Odds of communicating with 36 other possible intelligent civilizations are small - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/there-may-be-36-other-intelligent-civilizations-in-the-galaxy-but-odds-of-communicating-with-them-are-small-1.5618194 <comment><USER2> I read the paper and I find it highly unserious how frivolously they assigned some probability to the question how many intelligent civilizations there are in the universe.

Their key assumption is: "We assume that if an SP remains in the circumstellar Habitable Zone (HZ) for a time equal to the current age of the Earth it will develop intelligent, communicative life." (page 5 at [https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2004/2004.03968.pdf](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2004/2004.03968.pdf))

Why? Why do you assume a planet will develop intelligent life when it remains in the Habitable Zone long enough? Just because it happend on Earth?

And they continue with: "[...] according to the Copernican Principle – we propose that the likelihood of the development of life, and even intelligent life, should be broadly uniformly distributed amongst any suitable habitats"

We have no clue how likely it was at Earth that life developed at all. Maybe it was just a chain of many lucky coincidences that happen once in 10 billion years. How is distribution any relevant then?

<comment><USER3> One thing that bothers me is that papers like this always assume alien life will look _exactly_ like life on Earth. It must be the same distance from the sun as us, have water and proteins like us, etc.

If we effectively limit the definition of "life" to "the types of organisms we see on Earth", then of course we will never find life anywhere else.

Maybe there are aliens that live on a gas giant and they "eat" the lighting rather than food, and their bodies look more like circuitry than the chemical life on Earth.

Maybe there is a planet with a very strong magnetic field, and the life there is kind of like an electromagnet. They have bodies high in copper and the current of the ocean moves them through the magnetic field and generates electrical energy.

It makes sense that we restrict our search for life forms we know to be possible while we are stuck with limited tools at our disposal. But I don't want us to overlook some amazing discoveries because we have put blinders on.

<comment><USER4> The start of life is basically a statistics game waiting for a system to spontaneously enter the right self-reproducing state, and it is relatively easy for a system combining water and various mostly-carbon-based molecules to enter into that state.

We thus suppose that life looks like life on Earth because life on Earth has several properties which allowed it to come into existence. By contrast, there are no known states that cause a strong planetary electromagnetic field to rearrange copper into self-reproducing patterns: if anything, such electromagnetic fields are more likely to disrupt any spontaneous order that happens to arise.

So it's true there may be other systems of life out there, but too much handwaving about that fact can obscure the fact that the other candidates for ordered systems arising from chaos are weak candidates. It would be unwise to rely on this wild speculation while trying to responsibly and conservatively estimate how much life there is.

<comment><USER5> Right now there is a lot of active search for life based on the habitable zone theory. I also think that we should open up our ideas. We might find something of intellect and of interest closer than 17000 light years. If nearest carbon based life if so far there is not much to be learned. If we can find even a mildly interesting self supporting system in our own solar system we may not be able to play golf but we might be able to communicate and learn. I also think we are foolish to not look for intelligence on earth. We killed off the neanderthals. There is more hope of bringing them back and asking for an opinion than finding little green men.

<comment><USER4> We might indeed find something of intellect closer! It would indeed be interesting! It is not, however, something we have reason to expect would be particularly probable.

I am unsure what variety of "opinion" you hope to extract from your hypothetical Neanderthal, and take the opportunity to note that, as social mammals with large and adaptable brains, the opinion systems of intelligent hominids are substantially shaped by their upbringing and how they relate to the society around them, particularly as regards the more complex systems of thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cetaceans are considered sentient, the way humans are sentient, by a wide scientific consensus, e.g. [1]. Some degree of sentience is also assumed by the scientific community to be present in a lot of other animals [2].

Still the successes in contacting these nonhuman sentient beings, even if they gladly support such contacts, like dolphins, is very limited at best. And those are our close relatives, fellow mammals, sharing the planet with us.

Now imagine an attempt to contact a sentient being which developed and lives in an environment totally alien to humans.

[1]: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-17116882](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-17116882) [2]: [http://www.animalcognition.org/2015/03/25/the-declaration- of...](http://www.animalcognition.org/2015/03/25/the-declaration-of-nonhuman- animal-conciousness/)

<comment><USER7> This concept of sentience is too broad to be relevant. For there to be linguistic communication between species, both must have language.

When the issue is interstellar communications, the minimum requirements are language and the technology to send and receive information between stars.

<comment><USER8> But Cetaceans do have language? And we do have communication to some level.

> Experiments have shown that they can learn human sign language and can use > whistles for 2-way human–animal communication. Phoenix and Akeakamai, > bottlenose dolphins, understood individual words and basic sentences like > "touch the frisbee with your tail and then jump over it" (Herman, Richards, > & Wolz 1984). Phoenix learned whistles, and Akeakamai learned sign language. > Both dolphins understood the significance of the ordering of tasks in a > sentence. [0]

Maybe this definition of sentience is too broad, but it is worth evaluating what you can hope to achieve, by looking at the closest approximation available and what you are achieving there. And in this case, I would say "not much". We know e.g. dolphins have a language and communicate, we can very coarsely decipher it, and they can learn to broadly decipher a language we engineered for them. But the most we are achieving with this communication are party tricks in a circus.

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

<comment><USER9> The only reason that most people do not accept the obvious sentience of many animals is that they want to keep killing and eating them. It's as simple as that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The authors of the paper do various calculations to arrive at 36.

How do they determine f_l, the probability of life originating on a suitable planet?

They follow the "Principle of Mediocrity", ie life exists on Earth, and we are not special, so probably it exists anywhere it can exist and f_l = 1.

This is the exact opposite of the Anthropic Principle, which says (correctly) that we cannot deduce anything about the probability of life originating from the fact of our own existence.

If f_l isn't 1, and it's some smaller number, like 1^-1000, then there won't be 36 alien civilisations in the galaxy - there will only be zero.

Even in the observable universe, there will be zero alien civilisations.

<comment><USER11> > This is the exact opposite of the Anthropic Principle, which says > (correctly) that we cannot deduce anything about the probability of life > originating from the fact of our own existence.

Your definition of the Anthropic Principle seems to clash with the Wikipedia definition [1], which states:

> The anthropic principle is the philosophical premise that any data we > collect about the universe is filtered by the fact that, in order for it to > be observable at all, the universe must have been compatible with the > emergence of conscious and sapient life that observes it.

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

Also you use the word "correctly" for your definition, but as it isn't self- evident, some sort of proof should probably be required.

<comment><USER12> Well, even within the wikipedia article you see quite a few definitions under 'variants'. It's also nearly a word for word copy of how it is defined in contrast to the mediocrity principle ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle) )

Either way, his point is fundamentally pretty close to even the WAP definition in the summary.

I think it's fairly self evident, though. If there is only one set of observers in the entirety of the observable universe, those observers would be inaccurate in assuming that they are unlikely to be special because they exist and therefor others likely to as well. We just can't make a deduction about the probability of life based on the fact we exist, because for us to make that observation we have to exist, regardless of (im)probable it was. You can reach the same conclusion just thinking about selection bias - we have selected for intelligent life out of necessity, because if we hadn't, we couldn't be around to make the argument either way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Of course since no one knows how long intelligent civilizations last, (given > our current trajectory, some might guess not very long)

These people must have a very short sighted view of history? Our current trajectory for almost everything that matters is positive. Longer life spans, fewer wars, better medicine and technology, average base-level knowledge, etc. Barring some global unavoidable catastrophe, there is no reason to think we are going anywhere very soon.

<comment><USER14> Cosmic timescales are different. Do you think humans will be around for the next say 100,000,000 years? I think we'd be lucky to survive another 10,000.

We've only had organized societies for somewhere around 20,000.

There could have been say, intelligent life on Venus, then they triggered a runaway greenhouse effect, everything died, the oceans boiled, and then 700,000,000 years pass before we started talking pictures of the dead planet with all signs of previous life completely erased.

<comment><USER15> If we burned this planet down and waited 700,000,000 years, would remnants of our civilisation remain? On the one hand, we have structures that are massive blocks of concrete and metal that I find hard to imagine fading away. We've got stuff in space and on the moon. On the other hand, there's weathering and erosion which would be amplified by chaotic weather patterns. And 700 million years is a long time.

I'm leaning towards us leaving some evidence behind, but it's such an inconceivable amount of time that I'm not really sure.

<comment><USER16> In the case of Venus there's likely little left due to extreme volcanic activity[0]. Even if we didn't create a hellscape like Venus on Earth, over 700,000,000 years geological processes would grind those structures to dust. Repeated glaciation every 41,000 years or so would act the fastest but over hundreds of millions of years the surface would be significantly altered by tectonic movement. Add to that all the insults of rain, oceans, rivers, wind, volcanism, and biology. Practically nothing would be left except for maybe the fossilized remains of some junk thrown into rivers that managed to sink into the mud and then ride the tectonic waves up onto some high escarpment. Even the orbits of satellites decay. The few artifacts we left on the Moon would stand the best chance. This is why the only hope we have is to spread out into the solar system and beyond. If we stay in our tiny ecological niche on this island we're doomed to extinction and erasure.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#Surface_geology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#Surface_geology)

<comment><USER4> > Even the orbits of satellites decay.

