People Aren't Dumb, the World Is Hard - <AUTHOR> http://freakonomics.com/podcast/richard-thaler/ <comment><USER3> I would really really encourage everyone here to watch Alan Kay's recent talks on how poorly we understand systems and why it's critical we get better at managing them.

Some good ones: \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1R2jH4PQEo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1R2jH4PQEo) \- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9c7_8Gp7gI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9c7_8Gp7gI)

Some people have strong opinions about Alan Kay's CS / programming work and I'd really encourage them to put them aside and deeply understand his points + context. The programming parts aren't ever the point, he's deeply interested in how as humans we improve our ability to collaboratively manage systems.

<comment><USER4> For similar reasons, I highly recommend a book called Capital: Critique of Political Economy. And likewise, some people may have strong opinions about the author's work. I'd really encourage them to put them aside and deeply understand his points + context.

<comment><USER5> I can't quite tell if you're being sarcastic or earnest.

<comment><USER6> The _descriptive_ work of he-who-shall-not-be-named is leagues ahead of his _prescriptive_ work (not surprising -- fixing problems tends to be harder than finding them).

The problems he addresses still abound and it's really a pity we have culturally suppressed the vocabulary and arguments he put forward to talk about them.

So, my guess: serious.

<comment><USER7> Funny how when I replaced the big hyphenated word with the 4-letter name, it actually triggered an emotional response in me which made me dismiss the rest of your comment, even though I was fine with the comment without the substitution. Weird how human brains work.

<comment><USER6> Even crazier: I have the same emotional response to the substitution _and I 'm the one who wrote the comment_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think people are dumb, and I'm not being derogatory about 'the 'masses' or any such crap. I'm unbelievably dumb. It often takes me a ridiculously long time to come to a solution to a problem, where the answer seems like it should be obvious. Instead my slow, feeble mammal brain takes forever to grope blindly around the issue before getting any traction.

Lets say there is a scale of sentience that goes from 1, which is the lowest level of sentience necessary to develop a technological civilization, up to who knows how high. Where are we on that scale? Well, given that we literally, in evolutionary terms, only just barely got our civilization off the ground we're pretty clearly very close to 1. I discussed this with my brother and he pointed out most of us are below that, because we get taken along for the ride by people who are at 1.0 or higher. They're the geniuses that truly drive innovation forward.

So we are literally at the dumbest, most intellectually feeble level of sentience required to get where we are, otherwise we'd have done it sooner.

<comment><USER9> To truly argue on this point you need to, I think or at least in my opinion, settle on a definition of "smart" and "dumb".

I like to view our intellect as a tool for survival of our species. By that measure, we are doing fairly well. We used to get wiped out by minor stuff like not enough food, not enough protection from the elements and other animals, diseases, we have eradicated the majority of these things hindering our survival.

I hypothesise that most of the people here (on average) on HN are highly educated. It's kind of fashionable and almost necessary social behavior to be humble in your own intellect. By all objective measures the people on HN are really fucking smart but you can't say that of course because that's "arrogant". Yes, I too think I'm stupid and suffer from impostor syndrome having two graduates degree in applied math.

Anyway, humans, compared to other animals we compete with for survival, food, and territory, are doing really well. I don't see any cows on the moon yet.

<comment><USER10> > Anyway, humans, compared to other animals we compete with for survival, > food, and territory, are doing really well. I don't see any cows on the moon > yet.

Would all this be possible without other mammals? Or is the ecosystem (including mammals) the enabler for us?

<comment><USER11> Probably yes, but on a longer timeline. Humans don't need other mammals to survive.

<comment><USER12> Maybe not survival, but would we be anywhere near where we are now without the help of say, cows and horses? Possibly, but maybe not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is probably the greatest argument for big government. If we were to eliminate the supervision of the establishment over the safety and security of everyday life, it would be very time consuming to handle every single aspect of it.

There is always the issue of an overreaching government, and that's where the left/right party split comes in. Each party either creates more regulation and protection or take some away. As voters, we have to recognize this duality of our system and embrace it. It's our only way to control the people we elect.

<comment><USER14> No, this is one of the greatest arguments for small government or no government. People are more rational when the cost to them of being irrational is larger. Voting for good policies is a public good. When a voter is one among three hundred millions of citizens, only 1/300,000,000 (on average) of the benefits of the vote befall the individual voter. This gigantic externality means that the democratic market will severely underproduce votes for good policies. Simultaneously, social desirability bias means that voters have a strong incentive to believe in policies that are harmful to them but that make them look good to other people. Since the cost to them of being wrong about politics is so small and the benefit large, voters have gravely irrational beliefs. This conclusion is consistent with the results from social science that show that voters are ignorant about politics and with the widespread agreement with protectionist tariffs, price controls, restrictions on immigration, and many other policies that cause great economic harm.

<comment><USER15> > People are more rational when the cost to them of being irrational is > larger.

This isn't strictly true, and I'd love to see you provide extensive data on such a exceptional claim.

There is a lot of evidence showing that harsher punitive measures often have little to no impact on crime and wrongdoing.

<comment><USER16> I don't think the claim is exceptional, but I'd love to see more studies on this. Check out the Centipede Game ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centipede_game](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centipede_game)):

"Parco, Rapoport and Stein (2002) illustrated that the level of financial incentives can have a profound effect on the outcome in a three-player game: the larger the incentives are for deviation, the greater propensity for learning behavior in a repeated single-play experimental design to move toward the Nash equilibrium."

I recall reading somewhere that people also behave more rationally in other games like the Dictator Game (and exhibit fewer cognitive biases) when the stakes are higher, but can't remember where.

<comment><USER17> What would the game's results be if the financial incentives were unknown and/or highly variable? That's more like real life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> An interesting bit from the article was that he talks about 'sunk cost' with the defining example of ordering a dessert when you're nearly full and feeling compelled to finish it.

> There was an economist once early in my career who said to me, "You know, if > you're right, what am I supposed to do? What I know how to do is solve > optimization problems."

A career economist not wanting to change their ways because they have spent a career doing things when presented with a possible outcome that maybe those things didn't matter as much. Also:

> If you think of companies that have come and gone, like Kodak, which > invented the digital camera, but they had an almost-monopoly in film, and > didn't really think this digital thing would go anywhere. Blockbuster Video, > which came along and put tens of thousands of mom-and-pop video stores out > of business, only to be put out of business by Netflix.

These are human behaviors to recognize - sunk cost. It can sink a company. Something to be wary of as a startup grows past adolescence and into adulthood.

<comment><USER19> Sometimes it's a mistake to think about how these companies could pivot to adapt to new technology. A major feature of capitalism is that companies are (relatively) unimportant and it's the market and society that really matter. Without companies collapsing, it can be really difficult to recycle the manpower and capital invested in obsolete business models.

Blockbuster's organizational, legal and physical infrastructure was wholly devoted to video rental via physical stores. Decommissioning those organizational components and creating the systems necessary to spin up and run an online video portal would have required changes in the company so massive that it would effectively be a different company.

Even if Blockbuster had bought Netflix early on, Blockbuster would have been left running an organization they did not understand in a market that only vaguely resembled something it was familiar with. Even worse, and totally contrary to modern management theory, management skills alone are necessary but not sufficient to operate a growing and dynamic company on the forefront of technology. The entire management organization of Blockbuster would have been totally unequal to the task of operating Netflix competently.

<comment><USER20> This is, by the way, a problem I see with a lot of public policy - in a market system, what's good for _companies_ is not necessarily what's good for the _system_.

Steve Eisman puts this well in [1] when talking about why he's investing in bank stocks even though he thinks prospective rollbacks in Dodd-Frank reforms are a bad idea: "There's two issues. There's what I think about the financial _system_ and what I think about financial _stocks_ , and the two don't necessarily correlate."

[1] [https://youtu.be/NJodqhzqPKQ?t=4m10s](https://youtu.be/NJodqhzqPKQ?t=4m10s)

<comment><USER21> I liked the Steve Eisman character from The Big Short, but I was disappointed his prediction bank stocks would do well didn't play out.

      KBE:   44.49 Jan 30, 2017, 47.82 July 11, 2018 = 7.48% price growth (I couldn't find numbers for total return and too lazy to compute from distribution history)
      VFAIX: 20123 Jan 30, 2017, 23569 July 11, 2018 = 17.1% total return
      VFIAX: 22291 Jan 30, 2017, 27729 July 11, 2018 = 24.4% total return

      KBE:   SPDR Bank ETF
      VFAIX: Vanguard Financial Index
      VFIAX: Vanguard S&P 500

<comment><USER22> KBE total return is about 12.8% (42.70 to 48.19) based on [http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?KBE,VFAIX,VFIAX](http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?KBE,VFAIX,VFIAX) (those numbers are adjusted based on distributions and splits)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This looks to be a bunch of discussion around receiving the Nobel prize.

Any pointers to where to find the information/studies that won him the prize. What people should/shouldn't be doing when making financial decisions. For instance, there was a reference to the fact that people "should ignore sunk costs" but don't. What are some other things to watch out for, and the reasons to do so?

<comment><USER24> Here's the lecture he's gave for the Nobel: [https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic- sciences/la...](https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic- sciences/laureates/2017/thaler-lecture.html)

If you're looking for information on nudges, check this: [http://economicspsychologypolicy.blogspot.com/2013/08/nudge-...](http://economicspsychologypolicy.blogspot.com/2013/08/nudge- database-ix.html)

It looks like they've stopped updating it but it has all sorts of economic research on nudges in it. Beware that some of this research is debated though.

