On managing outrage in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/06/on-managing-outrage-in-silicon-valley/ <comment><USER3> One of my first exposures to this "manifesto" was on Twitter with someone starting a thread with "Google has a Nazi problem." The majority of the other responses I read either attacked the author, dismissed the entire text in whole, and/or refused to actually argue the paper's points because they saw them as so ridiculous or "obviously" wrong.

I read the paper. I don't see at all how it relates to fascism, Trumpism, or whatever you want to call it.

I am against discrimination, and that includes positive discrimination.

If there were factual inaccuracies in what the author wrote, why not discuss them? Why not use high-quality sources to validate your argument? I wish it was the opposite, but I don't have the time to research the psychological/sociological perspectives on these issues. Human civilization has grown thanks to being able to specialize. I specialize and (hopefully) make contributions in one field, but I depend on others that have specialized elsewhere to provide knowledge and resources I can depend on.

<comment> grey-area Since most of these threads are pretty content free, and you asked for it, here's a rebuttal, by a woman who's good at math.

[https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/slideshow/embed_code/key/3...](https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/slideshow/embed_code/key/3LAlcESJTBxIBg)

Of course men and women are different on average, but are they different enough to justify the massive disparity in tech? No.

<comment><USER4> That is a lazy slide deck. From the paper it cites ([http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-14384-001](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1990-14384-001)):

> It is important for us to know that females begin in high school to perform > less well than males on mathematical problem-solving tasks. Problem solving > is critical for success in many mathematics-related fields, such as > engineering and physics. In this sense, mathematics skills may continue to > be a critical filter.

It speculates that this may be because

> the content of problem-solving items on those tests may have heavy > representation of masculine-stereotyped content, which has been shown to > produce better performance by males in some studies, although results on the > issue are mixed

So the Figure 1 the slide uses from the paper has smeared the critical skill, from a software-development perspective, across a large set of other math- related skills. The results of the paper with respect to that skill are inconclusive, not surprising since it's a 27-year-old meta-analysis. Surely there are better results to cite by now?

<comment><USER5> Well, it's refuting a lazy argument. Why would computer science be so different from other STEM fields that have radically higher proportions of women? [0] In particular, why is math so much better? [1] If biological differences are so important, why has it varied so much over time, including a big decline since the 80s? [0] I mean, we know that gender roles play a big role in what jobs people do and that sexism is a problem in tech, so it's honestly kind of weird to think "actually, it's mostly caused by some hitherto unobserved large biological difference."

Nonetheless, there is research indicating gender differences in math vary greatly between countries and appear to be correlated to other measures of gender equity [2]. Even in countries with relatively large discrepancies, there's not a big difference. I couldn't find any meta analysis of specifically programming skill, but an analysis of one CS department didn't find gender differences due to ability [3]. An older study showed women and men scored similarly on an introductory class, but women were less likely to get an A or A+ [4]. A small study of elementary students showed that girls and boys did equally well on easy problems, but boys did better on hard problems [5].

[0]: [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when- women-stopped-coding)

[1]: Compare these tables for math and computer science: [https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/pdf/tab34.pdf](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/pdf/tab34.pdf) and [https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/pdf/tab33.pdf](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf13327/pdf/tab33.pdf)

[2]: [http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/136/1/103/;](http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/136/1/103/;) PDF [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicole_Else- Quest/publi...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicole_Else- Quest/publication/40906547_Cross- National_Patterns_of_Gender_Differences_in_Mathematics_A_Meta- Analysis/links/0a85e530ca35b7bdea000000/Cross-National-Patterns-of-Gender- Differences-in-Mathematics-A-Meta-Analysis.pdf)

[3]: [http://www.pd.infn.it/~lacaprar/ProgettoScuola/Biblio/gender...](http://www.pd.infn.it/~lacaprar/ProgettoScuola/Biblio/genderdiff_2003.pdf)

[4]: [http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED384389.pdf](http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED384389.pdf)

[5]: [http://ase.tufts.edu/DevTech/publications/Sullivan_Gender%20...](http://ase.tufts.edu/DevTech/publications/Sullivan_Gender%20Differences%20Robotics_2016.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I don't think biology plays a big role in this disparity, and I agree that the Google essay was poorly argued, ill-considered and harmful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "If Galileo had said that people in Padua were ten feet tall, he would have been regarded as a harmless eccentric. Saying the earth orbited the sun was another matter. The church knew this would set people thinking." \-- Paul Graham, What You Can't Say [1]

"And worse than simply thinking these things or saying them in private, you've said them in a way that's tried to legitimize this kind of thing across the company, causing other people to get up and say "wait, is that right?"" \-- senior Google guy, in condemnation of the essay [2]

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) [2] [https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers- man...](https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers- manifesto-1e3773ed1788)

<comment><USER7> SV/YC culture is extremely toxic, and people hate having that pointed out to their faces.

edit: sv/yc are toxic for how they actively shame outsider opinions, then headhunt the individuals who put said opinions forward. from sama's what i heard from trump supporters, "Almost everyone I asked was willing to talk to me, but almost none of them wanted me to use their names—even people from very red states were worried about getting "targeted by those people in Silicon Valley if they knew I voted for him". One person in Silicon Valley even asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement before she would talk to me, as she worried she'd lose her job if people at her company knew she was a strong Trump supporter."

like for instance on this website, where flagged & downvoted comments lead to rate limiting. sorry guy i can't respond to, it's the mods' fault. minority opinions get to say 1, maybe 2 things, before being silenced. controversial threads are flagged or removed by dang and co from the front page within an hour. ever have a convo with a conservative on here, where they just stopped responding to you? was probably silenced by the moderation team.

this discussion is flagged to obscurity, while the stupid circle jerk post about "google engineer breaking his bubble through global travel!" is on the front still.

[http://blog.samaltman.com/what-i-heard-from-trump- supporters](http://blog.samaltman.com/what-i-heard-from-trump-supporters)

<comment><USER8> I don't think it's fair to lump YC culture in with SV culture. YC is based in SV, but it seems to be an island of reasonableness.

<comment><USER9> While I think that YC tends to be a bit more reasonable on some topics, it can be pretty reactionary on others. For example, if anything to do with Facebook or Zuckerberg is posted, the level of discourse drops to the typical reddit outrage machine.

Similarly, I think that when it comes to talking about sexism in tech, the community as a whole can be pretty toxic. As someone who was annoyed by both the original manifesto, and the response to the original manifesto, it's a bit frustrating to see the conversation here take shape the way it has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I read the memo, and compared to the stuff I read from the real "deplorables" (on 4chan, The_Donald, etc.), it was pretty tame.

Yes, many of his ideas are backwards and unjustified. At the same time, many of his arguments were perfectly sane (e.g. silencing all dissenting opinions leads to an increasingly toxic and divided culture). If you want people like him to actually change their minds, you have to be willing to hear them out first. You can't show someone where they went wrong if they're too scared to tell you what they think in the first place.

Sexism in the workplace clearly exists. We've seen it manifest too many times for any rational person to deny it. At the same time, many of the initiatives that SV companies pursue to combat sexism are treating the symptoms rather than the cause. Googlers should try to make sure that they are consciously fighting their unconscious biases when hiring, but changing your hiring practices isn't going to eradicate sexism. Many of these diversity "action- plans" are more effective at improving a company's PR than they are at actually combating sex-related discrepancies. They become self-serving, even though their goal is noble. The author of the memo was _trying_ to get at that, but that message was lost due to his problematic views on biological determinism, among other things.

<comment><USER11> This is increasingly my concern-- There really seems to be a prevailing opinion that racism and sexism are just fine when directed towards white men. You can drag a white guy for pretty much any societal ill you like on the internet these days, and while there are some pretty great points to be made with respect to blaming a lot of modern society's problems on its principal architects (old white dudes), this is no way to win hearts and minds.

We're currently suffering through four years of self-imposed punishment as a result of being a bunch of judgmental assholes in pursuit of a goal that any reasonable human would accept as self-evident-- that people deserve to be treated fairly and without prejudice, no matter their race, sex, gender identity, et cetera. That the American Dream is available equally to all Americans.

I spend a lot of time offering feedback to people in a professional capacity and I am frankly shocked at the level of discourse I see on the internet from progressives. If I pulled this kind of shit at work I'd be finished, because I don't see any way I could possibly be effective communicating an idea to anybody in this fashion.

Almost as if the media doesn't really give a shit about justice or equality, but rather generating rage-clicks and internet lynch mobs to move advertising inventory. :-\

<comment><USER12> >> We're currently suffering through four years of self-imposed punishment as a result of being a bunch of judgmental assholes in pursuit of a goal that any reasonable human would accept as self-evident-- that people deserve to be treated fairly and without prejudice, no matter their race, sex, gender identity, et cetera.

If leftists/liberals wanted everyone to be treated fairly without prejudice of their race or sex then they would not continually push for the expansion and entrenchment of race and sex based affirmative action programs which deliberately exclude people from employment opportunities, scholarships, networking opportunities and many other essential resources.