Near-Earth satellites, yes; the thinnest wisps of the edge of the atmosphere slow them down. Further out, however, in geostationary orbit, satellites are not subject to such forces. They may be disrupted long-term by the gravitational influence of other distant bodies, but I think I'd worry more about the potential impact from micrometeorites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Forget travel. Even radio communications seem unlikely. I recently got depressed trying to calculate how much energy would be required to establish a radio link with a colony on a planet orbiting the nearest star (about 5 light years).

Even if we use the entire output of a nuclear reactor to power the transmitter, even if we tighten the beam ten times beyond what's currently possible and even if the receiving collector is square kilometers wide, the signal is still going to be very weak.

I can't even fathom how to make this work at 10K light year scale.

<comment><USER18> The receiver would be much, much bigger than a square kilometer by many (>6) orders of magnitude. Any civilization capable of interstellar travel would be very capable of setting up a planetary or solar system sized astronomical interferometer (aka hypertelescope [1]) using a large fleet of synchronized satellites. These satellites can be prototyped with today's technology and any interstellar civilization would be capable of both receivers and transmitters with far more power than we have attempted today.

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

<comment><USER17> Yes, but isn't interferometry only useful in increasing the angular resolution? It doesn't necessarily boost the signal.

<comment><USER18> That's if you're trying to reconstruct a "picture" of what the interferometer is pointed at. If you control both the transmitter and receiver, you can use many different techniques to pack more information into the same amount of power. 2G cellular radios, for example, were 2 watts max power while 3G and 4G radios are 500 milliwatts max power despite being orders of magnitude faster thanks to better encoding due to radio sensitivity and spatial resolution due to MIMO - the cellular equivalent of an astronomical interferometer.

The technical term is space-time block coding [1]. The speed negotiation would take at least 3x the distance between the two start systems though, until which time they'd be limited to a conservative estimate based on the channel impairment between the star systems, aka max expected noise between the two astronomical phased arrays.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space%E2%80%93time_block_code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space%E2%80%93time_block_code)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Some civilizations may be able to populate multiple planets in their solar system and increase the chances that they will survive for perhaps thousands of years at a technologically higher level. During this time they may even be able to reach other solar systems. If they do that and can repeat it then they may be able to keep going millions of years. This may already be happening somewhere.

<comment><USER20> What are the odds of having enough overlap of suitable planets each suitable enough with overlapping periods?

<comment><USER21> If you look at our solar system, humans can survive on Earth, Mars, Venus and likely some larger moons without too much fictional technology. The universe seems to be full of rocky planets. The only insurmountable problem to living on a rocky planet with hydrogen, oxygen and carbon in some form really is gravity, if the planet is too big. But species that can travel interstellar distances must have the technology to live in space and only send robots to nearby planets or asteroids to mine raw materials. That increases the range of suitable systems considerably.

<comment><USER22> "Humans can survive on Mars"?

Check your priors.

<comment><USER21> What?

<comment><USER22> There is no evidence of humans surviving on Mars. Venus is more likely, but even Antarctica, thousands of times easier, only sustains visitors.

<comment><USER21> We have a pretty good idea of the environment on Mars and safe for potential long-term effects of the different gravity there there is no reason to believe that humans can't survive there using technology we already have, or could likely build.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Then they assumed that these civilizations retained [communication] capacity for about 100 years — again about as long as we 've had it._

Does that part of their calculation seem awfully conservative?

<comment><USER24> I wouldn't find it surprising if self destruction were a common occurence after intelligent life changes its environment enough to develop long range communication. Unless the technology develops at a comparable rate to evolution, there will always be a sharp discontinuity associated with industrialization that suddenly grants the ability to manipulate things on a planetary scale. The lifeforms will be placed in a completely novel situation without evolved mental hardware needed to see the danger. Just like how posting to facebook while driving doesn't feel dangerous in the way standing near the edge of a cliff does. I often wonder if this is where the great filter is located.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Explode a number of nukes in space, which forms a prime number pattern. For instance by cadence.

That should get the attention of any listeners out there. There should be no natural process which could explain that.

Bonus:

An incredibly strong, directional and short pulse could be directed by placing a mylar parabolic shape behind the bombs. Just before being vaporised, the mylar would reflect the initial energy.

The same could be done with the radio energy by a thin copper mesh.

Edit - downvoter thinks it's untenable or just a bad idea in case it works? :-)

<comment><USER26> Or one better: build Dyson spheres around your sun, or ideally around several local suns. This would be a clear signal of a very mighty civilization indeed! But even this signal would propagate outward at a snails pace in comparison to the size of the galaxy, let alone the universe. At that point I think it's interesting to wonder what such long-lived and powerful civilizations would want to talk about, and indeed how the conversation would take place. The time-scales are unimaginable; it would require something like a slowed-down AI living in a physical substrate maintained by short-lived AIs and/or biologicals, somehow maintaining a stable (or at least meta-stable) social structure for millions of years. It would be an incredible achievement, but I would worry that the "human cost" would be immense -- I'm thinking of the very stable but stagnant (and totalitarian) Egyptian civilization. Were the pyramids worth the cost?

<comment><USER27> You need some kind of shutter that orbits the sun, which can be opened and closed rapidly to modulate the existing light. At least we can send the message that we were here and you're not alone.

<comment><USER26> I don't believe this is necessary. First, the construction of such a sphere is itself a kind of "blinking" \- over time, imagine the stars blinking out, replaced by a dull red glow of infrared. Second, I believe it is possible to infer the existence of stars by gravity and other effects, such that it's lack of emitted light in the visible range would be a clue to an observer that they are, in fact, observing an artificial phenomena.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Meh. According to [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergalactic_travel](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergalactic_travel), it takes a mere 28y to get to Andromeda if you have the tech to do constant 1g acceleration. You could say that is not "communication" from a civilization point of view, but if they can send us a live messenger it would sure be interesting?!

<comment><USER29> The energy requirements to accelerate go up as you reach relativistic speeds, and you need to be able to decelerate as you reach the target.

<comment><USER25> I don't understand how it goes up, how does the rocket "know" it's going faster relative us?

<comment><USER30> The rocket doesn't know, but an outside observer will. If you're on the rocket, you experience a constant 1g force. The rocket doesn't "feel" that it's harder to accelerate, but an observer that remains at rest relative to the rocket's starting point will see it speed up less and less the faster it's going as it approaches the speed of light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Issac Arthur's podcast is the best resource on these matters.

Amazing work, and makes this paper seem very week. He identifies many possible filters beyond the Drake equation.

If you like this sort of discussion, you will almost certainly like the podcast.

Relevant playlist

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LulClL2dHXh...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LulClL2dHXh8TTOnCgRkLdU)

</comment><comment><USER32> The plan seems to be "to find intelligent civilizations, look for Earth-like planets that can harbor life." How terribly narrow minded.

> you'd think the chance that there is intelligent extraterrestrial life in > our galaxy seems enormous

"And the Earthling rocket ships departed Planet X3, having found no life, only an advanced civilization of extraterrestrial robots."

> Another study out of the University of British Columbia looked at the number > of sun-like stars in the galaxy and estimated that one in five of them could > have an Earth-like planet

On Earth, Life has embarrassed us by being found in the most inhospitable, acidic, saltiest, hottest places. And then embarrassed us again, by turning up in the cold black energy-poor ocean depths, sipping sulfur from vents. Life is surely bigger than Earth-like planets. And Intelligence is surely bigger than Life.

In Sagan's book Contact, the hard problem was not finding intelligence, but recognizing it. By the end, we learn that the arrangement of the stars and the digits of pi itself carry a message. This is the level of thinking that our search calls for.

<comment><USER33> > On Earth, Life has embarrassed us by being found in the most inhospitable, > acidic, saltiest, hottest places. And then embarrassed us again, by turning > up in the cold black energy-poor ocean depths, sipping sulfur from vents.

And yet, all life on Earth has the same basic structure. The most likely reason for this is that life only originated once, and in one "place". This observation significantly reduces the probability we should ascribe for life to appear, and/or the specificity of the conditions required. For example, we know for sure that a planet like the Earth today is completely inhospitable to the emergence of life (there has not been an abiogenesis event for billions of years).

The other option is that life has emerged in many places/times on Earth, but with the exact same structure. While unlikely, this would suggest that life must have a very specific structure, that at least on Earth-like planets we should also expect RNA and DNA based life at least. This would also suggest that the likelihood of other kinds of life existing is smaller than initially could have been conceived. And even with this assumption, it would still not be clear that life is appearing on Earth today anymore, as the life forms we've looked at seem to have a phylogenetic link with other life (though our methods may be weak if the possibility of abiogenesis were correct). And even if abiogenesis was still occurring on Earth, it would have to be in some remote place in extreme conditions, as we have tried in all regular places with no success.

Overall, my belief is that the emergence of life is likely a vastly improbable event, and that we shouldn't expect to "see" a living (or formerly living) being that is not related to life on Earth in the lifetime of the Earth.

> And Intelligence is surely bigger than Life.

This seems a mystical belief, given all we know of the world.

<comment><USER34> > > And Intelligence is surely bigger than Life.