<comment><USER25> There's another section of the Nobel site that provides background on the work, both a popular version and an advanced version. The advanced version amounts to a fairly substantive literature review. In general, you can find both documents for _all_ Nobel Prizes, and the writing is very good.

Popular: [https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic- sciences/la...](https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic- sciences/laureates/2017/popular.html)

Advanced: [https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic- sciences/la...](https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic- sciences/laureates/2017/advanced.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Having worked front line technical support, I have to disagree. People are indeed dumb, many choose to stay that way.

<comment><USER27> It's as if a person working in geriatric care claimed thet people are old. I rarely call or contact the support, the though of being treated as a dumb person make me solve the problem myself of abandon the service/product instead.

<comment><USER28> Well to be fair a lot of people contacting a front-line service center for a non-specialized product/service can't even articulate their problem accurately, if at all. I'm sure it'd be pretty easy to get jaded about people after hearing "I don't know if it's on or not, it just doesn't work...fix it" enough times.

<comment><USER29> That person calling in more than likely knows significantly more than you about some other topic, and that's the point.

Someone calling in that doesn't know the difference between the PC tower and the monitor and doesn't care to learn isn't "stupid" any more than you are stupid for not knowing an alternator from an AC compressor, and chances are you won't remember even if shown once or twice because you pay someone else to know and maintain/fix that stuff.

<comment><USER30> Yeh but what would the mechanic think if I didn't know the keys had to be in the ignition? Such are the level of questions you field at First level tech support.

<comment><USER29> You also get those kinds of questions at a shop.

Stuff like "where's my seat warmer?", "How do I turn off the windshield wipers" and "why does my window go up all the way when I just touch the button" are all questions I was asked when I worked as a mechanic.

And if they are coming to my shop to get those answers, then it's my job to help them. Hopefully come tax time when I need to talk to that accountant he wont laugh me out of the room because I didn't know I needed to keep my own tax when working as a contractor.

<comment><USER27> "why does my window go up all the way when I just touch the button"

hmmm, in many cars the window dongle has two states. Half pull moves the window only as long as it's pulled, full pull makes "the window go up all the way" even after releasing the dongle... and it might depend on whether the keys are inserted and whether the doors are open. Took me some time to figure it out in my car.

<comment><USER29> Bingo! However this guy had owned his last Mercedes for almost 20 years and had a million little questions like this about new features.

Really smart dude, but just needed some help with his new car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> There was an interesting NPR Planet Money episode about Richard Thaler back in November. [https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/11/01/561421807/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/11/01/561421807/episode-803-nudge- nudge-nobel)

</comment><comment><USER32> B.E. is a subject I'm incredibly excited about. I'm glad to see this at the top of YC today.

Every (somewhat major) decision I'm making now, I'm constantly reminding myself of various biases and silliness that I participate in unwillingly (or even sometimes willingly).

I would say this study has been immensely helpful, and Thaler is a huge contributor to this for me. (Freakonomics, also, has been a great learning resource.)

For anyone interested in this subject, I recommend Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman. (You'd think I should get a referral bonus as often as I talk about this book.) It quite literally changed my life. Of course, Nudge is the other juggernaut in the field.

In fact, if anyone is particularly interested, I'd love to chat. Profile has contact details.

<comment><USER33> Behavioral Economics falls prey to the same kinds of over simplifications it was a reaction to in regular economics. There are useful insights to be gained from both over simplifications but it's also good to remain aware of their flaws. To over simplify myself, traditional economics starts from the assumption that people are rational and then tends to over simplify the way they reason and the models of the world they reason about; behavioral economics questions whether people are rational and 'demonstrates' they are not compared to over simplified models of the world they reason about.

A simple example is the "default choice" effect. The standard explanation is that people are too lazy to check a box. A more sophisticated explanation would be that people infer information from the default they are presented with and allow it to influence their decision based on their assumption that the form creator is well informed and looking out for their interests. There is in general an under appreciation in behavioral economics that people are likely being more rational than the over simplified models they are benchmarking them against. There are lots of examples of this in the most widely known results.

<comment><USER32> I think a "good" behavioral economist would not explain exactly why, but instead provide theories with as much data to describe why those theories exist.

A trial shows that people often exhibit behavior A. Why they exhibit behavior A may be complicated.

In your example, there's a sense of authority and conforming to a norm that can be used to describe those behaviors. But there's also the cognitive barrier (which we call lazy) that requires someone to exert mental effort to change away from a default.

It's not that one is wrong and the other is right. All of these may be right. But B.E.'s best contribution to society isn't to explain so much of _why_ we act in these ways - but instead to accept that despite our desires or perspectives of rationality, we _do_ act in these ways.

Understanding the "why" may help us to make better decisions, certainly; however, being too prescriptive about "why" may lead us down the wrong path.

<comment><USER33> The way that behavioral economics is very often presented is not with the epistemic humility you describe here however. This is in part the fault of media popularizers and entities that use behavioral economics to justify and push their own agendas but in my experience the well known names in research are also culpable, both in their own popularizations and applications of their research and in their academic work.

There is an admirable strain in classical economics of epistemic humility: assuming that when human agents act in the world in ways that don't appear to match economic theory, it is at least as likely that the agents are acting in their own best interests and the economic theory, model or data are wrong than the reverse.

Behavioral economics tends to follow a less admirable strain of economic thought that assumes when agents don't follow the predictions of our over simplified model, it is the agents who are wrong and not the model. This is merely misguided in it's benign form but becomes pernicious when it is inevitably extended to "fixing" the agent's behavior through some form of coercion.

My criticism of BE is when it makes too strong a claim to agents acting irrationally rather than questioning where its own assumptions or models may be incomplete.

I find it somewhat useful if overly simplistic as an aid to analyzing and improving my own decisions. I dislike its use as another tool to justify telling people what to do. I also find its lack of introspection into its own flaws and limitations as a field disappointing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> We're dumb in comparison to the systems we've created. Increasingly, the disparity between what our technology is capable of and our own limitations as animals will become a pressing issue.

One thing that always bothers me is how we have this myth of personal responsibility that supposes an individual is equipped to defend their own interests against a multinational corporation on their own.

"Well I just don't get why the baby didn't defend itself from the bear."

<comment><USER35> And many of our problems are collective action problems: where it makes sense for individuals to defect on their own, and they can only raise the standard for the group if they act together.

At different scales this means unionization and professional organizations, government regulation, and international regulation, to prevent whole countries from defecting - this is in large part what the EU is about, and a significant source of UK ill will towards it; and also generally what makes nationalists upset at globalists.

Collective action problems require collective action solutions. Large actors, however, tend to dislike collective action because it reduces their scale advantage.

Collective action has its own problem: power structures encourage corruption and misuse of the pooled power. Overall, I suspect government and international systems are more likely to be less corrupt because they can afford to build more checks and balances into their institutions, but the distance from the people decreases their perceived legitimacy.

Not an easy circle to square.

<comment><USER36> As I see it, the corruption challenge of collective action is because it is so often not carefully, purposefully structured. Government is constructed with the express purpose of checking power.

I read a bit I liked a while back about early feminism, in which members rejected wholesale the idea of power structures & authority, and established no authority. The author relates, however, that the power vacuum was naturally still filled- but because everyone wanted to pretend there was no power structure, the one that developed was unusually cruel & unaccountable.

I liked the bit because to me it seems like the strongest argument for official government- if the power vacuum must always be filled, let us be deliberate in how we fill it.

<comment><USER37> As someone who's participated in many organizations and movements that were purposefully against power structures and authority, I can tell you that it can go either way.

I've seen it work, where people found ways to fluidly hold each other accountable and natural leaders gently stepped into the power vacuums with out any kind of formalized authority. And I've seen it fail catastrophically in a myriad of ways. It really comes down to the people who are involved, and how intentionally they approach the organizational problem.

I've also seen larger scale organizations that intentionally attacked this problem and created formalized structures that were built to minimize concentrated power and instead keep it distributed. It was essentially a formalization of the first case where the no-authority / structure model worked.

So it's doable. You can have collective action with out concentrated power and hierarchy. It just takes intention and strong (but compassionate) social accountability.

<comment><USER38> Are there examples or reading you might be able to give regarding this? I'm interested!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Reminded of this timeless Carl Sagan quote:

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."

<comment><USER40> Asimov's _Foundation_ series is an excellent commentary on this very phenomenon. One of the antagonists is a galactic empire that is technologically advanced, but has been stagnating and decaying slowly as those in power start viewing scientists with disdain and distrust. Over time the empire loses the ability to develop new technology, and ends up with those who can only maintain/repair existing technology (which eventually becomes so old that it is scrapped).

<comment><USER41> I'm a bit reminded of the Zentraedi from _Macross_ , who know how to fly and fight with advanced spaceships/mechs, but not how to repair them or how they work. Except in that case it's because their patron race, the Protoculture, deliberately kept them dependent; Protoculture factories supplied as many ships and weapons as the Zentraedi might need, meanwhile, the average Zentraedi was kept at about a five-year-old human's level of cognitive development. (After Zentraedi culture integrated with human culture (thanks to a frickin' idol singer), adult Zentraedi were at cognitive parity with adult humans.)