The goals and the means are contradictory. If you abandon the goal of equality of opportunity as the left has for the more dubious goal of equality of outcomes then your create a system that treats people unequally based on there race and sex. And furthermore, a system that artificially transfers burdens and hardships onto select races while giving others races 'privileges' and opportunity.

No 'reasonable human' will ever accept exclusion from employment because of there race or sex. And that is exactly what is happening to many qualified and ambitious people at this point. The pool of disaffected people is only going to grow until these polices are changed to reflect a meritocratic model based on objective qualifications.

<comment><USER11> I think if you take a population that has been the subject of generations of systemic government oppression, remove it (allegedly), and then declare "fairness accomplished! You are free to complete on a level playing field! Pay no attention to the effects of generational poverty!" you are on real dubious ground. This would also presuppose that we have successfully eliminated systemic racism from our society, which is... an argument that would require substantial supporting evidence.

And with respect to the whole "taking of jobs", I will add a more comprehensively researched rebuttal to my own anecdotal experience: if you're good, you're in no danger of getting caught up in a quota system. Competent white folks are doing just fine. The less-competent.... probably should cowboy up. As my exploited millennials would say: "git gud".

[http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/03/13/gender- quot...](http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/03/13/gender-quotas-and- the-crisis-of-the-mediocre-man/)

<comment><USER12> >> I think if you take a population that has been the subject of generations of systemic government oppression, remove it (allegedly), and then declare "fairness accomplished! You are free to complete on a level playing field! Pay no attention to the effects of generational poverty!" you are on real dubious ground.

Equality of outcomes enforced by excluding certain racial groups creates intergenerational systemic government oppression of the excluded groups. Again the goal and the means are contradictory.

The socially acceptable way to increase participation by a perceived underrepresented group is to target that group with sustained improvement programs with measurable outcomes. This is the only serious way to address the problem. The opportunities are there but talent with proper skills is not.

>> This would also presuppose that we have successfully eliminated systemic racism from our society, which is... an argument that would require substantial supporting evidence.

The burden of proof is on the accuser to prove that 'society' is in fact guilty of 'systemic racism'. The presumption of Innocence until proven guilty is a cornerstone of western law. Whey you have an indictment of 'society' in a court of law then we can have a fruitful discussion of 'societal systemic racism'.

>> And with respect to the whole "taking of jobs", I will add a more comprehensively researched rebuttal to my own anecdotal experience: if you're good, you're in no danger of getting caught up in a quota system. Competent white folks are doing just fine. The less-competent.... probably should cowboy up. As my exploited millennials would say: "git gud".

Once again your presenting a contradiction. You want to argue that 'systemic racism', for instance against blacks is a horrible injustice. But also claim that other racial groups such as whites are being excluded because there is a racially discriminatory quota system, but you have no problem with that.

So what I gather from your post is that you support racism as long as its against Whites and Asians.

And you also think that its perfectly fine to remove 'less-competent' people as long as they are White or Asian and replace then with presumably even 'less-competent' black people?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Silicon Valley controls a lot of the world's communication and we should be really worried if silencing of unpopular opinions is the order of the day.

As a "minority" I perhaps disagree with a lot of what this person has written but my reaction to it will be to counter his arguments with a better one rather than go on to silence him.

\--

I have already written about this somewhat during the past elections.

[https://medium.com/@oothenigerian/trump-v-clinton-silicon- va...](https://medium.com/@oothenigerian/trump-v-clinton-silicon-valleys-mind- bending-hypocrisy-is-more-of-a-threat-to-freedom-than-dd6263af03ac)

<comment><USER14> And calling "fake news" any opinion they disagree with. I find it pretty problematic that Facebook wants to police the political debate. Kind of like if gmail started blocking emails sent to a gmail account if it disagrees with its content.

<comment><USER15> > Kind of like if gmail started blocking emails sent to a gmail account if it > disagrees with its content.

I'm pretty sure that gmail's superior spam filter was one of its big initial selling points?

<comment><USER16> If 30+% of the country passionately supported penis-enlargement pills, it would have been received much differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No matter what side of this debate you're on, I don't think you can argue against the notion that there is only one side of it whose adherents can feel completely free to express their opinions or argue their case without fear of retaliation. Many stupid, unsupportable statements have been made by people on the left side, but I've yet to see much in the way of internet rage mobs formed against them.

I think if google tries to punish the manifesto's author, there needs to be a massive backlash. Perhaps a grassroots effort to lobby the federal government to bust them up as a monopoly. It doesn't matter what, just cause them pain and suffering through whatever legal means are available.

Suppose, for example, once Yonatan Zunger's current employer becomes public knowledge, that company was inundated with phone calls and nasty tweets until they decide that keeping on the payroll is not worth the trouble. Would that be fair? I don't think so, but it would no different than if the manifesto author is outed and fired for expressing his opinions.

<comment><USER18> Let's be super clear: if this guy gets fired, it would not be because he expressed his opinions. It would be because he has abhorrent opinions that will forever affect his ability to work with women, whom he has decided are inherently incapable of working at Google.

<comment><USER19> > women, whom he has decided are inherently incapable of working at Google.

But that's not at all what he wrote?

<comment><USER18> Oh sorry. I was too broad. He wrote that it is unpopular for him to say that, for many biologically determined reasons, women do not have the traits required to excel in computer science, and that in reality the lack of their employment at Google could be reducible to their being women.

He then went on to explain at length that any effort to suppress this sort of opinion is the real diversity problem.

So I'd summarize that as: he believes that women are biologically not fit to work at Google, and therefore diversity programs are misguided, and therefore the real diversity problem is in not taking his unpopular opinions seriously.

<comment><USER20> The vast majority of people are biologically not fit to work at Google. All he said is because of slight differences in average ability and preferences we should expect the proportion of women in that incredibly small pool of people who are capable of working at Google to be lower than you would assume if you thought there was no sexual dimorphism in traits needed for engineering.

Another example, East Asian people and Ashkenazi Jewish people are much smarter than gentile whites, half a standard deviation to a full standard deviation on average: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289606...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028960600033X)

Because of this we should expect them to be over represented in cognitively demanding jobs such as engineering at Google. And this is indeed exactly what we see. Should we positively discriminate for white people? This does not mean all white people are unfit to work at Google, it just means that on average white people are less likely to have the requisite ability, though many individuals will.

<comment><USER18> Biologically unfit?

The vast majority of people are _biologically unfit_ to work at Google?

Are you serious? What 100 meter sprint time do you need to get a job at Google?

<comment><USER20> IQ is mostly genetics. You won't find many 100 or even 120 IQ engineers working at Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hacker culture used to trend towards libertarian ideals: free speech absolutism, cyberpunk freedom, etc. Now we have a huge mass of people at Google forming a rage mob to punish someone for expressing an unpopular idea. Should people lose their livelihoods and be blacklisted from the industry because you disagree with them? (see also Brendan Eich)

<comment><USER22> Most people don't want to work with jerks, and in a libertarian ideal would be free to choose whether to do so.

Most companies choose to get rid of jerks for a ton of sensible reasons. In a libertarian ideal they'd be free to choose who to hire/fire.

Large groups calling for someone to lose their job is totally in line with libertarian ideals. Nobody is calling for government regulation, this is just the (employment) market at work.

<comment><USER23> That's all well and good, but one of the core instincts of libertarianism is a deep distrust of angry mobs.

I don't think the SV crowd gets how reasonable the author looks to everyone else and how unreasonable the angry rants on Twitter look.

<comment><USER24> "everyone else" ... I don't know man, I haven't been ranting about this on twitter, and I find the author's document to be completely unreasonable, and many of the arguments against it to be entirely reasonable.

Maybe this just says more about our individual social groups ... or one of us is wrong about how prevalent one viewpoint is vs the other. Could be me :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think that it would not be a bad thing to have more diversity of thought in the tech community, or at least to have some basic level of considerate behavior toward people with different opinions.

I grew up in Red America; while I'm politically neutral/apathetic at this point, most of my friends/family are still varying shades of red. It was a drag to have all of my colleagues constantly and casually make insulting remarks about people that I care about.

Once, during an oncall shift, I pulled an all-nighter dealing with PagerDutys trying to keep our team's systems up; came in the next day and had to sit through a presentation where an assortment of republican party figures (no, not just Trump) were used as examples of "low IQ people" as part of some contrived metaphor that speaker was trying to make. Everyone laughed. No one made any comment about how this was unprofessional/inappropriate. Felt pretty angry.

This kind of environment is unhelpful to everyone. Obviously for folks on the right it is unpleasant, but for folks on the left it contributes to a culture of excessive contempt and hatred, increasingly detached from any actual contact with the people that they hate. This is not helpful for building winning coalitions.

<comment><USER26> It makes me think of one of our Slack channel at work that is full of jokes about Trump, the GOP, stupid republican voters, etc.

To make it clear, I personally don't give a damn F about politics, I don't vote, don't follow any political "drama". But the fact that people feel that it is appropriate to do that at work is pretty mind blowing to me.