> This seems a mystical belief, given all we know of the world.

if you assume that intelligence comes from the brain and if you assume that the brain is just a very highly optimized computer, there's no need for an intelligent entity to be alive. it just needs an adequate computer to exist.

<comment><USER33> Sure, but the computer must have been built by some form of life ultimately (possibly through a long line of other computers). If your point was only that artificial life created by a form of life could vastly outlast that form of life, then I agree that that is a very good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> For great interviews with leading scientists on this and other astronomy topics, see Event Horizon podcast

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw/videos)

(I'm just a happy listener.)

</comment><comment><USER36> Why do they assume that an alien civilisation could only hold communication technology for a hundred years? Surely there's nothing really holding them back from it unless they wiped themselves out, and is there any reason to believe that at least some of them couldn't last for thousands or even millions of years?

<comment><USER37> The problem with long lasting alien civilisations is that if they do exist, why aren't they here already? Colonizing the galaxy only takes a few millions years even with 0.1c.

So far, we only have proof that civilisations can exist for at least several thousand years if you consider the Human civilisation.

But so far, the data on civilisations capable of interstellar communication doesn't look too promising. The "unless they wiped themselves out" is the big question. Are we behind or in front of the Great Filter.

<comment><USER38> > The problem with long lasting alien civilisations is that if they do exist, > why aren't they here already? Colonizing the galaxy only takes a few > millions years even with 0.1c.

Suppose it turns out that there is nothing faster for interstellar travel than rockets or light sails. No wormholes stabilized with exotic matter. No warp drives. No other tricks.

I'm not sure in that case that those long lasting civilizations would bother trying interstellar colonization. The round trip transport time between the home world and colonies would be so long that it is hard to come up with any economic benefit establishing such colonies provides to the home worlds.

<comment><USER39> The problem with these discussions is everyone seems to assume colonising a galaxy is just like colonising a planet - so you have an Age of Exploration, and then you set up colonies, and stuff happens, and you have an Empire or a Federation, or something.

This is really, really unlikely to be true, for all kinds of reasons.

There's a huge difference between colonising a galaxy - which assumes some kind of uniform culture, and common strategic goals - and simply throwing more or less living/sentient stuff around a galaxy and hoping some of it sticks.

We've gone from barely being noticeable on Earth to being in danger of being responsible for a planetary extinction event in around 12,000 years.

We know _nothing_ about building a stable culture that can last for millions of years. It's unlikely any sentient species will be able to learn that skill without making a lot of mistakes - some of which will be terminal.

So galactic colonisation requires a lot more than solving the mechanics of transportation. And the "few million years at 0.1c" estimate is going to be Not Even Wrong.

<comment><USER37> You don't need to build a stable culture for a galaxy wide colonisation.

We colonized the whole planet without that. Likewise a locust-like swarm of colonizing ships without any central control or common culture would also be a possibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Hasn't anyone read The Dark Forest?

<comment><USER41> What probability do you think that a civilization will decide they are in a dark forest?

So far our only example doesn't seem to act like we are.

<comment><USER42> There might be some crossover between civilizations that take dark forest precautions and the type of civilization that doesn't kill itself on accident.

<comment><USER43> Or it could be possible that a civilization pessimistic and risk-adverse enough make dark forest precautions a significant part of their culture wouldn't have the risk-taking needed to advance their technology to interstellar levels. Technological advancement and the possibility of self- destruction might go hand in hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> At this point of theoretical speculation, it's perhaps just as creatively interesting to visit sci-fi on first contact situations and evaluate their approaches to see how they mesh with our astronomical observations.

The book that came to mind is a classic, "The Mote in God's Eye." Though there are dozens of delightful variations and imaginative situations, such as with "The Saturn Run." There's an entire spectrum that's been imagined and explored.

</comment><comment><USER45> I worry that other far more advanced civilizations out there routinely stamp out any new "pest" civilizations....much like how I handle ant colonies behind my house. They get too large or too close...then I knock them out.

</comment><comment><USER46> Civilizations fail. Here is more on that and the related Fermi paradox : [http://t3x.org/bits/doomed/index.html](http://t3x.org/bits/doomed/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER47> Isn't the who point of the drake equation to discuss the factors? And most of the factors can't actually be measured until you've met a few dozen other civilisations and compared histories?

</comment><comment><USER48> How can this article, as well as the hundreds of comments here, not acknowledge that all they are doing is solving the Drake Equation for new values they are estimating?

</comment><comment><USER49> Are there any scientific paradigm shifts to make FTL possible?

<comment><USER50> Best chance of anything hypothetically being possible in the very very far future would be not going faster than light, but contracting and expanding space. There's plenty of problems with that theory, one of many would be that it would hypothetically have an event horizon at the front while "moving" faster than light, which would be a big problem because the Hawking radiation from it would kill stuff. It's called an Alcubierre drive and it's a fun thought experiment at the very least. Due to the energy constraints if it was ever hypothetically possible it would need to envelop the vessel in a bubble that's downright infinitesimally small. You could pass right through a planet and not hit anything.

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

But the only scientific method to exceed the speed of light is to loosen the fiber optic cables on your neutrino detector.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than- light_neutrino_ano...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than- light_neutrino_anomaly)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Im disappointed they did't arrive at 42, but 36

</comment><comment><USER52> This is intellicist. Aliens should protest!!</comment>


Capitalism Drives Cancel Culture - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/07/cancel-culture-and-problem-woke-capitalism/614086/ <comment><USER2> > In the United States, diversity training is worth $8 billion a year

That explains a lot.

Otherwise, great article tackling in a very thoughtful manner a delicate topic. But still preaching to the choir. Nobody who should learn anything from this will because as the article itself explains, it goes against their motives.

Edit: to be clear, not saying the article is pointless, it gives a voice to those who might be too afraid to speak the facts these days. And it serves as a "you are not alone, nor crazy".

<comment><USER3> I've gone to an executive leadership training on gender equality (a cause I fully endorse) that was lead by women mostly sidestepping the structural causes to gender oppression.

I find this kinds of activity more damaging than silence since they give a false sense of progressiveness.

This is especially damaging with race issues, most places I worked at people were happy to discuss sexism but literally sighed at racism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dicing and slicing society into groups based on sex, gender and race and then creating a hierarchy amongst the groups is what initiated cancel culture. It amounts to the proletariat fighting amongst themselves for the table scraps, while the owners of capital are generally off-limits.

All of it amounts to a slight of hand in the fight for economic equality.

<comment><USER5> This has a term, BTW: "Intersectionality"[1].

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Righteousness drives cancel culture. Power structures and capitalism have nothing to do with it.

Historically communists literally cancel people by imprisoning them and sending them to re-education camps or worse.

Today's virtue signaling by corporations is no different than it was twenty years ago when Janet Jackson slipped a nip at the Super Bowl. Advertisers threatened to leave NFL. FCC opened an investigation. All of this to please what these corporations perceived as the majority mob.

<comment><USER7> In order to fire someone, you need power. In order to fire someone based on vague accusations or how they worded a tweet, you need a complete lack of labor rights.

edit: in the US, it's completely legal to fire people because you don't like their taste in shoes, or because you're so attracted to them that you think you'll be tempted to try to cheat on your wife. I don't think we should have a carved out protected class for employees who _sounded transphobic on twitter once_. We should have a minimum process for firing people that is dictated by the state, and further process that is negotiated by the employee's union. "Free speech" libertarians hate that a _lot_ more.

<comment><USER8> > In order to fire someone based on vague accusations or how they worded a > tweet, you need a complete lack of labor rights.

Not really: "I'm sorry, it's now clear that your values are out of alignment with the company values. While your work here has been effective, we can't justify the harm your value misalignment is bringing the company."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This post is very coincidentally timed with today's _Dilbert_.

[https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-07-15](https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-07-15)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a great piece. It provides a clear framing to interpret how institutions (and individuals) act when faced with social injustice. The article cites several interesting cases to make the point: the injustice itself can be very real, or it can be just something "assumed" but magnified by social media.

The author argues that there's an important distinction between socially vs. economically radical (re)actions to injustice. The socially radical approach is relatively easy to follow through but also quite ineffective, or even counter-productive (e.g. appointing the first female board member in a corporation, or instantly fire an employee who's been blamed on social media). On the other hand, an economically radical reaction is costly but can lead to real change (e.g. stop selling to a business partner who violates our own values).

And, as the article points out, leaders of institutions typically have personal incentives to follow the "soft" version: making some PR moves without caring too much about the real problems.

If we look at the IT sector we had several examples of this lately [0-4].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23740818](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23740818)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7801646)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23726882](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23726882)

[4] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23445987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23445987)

</comment><comment><USER11> To me, current cancel culture smells a lot like McCarthyism. Perhaps social media is attempting to kill itself.

<comment><USER11> Here's a historical tip. The bad guys never believe they are the bad guys. Maybe everyone should use that nugget to keep yourselves in check before you get some Taco Bell worker fired for saying something that offended your delicate sensibilities.

Current cancel culture is nothing but infant stage fascism. People with power hate to lose it, so they will sacrifice whomever they need to in order to keep it.

If you don't think cancel culture rhymes with McCarthyism, maybe you're the bad guy.