All of which makes you wonder: on actual Earth, is there a class of tech- company Morlocks keeping the disposable-income Eloi dependent with their endless supply of disposable gadgets?

<comment><USER42> Good catch! It reminded me the same thing, Macross.

There is indeed something keeping working class humans dependants: a focus on growth at all costs (including population growth). It is pervasive (the ideology is reinforced with ads) and makes you desire for example the latest iPhone X.

With a permanent growth, the basic problem is all humans are still born with a dependancy on housing and food (and other fancier things) that are in short supply. To attain these, humans need to work. Their work is used not just to maintain the basics, but to fuel growth.

Some people (mostly millenials) have found a solution: leave cheap, remain childless.

It causes many people to freak out about the economy, the birth rate, and how more immigration is needed to maintain growth. People don't really want that, and end up voting funny.

<comment><USER43> "The social contract", how an individual and society interact (and are depended upon each other), is broken.

In the old days if someone didn't like how things were going there were spaces with (far less) people that they could go off in to and do their own thing; if it mattered that much.

In less old days someone was part of a community. They did things that supported the community and return the community supported them.

In recent history people were part of national communities, there were careers with 'retirement' plans and advancement tracks that enabled someone to achieve most of their potential if they wanted it.

Today everyone wants a short term solution with no long term planning or costs. There is no community because you don't know if you're going to be there in 5 or 10 years. There is no investment because you don't know if you're going to be there in 5 or 10 years. There is no sense of belonging because there is nothing to belong to. Everyone is a disposable cog in a machine that doesn't care about them.

-

People have always voted funny, and I think that's what has gotten us where we are now.

<comment><USER42> The "social contract" was an elaborate way to force people into an agreement. But I agree with you, it was at least possible to leave. It wasn't organized slavery. And the other side of the bargain was more or less kept, so it even made some sense.

I don't think it is possible to leave anymore. Not just that, but we are selling out our young generation and immigrants. We indoctrinate people to borrow a debt that can't be legally discharged, just to acquire mostly useless government sanctionned diplomas. We have rules for immigrant workers that to me look like indentured servitude. And on top of that, we resent these people that make modern society possible. I am waiting for them to shrug like Atlas. I hope they will.

I am lucky to be outside out that, but it still disgust me. Like you said, this is a society that wants to treat people like disposable cogs in a machine, that doesn't care about them. I get that, and I could be on board, if only it was honest and without lies.

I just do not agree that people have always voted funny. Their perspectives were more aligned with the government before. Not so much now, and I don't think it is fair to blame them.

Without bringing politics to HN, I think I have some unpopular libertarian political opinions. But even for me, it goes way too far, and it is not libertarian at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Boy does it take a while to get to the main topic of the title. From the article/podcast:

        ...
        THALER: Well, first of all, when we use this phrase
        libertarian paternalism, we're using libertarian as
        an adjective. And so we're trying to say we're going
        to design policies that don't force anyone to do anything.
        So the claim that we're trying to tell people what to
        do, or force them to do things, is just completely wrong.
        We are also not trying to tell them to do what we think is
        smart. We're trying to help people do what they want to do.

        I like to use G.P.S. as an analogy of what we're trying to
        do. So, I have a terrible sense of direction. And Google
        Maps is a lifesaver for me. Now, if I want to go visit you,
        I can plug in your address, and suppose I'm walking across
        the park, and I see, "Oh, there's a softball game over
        there. I think I'll go watch that for a while," Google Maps
        doesn't scold me. It will re-compute a new route if I've
        gone a bit out of my way. It doesn't suggest addresses to
        me. It just suggests a route. And if there's a traffic jam,
        it suggests maybe you should alter your route.

        So, we don't think people are dumb. We think the world is
        hard. I mean, figuring out how much to save for retirement
        is a really hard cognitive problem that very few economists
        have solved for themselves. And it's not only cognitively
        hard, it involves delay of gratification, which people find
        hard. It's just like navigating in a strange city is hard.
        So, why not try to help? When I first was working with the
        U.K. Behavioral Insight Team, the first "Nudge unit," the
        phrase I kept saying in every meeting with some minister
        was, "If you want to get people to do something, make it
        easy. Remove the barriers." That's what we're about.
        ...

<comment><USER45> "suppose I'm walking across the park, and I see, "Oh, there's a softball game over there. I think I'll go watch that for a while," Google Maps doesn't scold me."

I've noticed just in the past few days an update has been pushed so that now every time Google has to recalculate the route, instead just saying the new directions "turn right on third street", now it says "OK, turn right on third street", and I find myself having a somewhat negative reaction to the OK, like, yes, of course it's fucking OK you stupid computer, I just did it.

I think it may be an uncanny valley effect; when the computer just blindly told me the next turn after recalculation, I treated it like a tool and wasn't offended that it was giving me output in reaction to my unexpected input. With the addition of "OK" prefixing the new announcement, suddenly it's taken a half-step towards being more human and conversational, and now my brain can't help but run it through my human conversation templates, and none of them are giving me a very friendly interpretation of the "OK" for the scenario "Someone told you what you should do, you silently did something else without telling them you were going to, so they said 'OK, do this thing instead'." My brain hears sarcasm, like "OK fine make this turn instead", or exasperation, or something like that. Especially as my current commute has a place where I'm dodging around some construction that Google just hasn't picked up on so I get three "OKs" in about a minute, and my brain says "ah, that must be _increasing_ exasperation with you".

Obviously, as I've described it to you this way, I intellectually and rationally know that nothing has changed other than the simple addition of a single word announcing a recalculation. But that doesn't invalidate the processing I'm getting from the rest of my brain. It just means I can identify why I'm reacting the way I'm reacting. Many other people will not be so introspective.

Which, getting back on topic, shows how hard all this stuff can be to get right.

<comment><USER46> I haven't noticed that's but it's hilarious. "OK" is how you boss Google tech, so "OK" is how it bosses you too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> >> THALER: So my toast began by saying that my fellow winners had discovered things like gravitational waves, and circadian rhythms. And I discovered the existence of humans in the economy.

Funny quote. It's a testament to how complex things are and how far people go to simplify them.

</comment><comment><USER48> I remember starting to study economics as a kid and thinking "this is garbage" for two main reasons, one of which is now addressed by behavioral economics, to wit: the models of human behavior they were using were ridiculous. The other reason is that economists occupy a critical nexus in the feedback loops in human affairs. The best _operational_ economists accrue wealth and keep their science a secret as best they can, and as an obvious part of that _exterior_ economics can be (and is) filled with fluff and nonsense. It is little better than numerology. It doesn't surprise me that Thaler "has been an irritant to mainstream economists." More like an embarrassment, pointing out their lack of grounding in reality.

</comment><comment><USER49> sometimes some people purposely create hard systems for others for their own benefit.

<comment><USER27> The competition for resources, influence, safety, and sexual partners is an attrition warfare. Try working in more than two countries in the same year and preparing the tax declaration becomes an impossible task. Those with power or money don't even see their tax own declarations. Local politician or some significant figure gets beaten - all media scream for justice, prosecutors investigate, courts process the case. Average Joe gets beaten - welcome the medical expenses, nobody cares, don't even bother with the police procedures. Freaking frontend development - HTML was designed as permissive so that anyone can put together their silly website. Since Google, Facebook, and Microsoft took over it's among the most frustrating domains to work on, and so on...

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Some people are dumb. I'm sure of that. Myself included at times.

</comment><comment><USER51> It's hard due to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_interdependence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_interdependence)

</comment><comment><USER52> This scene of ex machina describes what human intelligence is really about:

[http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/the-t...](http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/the- true-power-of-data-mining-search-engine/view)

"imperfect, impulsive, chaotic, fluid, patterned"

This is where the politics of emotion and marketing are winning the most. Rational economics are only serving our moral standards, sense of merit and our fascination with order.

</comment><comment><USER53> If behavioural economists are so good at predicting human behaviour, why aren't they popular among consumer facing companies? Why don't such companies have a special position for behaviourial evonomists? Why none of the behaviourial Economists have ever tried starting up?

<comment><USER32> To be honest, this is kind of my hope for a future job.

I've wanted to practice behavior economics meets technological innovation for a long time now - but you're right, there doesn't seem to be a demand for this.

<comment><USER54> > but you're right, there doesn't seem to be a demand for this

You mean outside the entire advertising industry? Now you might argue that advertising companies are more focused on selling ads to clients than optimizing the ad experience for victims, but it's an entire sector of the economy focused on exploiting the poor decision-making abilities of humans.

<comment><USER32> Yes, I think the lack of demand is for non-exploitative roles.

Of course, as long as we have had enough understanding that we can affect others, there has been a demand for exploitation through bias.

I think the hope here is that we would create positions that allow BE to benefit others AND businesses by helping people make better decisions. It sounds a bit utopian, but it's certainly not impossible that everyone _could_ benefit from people making decisions that are beneficial to their well-being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I know this is off-topic, but does anyone know if these interviews are scripted? It feels like their reading their back-and-forth banter to each other. (Nothing wrong with that.)

</comment><comment><USER56> I understand that a nobel peace prize winner can NOT say that people are dumb.

However, there are people on this planet that believe the earth is flat.