<comment><USER27> It's the ongoing increase in partisanship. It makes it easier to form ideological bubbles even where they didn't exist before, because the ratio is so skewed to begin with, it's entirely possible to end up in a group of people selected by some unrelated criteria (e.g. a work team), and find out that there's a significant overlap ideologically. So issues that were not okay because of the potential to offend someone etc, gradually become acceptable, because (at one particular point) there was no-one in particular to be offended. Of course, once established as part of the culture, this becomes self-reinforcing...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Could someone opposed to the arguments the manifesto makes explain to me what quotes caused them to strongly dislike it?

Reading the reactions to the manifesto I'm left feeling like I'm taking crazy pills. I must have read a different manifesto.

AFAICT the main idea of the manifesto is that biological differences between men and women account for part of the representation gap. This seems to be perfectly logical and fair to me. Whether the explained part is significant or just a fraction of a percent should definitely be discussed. The available version of the manifesto not having its sources makes this a lot harder though.

> The text of the post is reproduced in full below, with some minor formatting > modifications. Two charts and several hyperlinks are also omitted.

If your offense is with the manifesto misrepresenting the amount of the gap explained by biological differences I can relate to your point of view and this post is not directed at you (which quotes of the manifesto lead to this impression would still be interesting to hear).

If not, I would really like to understand where you are coming from. The manifesto does not seem sexist (e.g. representing women in tech as inadequate) to me. Some quotes from the manifesto to support my claim:

> I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and > don't endorse using stereotypes.

> Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part > explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and > leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, > divisive, and bad for business

> Many of these [biological] differences are small and there's significant > overlap between men and women, so you can't say anything about an individual > given these population level distributions.

> I hope it's clear that I'm not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or > society is 100% fair, that we shouldn't try to correct for existing biases, > or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority.

> I'm also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; > I'm advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as > just another member of their group (tribalism).

Please help me understand.

<comment><USER29> The issue is that he is trying to solve an social problem via engineering, and in trying to simplify the problem, not spending enough time researching, and by "de emphasizing empathy" he takes a step backwards.

Basically, he sets forward incorrect assertions about biological differences without the self-awareness about _why_ he takes those differences as truth. For instance "Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things". This is true at least in a very large part because women are socialized from birth to do so. There are dozens of similar examples.

The people unhappy with him are frustrated by always having to make the same damn argument to the same people who somehow think behavioral evolution is the end-all-be-all, as if somehow the computer they're typing on was a natural result of that evolution.

Now, in this particular case I don't think the author had any bad intent, and I think people who disagree should argue straightforwardly and use this as a great, clear opportunity to address the many people who actually do agree with this person but don't speak out. I also think the author has some good feedback when it comes to how dissenting opinions are heard on the left, but it's overshadowed by his lack of understanding of the more serious problem of bias and discrimination of women in tech. (yes, it is a more serious problem than conservatives being unable to express their views - at least they can choose to talk or not, even if I'd rather everyone be able to freely share their views)

<comment><USER30> >but it's overshadowed by his lack of understanding of the more serious problem of bias and discrimination of women in tech.

Huh I didn't get that, I actually thought he understands there is a problem with bias and discrimination, but he also points out there are other reasons why there is not a balance and why there won't be a 50/50 balance and forcing it might be bad. Now, I don't agree with his writing completely and honestly haven't done the research to know if it's true or not, and personally feel like the problem is rooted in education of our young ones.

Still, I'm afraid to speak out on this issue and this is the first time I've voiced I even partially agree with him. Honestly, I just skipped discussing this issue.

> The people unhappy with him are frustrated by always having to make the same > damn argument to the same people who somehow think behavioral evolution is > the end-all-be-all, as if somehow the computer they're typing on was a > natural result of that evolution.

I don't get that feeling and that's why I don't want to comment on it. I get a feeling like he does, anyone with an opinion that doesn't fit the super-uber- equality narrative isn't countered with arguments, but attacked, shamed and "blacklisted". As people in tech, an industry that is supposed to build a better feature, I believe we should be better than this, we should be rational and use arguments, we shouldn't attack, shame or fire someone who doesn't agree with us but discuss it. Really makes me sad and I hope I get to cash out and leave tech as soon I can. Is it fair that I'm just 25 and don't want to work on what I love anymore because people have turned it into a toxic community where differing opinions are assaulted? Isn't equality to all people, views and opinions what diversity is about?

(Note: This isn't as much as an reply to your post as much as I wanted to reply but it lead me to a mini-rant. Just like, fuck this, I don't wanna be a part of this shithole anymore)

<comment><USER29> I feel ya, this stuff wears me down too. It's exhausting thinking about this stuff and wondering what the right thing to say or do is.

However, that's exactly what the women and other under-represented minorities have to handle every day in tech! (and they don't even get the option to skip discussing the issue)

There's a reason women leave tech, and it's the reason you're feeling _right now_! And there's a problem if we don't address those feelings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The thing is, the guy wrote what many people think - outside of tech. It just so happens that techies happen to be very open oftentimes.

I mean, what this person wrote, I heard it on various occasions in different formulations from various people. Even a woman (a Psychologist student at that time) once told me she'd rather have a male dentist and a male president.

I imagine tech industry to be brutal for woman, but so are probably a lot of other areas like construction works, virtually anything with hand-labour involved, not to speak about the military.

Anyways, it's great that people in the tech industry speak what they think. Maybe things change faster this way.

<comment><USER32> > The thing is, the guy wrote what many people think - outside of tech.

I agree, but that's also at the core of my (internal) confusion about it. His arguments are not new, at all. As far as I could tell he doesn't present any new evidence to back up his argument, either. So, to those who say "it is important that he spoke out, and that we have this debate": when does this debate end? Assuming we _have_ the debate and reach a conclusion, what happens when I post a similar manifesto in six month's time asserting another conclusion without presenting any new evidence? Surely by that logic we need to have the same debate over again? It'll never end.

"We must debate!" feels very objective until you admit to yourself (as I freely will) that you're coming to this with a preconceived opinion, and won't be content until the debate is settled _in the way you think it should be settled_.

<comment><USER33> > As far as I could tell he doesn't present any new evidence to back up his > argument, either. So, to those who say "it is important that he spoke out, > and that we have this debate": when does this debate end?

The problem is that (inside Google and elsewhere) the debate ended by fiat, not because one side made their case better; and it didn't end in favor of a side with tons of science to back it (not even close). My money is on there not being much of an average difference between the population of each gender when it comes to technical talent. But much more importantly, I'm aware that the science is far from conclusive on the topic, since socialization can be pretty different to untangle. The argument at places like Google is that looking at demographic differences in a population and deciding that it must be caused by discrimination is just assuming that nothing else could possibly contribute.

> "We must debate!" feels very objective until you admit to yourself (as I > freely will) that you're coming to this with a preconceived opinion, and > won't be content until the debate is settled in the way you think it should > be settled.

The irony is thick in this sentence. How do you not understand that if both sides claim the other does this, _the one that's actively trying to shut down scrutiny of their claims_ is by far in the weaker position?

<comment><USER34> Does it matter, for Google, whether the gap in interest-in-engineering is biological or social? Either way, there's more men doing the sorts of things that get them the skills they need to succeed as an engineer at Google, and it's in Google's best interest to hire every engineer with the necessary skills.

<comment><USER33> No, it doesn't matter, but it is sufficient if not necessary. Google's answer to socialization problems was going upstream: getting "work in tech/Google" into girls' minds earlier and earlier to combat ostensible messages pushing them away from tech. But it's all founded on the assumption that any population difference in ability must be fixable, if not at the hiring level, then earlier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Const-me In US, only 1.5% plumbers are female: [http://www.contractormag.com/blog/stop- calling-yourself-plum...](http://www.contractormag.com/blog/stop-calling- yourself-plumbette)

In IT, in 2008 women held 25% of all professional IT jobs in the US: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2012/03/22/women-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2012/03/22/women- in-tech-female-developers-by-the-numbers/#629291461760)

An order of magnitude difference.

I have never seen discussions about gender-based discrimination for plumbers, or biological or sociological factors preventing women to seek career in plumbing. My personal opinion, on average, women just don't want to do plumbing. And the society seems to be OK with that.

I wonder what's so special with the software development that causes companies to do positive discrimination, gender-based hiring targets, and other stuff these companies apparently do in the US?

<comment><USER35> >>I have never seen discussions about gender-based discrimination for plumbers

In general only jobs which have a high value of effort/money-earned are preferable to anybody.

Im pretty sure most plumbers don't get into plumbing because they are passionate about it.

Also curiously you can be passionate about something if you earn well doing it. So, ultimately its all about home much money you can make, at what effort.

Make plumbing a high paying job and calls for diversity in plumbing will go up like no tomorrow.

<comment><USER36> >Im pretty sure most plumbers don't get into plumbing because they are passionate about it.

I'm pretty sure most office desk jockey computer nerds don't get into being stuck sitting at a desk all day because they're passionate about it.

I'm pretty sure most professional head-trauma punching bags don't get into being an NFL defensive tackle because they're passionate about it.

I'm pretty sure most accountants don't get into hunching over spreadsheets and calculators because they're passionate about it.

