In conversation with Marc Andreessen - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/marc-andreessen-in-conversation.html <comment><USER2> "But this is the big story of our time—the elimination of poverty. We have people rising out of poverty at a global level and in the U.S. at unprecedented rates. In 50 years, we've gone from hunger being the dominant problem among lower-income people to obesity being the dominant problem."

Which is good, as it increased Walmart's share value? I'm really not sure how to read this, this is moving beyond SV techno-libertarianism into straight- forward Onion territory.

<comment><USER3> It's good that scarcity of material goods and services has ceased to be a problem, and now the only remaining problems are self inflicted.

Similarly it would be a good thing if no one murdered anyone else even if people occasionally committed suicide.

<comment><USER2> I don't quite get how getting over the dust bowl famine means that _poverty_ is solved. Obesity doesn't really imply that the poor are now just applying all their affluence wrongly and could easily buy houses if they just would get their hands off the Mickey D, so it's all their fault if that isn't the case.

"Self inflicted" is really over-simplifying things and sounds like something out of Rand (or misunderstood Nietzsche).

<comment><USER4> I don't think the point is that they could buy houses and live a middle class lifestyle. If you compare the two absolute circumstances: 1\. Not having enough calories, and literally being pained by hunger, and the associated near-term consequences thereof. 2\. Having too many calories in not the right proportions, which have longer-term consequences.

I would expect that people in both circumstances #1 and #2 would prefer for #2 to happen to them. Just because things aren't perfect, doesn't mean they aren't better than they were.

If you look at things as absolutes (as opposed to comparing "poor" people to the middle or upper class), then you can fairly assert that the kind of poverty that was more common in the US in the past and is still common in the developing world is, for the most part, solved.

<comment><USER2> Again, that's solving starvation, not poverty. Those might often go together, but aren't really identical. You could have all the money in the world, if there's a omnipresent famine that wouldn't help you a lot.

If the goalpost for poverty is not starving, than that's a friggin' terrible definition. If that's the end of one's aspirations, just making sure that other people don't croak from hunger, then this paints a sadder picture of humanity than my initial interpretation of the original quote.

I'm not denying that things haven't improved for people in the US, but in what kind of morality system would we consider this the end of the line?

<comment><USER5> I don't see it as a goalpost for poverty, more of a milestone -- it's the first symptom of poverty that IMO humanity wants to relieve

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> from the article

"The one other thing that people are really underestimating is the impact of entertainment-industry economics applied to education. Right now, with MOOCS,11 the production values are pretty low: You'll film the professor in the classroom. But let's just project forward. In ten years, what if we had Math 101 online, and what if it was well regarded and you got fully accredited and certified? What if we knew that we were going to have a million students per semester? And what if we knew that they were going to be paying $100 per student, right? What if we knew that we'd have $100 million of revenue from that course per semester? What production budget would we be willing to field in order to have that course?

You could hire James Cameron to do it.

You could literally hire James Cameron to make Math 101. Or how about, let's study the wars of the Roman Empire by actually having a VR [virtual reality] experience walking around the battlefield, and then like flying above the battlefield. And actually the whole course is looking and saying, "Here's all the maneuvering that took place." Or how about re-creating original Shakespeare plays in the Globe Theatre?"

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

So @pmarca why not fund James Cameron then?

<comment><USER7> Andreessen is really missing the point here, IMO. If I could learn everything by watching videos and listening to lectures then there are already thousands of high quality documentaries, TTC courses and so on. The thing is that we humans don't learn subjects deeply just by watching bunch of videos but only by actually doing things.

For instance, there are probably 100s of videos and lectures on General Relativity out there. You can watch them endlessly and you would have some understanding of overall ideas but you would be at complete loss if someone takes simple exercise problems from any textbook and asks you to solve it. In other words, deep understanding doesn't happen simply by watching phenomenal documentaries.

Major component that really matters in any academic programs is homework and exercises. This is what allows students to get deep insights in to subject and make sure they can actually put their learning in to action. It also allows professors to verify that they have actually crossed the line from shallow understanding to deep understanding. This is what you pay for when you go to college. No amount of video lectures by James Cameron is going to replace this.

<comment><USER8> I respectfully disagree. If you measure learning with homework questions from textbooks, then of course textbooks and the modern classroom will seem like the best way to learn. There are many ways to educate. Getting a person intensely interested in a subject is the best way to get them to learn more about it, and Hollywood does intense interest like nobody's business. Someone who associates math with special effects and compelling stories will be more receptive than someone who associates math with boring lectures and homework problems.

Someone who watched a documentary on General Relatively won't be able to perform the necessary calculations to get a rocket to the moon, but that doesn't mean that they didn't learn anything. A higher concept view that makes people say, "Oh, I get why gravity is cool now" could be more useful to most people than homework assignments that don't hold a lot of practical value. Someone is going to be an astrophysicist, needs rigorous practice and skill mastery. Someone who is gong to be a plumber might be better off learning the concepts in an intuitive way that provides an opportunity to learn more.

<comment><USER9> I think 'knowledge' can be gained from watching these lectures. By knowledge I mean facts. But if you want to learn a skill, you better be slogging on the homework's to gain intuition. I don't think you can learn discrete math by just watching lectures, you'll have to spend countless hours doing problems to learn anything non-trivial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a bit disturbing that he thinks "American people" equals white people and that women just need to lean in more. It's all a meritocracy, you know, nothing we can do about it.

But, hey, maybe Those People can still nab a slot in a MOOC so it's all good...

<comment><USER11> As a "white person" I am getting a little tired of running interference for the equally economically successful Asians and South Asians.

<comment><USER12> In the US at least, asian people are more successful than white people are. Higher incomes, higher levels of college education, higher GPAs, higher SAT scores, lower unemployment rates, and lower rates of poverty.