<comment><USER57> Intelligence like everything else in nature has outliers on both sides. I have no idea why people seem to disagree with you, it's simple biology and statistics

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> and the world is hard(er) because people are dumb

</comment><comment><USER59> ...but what this works out to is that you should behave as if people _are_ dumb. So.

</comment><comment><USER60> The world doesn't need to be as hard as it is. Or what I should really say is, we spend more time/energy dealing with things than we shouldn't really need to, taking away from the time/energy we should be spending on other things.

</comment><comment><USER61> Title gets discussed at ~50min of a 60min podcast...

</comment><comment><USER62> The word being hard does not justify the success of reality tv, tabloids, lotery, music that is forgotten the next year or smoking.

Who do you think has the most chance to buy a lotery ticket. Somebody with 130 or 90 IQ ?

<comment><USER63> It's arguably pretty poor design if the world is only livable for people in the top 2.5% of intelligence (>130 IQ)

<comment><USER62> High intelligence is nowhere closed to be the most important factor to be successful in our society, gene propagation wise. Or being happy. It's merely a tool.

<comment><USER64> > gene propagation wise

Can we avoid the social darwinism, please?

<comment><USER62> Can we avoid the godwin point please ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I reject the tyranny of OR.

</comment><comment><USER66> The negation of the former is true but the latter is also true.

</comment><comment><USER67> _Life is hard, it 's harder if you're stupid._ \- John Wayne

<comment><USER68> I actually often see the opposite less intelligent people are often carefree and more happy.

<comment><USER69> Ignorance is bliss.

Quotes are like bible passages. There is one for every occasion and every perspective. Given one quote, you can find an equally poignant and contradictory quote.

Time and tide wait for no man!

Slow and steady wins the race!

This is why I cringe when I see people leading their lives based on quotes.

<comment><USER67> _Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit._ -Oscar Wilde

 _A witty saying proves nothing_ -Voltaire

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Having worked front line tech support, I have to disagree. People are inherently dumb, and choose to stay that way in many cases.

<comment><USER70> I'm sure your car mechanic, doctor, electrician, plumber, etc feel the same about you. You can't know how to do everything.

<comment><USER71> The opposing view is also true: You cannot _ignore_ everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> The world isn't that hard, some people just like to hoarde resources.

<comment> loa-in-backup And the incentive for this is emotional, to the detriment of rational needs of everybody around except some kind of gang-resembling circle s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I admit I only skimmed the article, but I still throw in a potential controversal counterthought (even though I don't disagree with the article from what I read):

People* are dumb.

Why?

They have been breed like that for many generations. Because all the classic Civilisations and Empires needed lots of dumb workers and peasants who were able to do their simple work, but not smart enough, to organize any opposition against the current empire.

And this in many different forms, from total slavery to all kinds in between.

Now with the Hypothesis, that smart people don't want to get exploited, they would rise up sometimes, where they grew in numbers - and got beaten down and crucified, hanged, quartered, etc. - so strong selection pressure for smart people not born into the elite and not wanting to become a monk.

Now with all that being said, I believe it is probably more a cultural mindset of "stupidness" than "stupid" DNA in the people, because smart people also keep their heads low and pretend to be stupid, when they can't win a fight. But this got into a habit of not wanting to think. So the solution to all the complex problems in the world I don't think is a super government, thinking for all their dumb sheeps, but rather smaller systems, less complex - <USER2> letting people get smart again, by giving them the opportunity to make decisions again about their life. Not just a allmost meaningless vote which allmost counts nothing among the millions of other votes, but voting the decisions down at their very local lifes. When you have to think for yourself, you will start thinking again. And then you don't want those decisions taken away from you. Thats only comfortable when you forgot how to do it.

* with "people" I mean the average person in the street, the one from the famous Churchill quote

<comment><USER74> That seems like an incredibly uneducated view of what the world was like previously.

<comment><USER73> Interesting, care to provide arguments?

I provided mine: we had empires as default, they needed lots of slaves. Slaves must be strong, but stupid. Smart slaves were trouble. So got sorted out.

Simplified, yes, but "uneducated" where?

<comment><USER74> > Interesting, care to provide arguments?

Read a history book. Hell, read Timeline by Michael Crichton.

<comment><USER73> Not an argument. I believe I read a lot of history books. So can you then provide me with your enlightened wisdom that you got, I apparently failed to grasp?

<comment><USER74> "needed lots of dumb workers and peasants who were able to do their simple work"

Sounds like a very Monty Python-esque view of history, that's all. Perhaps you have a far more nuanced view, but it doesn't come across as such.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Technical Books Are Broken - <AUTHOR> http://asymptomatic.net/2012/04/09/2950/technical-books-are-broken

<comment><USER2> The comment about "For Dummies" irks me.

I was the main author on a For Dummies book and the whole point is to provide step by step actions to guide a complete newbie through the procedure. It's intentionally done that way because that's what the audience wants. They don't want to read it cover to cover, they want to pick up the book, open it to the section called "Installing a wireless network card for Windows Vista" and follow the instructions. When they want to read sections, they want to read something that speaks to them, not something that assumes they've read it all up to that point.

Technical books may have failed a certain segment of the population (I agree with many of his points if I look at it from my own perspective), but I know a lot of technical authors who make a fine living writing books, which means that people are buying them.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are three kinds of tech books in my mind - Reference, Tutorial, and Fundamentals.

I can sort of understand wanting paper reference books, since it can be nicer to just flip around instead of googling, but it seems silly to complain about recency, since that's the _obvious_ tradeoff in getting a paper book instead of just googling for the wc3schools page on the <section> tag.

Tutorial books are a tougher one, because it's really hard to nail the audience. Is it really for beginner beginners who don't even know syntax, or just for programmers who are new to the language? Dummies books are for one group, the pickaxe ruby book is for another. I do feel like Oreilly has been nailing this recently, releasing a number of small but info-heavy tutorial books on things like stats and machine learning, while also pushing out their bread & butter 800 page language/MS Office books, and the Head First series for people new to the programming world.

With new versions of CRLS and Knuth in the past year or two, the fundamentals world is doing ok, although since they're primarily textbooks it may be a while before we see them in ebook format =(.

<comment><USER4> Other way around - I can see zero point in paper reference books. Having all my reference books sitting on my hard drive and using Spotlight works far better than actually grabbing the right book and finding the right page.

E-book has far less advantage over paper when the material is being consumed sequentially.

<comment><USER5> I get more out of paper reference books than electronic reference materials. When I need a reference book it's usually because I can't remember something exactly, but do know the idea I'm trying to find. For me, it's much easier to skim through a paper reference manual, than to try to do the same in electronic documentation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would like to see innovation in books like this <http://vimeo.com/15142335>

Linking content in the books to outside real-time resources.

Alternatively, what would you think of a subscription based purchase model for a book where each year you pay $3-10/year for a book which is continuously being updated?

</comment><comment><USER7> There was an interesting footer that was present on all wiki pages inside of Google which read "Obsolete if printed" which was to remind you that if you printed something out and were referring back to it, it had probably changed and you should get the new version.

That being said, technical references have two roles, one to provide a reference 'now' and one to provide a reference 'then'. I could imagine that there is a market for an 'ebook' type thing which is a combination 'git repo / document' where you could read it like a reference book on your ebook reader, but you could slide a 'timeline' type slider which would assemble it from the document as it appeared at that time. Would be a fairly complex document, but really really useful.

</comment><comment><USER8> I felt a sharp pang of nostalgia seeing the cover of "Write Your Own Adventure Programs". That book, and similar titles, were already old by the time I came across ragged copies of them in my public library, but I spent countless hours of my middle school years painstakingly typing out their listings and seeing the results on my second-hand 386's amber monochrome CRT.

</comment><comment><USER9> To my mind the Django documentation is among the best examples of what technical reference can and should be - ever evolving and dynamic.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yes they are. Every time I tap a link within the book it doesn't go anywhere. Pagination is really bad, old school. Search sucks. Not to mention code samples never work.</comment>


Steam store to sell VR porn video games - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/steam-store-vr-porn-virtual-reality-valve-video-games-a8387331.html <comment><USER2> Good on Steam for doing this. Quoting from the announcement [0], "Valve shouldn't be the ones deciding this. If you're a player, we shouldn't be choosing for you what content you can or can't buy."

I feel that total inclusionism is the only long-term stable policy. Excluding things based on morality is inherently an unstable position - "why do you allow _this_ but not _that_? Don't you know _this_ is literally killing babies in Africa?" where _this_ and _that_ could be nudity, gore, violence, rape, women's suffrage, blasphemy, political incorrectness or any number of other topics. Well, I suppose hosting no content at all would also be a stable policy... But it's not one that many storefronts are going to support.

[0] [https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...](https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082)

<comment><USER3> Valve are taking a stance that every major open-access digital vendor has backed away from. Apple, Google, Facebook, Patreon, Zazzle, Amazon... they'll let you sell anything you want with no pre-moderation (except Apple) and rely on community moderation to bring things to their attention.

I don't think this will end well for them. They've declared open season for the internet's worst people to push the boundaries of acceptability, for which they'll earn a cut of a tiny number of sales, and reams of negative press.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good decision by Valve. Considering the sway they have on the industry (if your game can't be on Steam, suddenly you have a lot less exposure), this hands-off stance is the most fair and respectful both to devs and players. We don't need any more "curated app stores" by tech companies that want to be petty tyrants.