See? I can concoct blatantly-false statements from _lots_ of my-opinions-are- universal bubbles!

<comment><USER35> I said exactly what you are saying.

Most people chose jobs because they pay well for little work.

Nobody really calls for diversity among coal miners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The major elephant in the room here, which the memo doesn't seem to address, is that as late as the 1960's, computer programming was seen as a natural career for young women. Has biology changed that much in the last fifty years?

<comment><USER38> This is the one place where I actually do agree with the author of the essay: computer programming is now seen as a high-status field, so it's worth it for men who seek high-status careers to displace women and construct rationalizations. It wasn't high-status in the 1960s.

<comment><USER39> Operating a computer in the 1960s was arguably more high-status. Computers occupied entire rooms and were operated mainly by military, government, and academic institutions.

<comment><USER39> [https://www.slideshare.net/lenbass/programming-in- the-1960s](https://www.slideshare.net/lenbass/programming-in-the-1960s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What happens when the lone voice is in the right, and the mass of people are in the wrong, and all of the preponderance of current science and wisdom is against the lone voice?

It's no great stretch to find examples through history of this in different social contexts.

<comment><USER41> If the preponderance of current science is against the lone voice, then it's highly likely that the lone voice is not in the right.

<comment><USER42> "Science" is often thrown around to justify things it shouldn't.

Sociology hasn't had as much success as "hard" sciences so we should distinguish between the two. (for example with the controversy around major psychology experiments being unreplicable etc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Change is hard for everyone with any systemic bias in the game. Outrage is a byproduct of that systemic bias and comes from a primal level need to eliminate a percieved threat. It's quite natural of a reaction. But it only proves the authors point overall.

Nevertheless, someone can have a seemingly innocent and accurate observation such as: there appear to be less women in tech overall and we seem to be forcing policies which appear to reduce the overall quality of our performance. Some of this may be subjective, "quality" for instance.

His conclusions and assumptions may or may not be accurate and may not make a difference in moving the needle forward. Some might be accurate on some standard deviation level. But he doesn't deserve to be fired or harmed for putting out his opinion.

It is natural to want to be outraged by something that is interpreted as a threat and there is significant historical context for doing so. Hostility towards women working at all as one example. Or perhaps for instance, the "bro"/"frat" culture of silicon valley being pretty rampant. A side effect of hiring people straight out of college perhaps?

The only way to be constructive in this is to continue to challenge the status quo. Violent outrage does nothing but prove the point that we are incapable of getting past any systemic bias to make our case heard.

I appreciate the effort to try and question the effectiveness of a policy and question the bias of a percieved political echo chamber. If there is historical precendent (and I claim there is) that refutes the underlying argument, then state those clearly.

One such example is that women have repeatedly mentioned exiting the field because of how they are typically treated by their peers. It is a bit ironic that the author mentions tribalism as a problem at Google because exclusivity of women, bros promoting bros, and the overall bias is quite obvious in the industry. Another commenter mentioned this here, but the obvious historical context for programming and computer science being a natural fit for women in the early days. Social tribalism and the echo chamber indeed has everything to do with the problem, but not in the way I think many are implying. To wit, I actually think that also approaching diversity of thought would be beneficial to Google - perhaps even help eliminate the same homogenous bro culture; just as much as it might help reduce progressive bias or any other systemic bias that plagues the community from hiring diverse talent.

</comment><comment><USER44> It's interesting to note that the only reason this is a news story is because "a Google engineer" wrote it. If the essay had been published entirely anonymously, then it would have attracted no attention at all, like a dozen similar essays.

The story is the source, not the content.

<comment><USER45> The story is not "a Google engineer wrote it". The story is "a large fraction of Google circulated and endorsed it". _That 's_ what makes this news.

<comment><USER46> A large fraction of Google circulated it. Is there evidence that a large fraction endorsed it? That's not remotely the impression I get.

<comment><USER47> More than a third of respondents to his survey either strongly or almost agreed with the documents point of view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm a little confused when he writes, "Yet a newer form of discrimination is starting to greatly alarm me, and that's discrimination against anyone with a point of view that's deemed offensive to the tech majority."

This has been the case for as long as I've been in the industry. Heck, it's probably older than the industry. Simply saying, "there's still far too little diversity" has been enough to get you mocked, downvoted, shouted down, and generally dismissed for decades. There's nothing at all new about it.

</comment><comment><USER49> So you like free speech except when people use their speech to call out speech they don't like?

Let's stop bullshitting, this isn't about any core principles, it's just another battleline in our ugly politics.

</comment><comment><USER50> When I first read the manifesto, It sounded like a regurgitation of Jordan Peterson's content. After being immersed in his lectures I found it very hard to contradict his points not just because of his eloquence but also because of his method for vetting ideas. I am very glad that his stuff has gained so much popularity because I may finally find counterpoints stick against his arguments.

<comment><USER51> There's also a fair amount of Jonathan Haidt influence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Can we also acknowledge that a lot of groups are _profiting_ from outrage?

</comment><comment><USER53> Why are people so outraged at this guy? I read what he wrote and it honestly sounds like he's trying to be helpful. It's at least polite. The knee-jerk "SEXIST!" reactions to him come off extremely self-righteous and immature.

There are a hundred other male-dominated careers and I never, ever hear women complain about not being equally represented in them. Why? Because they're not attractive careers.

<comment><USER54> Another thing is people are outraged that the engineer seems to denigrate a whole group of people as not as good engineers, and the eng is doing groups a disservice but when people bash "whitemaleness" you don't see the same reaction of, well, please don't lump all while males into one group, don't denigrate a whole group.

A noticeable issue is in google and other tech cos it's totally okay for people to virtue signal against white males, even Asian males. Any other group and you're treading on very thin ice. You're likely to get summoned to see an HR rep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Like it or not, I think speaking openly against defined corporate dogma will get you in trouble in most places. He should probably have realized that and adjusted his course accordingly. Outright being fired is a pretty harsh sanction, and in this case it probably only came to this after the story blew up and Google had to exert damage control in public. A more conventional response would be an uncomfortable talk with your manager and the implicit warning of your career being sidetracked. That alone is enough to keep most people in line.

I don't think the core of this matter is if he was right or wrong, or if he overstepped the red line of PC. I think it's about any culture or any company having things that you shouldn't say. You can challenge these but you do so at your own peril. I think if a Google employee wrote a ten-page, widely circulated, manifesto on the ickiness of ad trackers, he or she would get into similar trouble.

</comment><comment><USER56> Just as he has a right to say it, I have a right to argue, complain, ridicule, etc. Why should his view be given a platform while mine is denounced. Seems people want to silence his critics. Controversial views are not safe from criticism just as any other views.

</comment><comment><USER57> > I don't think it made much sense, and what I did understand of it seemed > very poorly argued.

As someone who forms opinions, I care more about the argument than how poorly it was argued. Is it biased, or even racist or sexist, of me to have such a view?

Edit: I wish the author of this piece sounded less frightened.

<comment><USER58> I'd be frightened too if I was writing an article on Techcrunch that could potentially be seen as supporting the memo too much, since as we've seen that's the sort of thing that gets people fired once Twitter finds out about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> > But this groupthink terrifies me when it's used to bully people for > exercising their right to free speech. How will we know what people are > truly thinking if we rush to silence them?

I think "right to free speech" is a weak and kind of scary argument to be making here. Inside a corporation, you don't have the same right to free speech you would have on the outside. HR can fire employees for things that wouldn't get you arrested for saying in public.

To quote the alt-text for [https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

> I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a > position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're > saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that > it's not literally illegal to express.

I think a better argument would be that the "manifesto" wasn't actually saying anything particularly controversial, it was just a statement of opinion that many reasonable people would agree with. Perhaps it contains some assumptions that aren't backed up by recent research, but unknowingly saying something that's not true shouldn't ordinarily be a fireable offense.

I would rather work at an employer where employees feel free to discuss hard problems that are relevant to the work environment for which there aren't any easy answers than one where minority opinions (or even majority opinions that contradict the leadership) are silenced. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to work at an employer where people felt free to say deliberately offensive things without repercussion.

<comment><USER27> > I think "right to free speech" is a weak and kind of scary argument to be > making here. Inside a corporation, you don't have the same right to free > speech you would have on the outside. HR can fire employees for things that > wouldn't get you arrested for saying in public.

It's an argument that certainly makes a lot of sense from a libertarian perspective. But those of us on the left have already dismissed similar arguments - we know that when private commercial entities are sufficiently powerful, the limitations that they impose on their employees, customers etc can be so strong that they cannot be unchallenged (see the entire history of workers' rights movement, basically). We consider this immoral, and advocate for various limitations on the ability of businesses to do whatever they want.

If free speech is a public good, then why shouldn't the same standard be applied to it? I'm not even talking about legal aspects here, but purely the ethical side of things - shouldn't we at least condemn a situation where an entire industry effectively suppresses some opinions using its economic levers (employment among them)?

And if it's not considered a public good, then that should be explicitly stated, because that used to be one of the pretty basic tenets of liberalism.

