuriating - all of the reviews for every version of an item are mixed together, so you'll have several motherboards treated as if they're the same, and monitors with different resolutions all lumped together.

</comment><comment><USER63> At this point Amazon is a monopoly. And this is exactly why monopolies don't work. Self-regulation does not work.

"With great power comes great responsibility" \--> We humans only like the power part.

Every monopoly that ever existed abuses its monopolistic power for its own benefit.

</comment><comment><USER64> I loved the interest-specific Reverb.com (for selling new and used musical gear) and made a point to buy stuff there to support the community even if it was more expensive or slower than a 'corporate' alternative. All the sellers' reviews were spectacular and I just thought people would be nicer on this platform because everyone just loved music and it's one big happy family but then I received some crap recently and just realized that they do the same thing and prevent negative reviews buy externalizing the (time and emotional) cost of forcing self-mediation when things go wrong.

Talk about a broken heart.

</comment><comment><USER65> There's an obvious conflict of interest within Amazon here. The tasks of selling products, and collecting and publishing useful criticisms and reviews of products should be performed by separate entities.

</comment><comment><USER66> Sorry to be pedantic (although this IS Hacker News, after all), but shouldn't the web page's title be "Censoring Unhappy Customers" rather than "Censuring Unhappy Customers"?

</comment><comment><USER67> This kind of doesn't surprise me.

I know I tend to buy what has the best price/star ratio. Whether or not Amazon is directly involved, I don't know. But given how quickly marketing got attached to social media, I imagine gaming reviews is just another part of an online presence package, along with controlling search results, and getting something popular into social outlets (a meme is highly desired).

Irony being people are starting to adapt and most of these social media and reviews will just be bots commenting on each other.

</comment><comment><USER68> Ive been saying the reviews on amazon are generated for years. Someone should do an expose on this and make a big stink. I dont think we should let them get away with this.

</comment><comment><USER69> Hmm - seems like Amazon is now borrowing from the EBAY playbook. My EBAY usage is maybe one or two items in a year and rarely anything high-ticket. EBAY clearly favored sellers over buyers and after one or two run-ins with (a) leaving negative reviews for poor sellers and (b) fighting their policy where you had to wait a month before even filing for a refund - I left for Amazon prime. I'm probably going to drop Amazon prime at the end of this year.

</comment><comment><USER70> It's gotten to the point that I no longer even pay attention to the overall score and instead I look at the reviews and ignore any review that is a 5 star review. I figure people aren't going to pay for reviews that aren't 5 star. If the only other reviews are 1 or 2 stars I know it's probably a crap product. But, if there are a decent number of 4 star reviews I know it's probably a decent product.

</comment><comment><USER71> If I think that reviews could be suspect I use ReviewMeta[0]. The process usually indicates if the reviews are legit or not. although for this product, it claims that it passes. Might be that 99 reviews have been deleted though, and Amazon is attempting to fix those reviews. [0][https://reviewmeta.com/](https://reviewmeta.com/)

</comment><comment><USER72> Is it time to start writing 5 star reviews with negative content? Lets say start review with (CAPS LOCKED):

"ACTUAL RATING 1 STAR".

Let's see them handle this :)

</comment><comment><USER73> Please people use and support [https://reviewmeta.com/](https://reviewmeta.com/) .

</comment><comment><USER74> This has pissed me off in the past. My reviews getting rejected. The problem ultimately is that Amazon NOW has separate functions for reviewing a product and a seller. The product reviews are public, the seller reviews are not. If your review of a product is just bagging on the seller, it will be rejected. Like the one your wrote for the weights.

</comment><comment><USER75> > Or, maybe it's a low effort scam that Amazon could easily detect, prevent, > or clean up!

Companies like Amazon like to pound interviewees with algorithm and data structure questions, so you'd think they'd be hiring the right people to solve this. So, no, they don't really want to.

</comment><comment><USER76> I tried to comment on a product about that I highly dislike it now as they changed ingredients a month ago. "Sorry, commenting to this product has been disabled because we're currently receiving too many reviews" .

</comment><comment><USER77> Someone should build a News-Genius-type overlay extension with a parallel review system that's better-maintained and more difficult to game. The only way out of Amazon's shit review scheme is eschewing it entirely.

</comment><comment><USER78> I've also had a review rejected under very similar circumstances. Like the OP, I too was leaving a bad review on a product that I had purchased a few months back. I had purchased the item in a lightning sale though.