It's a smart move for Valve, as only an explicit commitment to principles of neutrality have any hope of shielding them from the ever-growing Culture Wars where various outrage-groups weaponize platform rules to chip away at others' ability to enjoy content on their own terms.

<comment><USER5> I agree with you, but I think this is a perfect example of a failure to successfully handle branding.

For a long time, Steam was distribution platform where the distributor was also the curator. Granted, this curation mostly resolved to "is this an AAA or someone peripherally in the Big Boys club," but it was a certain level of curation that consumers came to expect.

Now that Steam is the de-facto app store of the PC platform, Valve is strongly incentivized to make sure that any game you can buy, can be bought through Steam.

Combine this with their general unwillingness to scale their employees to match the size of the business they have (which is IMO a silly thing on Valve's part, but I'll avoid this discussion for now), and the shift away from Valve-as-a-curator makes sense.

But Valve hasn't sold this as providing Steam's distribution platform as a back-end service to curators/other "stores", they've sold it as Steam and damaged their own reputation in the process.

There's a reason why large businesses have so many different brands that are hard to associate without a lot of digging, and Valve's handling of Steam is a good example of why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Steam is going to become the worlds most profitable, largest distributor of hardcore pornography overnight. I'm really not sure how to feel about this. On one hand free speech is obvious. But allowing porn fundamentally changes the nature of your online service. Not being prude, it just tends to discourage a certain type of person, and encourage another.

<comment><USER7> Allowing murder simulators fundamentally changes the nature of your online store. Not being squeamish, it just tends to discourage a certain type of person, and encourage another.

<comment><USER8> Do you think Grand Theft Auto is a murder simulator?

How about Assasin's Creed?

<comment><USER3> No, those are fine. But how about "hunt and kill thinly-disguised versions of prominent feminists"? We will see someone push that limit, and probably this year.

<comment><USER9> That is actually illegal due to privacy protections in most places - so would be taken down. If not, then the author will be sued and it will be taken down until proceeding is done most likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The words "VR" and "porn" do not appear in the source: [https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...](https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082)

Beware of sensationalism.

<comment><USER11> They're allowing everything that's legal now, so that would count.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The previous generation of parents already fought against porn and violence in video games, movies, and music. And they lost. Now their kids are re-fighting the same fight. Why? Didn't we already establish that these things don't turn people into serial killers and rapists? Isn't that a solved question?

A school shooting game is no more offensive than a driving sim where you run people over or a war shooting game. The only reason people are offended is because real life school shootings are popular exciting news so they also come to the forefront of people's minds as something they're supposed to get offended by.

<comment><USER4> Much of the moral outrages of previous decades came from groups that might be labeled 'moral majority' or 'religious right'; think of the panics about D&D being 'satanic'.

In the current era, the urge to censor is increasingly coming from elements of the Left, where socially or politically "problematic" material becomes the new "blasphemous". From the quoted article:

>"Unfortunately this also means they'll likely be taking a similarly hands-off approach regarding wildly sexist, racist or homophobic content."

That's my guess as to why this isn't yet a "solved question" \-- the fringes of both sides have to get their attempt at busybodying in before a stable synthesis can result.

<comment><USER13> > That's my guess as to why this isn't yet a "solved question" \-- the fringes > of both sides have to get their attempt at busybodying in before a stable > synthesis can result.

That's optimistic. My prediction is that the pendulum will switch all the back once sexbots become affordable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is this an issue? I don't understand. Is it based on practical reasons or moral reasons?

<comment><USER15> People feel that video games should be held it a different (more conservative) standard to other formats (books, video) with vaporous reasons like "you're controlling the character" (while entirely ignoring the POV in a book).

For example people in this thread are talking about the potential for rape- fetish materials being in a video game while ignoring that most major bookstores or even Walmart sells tens of books about the same subject with no age restrictions at all.

I mean Game of Thrones (several rapes, sexual fetish scenes, under-age) and 50 Shades of Grey are literally sold at the checkout line.

PS - Not arguing for books to be age restricted/banned, just pointing out the hypocrisy.

<comment><USER16> I would guess that it's less about "you're controlling the character" than it is about the impression (regardless of whether or not it is true, which i don't think it is) that a large portion of the population have of video games being nearly exclusively for children/teenagers.

However I don't know for a fact because I haven't seen a decent opinion piece or anything about this, just tweets

<comment><USER17> It's both about the extreme difference in immersiveness, the feedback loop (you're the one that's conditioned to choose to rape for more points for example) and the age of the target group.

Movies and books present a story. I haven't seen any movies or series portraying rape as desirable rape lately, but even if they do, you don't have to identify with the protagonist. In VR, you _are_ the protagonist, always, and actions are presented as if they're actually yours, trying their best to trick your mind into thinking they are.

So yeah, many differences, nothing good about them.

<comment><USER14> Its funny that people have been actually making these types of arguments since the beginning of recorded history. The argument that entertainment overrides some rational instinct in people and separates them from reality to think entertainment is the same as real life.

It used to be illegal to make movies with a man and a woman in the same bed together because it was thought to create uncontrollable carnal desires in people. Music and television and books used to be heavily censored due to all their corrupting ideas. Dungeons and Dragons was considered satan worship and evil as well. See the Comstock Law. See prohibition of alcohol...

The problem with all of these arguments is that they have ALL BEEN PROVEN WRONG every single time. Porn, beer, cursing in music, violence in movies, playing an immersive tabletop game where you make the decisions... have never once ever throughout all of human history caused your average person to lose their minds. Normal people are capable of receiving new ideas and using them to build a richer world perspective instead of turning into slathering immoral animals at the first chance.

Another infinitely better argument is that this type of entertainment is cathartic and beneficial. People fulfill desires through a fantasy instead of reality, thereby decreasing the behavior and actually making the world a better place. But that would requiring viewing people as responsible, self- aware, reflective, adults who are capable of thinking for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I struggle to see how this is different in kind rather than degree, from content that has long been on steam. Bioware PC games, for instance, have long had suggestive sex scenes and dialog. So have weirder things like relationship simulators and Japan-esque graphic novelelly things (Lady Killer in a Bind has turned up in several sales, at least).

The Steam marketplace has had, e.g. nudity Skyrim mods forever.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Independent is presenting this in a surprisingly sensational and tabloid style. Has the paper changed in recent years? I remember it being a reasonably well respected news source.

<comment><USER20> Yes, unfortunately. "The Independent" isn't a newspaper anymore- the print version was shut down in 2016, and most of the staff were laid off.

The "i" has replaced it in print (highbrow tabloid)- independent.co.uk has been reduced to a website that drives traffic towards itself largely through clickbait/tabloid-style reporting.

It's still on a different level to dreck like the Daily Mail, but it's long since slipped from its old status as a respected broadsheet.

<comment><USER19> Thanks. That's a shame. Left the UK 6 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if they will still ban the more controversial ones?

Almost all games by Illusion (japanese 3d porn company) involves rape. Search Playclub VR on youtube to see examples.

Not kink shaming or anything but I can see this crossing a line for a good chunk of people. Especially when they realize you can physically roleplay a homeless guy raping an underage school girl in that game (not even talking about using mods, this is one of the default scenarios).

<comment><USER12> How is that worse than every single FPS game where you can roleplay murdering someone? Unless you're also concerned about that, or you believe that rape is worse than murder, then you're suffering from miscalibrated worry.

<comment><USER22> Most FPSes do not involve murder. Soldiers kill enemies. No murder occurs. If it were true, then we'd be jailing all of our soldiers.

<comment><USER18> In e.g. Mass Effect, I have innumerable opportunities to go renegade and waste some guy for no reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Make millions on games where you run around with a machine gun blowing peoples' heads off? No problem! Better not sell any smut though.

<comment><USER24> Interesting anecdote, Robert Yang made a game called "The Tearoom"[0] about blowing men in a public bathroom. In order to keep it from being banned on twitch, he replaced all the penises with firearms, reasoning that if twitch still banned it, it would be the first time the games industry had ever banned a game for depicting guns[1].

[0] [https://radiatoryang.itch.io/the- tearoom](https://radiatoryang.itch.io/the-tearoom)

[1] [https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2017/06/the-tearoom- as-...](https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2017/06/the-tearoom-as-record-of- risky-business.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Valve have probably done market research on this. And you know, that this numbers are favorable for them. They have age profile of its userbase and they also have age filter on their catalog. This is a business decision choice rather than morality.

Will this increase VR adoption?

<comment><USER26> Probably. Seems like a betamax vs vhs decision/turning point to me. After reading this...I realize I am old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Completly disagree with Valve's desicion on this. While I personally don't care about porn on Steam, Communities cannot police themselves, even with the best of tools. I think Reddit and HN are iconic examples of this.

<comment><USER28> HN has a way higher standard for comments than Reddit. Definitely attributable to the mod team and their tooling. I think the tools still aren't there yet, though. Tying karma to money or monetization will lead to higher quality. For example, you don't have crude people who swear at a country club.

<comment><USER29> Country clubs, and anything that requires a large up-front cost for membership excludes a wide swath of people from participation. A wide range of viewpoints will result in better content over all, even if it lets some low-quality content get in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They're abdicating responsibility for their own platform and it's probably not going to turn out well for them.