<comment><USER59> The United States has historically given very broad protections to free speech in public, which is something I support and am very glad of. There is some kind of speech that isn't appropriate in a corporate setting. There are some kinds of speech that I think should be legally protected both inside and outside a corporation. I think the manifesto should fall inside the category of protected speech, as he was only saying things that a reasonable person might think given what he saw inside of Google. Workers should be free to criticize management decisions or comment on working conditions.

There are some things that aren't okay, though. I wouldn't want to work with someone who decorates their cubicle with iconography commemorating the third Reich, or who makes unwanted remarks about which of his or her attractive coworkers they would most like to sleep with.

I don't know exactly what the criteria should be for what speech inside a corporation should be protected and what should not, but I'm not comfortable with the idea that an employee has no right whatsoever to any free speech in the course of their job, but I don't think that an employee has exactly the same free speech rights while they're on the job that they would have in any public place.

<comment><USER27> Thank you for a well-reasoned reply.

I broadly agree with what you say. There are some forms of speech that shouldn't be easy to suppress by economic pressure from actors in a dominant position (like corporation vs a single employee), but where that line is in the workplace, is certainly different compared to where it is in off-work public speech. And it's not just about offensiveness of opinion - <USER2> corporation is also an actor with certain legal rights, and to unduly constrain them would also be inappropriate.

I would draw the line a bit differently, though. IMO, the distinguishing point here is that this guy wrote his manifesto on an _internal_ corporate network. So he used the company-provided communication channel, and targeted other employees of the company, specifically to discuss how said company should be run. Is this still public speech? I'm not sure. It feels like the company should at least be able to control the communication channel. While yes, ideally, it should be possible to raise criticism internally as well, I think that is also best left as an internal company policy. If its owners think that their business run better if it's managed by yes-men, in general or on certain topics, they're probably wrong, but it's their right to be wrong in this manner.

Speaking out in public - on your own time, using public channels, and not as a company employee - is another matter, that I think deserves more protections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

No matter how you read the original manifesto or the responses to it, I think there's a level of separation one must achieve before they pass judgement on it. If you let yourself live in the binary black-and-white world that the manifesto author created, where views are either left _or_ right, you're bound to get fired up. This is a natural reaction to the fact that party identification and attacking identity tend to trigger much more primal responses than if party was removed. In my humble opinion, Google is a very good example of a company with a mixed culture. They're a hugely conservative company in how they manage their finances, pay taxes, hire employees, and operate their company to the normal world. At the same time, they attempt to create "Googley" spaces where thinking and diversity are promoted. Are these necessarily right wing and left wing ideologies? Maybe. But it's definitely a mix -- you don't see Google spending 100% of its money on social programs, nor do you see it spending 0% of its money on social programs.

Does the manifesto author have a reason to write? Yes. He's clearly scared, and clearly feels attacked, perhaps on a regular basis, in the workplace. Like many an engineer before him, he attempted to identify the problem and presented several solutions that may or may not work.

Now, were the solutions he presented the correct ones? I personally am inclined to say no. Just as Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The article was eloquent and well pointed at specific "problem areas" the author presumed to be at fault. The author did not provide anything to corroborate his hypothesis that things like removal of empathy would do any good to help the situation at Google. Similarly, the author's attack on outreach programs aimed at minorities did not make any effort to show how these programs were exclusively harming non-minority participants.

Now, obviously, there are questions on the other side of the plane too -- specifically on whether or not diversity initiatives help or whether or not empathy helps either. I haven't done this research -- but the author hasn't done his research, so I feel this is fair. I'm just pointing out that Google is a for-profit company. They tend to make decisions that are economically viable, and they may or may not have done research on these types of things in the past -- though I would assume they have. Again, this is a company infamous for A/B testing shades of blue for engagement. It would be silly if they were burning their cash pile on programs known to be detrimental or non-working.

To summarize: if you write a manifesto, I expect you to pull some figures and prove some points before you start pulling the political party card and getting everyone riled up about your thoughts and opinions. If you read a manifesto, don't conflate perceptions as fact without examining and thinking about them closely for a long period of time. It will ONLY lead to pointless arguing and senseless fighting, while the real issue gets ignored.

</comment><comment><USER61> Likewise, are they different enough to justify the massive disparity in nursing?

As of 2011, 90% of nurses in the US were women[0]. That's even more skewed than tech. Moreover, the average income of a nurse in Silicon Valley is $100k. To my knowledge, there is no outcry or movement to bring more men into the nursing profession.

[0] [https://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupa...](https://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupations.pdf)

<comment><USER62> This is constantly brought up as a counterpoint to women in tech on HN and it seems like no one that uses this argument ever does any research. Trying to get more men in nursing has been a thing for a very long time, in many ways its like the inverse of tech. A quick Google of "men in nursing" would show you a ton of resources and opinion pieces that look like a mirror of women in tech initiatives. Just because you aren't aware of the struggles of a given field because you aren't close to it doesn't mean they don't exist.

With nursing it's very clearly a social issue. Nursing is seen as a women's job even though having more male nurses would improve the quality of health care.

There are also other female heavy professions where there it is seen as important to bring more men in to increase diversity. Generally anything that has to do with working with children (childcare, especially teaching). In education getting more male teachers, especially minority male teachers is seen as important to provide young men with role models.

<comment><USER63> Yet with constant and proactive pushes to increase women in tech and men in nursing it doesn't happen.

Ever think maybe men generally dont want to be a nurse and women generally dont want to be a nerd ?

<comment><USER62> In both cases there are gendered cultural associations built into the profession. Nursing is definitely viewed as feminine and software engineering is is still considered a masculine profession, although that perception is slowly changing as software becomes a more important part of everyone's life. Even if you get past that, the active shaming and harassment of people that enter or attempt to enter the respective fields keeps a lot of people out or drives them to quit.

The "men just don't want to be nurses and women just don't want to be programmers" standpoint usually assumes some immutable property (often genetics) that defends the status quo, and ignores mountains of other obvious problems that might lead to gender imbalances in a given profession. Obviously men and women are different, but there are many people that might enjoy and thrive in a profession they wouldn't otherwise consider because it's "not for them."

<comment><USER64> I would highly encourage men to go into nursing while discounting women. You don't get the hazing and the shit if you are a man and mostly the good parts, okay you get called to lift more shit... There is that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Women don't go into tech because they don't like it. Boys like legos, girls like dolls. Sure there are occasional tomboys but the fact is most girls just don't like engineering.

<comment><USER20> Don't try to gaslight people. Posting terrible arguments for sides you disagree with is lame epistemic pollution.

<comment><USER65> Lol denying reality to support your fantasy is pretty lame too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Maybe it's okay for people to be outraged about some things.

<comment><USER67> Sure is! People can be offended all they want. Where things get really iffy is when they want 'justice'. It often means that they try to get that person fired or lambasted in front of their peers. I don't see how that's at all constructive, let alone 'justice'.

At the very least, it leads to even more divisiveness, instead of rational discussion.

As a thought experiment: have you ever seen someone change their mind or worldview as a result of being insulted & fired?

<comment><USER68> My manager threatened one of my co-workers with termination if they didn't take a more proactive approach towards making the code he wrote more robust. He took out specific examples of shit code he wrote, and had us criticize it and the mindset that created it. It changed how he programmed for the better and his outlook towards his job.

<comment><USER69> The first step is to want to help.

Too many, all across the spectrum, have his mindset that people that do or think things they don't like should be destroyed and locked away from "civilized society." A common rebuttal I see from these sorts, after being questioned why they don't take it upon themselves to sit down and understand one another (I will concede there is a very very very small minority that this shouldn't be done with, but you're unlikely to ever interact with them), is that it's not their duty to help these people.

Unfortunately, this makes the issue worse when you start exiling certain groups and radicalized with hate.

Here's an interesting article (isolated incident) where those with extreme views were shown compassion and understanding, and ultimately disavowed their ideas:

 _Black Man Gets KKK Members To Disavow By Befriending Them:_ [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-man-daryl-davis- be...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-man-daryl-davis-befriends- kkk-documentary-accidental-courtesy_us_585c250de4b0de3a08f495fc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Regarding the "is it okay to fire this engineer" argument the author is making - here's what I'd ask the author. If you were managing the team this person was on, would you feel comfortable placing a female engineer on the team to work with him knowing the he fundamentally believes women are inadequate engineers?

That answer should be "No."

By that alone, that engineer has created a toxic team environment.

You can't put a female engineer on his team, he can't work across teams with other female engineers, he shouldn't be interviewing potential female engineers given his obvious bias against them, etc.

If this isn't a reason to fire someone - what is?

<comment><USER71> "knowing the he fundamentally believes women are inadequate engineers?"

He doesn't believe that at all, and I'd like to hear why you think he does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> < But this groupthink terrifies me when it's used to bully people for exercising their right to free speech. How will we know what people are truly thinking if we rush to silence them?

This is called growing up.

We dont need to know how everyone thinks. We dont want to know either.

We tailor our words to our audience. We avoid saying or typing dumb things.

We only say what we really feel to our confidante.