</comment><comment><USER79> Or how they intentionally obfuscate the unit pricing of items in the same category? One says $xx per oz, the other $xx per lb, the other $xx per kg... I've been wanting to make a userscript to fix that for a while.

</comment><comment><USER80> well one review on the blog is stupid. if an item did arrive broken, it might not only be amazon's fault, so I dislike reviews that actually review the shipment process.

besides that, yeah it sucks if this is really happening.

</comment><comment><USER81> Amazon reviews have been shady for years. To combat this I never buy without running the item link through fakespot.com. The other day I also discovered reviewmeta.com t haven't tried it yet.

</comment><comment><USER82> I wonder if this is a job for activist investors: buy a bunch of shady stuff on amazon with 5-star reviews, write a lengthy report about how bad all the product is, short AMZN... ?

</comment><comment><USER83> I had a similar experience with booking.com reviews. My less than 3 star reviews somehow don't make it, while 4-star reviews go straight to the list. Coincidence?

</comment><comment><USER84> there was a large area of forest in my town that was privately owned but part of the forest itself was protected so that it could not be developed. well a developer went ahead and bulldozed the ancient trees and put up a condo anyway -- just paid the fines. similarly with amazon, nobody is going to go to jail even though the website props itself up utterly fraudulently and criminally. someone should.

</comment><comment><USER85> "Arrived damaged" could be borderline as it sounds like a review of the shipping process and not the product.

Not sure what's going on with that first one though.

<comment><USER86> How is he supposed to know if this is a problem with "shipping" or with the warehouse, the manufacturing, or the design of the product? What if it left the warehouse in that condition? Or the factory? I previously have avoided products with a large number of "arrived damaged" reviews, because it's a sign of something other than a "shipping problem".

<comment><USER42> Personal experience: When shopping for budget 3D printers, some models that had been available for several months or years had earlier reviews mention poor packing/shipping. The newer reviews mentioned that the situation has improved.

<comment><USER86> This is a problem generally, and not limited to "shipping" issues. I was looking at a telescope recently that had a lot of early bad reviews because of an issue with the eyepiece that had, apparently, been resolved.

Reviews should either "age out" or there should be a way for the seller to indicate that a revision has been made. Granted, they would probably game both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Is this a US only thing? My reviews count as "verified purchase" on amazon.de, including my now 5 months old 1-star-review.

</comment><comment><USER88> I actualky have those same LED lights. They have been working great for me for over fours months. No complaints.

</comment><comment><USER89> What are some good alternative sites to Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER90> Yup, Amazon is the most unlikable tech giant

</comment><comment><USER91> if you are Amazon you don't have time to read all the reviews carefully. How do you detect such artificial "gaming" behavior? It's natural behavior for the sellers to try to boost their reviews (at the consumers expense).

<comment><USER75> You hire developers to write code to look for patterns exactly like what was shown in the article for starters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> scuffed.

</comment><comment><USER93> Author doesn't know what dark patterns means.

<comment><USER94> Here's a good site explaining it.

[https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark- pattern](https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern)

Their homepage video starts with a bunch of examples from Amazon:

[https://darkpatterns.org](https://darkpatterns.org)

<comment><USER95> Google has one built into mobile Youtube with Chromecast. When you open a video and go to click the cast button, the "visit advertiser" button immediately shifts right into the place of the cast button, causing you to click into an advertiser website.

<comment><USER42> That gets me at least once per viewing session.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cstore_fdw and 'Files Are Hard' (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://pykello.github.io/2015/12/cstore-fdw-and-files-are-hard.html <comment><USER2> Am I missing something? I just skimmed it, but:

"The nice thing here is that the specification of the rename system call requires it to be automic. So this step either is done in full (in which case we'll see the new data) or isn't done at all (in which case we'll see the old data, but we won't have data corruption)."

From the "Files are hard" article:

"Rename isn't atomic on crash. POSIX says that rename is atomic, but this only applies to normal operation, not to crashes."</comment>


Stem cell scientist Haruko Obokata found guilty of misconduct - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/01/stem-cell-scientist-haruko-obokata-guilty-misconduct-committee

<comment><USER2> I will never understand why someone would falsify claims in such a way when the time will eventually come to back them up.

Are they hoping that in the interim they will be able to progress far enough to reach the goals they are trying to reach?</comment>


Bitcoin Miners Fried in Game of Chicken - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-02-06/bitcoin-crash-sees-miners-fried-in-this-game-of-chicken <comment><USER2> It's a little bit simpler than the psychological drama described.