</comment><comment><USER31> Just curious, for those in favor of this, how do you feel if you have small kids who use Steam? What measures do you take to prevent them from accessing such (racist/porn/etc) content? Or, if you don't have any measures, why do you let them access such content?

<comment><USER32> Is this any different from letting them use a web browser? If they want to access that stuff they probably already can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> There seems to be a spike in negative press about Steam lately. I wonder if this is some kind of coordinated PR hit. I can imagine a few large companies who would be happy to see such a successful independent distribution platform fall on hard times...

</comment><comment><USER34> So when is Incognito mode coming to Steam? IIRC you can't set visibility on an app level and I don't think people would like showcasing that they are playing Sexy Nurses VR to their friends list.

</comment><comment><USER35> Is engaging in VR Porn with a virtual character infidelity? How do you explain it to a wife?

</comment><comment><USER36> ... under a subsidiary called Steamy.

</comment><comment><USER37> Bravo, @steam_games!

</comment><comment><USER38> _nice_

<comment><USER39> Please don't do this here.</comment></comment>


Democracy v Psychology: why people keep electing idiots (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2015/apr/02/democracy-psychology-idiots-election <comment><USER2> Well, the disdain for 'normal' people from certain intellectual types can't help much. If you go around treating people like they're stupid and complaining about how their fears or worries are due to being 'bigoted', then of course they'll vote for people who treat them better (regardless of intelligence).

A politician who at least pretends to emphasise with people he or she might disagree with is a lot more electable than one that looks down on people with contempt.

On a different note, there's also the obvious factor that a less well thought out answer can be a lot simpler than a complicated one, and appear to be an 'easy' solution to a difficult issue. It's one of the reasons why literal facists and extremists tend to do well in bad economic/social times, because they reduce complex issues down to 'there is some other group that's making everything difficult'.Contrast that to the alternative, lots of diplomacy, improvements to various social systems, etc etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the story is much, much more complicated. For starters, it feels like different (albeit related) notions are being conflated: genuine vs feigned stupidity, and public election vs internal promotion. For example, it's unclear why Boris Johnson would feign stupidity rather than simply feign confidence, of which he has ample anyway. David Cameron has achieved political success by appearing and being both shrewd and confident. As for Cameron's choice of cabinet, a more personally satisfying explanation for his cabinet choices is that they are loyal to the point of taking the bullet for his less popular policies. I don't think any of them are idiots or even appear idiotic to the general public, despite their policies being vulnerable to criticism.

</comment><comment><USER4> Its not about 'idiots'

It's a battle between the Idealogues and the Transactional/Machine politicians, for both parties. The latest "The weeds" podcast is lengthy, but breaks it down pretty well.

[http://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10978874/the-weeds-political- re...](http://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10978874/the-weeds-political-realism)

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, ruling a country is a demanding job. Electing officials to actually rule the country is a pretty important part of the job. We'll have democratically elected idiots (or, worse, dangerous faux-idiots with an agenda) as long as people will see voting as a somehow daunting pastime, instead of a work that requires consideration, preparation, and (gasp) qualification.

</comment><comment><USER6> In this article:

Left-wing intelligent! Right-wing evil or idiots!</comment>


The good parts of AWS: a visual summary - <AUTHOR> https://hassenchaieb.com/aws-good-parts/ <comment><USER2> > AVOID using S3 for static web hosting (No HTTPS).

I would absolutely recommend S3 for static web hosting. Just add CloudFront on top if you need HTTPS, it takes like 2 clicks.

If anyone interested, I answered on StackOverflow how to deploy a front end app (React, Vue, etc) to S3: [https://stackoverflow.com/q/41250087/652669](https://stackoverflow.com/q/41250087/652669)

<comment><USER3> Book co-author here. (Not article author.)

The recommendation against using S3 for static hosting is that there are much better alternatives outside of AWS. The dev experience you get with Netlify and Zeit will almost certainly never be possible with AWS.

<comment><USER4> Not to refute your claim, but this is my 3-line bash script in order to build and upload a static bundle:

"""

#!/usr/bin/env bash

rm -rf public

hugo --verbose

aws s3 sync ./public s3://$BUCKET_NAME --profile s3_personal

"""

You can set custom TTL for CloudFront to 0 for instant refresh in production. Dev server is `hugo server`, `hugo` is a single Go binary you can Dockerize with --net=host and --volume=$(pwd):/app to use your own dev environment. If you don't maintain too many large static assets, your cost is like 5 cents a month, and I think that's a competitive price, not AWS being generous. $12 / year for a custom domain via ICANN, and Route 53 manages A/AAAA/CNAME/MX records for free.

Again, not to refute your claim. I'm a single author, who publishes as a hobby, with a single dev and a single prod environment, so if things break down (it hasn't for years), it's easy to fix. It's much different than content marketing and enterprise use cases. Even so, I would rather start here and add a static CMS like Forestry before considering a custom solution like Netlify (which is probably built on top of AWS anyways).

<comment><USER5> Also Netlify doesn't scale in pricing as well. 3 developers is $45 a month, but 4 developers is $1000 a month. There's also no SLA until the $1000 a month tier. They charge almost double for extra bandwidth. It's great for small teams, but they're not objectively better.

<comment><USER6> Never used Netlify, but that seems odd. Isn't it a hosting provider? Unless you're really tiny team, usually you'd want a centralized process for running the build & deploy (rather than having any developer that wants to release something running the build on their slightly different local environment and deploying it directly), possibly hooked into a CD pipeline. Why do you need to pay per developer?

<comment><USER5> Here's their pricing page: [https://www.netlify.com/pricing/](https://www.netlify.com/pricing/)

Looks like you can add extra developers on the lower tiers for $15/user/month, but they're still charging way more per GB than AWS does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This appears pretty superficial and it gets many things wrong.

> Choose between [DynamoDB] on-demand option (no capacity management) or > provisioned option (cheaper).

It's very, very easy for provisioned capacity to be more expensive than on- demand. You need to overprovision because, if you exceed the provisioned throughput, you will get throttled and your application will suffer. Scaling up and down is a slow, opaque process, and you're only allowed to do it something like 5 times per day. If your workload has any idle periods, you're just burning money.

> Avoid using S3 for static web hosting (No HTTPS)

I won't argue that S3 is ideal for static web hosting, but "avoid" is pretty strong and IMO not warranted.

> Do not use AWS Lambda as a general EC2 host

What does this mean? As general compute? This is too simplistic a judgment. Lambda is a versatile service and can be useful in many situations.

> Kinesis: unlimited consumers

No, Kinesis is an extremely limited service. 5 reads per second per shard. In my experience, if you put even two consumers on a stream, you will start to see throttling. The official solution is to fan out to multiple streams. Hacky and super expensive.

> Kinesis 30x cheaper than SQS

This is hilarious. Maybe it's true for some workloads. In my experience, Kinesis is incredibly expensive and SQS is not.

<comment><USER8> > The official solution is to fan out to multiple streams

Not anymore. Enhanced fanout allows up to 20 consumers, doesn't count against read limits and has lower latency than polling.

> It's very, very easy for provisioned capacity to be more expensive than on- > demand.

Reserved capacity will beat on-demand pretty handily, even with massive overprovisioning. Assuming a 50% target and a 16 hour daily duty cycle, reserved provisioned is 20% the cost of running on-demand.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, I misspoke about fanning out to multiple streams. Dedicated stream consumers are still a hack. They're also expensive and have limitations as Lambda event sources. Kinesis is a service that needs to be used very carefully. It's riddled with landmines for cost and performance.

Regarding Dynamo: I'll echo plexicle's experience that switching to on-demand was an immense cost savings (these were tables that were not being used often, many of them in dev environments).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This opinion piece has too many inaccurate statements.

\- S3 for static assests

\- SQS V Kinesis

\- Lambda ('Small code that doesn't change....what).

\- ELB completely overlooked, if you need session persistence then you need an ELB so for more traditional software you've completely omitted that solution because it's "Legacy".

Missing

\- No discussion on when to pick Lambda, Containers or EC2

\- No Cloudfront addresses S3 and any API GW or ALB fronted Lambda.

\- Where is the use of SNS?

\- What if I want to Fan Out on a message/event? complete missed the why SQS V SNS V Kinesis and when to use which.

\- No RDS....so if i've got relational data are you advising i should put it in DynamoDB?

\- No container context in any way.

Really poor quality of content and advisories needs an urgent update.

<comment><USER10> > Where is the use of SNS?

Right, the SQS part is very misleading: "SQS has 1 consumer" is technically true (although it's actually one group of competing consumers), but in practice, you get fan-out to zero or more consumers easily, by wiring SNS and SQS together (one SNS topic, multiple attached SQS queues).

> No RDS...

Without also mentioning RDS with DynamoDB, you can't make meaningful choices between them.

It also omits the one big benefit of DynamoDB: single-digit number of milliseconds to read a record by primary key, regardless of scale, due to sharding on that key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The SQS vs Kinesis summary is particularly bad

Kinesis has strict ordering but SQS does not?

No.

Kinesis has strict ordering PER SHARD. Which dilutes your throughput, unlike SQS. And it has limitations on throughput in terms of total event size, which are different from SQS's 300 TPS for FIFO.