These outwardly stupid writings are simply that: bad childish judgement.

<comment><USER39> Growing up is being able to hear an opposing viewpoint without automatically dismissing their intelligence or morality. Growing up is understanding that no one is immune from the influence of their peers, upbringing, or background. Growing up is engaging in a constructive conversation instead of shaming someone into silence or unfriending or firing someone in a knee jerk manner. Growing up is accepting and appreciating our differences in thought and understanding that the vast majority of people actually mean well.

Are there limits to this line of thinking? Sure, if someone is being a completely disrespectful asshole, that's when they deserve to be shut down. If someone puts forward a thoughtful essay...even a half thoughtful essay...even if that rocks you to your core...growing up is realizing that even your values are not absolutely correct.

Discussion is the only way we ever get to engage with other points of view. Discussion is an invitation and opportunity to be persuaded otherwise.

<comment><USER72> The dude was fired. Bad judgement.... Not some significant philosophical issue here..

I bet a 45 aged techie would know better and still have a job

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> This idea that all opinions are equal and need to be respected is ridiculous and needs to stop. Politics is real and political opinions and actions have real consequences. Not all political opinions should be respected. In fact, it's our duty as citizens to evaluate and mock / scorn the opinions of others that we see as toxic. No one is protected from this and people that think they are, are feeling entitled to something that they do not deserve.

Protections of free speech apply to government actions only. This isn't a free speech case. Google can do whatever it wants, including firing the poster of the manifesto. If Google, for whatever reason or no reason, doesn't want such thinking in its organization, it should have no qualms about firing the poster. There is no safe space, except from the government, for political opinions. The poster should know that by know. People have been fired for way less. Many companies would not want a toxic person like that in their midst and that's perfectly fine. It creates a toxic workplace and brings everyone else down. That's a great reason to fire someone.

<comment><USER74> I find pretty unconscionable this line of rhetoric, which I see a lot lately from people on the left: "this isn't a free speech issue, because it's not the government doing the censoring".

I want to live in a society that embraces liberal values like freedom of expression. Preventing the government from encroaching on those values is a good idea. But if we then go and clamp down on those freedoms everywhere else, then it won't _matter_ that the government doesn't do it -- nobody will be able to express themselves freely anyway.

This seems to be the society that the 'progressives' want and it disturbs me enough to have completely alienated me from that movement, and I am far from the only one, so I don't know why they aren't stopping and questioning the efficacy of this philosophy right about now.

If we are really a society that embraces liberal values, then we want those values to be upheld throughout the society, not just in the part explicitly controlled by laws.

<comment><USER73> So then the government should step in and provide protections against his firing? Should they tell Google, no you can't fire this guy even though you don't like him and he's bringing down the morale of your whole workforce? Should that apply to someone who might actually be a neo-Nazi or become one during an employment term? Should Google be forced to hire / unable to fire people tattooed with swastikas or ones that verbally support ISIS or any other number of despicable positions?

And how is the government going to choose the right side of enforcement here? Company A wants to fire an employee for X and now we have government intervention to the utmost degree. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of society that "embraces liberal values like freedom of expression." No one has a right to a job or to not have their opinions trashed because they're stupid, cruel, or whatever they may be. If you're complaining that corporations have too much power, I agree, but that's a completely different point.

<comment><USER74> No, I didn't say anything of the kind.

I am saying that this kind of mob shaming-and-silencing mentality is deplorable. And if you choose to engage in that, then you will alienate a lot of people, including many of the best people.

I am not saying anything about government, and as I said in my previous posting, I find it weird that people keep jumping to this. We're talking about ethics, not law.

<comment><USER73> At least we agree that some acts of expression are deplorable, just not which ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> > He is one individual in a company that employs more than 72,000 people. Why > has Silicon Valley spent the weekend talking about him

Because we're not talking about a memo posted by one random engineer that got the reaction it deserved for declaring a large fraction of his co-workers sub- standard engineers (among the myriad broken things in that memo). That would have been a story for all of five minutes.

Instead, we're talking about how a large fraction of a major tech company quickly and enthusiastically endorsed it and circulated it.

"Hey, finally someone says it ought to be OK for me to denigrate my co- workers, treat them as sub-standard engineers and sub-standard humans, and propagate junk science to prop up my prejudice! I feel validated!"

That this is even _remotely_ a popular sentiment, rather than something that gets you treated like you just said "the earth is flat", is the story here.

<comment><USER71> "for declaring a large fraction of his co-workers sub-standard engineers"

Are you blatantly lying about the content of the memo? Like, I wouldn't think so. I think you're hallucinating your own meaning to it. Would you mind explaining the thought process that lead you form this representation?

<comment><USER75> > I think you're hallucinating your own meaning to it.

Welcome to politics. A single event merely kicks off a discussion that people want to have, not actually debating what was said/done.

It's a boring game to play over and over.</comment></comment></comment>


Immigration Bill: startup visa is a go, h-1b quota to rise  - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/16/new-immigration-plan-outlined-startup-visa-is-a-go-h-1b-quota-to-rise-tougher-employee-monitoring-required/

<comment><USER2> More ways to drive down programmer salaries and import virtual slaves...

Will programming as a profession disappear or become unionized first?

<comment><USER3> I doubt it will disappear, but I certainly understand the desire to unionize. What might work better, would be a sort of guild. The aim would NOT be to engage in mob-style tactics like so many 20th-C American unions did. (That only works when there is a shortage of labor. The lobbyists probably tell their clients they've prevented that, but in reality it's because the internet.)

Rather, a guild that would work for our "profession" would be one that could refer coders with particular skills at particular levels, and then monitor the work closely enough to protect both coder and employer. Businesses with real work to do would pay a premium for that, but the guild would not take a cut directly. That way lies bureaucracy and tyranny, and besides all the Indian body shops already pretend to serve that market.

Rather, the guild would inspire those it helps to help it. It would certainly accept corporate donations, but since "decisions" would be kept to a minimum their influence would not be undue. Testing and education would be part of the mission (and that's how it could start), but so would basic community activities. Eventually a guild that offered health insurance could free its members from the grind of perpetual employment. (Someone whose kids will still be welcome at the doctor's if she takes a couple-month sabbatical is someone more in control of her career.) Those employers that don't need the assistance of the guild to get their software written wouldn't face any immoral pressure. However, if the guild becomes valued by many in the industry, auditors might be interested in why a particular company didn't use it.

Just a thought.</comment></comment>


Building a semi-autonomous drone with Python - <AUTHOR> http://blog.yhat.com/posts/autonomous-droning-with-python.html <comment><USER2> This should be called "Building a semi-autonomous drone with ScienceOps"

Maybe I'm overreacting, but I always get a bitter taste in my mouth when I start a tutorial whose title claims to teach something but then gaps a huge problem using a product.

This is a form of growth hacking that screws over people who come to learn.

So many companies do this, it's very frustrating.

They could turn this into such a positive by introducing the technical way first... They'd then have it all laid out to describe their product and how much code it saves.

</comment><comment><USER3> Two or three years ago it seemed that there was a lot of hacking happening on the AR.Drone: We had the Drone Games (née Drone Olympics), the ar-drone node module was under active development, and there was even an effort to write a replacement firmware.

Now, [http://dronegames.co/](http://dronegames.co/) is still touting the 2013 Games.

Parrot has released many new drones since the AR.Drone, but from what I can tell it's not that the hackers are now working on the Bebop or Rolling Spider; I'm not sure where they went.

I'm a committer on the ar-drone node library, but lately I've mostly been working on turboshrimp, a clojure library for AR.Drone control: [https://github.com/wiseman/turboshrimp](https://github.com/wiseman/turboshrimp) (API docs at [http://wiseman.github.io/turboshrimp/com.lemondronor.turbosh...](http://wiseman.github.io/turboshrimp/com.lemondronor.turboshrimp.html)). I've also got an Android app (written in Clojure)[1] and a desktop app that uses the CamShift tracking algorithm with OpenCV, which lets you select a target of interest and then will continue to track that target[3].

The AR.Drone is still a really nice, relatively hackable robotics platform. Running Linux and having USB lets you do things like connect an RTL-SDR dongle[4] and display an overlay of nearby aircraft on the drone video stream[5].

[1] [https://github.com/wiseman/shrimpdroid](https://github.com/wiseman/shrimpdroid)

[2] [https://github.com/wiseman/turboshrimp- tracker/](https://github.com/wiseman/turboshrimp-tracker/)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In6KFGakGGw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In6KFGakGGw)

[4] [http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/4/cheap-ads-b- on-a...](http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/4/cheap-ads-b-on-amateur- drones)

[5] [http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/5/augmented- realit...](http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/5/augmented-reality- display-of-air-traffic-for-drones)

<comment><USER4> Well-featured ROS drivers are available for the Parrot drones:

[https://github.com/AutonomyLab/bebop_autonomy](https://github.com/AutonomyLab/bebop_autonomy) [https://github.com/AutonomyLab/ardrone_autonomy](https://github.com/AutonomyLab/ardrone_autonomy)

these are quite well-used in the research community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like an awesome addition to the Aerial Robotics Coursera (taught by Vijay Kumar at UPenn).