If your marginal/flexible operating costs (i.e. electricity, temp staff, etc) are higher than your expected revenue, then you shut off your miners temporarily. It's a simple rational decision: if you want bitcoins, they're cheaper to buy on an exchange.

If your total operating operating costs (building rent, etc) are higher than your expected revenue, then you lose money due to paying down liabilities. You might try to trim long-term operating costs (laying off staff, move to smaller building, move to place with cheaper electricity), or you might try to exit (sell mining hardware).

There's very little psychological drama in all this: the market for hashing power is very predictable, and it will adjust over time to provide narrow profit margins to the most efficient operations. The profitable periods were only ever going to be temporary aberrations in response to cryptocoin price fluctuations.

If your operation is not efficient, your own balance sheet will tell you when it's time to pack up.

<comment><USER3> The market for hashing power is only as predictable as the price of bitcoin.

(it's really the aggregate profitability of mining all cybercurrencies that have competitive rewards, but the price of bitcoin is close enough)

<comment><USER2> This is true, but only in the short term.

When prices go up, mining becomes very profitable. Given a little time (measured in hour/days/weeks or a couple months at most) people build out mining operations, and the mining returns adjust to the previous baseline. When prices go down, it's largely the same in reverse.

All that is to say: if one were to build out mining operations in expectation of a future increase in coin price, be forewarned that your market advantage will be short-lived and will only last as long as it takes others to fill in the gap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bitcoin is approaching the next difficulty retarget (in approximately 10 hours) and the difficulty will _increase_ by around 10%.

If bitcoin price collapses to say ~$3000 we could see a significant portion of miners give up. This would increase the block time, which in turn increases the adjustment period (which happens every 2016 blocks, ~2 weeks at 10min/block).

An extended period of time with very long block times could cause the price to collapse even further, causing even more miners to leave...

I think there will be some determined miners willing to mine at a huge loss (due to having large bitcoin reserves) so the difficulty will eventually drop down, but there could be months of barely moving bitcoin which on top of the huge crash in the market right now could kill off bitcoin for good

<comment><USER5> I can only hope.

I don't care about Bitcoin, but they've been preventing me from finishing this system build. If it had been useful, I wouldn't mind so much.

<comment><USER6> This chicken game won't do anything to dampen GPU prices. All Bitcoin mining is done on ASICs.

<comment><USER7> Bitcoin not so much, a drop in Ethereum miners etc will have an effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just cannot trust bloomberg on cryptocurrency reporting. They conveniently cut off the price graph (just below "The Big Dip") in Nov 28. Why? Because at the beginning of October 9 2017, the price would have been at 4500$ - then an all-time high, and yet below the current price! It would have destroyed their narrative.

<comment><USER9> Not sure how that would have destroyed the narrative? The narrative seems to be pretty irrelevant to whatever happened to the price before november? The hashrate is consistently climbing ignoring the actual USD price with very few dips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If the price drops too precipitously, and too many miners drop off at once, bitcoin enters a death spiral as the hashrate drops, and it takes so long to confirm blocks that the difficulty adjustment downwards just never happens, freezing the whole network.

<comment><USER11> Can you elaborate on why the difficulty would not adjust downwards as transaction rates slow? That seems like quite a flaw in the design.

<comment><USER12> The difficulty would adjust down, but only when the next milestone is reached. The argument seems to be that if _enough_ miners drop out, the next milestone might never be reached.

That seems unlikely to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Let's see how the analysis was derived:

> Note: Assumes China wholesale price ($0.06/KWh), using listed specifications > for Antminer S9 (13.50 TH/s), adds 30% cooling & operational costs, _assumes > retail is 30% markup from wholesale hardware price_ , 52-week depreciation > schedule (Bitmain offers 180-day warranty). No transaction fee or pool fee. > Hash rate and computational difficulty as of Feb. 6, 2018.

The biggest sunk cost is on the hardware price. Assuming 30% markup that too in China on a China build product seems too high for me.

Anyone based in China can confirm the retail markup on Antminer S9?

</comment><comment><USER14> If a miner does not make money then they wont mine, if there's no miners cos no one can make money... who verifies transactions then? Or am I just really stupid and don't understand this stuff...

<comment><USER15> A variable number of miners are competing for a fixed reward. So everytime a miner calls it quits, all other miners become a tiny bit more profitable.

<comment><USER16> Isn't the BTC / hash fixed until the difficulty changes? Like, for a given difficulty you should expect N hashes calculated until a block is mined, so if you kill off half the miners (in terms of hash rate) the time until block mined just becomes twice as long (so now there are half as many miners chasing half as much reward).