</comment></comment><comment> andy-x I don't believe capitalism is a problem here, same shit happened in socialism (without twitter of course). It's a human nature, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER12> This article borders on incoherent in terms of how meta it tries to get about responses to social justice activities.

I think the author should read, "Inequality Talk is About Grabbing" and "Sex Prizes" by Robin Hanson and reflect soberly on what they mean about society's motives.

\- [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2013/08/inequality-is-about- gr...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2013/08/inequality-is-about- grabbing.html)

\- [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/03/sex- prizes.html](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/03/sex-prizes.html)

Cancel culture is about selfishly taking resources, that's all. There are many things we could try to cancel that would make the world better, but why is it that it tends to only focus on removing someone from a position of (usually pretty menial) authority or influence, like a job or a high status social media outlet.

Cancel culture isn't impacting overt horrific actions of billionaires. We don't tend to try to cancel across international lines, or cancel people from the past, because we can't take resources from them.

It's purely about taking whatever stuff you can smash and grab, like social looting, from people positioned with menial wealth, power or influence, in your own country for the most part.

Anyone who can resist you is somehow conveniently not a worthy target.

We also don't try to take things that aren't easy to grab. It's super easy to remove statues or cancel someone on social media, or get people in the middle ranks fired.

This is why you also see calls for direct cash payment forms of reparations even though that utterly makes no sense on any level whatsoever. Direct cash payments by grabbing tax money is one of the easiest things to grab. Real reform that addresses systemic addiction, gang influence, employment gaps, police discrimination, etc., are extremely hard to solve and require complex coordination. So of course conveniently major op eds are written defending direct cash reparations as the only solution.

I really wish people would wake up to this more.

The world around you is constantly trying to drum up covert hypocrisy reasons why it's OK to simply take what you have and why this isn't wrong.

The target on your back is a function of what stuff you have that they want, and how easy it is to take it from you.

Lower middle class doesn't have much, so nobody focuses on taking from them. People in other countries are separated by complex laws so taking their stuff is hard. Very wealthy people have resources to resist so taking their stuff is hard. People from past eras are dead and locked their stuff away in institutions, so taking anything aside from symbolic gestures is too hard.

This leave _you_ \- upper middle class or low end of the wealth class. You have just enough stuff for it to be worth grabbing, and you don't quite have enough power to resist social movements that take it from you under the guise of social progress.

<comment><USER13> Movements are built off the back of small victories. It's not a surprise or a revelation that what you paint as 'cancel culture', a concept without personification, is exercising its (limited) power in the ways you describe. It seems likely to me that, as victories accumulate, so will the socio- political power of the group, until they are capable of making serious change at the level of nation-states.

<comment><USER12> I think you misunderstood. These aren't "victories" in the sense of having any impact on reform or progress - they have none, not even a little, and the people doing the cancelling never expected or needed them to.

It's only about taking what you can grab. The goal is to get more stuff while not being accused of violating social norms during the act of taking. So cancel culture is invented as an excuse of convenience that allows taking stuff on one hand while claiming moral righteousness (even though your only motive was to take peoples stuff you wanted) on the other.

If you wanted social reform, there are many actions you could choose that aren't directly rooted in terms of who are the easiest people, with sufficiently valuable stuff, to take from.

The fact that people choose to focus on social looting instead of all the rational alternatives is what really conclusively demonstrates that cancelling is not at all about pure motives to fix things but instead is just about what can you get away with taking while protected under the righteousness banner of the social movement convenience excuse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "It's only cancel culture if it comes from the Cancelle region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling consequences."

\- [https://mobile.twitter.com/BerrakBiz/status/1276320815240208...](https://mobile.twitter.com/BerrakBiz/status/1276320815240208385)

<comment><USER11> Consequences for what exactly? That's the real question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Cancel culture is one of those things that is so nasty, so obviously unproductive, that it makes me sick to see how broken our culture has become. I mean, I was sure that society had definitely concluded that mob justice was a bad thing. Discovering that I was wrong was difficult.

Regardless of the virtue of off-color jokes, thousand-year-old religious viewpoints, and fear-based worldviews, we must admit that we've lost sight of the goal. To quote an Aaron Sorkin 'Republican': "If liberals are so fuckin' smart, how come they lose so godddamn always?"

You can just imagine being a young employee fresh from college, or a blue- collar dude just working on a show, when bam! suddenly you're out of a job because of a tweet you had nothing to do with. The alt-right is waiting there with open arms. Why does nobody see how that works? It's like a college fair where one group of tables is telling you how much you suck and the others are high-fiving you for what you've already done. Guess who gets the candidates?

Twitter is poison.

<comment><USER16> The problem is, "cancel culture" has come to mean two very different things: Punishing, even firing, people because of relatively innocent statements or actions misinterpreted, taken out of context, or blown out of proportion; and ostracizing or shunning people, primarily public figures, for revealing their bigotry and hateful beliefs.

The former seems to be what you're describing, and is, IMO, caused by people with little power in a world they feel is spinning out of control trying to exercise control over the spaces they _do_ have power over. It's definitely a problem, and is definitely counterproductive to efforts to improve the inclusivity and compassion of our society.

The latter is, as some people have described, simply speech having consequences, and those consequences being upsetting to people who are used to being treated as authorities.

<comment><USER17> I think nobody should be fired or ostracized for holding any beliefs. Penalties for action can be ok, but not penalties for thought.

<comment><USER18> Education system should innstill those principles. In many ways it has tried, but you still meet people of all ages ignorant of their own intolerance and general lack of sound principles. Not everyone is a philosopher, and the world wouldn't be better for it, though we need more robust platforms to build our structures on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They get the direction of agency completely wrong. Capitalism /responds to/ so called cancel culture of all sorts which by accident or design excludes ostracism well before it was coined.

Be openly gay, socialist, and/or in an interracial relationship in the the US in the 1950s - compile a very short list of places you aren't canceled from.

The framework doesn't exist in a vacuum and blaming it for its host context's dysfunction would be incorrect even if it excaberrates them in some way. Because it isn't the origin.

Capitalism driving cancel culture would be if it was possible to invest money in ostracizing someone and reaping financial benefits if it suceeds or ostracism being preferred because it is cheaper than a police force.

<comment><USER20> Yup.

Social groups imposing conformity is normal.

Weaponizing conformity is normal.

Spanish Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials, McCarthyism, etc.

The only novelty this iteration is formerly in-group cohorts are now getting their turn at the woodshed.

Coincidently occurring during demographic shift, whites on track to becoming a minority, so is adjacent to the white resentment nonsense.

(Buy me a beer and I'll tell you what I really think.)</comment></comment>


Open-Sourcing Mouse Tracking A.I for Website - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@RemiStudios/a-walkthrough-on-a-i-clustering-understanding-user-behaviour-across-a-website-ce2ac0f48699 <comment><USER2> Very interesting read - curious to see their implementation of the clustering algorithm</comment>


Amazon auctions computing power: Clouds under the hammer - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15663898 <comment><USER2> Meta-point: I'm surprised at how accurate this article was in terms of the way it explained the concepts and the jargon. It seems to be rare in non-tech publications.

<comment><USER3> I've always been very impressed by how accurate the Economist's tech articles are. It gives me more confidence in their articles on topics I don't know enough about to catch errors in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wasn't familiar with the "follow the moon" approach of having tasks move around the planet to be in places where demand is low, cooling cheap, and electricity cheap (if they use time-of-use rates).

It makes perfect sense now that I think of it..

Anybody knows of companies/organisations that do that? What kind of tasks is this useful for?

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the biggest problem right now is the lack of standardization of formats. I know that when I was writing sections in our VMM we didn't really think about VM formats. The thing is that your data representation tends to be heavily influenced by the VMM design and therefore VMMs with different designs tend to have different data formats. Hypothetically it's possible to develop a standardized format, but we'll see how far that goes practically.

<comment><USER6> VMWare's open virtualization format is making progress on this front: [http://www.vmware.com/appliances/getting- started/learn/ovf.h...](http://www.vmware.com/appliances/getting- started/learn/ovf.html)

<comment><USER5> Not really. The fact that they have a standard that only they use doesn't mean all that much. When Xen or KVM adopt it then I may call that progress.

<comment> patrickg-zill XenServer (the version from Citrix/XenSource) has the ability to convert OVF; natively, they use the Microsoft-derived VHD format.

<comment><USER5> That's true -- I forgot about that. The one caveat to that is that it is primarily targeted by the XenServer product: Xen, KVM, and QEMU tend to use the qcow or raw formats. I'm also worried about new features coming out from one or the other VMMs that aren't supported by the current format. Without an established way for anyone to adapt the format, I'm not sure it will provide a long term solution. I do have a specific feature in mind, but unfortunately you will have to wait for the colleague's PhD thesis to find out about it ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The spot prices for the large EC2 instance seem really close to the price of on-demand instances: $0.34 from the N. Virginia data center. I guess Amazon will not be reducing their prices anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER8> Most relevant line from the article: "Unfortunately, the coining of new jargon is likely to proceed even faster than the evolution of computing markets."

<comment><USER9> Would you rather we called it mainframe computing or the internet? Wouldn't that be the wrong "jargon" to apply to amazon web services and their ilk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mass power outages can be huge disasters. Will the future bring with it 'mass computing outages'? How will we handle that?