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/robotics- flight/home/welcome](https://www.coursera.org/learn/robotics- flight/home/welcome)</comment>


PDFy – Instant PDF Host - <AUTHOR> https://pdf.yt/ <comment><USER3> Hello,

I'm one of the founders of Scribd. You might be surprised to hear this, but I applaud the PDFy service and am glad someone has built it.

Scribd is not designed to be a simple, lightweight way to host a PDF file. Yes, this was the original idea of Scribd 8 years ago, but we've long since left that path. We see that market as having been made irrelevant by a combination of Google Docs, Dropbox/Box.net/etc., and better PDF readers now built into browsers like Chrome. There may be room for someone to build an imgur like service for PDFs too, but that's not what we're doing.

Scribd is really good for two things:

1) Scribd is a subscription reading service ("Netflix for books") where you can read over 400,000 professionally published books for $9 / month, including thousands of new releases and best-sellers. It doesn't include many programming books unfortunately (yet!), but if you like to read other things, it's a good deal.

2) Scribd is good for serious authors and publishers who want to publish a lot of content and organize it well. For example, the World Bank uploads thousands of research reports to Scribd and organizes them into collections. And many serious authors publish books and other writings with us.

We're sorry that we haven't done a good enough of explaining who we are as it's changed over the years. And we're sorry if you've been frustrated trying to use Scribd for something it's not particularly good at.

To joepie91_ - I think it's cool that you've started this. We have some experience building document hosting services, and I can see you are already encountering some issues we've worked on, like DMCA and copyright. If you'd like to talk, we'd be more than happy to help you out.

<comment><USER4> Scribd was synonymous with copyright violation for years. Nice to see you're finally making an honest business out of it.

<comment><USER5> ...and now pdf.yt has stepped in to take the reins!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >"I got sick of documents getting locked up behind login walls of services like Scribd."

Now thats a fantastic example of building a product around a real problem. If I even see domains like Scribd anymore I won't even give it a click. No, I don't want to sign up. I'd rather just do site:domain"thedoc.pdf" or some other way.

I hope your product takes off and everyone uses it!

</comment><comment><USER7> "...much like Imgur does for images. PDFy is free, ad-free, and non- commercial."

They must be using a different imgur than I use, because it's definitely commercial and has ads. I can't see pdfy surviving on donations indefinitely.

<comment><USER8> I probably should've worded that better, but that text will be changed/moved/removed in the near future anyway. The Imgur comparison really only refers to the upload/sharing process, not the non-commercial bit.

As for running off donations, I've addressed that here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8034529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8034529)

<comment><USER9> imo the worst part is that imgur doesn't even permit direct linking in many cases: they will 3xx-force redirect direct links to their ad filled pages

<comment><USER6> yikes I did not know that. I generally link directly to the imgur image itself and bypass the image page. will be on the lookout for this.

<comment><USER9> Linking to the direct imgur image itself will trigger 3xx to the image page if a few conditions are met - referrer (is popular site), enough hits to the image (popular images trigger 3xxs), some weird cookies.

It's incredibly misleading and awful. Also, try uploading an image - you might notice that the "direct link to image" textbox on the right bar no longer exists, and hasn't existed in a very long time.

Check this out in term:

      $ curl -I -H 'Referer: http://twitter.com/' 'http://i.imgur.com/ZKfUroW.png'

<comment> vertex-four I just uploaded a random pic, and I definitely see the "direct link to image" box.

<comment><USER9> Are you logged in? [http://i.imgur.com/7k3si8M.png](http://i.imgur.com/7k3si8M.png)

<comment> vertex-four Yes, I am logged in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This looks great, but I hope you have a solid system in place to deal with the huge number of DMCA requests you'll get. Free PDF hosting services (free file hosting services) end up being a target of pirates, but not just that, of automated systems that index things specific to pirated text in order to get clicks.

If you don't get way ahead of these kinds of users, you'll end up with an untenable drain on your resources that will make it easier to shut down than to sustain.

<comment><USER8> I'm just going to wait and see how things go. I generally improvise; there's not really much prior work (let alone documentation) on the way I run projects, so it's mostly just a matter of figuring stuff out as I go along. One thing that's certain is that I have no intention of shutting down the service. I've run stuff that attracted more abuse :)

I have no intention of acting as a 'shield' against DMCA requests for this particular service (if they're valid, they'll be followed up on, as described on the TOS page), so ideally there shouldn't really be a problem. We'll see how it goes.

<comment><USER10> Yep, all I am suggesting is that you be prepared to deal with things in as automated a way as possible, like blacklisting naughty IP ranges, automating DMCA take-downs, fingerprinting known bad content and dropping it into a black hole etc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great idea. Just one little tip: I would not use the combination 'Instant and PDF' in your communication. Instant PDF is a well known product by Enfocus. It's basically a check-app for Print-optimized PDF files. As such it's a world-wide standard designers are forced to use. Create PDF, run it through Instant PDF, if approved it will attach a flightcheck report to said PDF and newspapers, magazines, printers can process the file. The flightcheck searches for common mistakes (non-embedded fonts, rgb colors, low res photo's, etc). Recently the Instant PDF name got absorbed by Connect but the brand Instant PDF is quite powerfull really).

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm skeptical about the longevity of a site that operates entirely on donations, but seeing that you offer the source code for free (and it runs on PHP, which is arguably pretty well-supported), _and_ your license is reasonable (if crass, but who cares?)...

This is really great. Thanks for posting this.

<comment><USER8> Hi, PDFy owner here. I've been running a number of services for 3 years now, without running into financial problems (see [http://cryto.net/](http://cryto.net/), [http://cryto.net/~joepie91](http://cryto.net/~joepie91), [http://cryto.net/~joepie91/projectlist](http://cryto.net/~joepie91/projectlist)). My biggest issue has actually been lack of time, rather than money :)

I've gotten pretty good over the years at running stuff on a shoestring budget (my current hosting expenses are around 100 euro a month for everything together at a large number of hosts, and I have plenty of resources to spare), and as far as I can predict PDFy won't be running into any issues any time soon.

I should add that it definitely helps to custom-develop everything - <USER2> solutions tend to come with a large amount of (resource) overhead, which make it harder to run it on a small budget. By doing just about everything custom, the overhead is minimal. Traffic is dirt cheap nowadays if you know where to look, so that's not really a concern anymore either.

<comment><USER13> What do you mean by "Traffic is dirt cheap if you know where to look"

Are you talking about where to go find traffic for your website? Do you mind sharing?

<comment><USER8> As MitchellRobert already pointed out, I'm refering to traffic in the sense of data traffic (commonly called bandwidth). A very common remark I've gotten is "but what about the bandwidth usage?!", but nowadays it's not hard to get a few terabytes of monthly traffic allowance for under $10.

For this particular VPS, I'm paying $9.30 a month, and it includes 2TB of montly traffic. Cheaper offers exist, and there are always providers like OVH that genuinely offer unmetered traffic on the cheap (as long as it's used for a legitimate purpose, eg. serving hosted files).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, love this so much more than Scribd. Already clicked on the latest uploads and found something cool, and it just worked and didn't require login. Amazing.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is really great. Scribd can suck it. Also props for mirroring to the Internet archive.

</comment><comment><USER16> This really needs NSFW tagging. Right now, the "latest public documents" is full of hentai. Doesn't mean that people will actually do that, but at least giving uploaders an option wouldn't hurt.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I just ran into the same problem ! Opened the site at work and had to close asap !

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love it. But instead of "document.pdf" as the file name on download, what if you changed it to "[pdf title].pdf"? Several downloads in a row gets confusing

<comment><USER8> It should give you the original filename upon download, unless your browser ignores/mis-parses the Content-disposition header: [https://github.com/joepie91/pdfy/blob/master/public_html/mod...](https://github.com/joepie91/pdfy/blob/master/public_html/modules/download.php#L108)

What browser are you using?

<comment><USER19> Were you letting users download it via PDF.js before which is why it was document.pdf? It makes sense to download it via PDF.js since the file is actually already loaded once the user renders it.

<comment><USER8> Oh, that might actually be it. The 'download file' button in the pdf.js menu is a different button from the button at the bottom/right hand side of the page (with different code behind it - the pdf.js 'download' button comes stock with pdf.js). I haven't really tested its behaviour much, but it's quite possible that it's calling things document.pdf.

Perhaps I should just remove the pdf.js 'download' button, seeing as there's one elsewhere in the UI anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well, someone could scrape all these PDF links and index them in a search engine, then Scribd could suck it. Or will Google do it automatically?

<comment><USER8> The gallery is intentionally plain HTML; Google appears to be indexing all public documents on PDFy correctly (both viewer pages and actual PDF files). Unlisted documents get a noindex tag.

That said, I really need to write some code to extract the document metadata from the PDF files and display it on page; right now, the only thing that search engines (and the site itself) have to go off is the filename, which is far from optimal.