<comment><USER17> BTC Miners make most of their money from transaction fees not block rewards. Fewer blocks = reduced supply = increased costs to get into blocks = higher reward for the same hash power.

<comment><USER14> Ahhhh, this is good to know!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Are there mining algos that also help to solve real world problems (say gene mapping)? It seems that you could leverage some of the gamification happening here to better some social facet of society.

<comment><USER19> No. The problem in that suggestion is, who is going to provide the problems? It would be a central actor who can opt to pre-work on the problems and use those solutions to issue themselves "money".

<comment><USER20> No, it would simply require solving a function dependent on the previous solution. Preferably more complex than double SHA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Mining this stuff is a funny thing, that is a devisive feature even in the crypto space.

That being said, this isn't the first time where mining has plummeted in profitability. Early last year similar articles started popping up and in fact GPUs on eBay we're being sold at dirt cheap prices because crypto was "plummeting".

I wouldn't bet on crypto going anywhere, not in this crazy world we live in.

</comment><comment><USER22> "Fried" as in

> If the price doesn't rise, then the average miner is set to lose $3 per week > at current levels.

(Per week and rig I assume though.)

</comment><comment><USER23> Props for the title.

This is not a very big problem for all the big name miners though, as they're all betting on prices rising soon. This has happened before, and will happen again until either everyone adapts some alternative to proof of work.

Everyone seems to just be mining altcoins and hodling for a rise.

</comment><comment><USER24> According to this web site, all you need is 11th/s to not lose money, that's an investiment of $2.5k in mining hardware [https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/btc?HashingP...](https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/btc?HashingPower=11&HashingUnit=TH%2Fs&PowerConsumption=1293&CostPerkWh=0.2&MiningPoolFee=1)

How can any miner lose money unless prices reach ~$3k?

Edit: why am I being downvoted? Let me know if I'm mistaken.

<comment><USER11> The calculation you did on that website shows an annual profit of $413.25 which is still a lot less than the initial investment of $2.5k. At today's price ($ 6,976.14), you'd have to be mining for over _5 years_ before getting that investment back again. I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion "how can any miner lose money".

<comment><USER24> For $2.5k you can get 13th/s, that's $935 annually, that's a 40% gain annually. If you know of any investment that can give you a passive 40% yearly return, I'm all ears. And that's only if bitcoin doesn't go up. Again, I fail to see how this is a bad investment. Plus, with the latest all time high, most existing miners already paid for their hardware and are just all profits now.

[https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/btc?HashingP...](https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/btc?HashingPower=13&HashingUnit=TH%2Fs&PowerConsumption=1293&CostPerkWh=0.2&MiningPoolFee=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> At ~$7,500 we're roughly back to mid-November price levels, so it seems like it would affect only newish entrants.

</comment><comment><USER26> Looking forward to the first deep learning framework that puts all these energy-burning-machines to good use.

<comment><USER27> Miners use specialised hardware (ASIC - application-specific integrated circuit) to mine. They are only useful to calculate hashs efficiently.

<comment><USER26> is there no way to make 'good' use of them? whoever comes up with an idea might become a billionair.

<comment><USER28> Proof of work is intentionally useless to the miner to increase the cost of attacking the network. There are initiatives like curecoin and foldingcoin which integrate folding@home into their proof of work, but the output of that is still "useless" to the miner and relies on the folding@home team not manipulating the process, which becomes a bigger risk once hard rewards for folding are introduced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Thousands of companies go bust every day in our "great" economy; retailers, startups, etc.. Now the price of crypto-currencies has dropped and it's called a "Game of Chicken".

There seems to be a tendency to laugh and write bad about miners, almost like bullying. Why is this? Mining is business as usual, nothing different than many other businesses. There is investment, risk, profit and loss.

<comment><USER30> Investment in mining hardware whose value is tied to a speculative asset without fundamental value beyond utility.

None of the current implementations can scale, so even their utility is questionable. There is a way to make a scalable trust-less digital currency by using a mutable leder, but none of the current coins that I know of are heading that way. The main difficulty will be how to distribute ledger space in a way that cannot be monopolized by the richest. That is a simple technical problem to solve though, because storage capacity will eventually surpass the ratio of richest to average wealth. Then you can allocate ledger space in exchange for an affordable deposit, redeemable when the balance is emptied.

<comment><USER31> Does anything have fundamental value beyond utility?</comment></comment></comment>