<comment><USER11> outsourcing all your stuff to the same company/location is a huge mistake. For 'the cloud' to become a viable alternative to in-house servers, we will need more than one compatible provider.</comment></comment>


Telegram's down - <AUTHOR> https://www.rt.com/news/422655-telegram-down-offline-messaging/ <comment><AUTHOR> Lots of local services in Central Asia depend on it for communication and operations via telegram bots.

We just lost hundreds of orders during lunch rush hour. Users couldn't place orders via bots. The orders that were placed via mobile app or website were still sent to managers via Telegram bots. Of course, restaurant managers didn't see the orders and couriers didn't get anything as a result.

But that's nothing compared to our neighboring bot only taxi service. I think they lost thousands of orders and hundreds of drivers didn't get paid. Lesson learned: don't put all your eggs in one basket.

</comment><comment><USER2> eggs are not at all. think about backup systems, and if you do not do that, I will lose faith in humanity</comment>


Facebook is asking for email passwords and harvesting contacts without consent - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-asks-new-users-email-passwords-2019-4 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19559617](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19559617)

</comment><comment><USER3> Blogspam of

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/beyond-sketchy-facebook- demand...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/beyond-sketchy-facebook-demanding- some-new-users-email-passwords)</comment>


The worm that spreads WanaCrypt0r - <AUTHOR> https://blog.malwarebytes.com/threat-analysis/2017/05/the-worm-that-spreads-wanacrypt0r/ <comment><USER2> How does this affect companies which may not be willing or able to update off XP? Is there any mission critical software at hospitals that is XP only?

Also, does it or can it put a prerogative on OS providers to support their systems longer than they may want to? This would have been preventable for many companies if XP was patchable.</comment>


The Real Population Problem (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2013/09/the-real-population-problem/ <comment><USER3> If one believes in a Malthusian apocalypse then one must explain why THIS time things are different.

People have been talking about a supposed Population Bomb for literally hundreds of years. And each time, they have been wrong.

Obviously, there exists some theoretical carrying capacity maximum on planet Earth, but perhaps that maximum is closer to 1 trillion people than 7 billion. That would be plenty of time for humans to figure that space travel thing out. Especially since it is predicted that pop size will peak within the next 40 years.

<comment><USER4> If all the world population lived in a area as densely populated as Tokyo, they could all live inside Texas.

And given we have great fission engineering, improving solar and wind power generation, and most of the world could easily improve land productivity, we aren't even close to a population cap.

<comment><USER5> If we're taking into account growing food using bio-industry in bioreactors,etc - we might even be able to do so at 10x-100x larger densities.

<comment><USER6> Speaking purely utilitarian that may be true.

In practice though it's not that easy. Good luck convincing people on how wasteful and pollutant beef production is, or solving the issue of affordable housing for the masses near city centers.

I'd be interested in seeing a city-state attempt to design a modern planned- city architecture incorporating local food production. Maybe even something akin to Paolo Soleri's 'Archology' ; [https://www.google.com/search?q=paolo+soleri&biw=1303&bih=78...](https://www.google.com/search?q=paolo+soleri&biw=1303&bih=785&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&#tbs=ic:gray&tbm=isch&q=paolo+soleri+arcology)

<comment><USER5> >> Good luck convincing people

In a world with a real pressing population problem, coupled with good alternatives(meatless meat that's good as the real thing, healthier ,cheaper, marketed well) it seems doable.

>> local food production.

In the grand scale of things, i'm not sure that's a huge problem. food miles are just 10% of food emissions, and we have some other ways to get rid of that(clean transport, greenhouses spread around cities) that seem more practical.

But if you're interested, there's some interesting research on large-scale vertical agriculture[pdf]:

[http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/down...](http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/download/4526/3952)

But to build it would be expensive - 200 million euro, and as far as i can remember , it wasn't price competitive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The paper has a strong anti-immigration implication for the US, if you think energy use is inherently dangerous (since it historically correlates with CO2 production). According to the paper, the US has the largest energy consumption per unit of population growth. Thus, to save the world, we must limit US population increases more than increases in other countries. US government policy to reduce population growth can target reproduction and/or immigration. Of the two, which do you think will have more support in the current climate (pun intended)?

Personally, I think making energy less environmentally costly is a better route than worrying about population size.

<comment><USER8> All US population groups other than post-1965 immigrants have below replacement fertility. If you really care about energy use, stopping mass immigration is the only choice -- reducing population growth among core Americans is moot.

And the East Asian and European immigration could continue -- those national origin immigrants assimilate to American birthrates or lower immediately. It's the Central Americans, Caribbeans, Middle Easterners, and Africans that are driving all long term population growth.

And now I see why the opening paragraphs warn about political incorrectness. Comment readers, please just ignore that aspect.

<comment><USER9> > All US population groups other than post-1965 immigrants have below > replacement fertility.

U.S. Mormons have greater-than-replacement fertility rates, making Utah top the nation's fertility rates. (Posting as WildUtah, you should know this!)

<comment><USER8> I wasn't thinking of religious groups, but yes. The Mos (and the Amish) are keeping it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We convert fuel into people. As the author states, "It's so blindingly obvious that I am embarrassed to have belabored the point as long as I have."

To slow population growth anyway educate young women and provide them seed capital.

A new person in the U.S. uses far more resources than a new person born in China or India, so the U.S. population growth has a far greater effect than they do despite their greater growth rate. (A good reason not to have children if you live in the U.S., as the author has chosen not to do.)

In the final section titled "Oil-Clouded Crystal Ball" the author ignores fusion. The word "fusion" appears nowhere in the article.

\</comment><comment>-

EDIT:

What's with the fusion hate y'all?

First: Dr. Bussard on fusion: $200M and done: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk6z1vP4Eo8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk6z1vP4Eo8)

And THE SUN: A fusion reactor that will burn out your eyes from 150 Giga- meters away.

We're going to have plenty of ergs for the foreseeable future. Heat pollution will be an issue before the deuterium runs out.

I don't like to be vulgar in public but hating on fusion power is just stupid.

<comment><USER11> > the author ignores fusion

As he should. Fusion is still at least twenty years away, the same as it has been for decades. We need to work on solving these problems now and not depend on the possibility of magical future technology to clean up our messes for us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think population control is worth discussing, but I do not see its implementation as ever being very feasible. I also don't think the demographic transition will last long. People are as affected by selection effects as any other animal. Those who choose not to have children will be out-breed by those with a more deliberate need for children. To the extent that this deliberate desire is heritable, (either genetically or mimetically or both) it will eventually reach fixation. As a side note, the way modern people riducle Malthus (both libertarian and liberals alike) is very arrogant. Of course there are temporary boons, even very large ones. His point was gains will eventually be eaten. In the absence of outside intervention by an agent with more power than any individual, there are very general reasons to believe he will be correct in the long run.

However, I'm one of those nutters who thinks a technological singularity is reasonably plausible. So I think an AI speciation event (a sort of Cambrian explosion of non-biological intelligent agents, a key point here is selection operates just as much on non-biological agents and much faster) is more concerning than a population bomb.

<comment><USER13> I used to subscribe to the same theory, that having lots of children would breed itself into the dominant behavior. But that theory has not borne out in many developed countries. You actually need incentives to get educated people to have more children; it's a lot of work. If the theory were correct, this wouldn't be a thing: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub- replacement_fertility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub- replacement_fertility)

<comment><USER12> I agree that the demographic transition has occurred; I do not think it will last.

<comment><USER13> What mechanism do you think will cause it not to last? Why would the same mechanism allow it to occur in the first place? The U.S. had a lot of large families generations ago. This behavior not been generally inherited. What makes you think the future will be different from what we've observed so far?

<comment><USER8> We had two massively destructive events that devastated the human population in the twentieth century.

The first was the development of reliable birth control and the second was widespread learning about fertility cycles. For the first time, people could be in control of their fertility without celibacy. Our genes programmed us to be mostly unable to be celibate but the allowed us to continue wishing that we could have fewer children so that we could care for them better and not see so many of them crowded in misery and starving. Once reliably vulcanized and molded rubber was practical around 1910, our wish for fewer children could be realized and evolution is slowly breeding out the desire to have a reasonable number of children and stop. The pill and rhythm just intensified the effect.

You mostly see evolution in the form of population replacement. Educated and modern Iranians and Egyptians, along with other Middle East and Sahel populations filled up cities and created an Islamic rebirth of learned culture, education, and prosperity in the early and mid 1900s. The people who stayed behind in rural areas continued having eight babies each while the urbanites averaged one. It's amazing to see the photos of free educated modern young men and especially women on the streets of Cairo or Teheran in the 1950s. Those people planned to educate the next generation into modernity but the next generation weren't their children; they were the children of the villages they left behind. Now we have a fertile and intensely fundamentalist, rural, and violent predominant culture in those nations and the renascence exists only in exile populations in the West.

European descended populations that plan ahead to have fewer babies are being replaced by more fertile populations from elsewhere across Europe and by native populations in Latin America. Within the USA, you can watch Mormons and fertile evangelicals expand their share of the white population every generation.