<comment><USER21> Ideally, metadata extraction would be done on upload and presented to the user for optional manual correction. This would be a major contribution to findability, because PDFs often have incorrect metadata (try searching for anything on archive.org) or the person uploading may have metadata relevant to a use case that is unforeseen by the document creator.

In fact, the same file could be uploaded multiple times with different metadata. There's room here for experimentation, e.g. publishing content hashes and linking "duplicates" that have different metadata.

If PDF metadata can be published in a structured format, it should be then be possible for Calibre or Docear / Zotero to import the PDF + JSON metadata directly into the document database.

<comment><USER8> The problem is that I don't want to add any more roadblocks to the upload process - it should be as 'instant' as possible. Even the 'public' vs. 'unlisted' selection took quite some consideration.

Perhaps crowdsourcing metadata might be an idea - but that involves quite a bit more complexity, implementation-wise.

<comment><USER21> How about an "edit metadata" button linked to the submitter's session cookie, which is only active for a few minutes, similar to HN post editing? For those who don't care, upload process stays the same. Those who want to edit have the option, within a few mins.

<comment><USER22> Why not build a re-CAPTCHA type service around crowd sourcing PDF metadata. Read a PDF while you wait for something to happen.

Too idealistic?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> @joepie91_: Just FYI, documents do not load until you accept the site's cookies. I don't know of a technical reason why this should be, off the top of my head, so if there isn't one, you may consider removing that restriction/requirement.

<comment><USER8> I suspect that might be caused by pdf.js. While PDFy itself will attempt to send you a cookie (even if you just try to download the PDF), it should still work even if the cookie is rejected, as it's not dependent on it for serving the file.

Can you tell me what the name of the offending cookie is?

<comment><USER24> Works fine without accepting cookies in Opera 12. Needs JS and iframes enabled.

<comment><USER23> In my case, Chromium 35.0.1916.153 .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is awesome! But I can't see it surviving on donations. Commercialize it please so that it survives. Tasteful ads aren't so bad like what Reddit does or Carbon[something]... I'm just concerned you won't survive on donations.

<comment><USER8> I absolutely don't need to commercialize it to keep it running. In fact, commercialization would come with an entire set of issues (and cost factors) of its own.

I have a solid track record of running non-commercial services :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Could you please move the top toolbar to the side to create one side panel? It's taking up a lot of real estate on laptop screens.

<comment><USER8> On smaller screens, it should automatically move the entire sidebar to be a (relatively thin) footer bar instead. I should probably make the top bar shrink in height at that point as well. I suspect you might be just slightly above the cut-off for the small-screen layout.

EDIT: Here's a ticket: [https://github.com/joepie91/pdfy/issues/13](https://github.com/joepie91/pdfy/issues/13)

<comment><USER26> What I'm describing is getting rid of the top bar and putting the logo in the side bar. Vertical screen real estate is precious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very nice initiative! Good luck with it!

I know this implies complexity, but I think it'd be nice if there was a comment feature for the PDFs, perhaps even something à la Soundcloud, i.e. per section comments.

I'd love to find things such as my washing machine's manual improved by user experience through comments etc. :-D

<comment><USER8> I've actually been considering this. I'm not yet sure how to implement it, though - and while I'd love to have positional comments (perhaps 'annotations' would be a better term?), it'd require some significant modifications to the pdf.js viewer.

Right now I'm quite swamped with stuff to do, but once I have some more free time I'll definitely be looking into this and some other enhancements that are currently sitting on the issue tracker.

<comment><USER21> Contact the author of this presentation, he wrote epub.js and could provide helpful advice.

[http://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/slides/Hartnell.pdf](http://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/slides/Hartnell.pdf)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtj4LYBzRiw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtj4LYBzRiw)

Related: [http://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/](http://www.w3.org/2014/04/annotation/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is really sweet, but if I may, what's wrong with using existing solutions like Dropbox or Google Docs? Neither shows a paywall or login screen when accessing the shared links.

Unless you don't use either service, which is totally valid.

<comment><USER29> Dropbox and Google docs rarely if even show up in Google search results.

Will PDFy submit lists of content to search engines or be easily crawlable?

<comment><USER8> The gallery is plain HTML; all public documents are correctly (and quite rapidly, <1 day) indexed by Google. Unlisted documents get a noindex tag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I also made NextPrev.it a little while ago with a friend. It gives you option to host a PDF and control which page the viewer sees, perfect for presentations or looking through contracts etc.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't want to sound negative, but when I look at the "latest public documents", most of them seem to be copyright infridgement.

But good luck anyway.

</comment><comment><USER32> Great work @joepie91_! I wish your service the very best and hope that would scale against the DMCA brigade.

</comment><comment><USER33> Lots of copyrighted material there already. O'Reilley, Prentice Hall etc Get ready for a DCMA deluge.

</comment><comment><USER34> This looks like duplicated effort to me. Upload the pdf to Google Drive, set the permissions to "people with link can view", and share the link it gives you. Alternatively, there's a publish to web option - they're identical in this use case. I already do something similar on my portfolio page - I have a link that downloads a pdf version of my resume on Google Drive.

<comment><USER35> This comment is almost identical to one posted when Dropbox first premiered on HN. They were saying Dropbox was duplicated effort. Interface matters a lot.

<comment><USER34> That's a great point. The exact differences between the work flows:

1\. Adds drag-and-drop to choose the file to upload

2\. Cleaner permissions structure

3\. The button is much bigger, and there's fewer options to do other things

4\. Adds galleries to look at collections of PDF files

5\. Exact same number (6) of mouse clicks to copy a link to a hosted pdf to clipboard

6\. Removes log-in requirement (though to be fair, it's really easy to stay logged in to Google services)

It seems to me to be a much smaller difference to the UI difference with Dropbox - the automatic mirroring and context menu actions are huge.

<comment><USER36> > (though to be fair, it's really easy to stay logged in to Google services)

Not particularly easy for the three-in-four Internet users who don't have any form of Google account, though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> A login might be useful. You know.. to check (or delete) what I've uploaded and see the stats later.

</comment><comment><USER38> Whoa, opened the site to a bunch of obvious nsfw stuff. Maybe there should be an option to filter this?

</comment><comment><USER39> Add comments on each pdf and it could become an important tool for (anonymously) reviewing papers

</comment><comment><USER40> Wait, is this the joepie91 that used to hang out on #anonops?

</comment><comment><USER41> I saw some sexy contents, will you delete them?

<comment><USER42> Delete them? Hah

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> would be cool if we can edit pdf's

<comment><USER8> Editing of PDFs really is outside the scope of PDFy. There are quite a few PDF editors available elsewhere already, all of which will likely do the job better than PDFy ever could.

Not to mention that editing of PDFs can be a somewhat painful experience :)

<comment><USER19> To build on that, here's a list of web PDF editors that are available:

1\. NotablePDF ([https://web.notablepdf.com](https://web.notablepdf.com)) 2\. PDFZen ([http://pdfzen.com](http://pdfzen.com)) 3\. PDF Escape ([https://www.pdfescape.com/](https://www.pdfescape.com/)) 4\. PDF Buddy ([http://pdfbuddy.com](http://pdfbuddy.com))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Could we please stop hating on Scribd? In addition to being rude, it's also mistaken: I've found PDFs on Scribd that simply aren't available anywhere else, because the original links on other sites became broken. This is somewhat common for academic papers, for example. Yes, I had to upload a PDF in order to download the PDF from Scribd, but that's a fair trade; I chose to upload an academic paper that perhaps might be useful to someone else.

<comment><USER44> When you have a horrible, user-hostile service, being the only place to find something only tends to make people hate you more.

<comment><USER35> Which is better: not being able to find something at all, or having to jump through a hoop to download it?

I thought HN was objective. Maybe that's changing.

<comment><USER45> > I thought HN was objective. Maybe that's changing.

No, I don't think so, I just think a lot of people here disagree with you in your judgement of Scribd.

Hopefully this service can have the utility of Scribd as you've described and keep it's lovely usability.

<comment><USER8> (There's a maximum nesting limit for replies?)

Scribd having a lot of unique content isn't a feature; it's an observed state. There is no reason why Scribd would exclusively be able to offer that, and any other PDF host wouldn't. It's simply a consequence of a lot of people using a service.

Scribd having amassed so much data due to their sheer size is not a point in favour of Scribd; if anything, it makes the walled-garden approach of Scribd even _more_ frustrating.

<comment><USER46> Are you sure? If an academic paper were to become lost from the internet because Internet Archive hadn't archived it and no other site mirrored it, then the world wouldn't be worse off as a result? That seems dubious.

And if it's true that the world is better off for Scribd having the paper, then it must be true that Scribd is beneficial to the world. The fact that people don't like it is irrelevant.

(I created a new account not to dodge downvotes, but because HN wouldn't let me continue submitting replies to this thread with my other one.)

<comment><USER47> But the alternative to "Scribd having the paper" is not necessarily "no other site having it". If someone uploaded it to Scribd, why wouldn't they upload it to some other site instead?

Your argument is equivalent to saying: the registrar of google.com is MarkMonitor, therefore if MarkMonitor didn't exist, we wouldn't have Google.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>