It's apples and oranges. More significant, this comparison really makes it seem like you should pick Kinesis for a simple starting project rather than SQS, which is the exact opposite of the truth. SQS is the simpler choice for 90% of the cases, and Kinesis is an advanced powerful tool for the other 10%

<comment><USER12> Also Kinesis records are write-once read-many, where SQS messages are meant to be consumed (receive a message, do the task, delete the message)

Kinesis is for streaming data, and SQS is for job queues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Eh. The ALB/ELB/NLB section is off the mark for failing to consider inter-AZ costs, perplexingly indicates NLB has something to do with TLS, even more perplexingly suggests NLB as the default choice. Dynamo isn't something I'd suggest at all unless one has well studied the costs and benefits. Kinesis is not much like SQS, and new users might be more interested in EventBridge...

<comment><USER14> Conflating TLS and HTTPS makes that row weird, but NLB supports TLS termination at the load balancer.

[https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-tls-termination-for- net...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-tls-termination-for-network-load- balancers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is a tremendous amount of incorrect and misleading information on this post.

The _first sentence_ re: Dynamo discusses the inability to do filtering or sorting which is flat out wrong:

"DynamoDB requires data operations (aggregations, filtering, sorting ..) to be done by your application. → All data needs to be sent over the network."

<comment><USER16> Sorting - really? Isn't the first thing to learn about Dynamo the primary key and the sort key? Filtering you can do on the database but you still pay for the reads as if it wasn't filtered. To me Dynamos biggest con is that it's propriety technology and aggregations it's just not really any good for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Can't agree on the NLB part. Everyone should be using ALB by default, and only reach for NLB in very specific cases (you'll know when), in my humble opinion having worked with AWS for 8 years and being a certified architect.

Enable the dropping of invalid headers, enable HTTP/2, let the ALB terminate the TLS, and you'll see benefits even if your full backend isn't HTTP/2 enabled and you'll have eliminated a whole range of other headaches you no longer need to manage. It's one of the most reliable services AWS has.

<comment><USER3> Book co-author here. (Not article author.) The recommendation is based on the multi-tenant behavior of NLBs (no need to warm up the LB to handle traffic spikes). If you need any ALB features, use ALB. Otherwise, NLBs give you one less thing to worry about (and slightly cheaper and faster too.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone else get the feeling that the author has not used any of these services before and is just writing this from reading AWS documentation and pricing?

<comment><USER3> It's a summary of a book.

<comment><USER18> So, was the book written that way?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > DynamoDB is a non-relational database that has two main features : it's > immediately consistent and ...

that's ... only true if you're exclusively using strongly consistent reads, but if you're exclusively using strongly consistent reads, why are you using DynamoDB to begin with?

</comment><comment><USER20> Not sure where they came up with that SQS pricing? It is free for first million requests per month. I have been using SQS as a message queue in my app and based on AWS Cost Explorer I have never reached that in a month .. always a $0 charge. Looking at Cloudwatch I never even got to 100K requests in a month and the app is moderately active. It does not generate a ton of messages, maybe hundreds a day and the workers receiving the messages use long poll. Anyway, the costs in the doc seem way off.

</comment><comment><USER21> Touching only the surface of some AWS services and calling them "the good parts" is really misleading. This does not run the gamut of all AWS services available, skips over a number of other popular databases and developer productivity services, and makes broad generalizations as another commenter points out...

</comment><comment><USER22> No mention of Route53? Either I am missing out on something big or the author is.

Route53 is probably the biggest value-add on top of raw compute & storage that exists in Amazon's entire cloud product portfolio.

Who else remembers requiring 3 different vendors to run 1 https website?

</comment><comment><USER23> Why does it say that SQS has duplicates, while Kinesis does not ? AWS documentation explicitly says that Kinesis has at least once semantics due to consumer/producer retries.

</comment><comment><USER24> There are so many plain wrong points here I simply dont know where to start. It feels like the person who wrote it has no real commercial experience or very little experience with described services.

</comment><comment><USER25> A lesser known limitation of S3 is that it does not have Read-After-Write consistency for overwriting PUTS & DELETE operations. Netflix has reported observing consistency taking hours for outliers. [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/Introduction...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/Introduction.html#ConsistencyModel)

<comment><USER24> Because its a distributed system and it takes time to propagate ?? I think its very well known, ppl just understand its normal and in 99.999% of cases does not matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I liked the book, but it fell apart when it got to cloudformation. It hand waved a ton of the actual IaaC part, so instead you end up copying from book, which had some differences from the git repo they shared. Good to get the basics of what to do and best practices for architecting, but incredibly frustrating on actually following and building with cloudformation.

<comment><USER3> We had a couple of frustrating typos in the first version. Very sorry about that. We fixed them now, and the latest book version is in sync with the GitHub repo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd agree with a few of the other comments here. I read it and can't say that I found it particularly helpful. I've deployed a lot of Node.js apps to Heroku and Digital Ocean, and was looking for something to help me "level up" to AWS. I was left thinking that maybe I should just stick to Heroku.

<comment><USER21> Beanstalk & CodeDeploy & X-Ray if you need to level up your deployment & webapp management.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I really like the summary format and the visual design here. It feels slightly weird to specifically call out Redis in a negative way in the Dynamo summary when no other tools listed give a similar callout to a specific product.

</comment><comment><USER29> Its nice to have some proper opinions and recommendations. Seems the tech world is so full of articles and blogs that show you how to do something, with very little saying don't use this because...

</comment><comment><USER30> Anyone know what tool the author used to make those nice animated SVGs?

<comment><USER31> Had the same question. Apparently he created them manually! [https://twitter.com/hassenchaieb/status/1240346726822752262?...](https://twitter.com/hassenchaieb/status/1240346726822752262?s=20)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have seen some projects use DynamoDB for relational data, with the "single table design" approach, anyone who did this, how was your experience?

<comment><USER33> I've seen this done for new projects, and it works really well. If your data access patterns are truly relational (varied lookup paths) then it is probably not the right tool, but many apps can be modeled in a way that DDB handles well.

Highly recommended viewing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaEPXoXVf2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaEPXoXVf2k) this talk explains how relational data can be efficiently modeled for key- value stores.

</comment></comment><comment> enahs-sf I would strongly advocate that Aurora RDS be added here. Easy to manage, SQL data storage. Not cheap, but cheaper than a DBA for sure.

</comment><comment><USER34> This article is wildly inaccurate. My corrections: \- DynamoDb allows for a lot of filtering, and Lambda + DDB Streams can do aggregations that are written as state changes and provide incredible read speeds. Use it if its a good fit, and its only a good fit if you're ready to learn its query language and quirks. When it is a good fit, its a world-class database.

\- SQS pricing is $0.0000004 per request [1] with 1 Million monthly messages free.

\- SQS + SNS is far more flexible and reliable than Kinesis, plus you're paying for and managing shards by the hour. Its great for streaming analytics data processing and distribution (within the Kinesis suite there is stream processing ala Spark and streaming ingest to Elastic, S3, and Redshift). If you're not doing data engineering on a streaming set of events that can't fit in a spreadsheet, its just not the right fit.

\- Lambda is not expensive to use with DynamoDB at all, the pipes are so fast that that 50-100ms is typical for a call and response. Lambda does get gnarly with SQL databases that require connection management and pooling, but they have improved that situation on multiple fronts in the past 6-9 months.

\- Also, Lambda ought to be considered the first choice for runtimes for greenfield apps, not just for AWS plumbing. This is strictly opinion and definitely depends on your team and existing codebase, but it makes sense from a cost and scaling standpoint for all kinds of projects.

\- NLB should be the first choice only for specialized use cases like UDP services or those that require extraordinary throughput. ALB gives you an incredible feature set with things like HTTPS, Auth, access logging, routing requests to different machines or Lambdas based on url path, canary deployments, and more. Use as much or little as you like. The cost difference between ALB and NLB is negligible for most use cases.

If you're new to AWS and cloud stuff: welcome, the water's fine. Sure its hard at first to grok all the breadth and depth of the offerings, but you get to build with the same tools the largest services on the web depend on. Start small and pick a service, learn it from the console, then cli. Hit up the docs a lot and ask questions, there are lots of people that can help. Do NOT get lead astray by this article or opinion pieces on Medium.

Something like 75% of AWS services are geared at serving enterprises with on- premise data centers that want to move some or all of their workloads to the cloud. Stick with the basics like S3, Lambda, SNS, SQS, and whatever servers you need. Pick a managed service vs servers when you can unless you have solid sysadmin resources and a good reason. Avoid hourly billed services whenever you can until you can get cost management figured out. VPC is daunting unless you're good with networking, but you can avoid it entirely by using the primitives mentioned above. IAM takes some real grokking, but there is almost nothing you can't do with it to scope permissions both internally and externally.

AWS YouTube Channel is full of quality material for all levels. Try to start forming your opinions with those and your own experience instead of unsubstantial articles or random HN comments :)

</comment><comment><USER35> I really like this 'tl;dr, consider this, start with this rather than that until/unless you really need it' style, was left disappointed it didn't cover more services!

<comment><USER36> It's also unfortunately completely incorrect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What are EC2 "saving plans"?