The demographic transition is a temporary thing. Evolution absolutely demands it. Creationism or Lamarckism is not going to just start being true because it would be convenient to our demographic comfort.

<comment><USER14> This demographic picture of the wild rural savages out breeding the cultured urbanites is one possible explanation of why we have fundamentalism now, but I don't find this very compelling. Secular Arabs and Persians were not outbred, they were deposed and shot. The same kids who a generation ago would have been good Marxist PLO members are screaming "Takbir!" and wearing Hamas armbands. I watched this happen in the US around 2003. Culture moves much faster than selection.

<comment><USER8> "Marxist PLO members are screaming "Takbir!" and wearing Hamas armbands. I watched this happen in the US around 2003."

You watched US PLO Marxists join Hamas in 2003?

<comment><USER14> I used to hang around with lots of Palestinians at various demos. Around that time (leading up to when Hamas was elected) it became more common to see kids with Hamas armbands, to have kids do Takbir call-and-response, have guys show up with prayer mats. It was a very sudden transition and the reason is obvious: there was a shift in who represented a credible opposition/resistance to American hegemony. Prior to that it was the PLO, still riding the wave of their Soviet-era influence. Now the radicals who were winning victories were Islamists.

This is probably all as boring as just being about who has money (Communists then, conservative Saudis now), and thus, ultimately about oil. But I don't think it has much to do with population-level selection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We already know what we need to do to curb population growth, it's just counterintuitive - [http://www.gapminder.org/videos/what-stops-population- growth...](http://www.gapminder.org/videos/what-stops-population-growth/) . Essentially, people have lots of kids because they're expecting one or two to die. If you reduce child mortality, then they can stick with one or two kids without significant risk of ending up childless.

And then in developed countries, we just need to massively improve energy efficiency. Like, instead of leaving all the lights on all night in offices "for security reasons", we put some disincentives on it and get people to put the extra money from the energy bill into some goddamn insurance.

</comment><comment><USER16> Immigration doesn't change the population, it just shuffles it around. The only ways to increase it are to increase births or decrease deaths. The article isn't convincing that the U-shaped graphs are predominantly from increased birth rates.

What is usually described is the pattern is birth rates decline as life expectancy rises, but the lifespan itself hasn't changed. Because so much of the life expectancy increase has occurred within the last couple of lifespans, and it hasn't globally reached the lifespan limit, we haven't seen population level off yet.

But even when we do extend the lifespan, there will still be a death rate. And if the trend continues, the longer it gets the fewer births there will be. As we approach practical immortality, the dangers of catastrophes will be greater. That's the long-term population problem - when we only have one birth per year, and some disaster wipes out a million people.

</comment><comment><USER17> People are just willfully blind when it comes to population.

Thus you can have all this number crunching alongside a complete failure to talk about the role of medicine, the role of technological progress as a whole. This is a blindness to the essential nature of our time, which is rampant, accelerating progress towards the generation of more resources as they are needed.

You can't just throw up a thesis that population scales by energy (since, hey, population growth has a much better correlation with medicine and computing power and bandwidth) and then put a question mark on the chart of what happens after oil. We have perfectly good substitutes for oil now, and they are being made ever cheaper and more effective by vast numbers of people in response to past years of high oil prices. Which are on the way out for now because other groups of people have been uncovering vast new exploitable reserves of oil, and much cheaper and better ways to extract it and use it.

Meanwhile other people are working on getting to orbit, so as to provide infinite room, and really anyone who argues that somehow we're going to somehow run out of either energy or space any time soon just isn't thinking clearly about how the world really works.

People respond to future expectations of price. Nothing is static. The world will be upheaved and changed by as many people as it takes to replace a high price resource with a low price one. That will keep on happening and Malthusians of the death cult environmentalist variety like the author of this piece (let's kill some people, who goes first) will keep on looking confused as they try to explain their contrary viewpoint while ignoring the reality of what is going on day by day around them.

These people are evergreen of course. Here's an interesting reference from a time when there were on a couple hundred million people in the world:

[http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/7723](http://www.spiked- online.com/newsite/article/7723)

"In the year 200 AD, there were approximately 180million human beings on the planet Earth. And at that time a Christian philosopher called Tertullian argued: 'We are burdensome to the world, the resources are scarcely adequate for us… already nature does not sustain us.'"

And what has changed between then and now, and what will change between today and tomorrow? Think on that.

<comment><USER18> Great response. Panic over overpopulation is a tired canard that has become particularly dangerous in recent years as declining rich-world birth rates wreak havoc on societies that lack young workers to support aging populations. Japan's thirty year economic stagnation should serve as a warning to any society that seeks to actively discourage fertility.

<comment><USER19> Re: Japan - Economist Dean Baker makes the case that Japan's population decline is not all bad:

"The decline in population is in fact a benefit in many respects for Japan. It is a very crowded island with expensive land prices. A falling population will reduce the pressure on land making housing more affordable. It will also reduce congestion in cities. In addition, the decline in population will make it easier for Japan to meet commitments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions..."

[http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/contrary-to-the- nyt...](http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/contrary-to-the-nyts- assertion-japan-does-not-qface-a-looming-demographic-squeezeq)

<comment><USER20> > _It is a very crowded island with expensive land prices._

But that is only a popular image of Japan. Areas clustered close to the central districts of large cities _are_ crowded with expensive land prices. But even in the suburban outskirts of the Tokyo metropolitan area (pop. 37 million), there is plenty of space. Farm land, forests, empty tracts of land, golf courses, ... you name it. Most residential dwellings are fully detached single family homes.

We have Google Street View; anyone can check this easily.

E.g. Noda City, area close to the Edo river, not far from Umesato train station:

[https://email@example.com,139.8796061,3a,75y,2...](https://email@example.com,139.8796061,3a,75y,26.22h,77.56t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sfbg-4wn5bFksUqzMlaRdeQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dfbg-4wn5bFksUqzMlaRdeQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D296.9118%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

<comment><USER8> Japan does very well in managing the land it has. The country is especially good at medium density urban development (about 150 per hectare).

But the quality of life and access to wild land, open space, wilderness, forest, woodlands, park space, farm land, ski slopes, bike trails, and beaches will improve with less population. The pressured fish stocks will be able to recover and free range beef won't be so expensive. Living space will be much cheaper and wages will be higher.

Maximizing population is not the goal of a community. Offering the best chance at a good life is. And as long as we are rational animals and not economic production robots, that is dependent on more land available per person.

Japan will be much better off in 2100 with 60-80 MM people than it is today with 127MM in the same land area. Here's hoping that the mass immigrationists don't get a chance to ruin it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In short, the points:

> who's population growth is having the largest effect on global energy > demand?—it's the U.S.

> On the long view, the fossil fuel age is a blip, with a down side mirroring > the (more fun) up side.

</comment><comment><USER22> This really brings up the question of the ultimate carrying capacity of the world. Anytime you see graphs that hockeystick they eventually plateau and stagnation is usually caused by mass famine, disease, or other catastrophic circumstance; potentially war in the case of human beings. We haven't reached that point in any countries yet, and when the US/Europe throws away half of harvested food at the point of sale, I think its probably not something to worry about in the immediate. However, particularly with China just removing their 1 child per family policy, it looks like we may reach one of these issues sooner than later, probably not in our lifetimes, but I don't think too far off.

<comment><USER23> Human still hasn't fully modernized/mechanized farming on the India Subcontent or Africa.

Humanity has a lot of ground to cover before we starve.

<comment><USER4> The Japanese get the most production per hectare of land. The rest of the industrialized world isn't even close.

Humanity has a lot of ground to cover before we starve.

<comment><USER24> Do you have a source for that, my impression was that many of those family farms were rather small and inefficient, but I could be wrong.

<comment><USER4> Looks like my data is outdated and the US has caught up.

Here's what it looked like the last time I was interested in this material: [http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG?page=3&or...](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.YLD.CREL.KG?page=3&order=wbapi_data_value_2013%20wbapi_data_value%20wbapi_data_value- last&sort=desc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The discussion at the end regarding the moral and ethical implications of having kids is interesting. I struggled with this on an intuitive level having not run the numbers myself. However some friends also pointed out that maybe the world doesn't need _fewer_ people but more smart ones.

I think the choice to not have children is perfectly legitimate. There is plenty of social pressure to procreate if you're involved in a committed Heterosexual relationship.

But it's a difficult problem to pose ethically. If I were the author I would have left that out. There be dragons in the ethics department.

</comment><comment><USER26> The USA is overreaching and the further it overreaches, the greater the risk of various parts of the socio-economic system breaking. The more things break, and the more serious the problems, the faster the USA will collapse.

This is the real future of the USA if it is not able to curb and even to reverse its per capita energy consumption.

When any system grows beyond its capacity to manage itself, then that system tends to collapse. We see this most clearly in economic bubbles, but the same mechanisms are at work in foreign policy, in NATO, in the EU, in China, and so on.

There will never be a simple way to understand the problems of growth and overreach so this means that countries which have greater capacity for self reflection and thinking through the consequences of their actions, are the ones most likely to dominate and to thrive in the long term.