<comment><USER37> A way to save some cash, you set aside your reserve amount and some EC2 magic makes it happen.</comment></comment>


Near Perfect Variance Suggests China's Infected Numbers Are Fake - <AUTHOR> https://www.barrons.com/articles/chinas-economic-data-have-always-raised-questions-its-coronavirus-numbers-do-too-51581622840 <comment><AUTHOR> Archive Link: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200214010037/https://www.barro...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200214010037/https://www.barrons.com/articles/chinas- economic-data-have-always-raised-questions-its-coronavirus-numbers-do- too-51581622840)</comment>


5 Great Code Search Engines! - <AUTHOR> http://knightknetwork.com/2007/09/13/5-great-code-search-engines/

<comment><USER2> This is from my site (thanks subby!) It's been making the rounds today. If anyone is curious Krugle has the highest click thru with Koders and Google coming in at about the same. That may say more for the order I have them listed than what people really like, but I thought this crowd might find that interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Krugle gets an automatic win in my book because it seems to be the only one that can search Common Lisp code.

On Google and Koders, setting lang=Lisp turns up mostly Emacs Lisp, and "lang:cl" gives only Tcl code. (They distinguish between CL and Scheme, but not Elisp!) O'Reilly has no language selector, but searching for a Lisp symbol just turns up a lot of Emacs Lisp books. And Ucodit can't seem to find any Lisp code at all.</comment>


Ask HN: Microsoft Azure is hiring only Americans? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I was looking for potential opportunities in Microsoft and specifically in Azure which is close to what I already have experience.
I noticed that all the position requires the "Microsoft Cloud Background Check" at first I thought that it was some formality, however it seems like it requires to be an US citizen.
Is this true? Are there an insiders that can confirm?
EDIT: I believe the confusion comes from this quora answer: https://www.quora.com/What-is-Microsoft-Cloud-Background-Check
Indeed, I know that quora is not a reliable source of information so I wanted to dig deeper. Moreover I read this document as well [1] but it was worded a little confusing.
[1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/office-365-personnel-controls#microsoft-cloud-background-check <comment><USER2> Hey siscia,

MSFTie chiming in here. I'm probably the wrong person to speak to the "cloud backround check itself" but I can tell you that on multiple azure teams I've worked for, I've had the opportunity to work alongside Iranian, Nigerian, Australian, <take your pick of esoteric location>, citizens/peers. As such I'd be somewhat surprised if that was a hard prohibition.

Reading the official documentation here [0] I'm inclined to be confident in my assessment, the citizenship requirement seems limited to those working on USGovt clouds (there are similar fascinating rules for e.g. German cloud to conform with their regulations)

As always I'd encourage you to talk to a hiring manager to sanity check this statement, but I would simultaneously encourage you to not let US citizenship stop you from applying. MS (and I'd make a similar statement for other bigcos too, to be fair) always needs good people.

[0] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/office365/enterprise/office...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/office365/enterprise/office-365-personnel-controls#microsoft-cloud- background-check)

<comment><USER3> > I've had the opportunity to work alongside Iranian, Nigerian, Australian, > <take your pick of esoteric location>, citizens/peers.

Saying non-US citizens would suffice. On a planet with ~200 countries none of them should be considered exotic.

<comment><USER4> Can't even be not-racist correctly these days. Is there any hope of this "find a reason to be offended" culture dying out or are we stuck with it forever?

<comment><USER5> "Be offended on behalf of someone" can die alongside as well. Point well made.

<comment><USER5> Maybe a small exception can be made when that other has little to no voice due to circumstances but it does not apply in this context. I've seen people from all nationalities express opinions on HN without worry.

<comment><USER6> In situations where one has little voice. Having someone more powerful speak for them usual results in them still having no voice but the person speaking for them can use this to further their voice.

We must allow others to use their own voice. Teach them.

In the past many of sins have resulted in assuming someone else's pain. The rich do gooder's action doesn't always help and frequency hurts.

I will give you an example. A shoe factory in India employing children and offering a dollar a day pay. Twitter campaign mounts company closes plant. Twitter folks rejoice and feel they have done good. But back in India everyone loses their job, the kids working were supporting sick parents who cannot work and get sicker. Children are forced into the sex trade. People on twitter are still rejoycing because no one followed up on the people they were speaking up for. In fact they were not speaking up for these workers they were speaking against the shoe company. After they caused the shoe company pain they didn't care about the rest.

The question becomes are you speaking for the voiceless or yourself? If the voiceless wanted to reduce immigration because they want to increase the chance of getting a good paying position would you share those voices if they didn't match your views/voice? Or would you try to mute that voice but increase the volume on some other aspect you believed in?

Speaking for someone else is probably a bad idea.

<comment><USER5> I believe there can still be examples where an opposite (as in one with positive impact) case can be made. Regardless, you have a point, thus I stress, exceptions are exceptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It depends. If it's for govcloud related work(this isn't only DoD), then you need to be a US Person which includes residents and citizens. You also need to be located in US territory. This is due the government requirements, not a Microsoft thing.

<comment><USER8> Entirely fair also. Anyone complaining should be laughed at.

Feel free to apply for US citizenship if you care so much about the matter. Plenty of work out there regardless for capable people many of it US based.

We've got a 100% remote team and it's really strange when you get abusive emails saying you're racist despite the only people on the hiring team being the exact same race.

Maybe you simply don't fit, please know that. Keep trying, have some talent or persistence and I guarantee someone will notice and pull you in for an interview one day.

Crying like a a little child about one job rejection will probably hurt you in other avenues of life, these people definitely talk to each other about candidates, mark my words on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I work on azure compute on a core infrastructure team. I can say for certain that yes a cloud background check is required once you start on the team and this does not require citizenship. I know co-workers on many types of visas. This is a compliance measure. Azure is very into compliance.

For some of the other US gov stuff, Secret or Top Secret clearance is required. This does require citizenship and a lengthy clearance process. You will know if you're doing this though as clearance is difficult to get so I've seen them hire a lot of people who already have clearance. These projects are for the most part separate from regular azure although they use the same technologies. Outside of PM these roles are mostly live site roles where access to control plane machines may be required to ensure proper operation of the platform.

<comment><USER10> >> For some of the other US gov stuff, Secret or Top Secret clearance is required. This does require citizenship and a lengthy clearance process.

exactly...

<comment><USER11> No, not exactly. Unclassified US government work can require citizenship also.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A single statement from your linked site would have avoided this discussion entirely:

>A Microsoft Cloud Background Check is required for candidates hired as employees providing Office 365-related services in the United States.

Thats not worded confusingly in anyway, and its the first statement on the page.

</comment><comment><USER13> My understanding is that Azure is attempting to compete with AWS in gaining business from US governmental agencies. This means emphasis on Gov Cloud, FedRAMP, and other constraints which would probably preclude foreign nations from working on those projects.

</comment><comment><USER14> Usually US Citizen only gigs will involve government contracts, it's not the overall company policy, unless they're specifically focused on military contracts, just the requirements of the client. It makes sense. Microsoft has people all over though.

Edit:

By the way technically companies can hire non-citizens for contract work, but you have to prove that you couldn't fill the seat, which I don't know how likely that will be.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd imagine that with the DoD cloud contract they've got, only Americans that pass a background check would be allowed to work.

</comment><comment><USER16> I hope this isn't a poor man's control for ITAR purposes.

>>>But the ITAR generally allows U.S. Persons to have access to ITAR controlled data, and defines a (natural) "U.S. Person" as "a lawful permanent resident as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20)" or "a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3)." See 22 C.F.R. 120.15. Thus the ITAR does not restrict access to U.S. citizens only, but also generally allows access by non-U.S. citizens who fall within the following classes, among others:

Nationals of the U.S. (i.e., those born in the "outlaying" possessions of the U.S. meeting specified requirements, or individuals born of a parent who meet specified requirements); Aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence (i.e., "green card" holders); Certain refugees; and Certain asylum seekers.

</comment><comment><USER17> > I noticed that all the position requires the "Microsoft Cloud Background > Check"

Nope, you don't need to be a citizen for this.

>however it seems like it requires to be an US citizen.

Where did you read that? That is only true for Gov cloud related teams. But that requirement is mentioned in the job decription, imo.

</comment><comment><USER5> When your company is big enough to do both private and government contract work, it will be inevitable to choose a compromise at some point. These things are like PoC software. You find the optimal solution by trial and error.

</comment><comment><USER10> IMHO, I feel it would make perfect sense if they hire Americans to do the Government Cloud work, other areas , it should NOT be the case

</comment><comment><USER18> If such a prohibition exists, then I assume it pertains to US government cloud solutions as others have also stated.

</comment><comment><USER19> I hear a rumor that Microsoft, Apple, and Google are practicing hiring bias in favor of Indian candidates. Stories from retired engineers [0].

0 - [https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-bias-among-Indians-of- hir...](https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-bias-among-Indians-of-hiring-other- Indian-workers-in-the-IT-industry?share=1)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's for govcloud stuff right?

</comment><comment><USER21> I know someone who has passed that MS check and is not a US citizen.

</comment><comment><USER22> This will be for secure work for government, and from the sound of it its for TS the higher security clearance.

Though the USA is more permissive that say the UK.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd be willing to bet this is a job on their new "Jedi" contract with US Gov.

</comment><comment><USER24> > it seems like it requires to be an US citizen.

Where are you getting this information from ? The BG check is required as you will be exposed to US citizen's information/data and so a background check is required.

I'm not sure where you have seen the requirement that you must be a US citizen...</comment>