Right now it looks like the USA will be a historical oddity by the year 2500 if not sooner

</comment><comment><USER27> The authors data leads me to entirely the opposite conclusion. His data perfectly support the point that we need massive new sources of clean energy (for example, nuclear or even solar which is on an incredible downward cost trend), to support growth.

Anyone who has spent time on planes knows that the world is mostly empty. I recently flew from Seoul to Moscow and there was nothing but forest in between. The first visible roads were on the descent to Moscow.

If you assume that innovation is impossible, then sure, I can see how he conflates future energy use with CO2. But it's a failing of the piece that he never explicitly states that assumption.

<comment><USER28> Perhaps, but to be fair, there are fairly specific geophysical criteria for plopping down a nontrivial human settlement, mainly relating to the water table and agriculture. Inland, arid tundra, for example, isn't good place to found a town, and neither is any place where you can neither grow local food nor deliver it easily from other places. The more anthrocentric aspects, like proximity to transportation networks and economic activity, also play a huge role. All in all, it's not reasonable to suggest that much of the empty space seen from a plane can be filled out with people equally well.

Indeed, a disproportionate share of energy use goes toward supporting life in places nature did not will to be particularly habitable. Very expensive contrivances--none altogether successful, and whose sustainability is in doubt --exist to create water and indoor cooling in places like Las Vegas, for example, and to pump water out of New Orleans or parts of the Netherlands. Technology is impressive and can compensate, but neither cheaply nor without all kinds of negative externalities.

<comment><USER27> Hmm, to solve those problems, would it help to have massive supplies of clean energy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> One of the problem with this analysis is that it uses population growth as a proxy for fertility rate. Another is that it assumes that future energy will come from the same sources as they currently rather than increasingly from solar and wind.

</comment><comment><USER30> "We were full of hope and optimism, and believed we could do anything. That's good baby-making weather, folks."

I've seen this effect at multiple startup companies. If the company has success, the babies start to come.

</comment><comment><USER31> Most of the comments here are addressed in excruciating detail in other posts on this blog. Suffice it to say, Dr. Murphy has done his homework.

</comment><comment><USER32> The title implies that there is the other, "unreal" problem. What is it?

</comment><comment><USER33> Starts as a scientific exploration on the relationship between population and energy. Ends as self-loathing.

</comment><comment><USER34> Bullshit. The real population bomb is a certain religion called islam.

</comment><comment><USER35> There's little value in discussing energy and carbon footprint per person when you're looking at the next 50 to 100 years.

Are the Africans noble savages who are so in tune with the land that they have a smaller ecological impact? No, they desperately want better health care, clean water, and more modern amenities. They want a bigger footprint, and we shouldn't begrudge them that. In 100 years, it's very likely that the impact of a US citizen will be very close to that of an African.

There is no dichotomy between population reduction and impact reduction - <USER2> advocate both as unsustainable. This is poorly masked white guilt.

<comment><USER10> There is a distinction we can make between the standard of living and the means that are employed to achieve it.

One example: building a modern communication grid is much less expensive today than it was when e.g. America first built out telegraphs and then telephones etc. Much less copper, etc.</comment></comment>


Pysendfile - A Python Unix tool for sending files. - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mrjordangoldstein/pysendfile

<comment><AUTHOR> OP and script author here. You can read a blog post about it at: <http://jordangoldstein.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/pysendfile/></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a language to represent schedules and produce calendars? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> _The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it 's to post the wrong answer."_ \-- Cunningham's Law

I'd suggest that you create a language for doing this. Don't make it good, make it barely functional. Don't do any research on what might already exist, just go ahead and think about what you'd want, and implement a half-assed version. Then post it here as a "Show HN:".

One of two things will happen:

(a) People will pile in to say, "It's good, but why didn't you just use XXXX"; or

(b) People will say "We've long needed something like this ... thanks!"

In the latter case, if you've put it on GitHub (or similar) people might actually start offering improvements and sending you pull requests, and then you'll end up with the thing you want that didn't previously exist.

<comment><USER3> ColinWright I love your style!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The iCalendar syntax ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar)) is the dominant DSL.

<comment><USER5> It's also not human readable, a confusing format, barely standardized, and just a pain to work with in general.

A "programming language for dates" would be a pretty great thing to have I bet. No more messing with confusing formats like iCalendar or cron schedules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The "remind" program has a pretty well-developed DSL to represent dates and recurring schedules, with backends to produce postscript/html/etc calendars.

[https://dianne.skoll.ca/projects/remind/](https://dianne.skoll.ca/projects/remind/)

It's available already-packaged in most mainstream distros I know of.</comment>


Why Nokia is using ST-Ericsson's NovaThor ARM chip instead of Qualcomm - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/103171-why-nokia-is-using-st-ericssons-novathor-arm-chip-instead-of-qualcomm

<comment><USER2> great stuff to me, this refers to u9500 which has the data modem, which the a9500 used in snowball open source project has no 3G data modem</comment>


Simple infographic depicting Standard VAT rates in EU Countries from 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@neilswmurray/infographic-standard-vat-rates-applied-in-the-member-states-of-the-european-union-as-of-january-bff07130485e

<comment><USER2> It's not working for me on Chrome..

<comment><AUTHOR> I just double-checked, and seems OK for me…

<comment><USER2> Sorry about that—I don't know how it ended up here but it was meant for another thread.</comment></comment></comment>


Ajit Pai says net neutrality was the top threat to broadband deployment - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/ajit-pai-says-net-neutrality-was-the-top-threat-to-broadband-deployment/ <comment><USER2> This Verizon tool needs to be replaced with someone competent. He's worse than the DJ that Tool parodies in the song Hooker with a Penis.</comment>


All top posts on Hacker News talk about the same thing - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/gerasini/status/342901089676451840/photo/1

<comment> grey-area There's a simple solution to this - click on new, and upvote stories which have technical content, and add some new stories with content you'd like to see. There are many stories with no votes which deserve to be seen.

</comment><comment><USER2> I saw "Utah Datacenter" linking to a wikipedia domain and I thought Wikimedia had set up a new datacenter in Utah. Turns out I was wrong.</comment>


A congressman who justifies every vote on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/repjustinamash

<comment><USER2> "I voted no on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H R 297, Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act of 2013, which reauthorizes federal payments to children's hospitals for operating graduate medical training programs... The bill passed 352-50."

"I voted no on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H R 225, National Pediatric Research Network Act of 2013, which expands the existing Pediatric Research Initiative (PRI) to include a new National Pediatric Research Network... It passed 375-27."

"I voted no on H R 325, No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013... The bill passed 285-144."

"I voted no on H R 152, Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013... The bill passed 241-180."

Justin Amash represents a wing of the Republican party that has essentially decided to refuse to _govern,_ and is content to simply object to anything Congress tries to do that is not ideologically pure, which is pretty much everything.

[EDIT: To those who commented below upset with my "refusal to govern" comment -- look, governing requires solving problems that the public wants you to solve. That solution can even be essentially _less government._

For example... a lot of Republican voters don't like Obamacare, but I doubt many of them liked our pre-Obamacare healthcare system. Take an extreme, free- market/libertarian form of healthcare policy -- repeal not just Obamacare, but things like the employer tax deduction for health insurance, requiring hospitals to provide life-saving care for anyone regardless of payment capability, etc -- I would vehemently disagree with that, but I would consider crafting and trying to pass such legislation an _attempt to govern._ But if the bulk of your legislative activity is doing things like voting to repeal Obamacare _twenty-three_ times, as Rep. Justin Amash did in 2011-2012, then I would argue you are just politically pandering to your constituent base -- or worse, your campaign's financial donors -- and not governing.]

On the other hand, I do appreciate his attempts to justify and explain his actions. This type of transparency is desperately needed in the Senate, where everyone uses arcane procedural rules (e.g. filibusters, "holds," and so forth), as anonymous tools of obstruction pretty much constantly.

While I doubt I'll ever agree on any of Rep. Amash's views, I hope that more of our elected representatives continue to use tools like social media not just for campaigning and voter outreach purpose, but for information and transparency in the governing process once they're actually in office..

<comment><USER3> Read the legislation. It's eye-opening how much stuff has a pretty sounding name, with lofty intentions, that have pork and other garbage attached. I'm afraid you just fell for the "think of the children" style reasoning.

<comment><USER2> Scroll down to January 4th on Rep. Amash's Facebook page. This was the day that the House voted on $9.7 billion in Sandy aid, which was pretty much just to replenish FEMA's flood insurance fund. The _entire bill is one page._ (<http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr41/text>)

Rep. Amash voted no, and there is no explanation of his vote on this date. He couldn't have objected to "pork and garbage," because there was none. Perhaps he objected to the $9.7 billion not being offset with cuts in other federal spending, but then I'm surprised he didn't explain that on his Facebook page.

I'm aware that most legislation has pork and other garbage attached. But if you continuously vote against any legislation with pork and garbage, without attempting to amend or propose alternative solutions without pork and garbage, _and even vote against bills without pork and garbage that have historically been previously uncontroversial,_ (in this case, disaster relief assistance) then my opinion is that you are just refusing to govern.

<comment><USER3> You didn't look very hard, I only used control-f "H R 41" on Facebook and found it. Here is his full explanation on H R 41.

 _I voted no on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H R 41, which temporarily authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to borrow an additional $9.7 billion from the U.S. Treasury to carry out the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The bill increases FEMA's borrowing authority from $20.7 billion to a staggering $30.4 billion. NFIP needs another bailout for Hurricane Sandy claims because it still hasn't repaid taxpayers the $18 billion provided after Hurricane Katrina.

Although I oppose the federal government's involvement in the flood insurance industry, it's appropriate for current NFIP policyholders to have their claims paid for flood damage. But another bailout should be fully offset with spending cuts elsewhere or at least coupled with significant reforms to this poorly designed and managed program. Under this bill, NFIP will owe U.S. taxpayers $30 billion, with little prospect of ever paying it back. The bill passed 354-67._

So he feared taxpayers would be on the hook for $10B program with a proven track record of mismanagement. Sounds like he made the hard decision and said no, the right call in my opinion.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for finding his explanation. I blame Facebook's infinite scroll.

I don't see this as a "hard decision." He cast a symbolic vote to remain ideologically pure. Had our Congress consisted of at least 217 Justin Amashes, their votes would have had the practical effect of denying thousands of people devastated by Hurricane Sandy from having their flood insurance claims paid. That's all the additional funding was for -- flood insurance claims. You can argue about the mismanagement of FEMA in general, but this $9.7 billion had nothing to with that. Voting down this bill would have basically forced FEMA to tell a bunch of people hit by Hurricane Sandy, "Hey, that flood insurance you paid into that you're depending on to rebuild your home? Yeah, you're not going to get any money from those claims until we figure out how much we need to jack up the age of Social Security, sorry."

This is not governing. Look, you can argue that the federal government should not be providing flood insurance (especially insurance that is heavily subsidized) as it encourages people to live in high-risk areas for natural disasters. And you can argue that the current process of allocation disaster assistance from the federal budget should have a better process than "ask for a bunch of money for flood insurance whenever FEMA runs out." I consider these are very valid points.

Yet anyone attempting to govern would make these arguments when they wouldn't interfere with thousands of people experiencing a hardship from receiving assistance that was heretofore uncontroversial, and they would actually then proceed to turn those arguments into legislation and then pass it.

This is what I mean. "Refusal to govern" means doing little else besides casting symbolic votes, which a wing of the Republican party like Rep. Amash is mostly content to do. Rep. Amash is not actually making any "hard decisions" or "right calls." He doesn't have to bear any responsibility for denying people hit by Hurricane Sandy their flood insurance claims, yet he doesn't care to actually solve the macro-level problems behind his opposition to the bill to begin with.

Afforess and anyone else -- I love discussing public policy, so if you want to continue this discussion in a more efficient manner than exchanging HN comments, just e-mail me (see my profile for the address).

<comment><USER4> Today I learned government is about compromising your ideals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I disagree with Justin politically w.r.t. nearly everything, but I definitely admire his approach. He's also a genuinely thoughtful and nice guy, and very adept at explaining why he holds the positions he does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same here. I find he is able to defend himself on things I would never accept personally, and in a pretty sensible way. Granted, most of his votes are "more spending not offset by cuts"-type votes, but he also votes sensibly on some bills, with good justifications ("this bill creates redundant regulation.... congress doesn't need to do this, this agency already does it").

I admire his way of doing his job, even if I absolutely despise his political views.

<comment><USER6> How can you despise the political view of acting responsibly with taxpayer money? How can you look at the US Debt Clock (<http://www.usdebtclock.org/>) and not realize that we're committing the equivalent of child abuse by inflicting enormous debt on children who haven't even yet been born?

I'll never understand the hypocrisy of the group of voters that freaks out over a possible 1 degree shift in the average temperature of the planet over the next 50 years (that we may or may not have any control of whatsoever) -- yet doesn't want to take any action to slow down the runaway spending that will certainly destroy more lives in a much bigger way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I commend Rep Amash for his transparency, it's a refreshing change from politicians that do nothing besides talk in double speak and view being tied down to an actual point of view as a political liability.

That being said, next time he comes up for election he'll probably get slaughtered in the primaries when a more extreme candidate portrays any pragmatism in the political process as an impurity that needs to be purged.

We really don't like seeing how the political sausage is made.

<comment><USER8> Rep. Amash is a Tea Party libertarian up for re-election every two years, had no primary challenger in 2012 and it is unlikely he'll be primary challenged next cycle either.

<comment><USER9> He'll have no challengers as long as his benefactors like what he's doing.

<comment><USER7> Maybe not in the primaries, but a viable challenger could come from the Democrats. Michigan still went blue in the electoral college for the Presidential vote.

Then again, between gerrymandering and demographic shifts individual districts can become more OR less defensible to incumbents.

<comment><USER5> Michigan as a whole can go either way, but Justin's district is about as solidly republican as they come. Short of radical redistricting, that's not going to change (edit: I see that the 3rd district _did_ become more balanced in the most recent redistricting, but it's still a pretty solid republican seat).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Huh. I'm not a giant fan of his votes... but I really like reading why he is voting on each issue. I hope he is truly transparent and honest; the cynic in me believes he'll probably only share politically polite reasoning for his votes.

I also hope that this level of sharing grows. It's a pretty small thing for a member of a representative government to do, yet so obviously important. "I represent you. I voted X on issue Y, because Z."

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd donate $10k in a heartbeat to a bi-partisan PAC (or equivalent) whose goal was to fund the campaigns of people who do this. Someone should get working on this.

<comment><USER12> Maybe consider donating to Mark Kelly & Gabrielle Giffords' PAC. I've heard that that Mark is actually a moderate republican, even thought he is married to a now-retired democratic congresswoman. The PAC is somewhat bipartisan <http://americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/>

Before her shooting in 2011, Rep. Giffords did blog regularly, Although she didn't give vote-by-vote explanations herself.

<comment><USER13> fizx asked for a PAC to encourage candidates to publicly comment on their votes, and you recommend a PAC that is focused on gun control?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> unfortunately this guy is crazy...and on the far right fringe of things. in recent years, as more and more people have become involved in the political process we've developed this notion that there's a correlation between transparency and competency that simply does not exist. And the perceived transparency, such as some 100-200 word facebook post summarizing hundred page bills, is merely an illusion buffered by overly simplistic and misleading explanations.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like a case of 'I don't agree with him, therefore he must be crazy.'

<comment><USER14> yea, no. i'm pretty down the middle and appreciate opinions on all sides... but read more about this guy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Clicking "read more" requires me to log in to Facebook. I don't have a Facebook account (nor do I want one). I've noticed this pattern with other groups and businesses. Facebook is not free and open if you choose not to let them sell your information.

<comment><USER17> Then don't provide any information for them to sell except for an email address and what pages you look at.

<comment><USER16> If this representative is intending to make his rationales public, he should choose a public venue.

But given the tracking information Facebook sifts via their extensive federation throughout the Internet today, I don't feel any inclination to make it easier for them by registering for their marketing programmes.

<comment><USER18> Hard to fault him for publishing where his constituency goes to every day. Almost no one would go to his website.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Open communication -> open journalism -> open education -> open science -> open politics -> open ?

I'm just trying to think of things that are still left closed. In 10 years will it just be weird that people aren't sharing things?

<comment><USER20> Law. Finance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really like the concept, but there are better venues for this kind of material. With just 1.5% of "People Talking About This" I suspect it's rare his 42,000+ Likes are seeing these posts in their News Feeds.

<comment><USER22> I highly doubt that the intent is to have each post seen in people's timelines.

It appears to be a place for constituents to "check up" on their representative in a way that is convenient and open. And I think that it's a bold cultural statement for a Congressman to make.

I used to think that open and honest people didn't stand a chance in Washington, but that may be changing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Definitely don't agree with his politics, but I appreciate the transparency.

</comment><comment><USER24> I like it.</comment>


How Are Websites Affected by UK Government Internet Safety Regulations? - <AUTHOR> https://imagga.com/blog/image-recognition-explained-content-moderation/ <comment><USER2> I like how Ofcom will use AI to drive content moderation, given how there has been news regarding the mental health of workers doing this. Since there is still a human aspect, my hope is that effort is still put in to ensure human moderators are looked after.

<comment><AUTHOR> AI-based content moderation should considerably relieve the amount of harmful content human moderators need to scan. Their job is indeed very traumatic and the issue needs to be addressed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why isn't AppleTV more powerful? - <AUTHOR>

AppleTV would have been really exciting if it was essentially an iPad/iPhone that displays on a TV in 1080 resolution and is remote controlled by anyone holding an iPhone or an Ipad.  It would have been very exciting to run iOS apps on a TV, and touch makes the ultimate control interface for TV.<p>Why has Apple made AppleTV so underpowered and limited?  Steve Jobs seems to have got just about everything else spot on - why is Apple so wide of the mark with AppleTV? <comment><USER2> It's not a computer! It's a device by means of which to optimally stream your money straight to Apple's coffers! You can't even browse the web with it!

BTW: it comes with a remote control so you don't _have_ to use an iPad Touch / iPhone / iPad to control it.

</comment><comment><USER3> How would that sell more Apple hardware? A $300 AppleTV isn't going to sell as well as a $99 AppleTV, particularly to people who just want to watch TV.</comment>