The recent trend to pretend that asian people are white people as far as diversity is concerned is extremely disturbing. It points to an incredible racism at the heart of the arguments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _We think access is broadening out the network so that everybody who could contribute can get access to the network. And that's the one that we're working on._

I would like to hear a lot more about this. Being on the east coast the Silicon Valley crowd or even just the ethos around it seem totally foreign.

I will say I am somewhat connected in the D.C. area and I have heard from many Angels and VC's that the east coast will never look like SV simply because the money that is here is not like SV money - it's too tied up, needs too much due diligence and investors are too tightly wound as advisers/board members.

I don't know if that is true, and we are seeing huge growth in the Startup scene here, but it certainly feels much more restrictive than what you see on HN and read about how SV money/networks get thrown around.

<comment><USER14> As someone who relocated from DC to SV two years ago, DC has always had a healthy startup scene that is, as you suspect, hampered severely by money flow. That's not to say it's not possible to fundraise where you are, it's just amazingly much harder to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "I mean, part of it is, I love arguing.

No, really?

The big thing about Twitter for me is it's just more people to argue with."

You know, that does pretty much sum of the appeal of Twitter for me too.

<comment><USER16> I love arguing and I honestly did not know Twitter was fertile grounds for that. So I appreciate your comment. Now excuse me while I create my first twitter account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, I liked Marc already, but after reading this, I love him. This should be required reading for everyone.

Edit: I really admire the graceful way he handles the hard questions about libertarian philosophy - social welfare and job loss. Even though I don't agree with him, and feel he may be pulling some punches to keep his message broadly palatable, it's still impressive.

<comment><USER18> By "graceful" you mean dodged the question and the interview let him get away with it?

Calling the very real hardship caused by job loss in America the "lump-of- labor" fallacy and calling our welfare state "very advanced" is not very graceful. Some exposure to what that's really like would be highly instructive for Marc. Spoiler: it's demeaning and depressing.

<comment><USER17> He's a libertarian. A real libertarian argument would be something like this: "People should not expect to receive unconditional support in the event of losing their job or suffering financial hardship. People should factor such risks into their financial planning. Any unconditional support structures will weaken the incentives to prudent financial planning and lead to massive and society-wide problems of systemic dependency and economic maladjustment."

Unfortunately the logic behind this argument is poorly understood and widely resisted. People who advance such arguments are typically perceived as arrogant, callous, and entitled. So I think Marc is indeed dodging the bullet by trying to softly suggest alternative ways to perceiving these issues, as well as trying to encourage a change in perspective to notoriously-oblivious Americans on how their polity actually stacks up in global terms.

<comment><USER18> >> People should factor such risks into their financial planning.

Easy for us to say, with our six-figure salaries and hot job market. How the heck is someone working a minimum wage job supposed to do any financial planning? How does a child without the sort of supportive environment I had escape the cycle of poverty?

Libertarianism is great if everyone is equally powerful. I'd be all for it if all people were equally educated, equally wealthy, and equally willing to respect others' property rights.

<comment><USER17> I work a minimum wage job. Save, save, and save some more. The only people I could reasonably blame for my position in life would be my parents, not wider society.

Maybe people should blame their parents more instead of vague shadowy corporations?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >The one other thing that people are really underestimating is the impact of entertainment-industry economics applied to education. Right now, with MOOCS,11 the production values are pretty low: You'll film the professor in the classroom. But let's just project forward. In ten years, what if we had Math 101 online, and what if it was well regarded and you got fully accredited and certified? What if we knew that we were going to have a million students per semester? And what if we knew that they were going to be paying $100 per student, right? What if we knew that we'd have $100 million of revenue from that course per semester? What production budget would we be willing to field in order to have that course?

This makes me more optimistic about the future than I have been in a while.

<comment><USER7> No, this doesn't change much. Before MOOCs we still had all the textbooks authored by same professors which anyone can buy for less than $100 and learn the subject on their own. MOOCs are very much a video version of those textbooks.

The major missing component of MOOCs is intensive homework problems that often requires you to consult professors in their office hours. And the time professors/TA spend in checking your homework.

The core thing to understand is that real learning doesn't happen when you are listening to lectures but it happens when you are working on homework and doing exercises where you struggle through and occasionally have to go back to professor's offices to get insight.

But the truth is that the price of education is mostly justified as "certification service". When you have degree from Stanford it means someone very reputable is backing up your claim that you have learned thing or two about something. That's mainly what you are paying as "tuition fees". MOOCs are relatively much weaker as certification services and hence chances of them getting trusted is same as chances of trusting degrees from many other "online universities".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >There's this myth that government regulation is well intentioned and benign, and implemented properly. That's the myth. And then when people actually run into this in the real world, they're, "Oh, fuck, I didn't realize."

To his point, you really do get the sense that, on balance, people are becoming more libertarian, and a lot of that has been catalyzed by technology disrupting entrenched business models that have benefitted from regulatory protectionism.

<comment><USER21> Funny, because from a European perspective I get the sense that SV libertarianism (accompanied by a complete lack of ethics) is leading to a backlash where people are demanding stronger consumer-, labor- and privacy- protection.

I would say the reaction in the real world tends to be "Oh, fuck, those regulations are good for something after all."

<comment><USER22> You are right in a sense. I think people are demanding more flexible, realistic and more consumer favourable laws. Rather than the rigid structures that are in currently in place.

<comment><USER23> I would say that they're just asking for new laws to meet the need of the moment, and I'm not even very libertarian. I mean, I'm sure they'd describe them the way you have but it's not clear to me that there's substance to the characterization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> TIL Mark Zuckerberg didn't know what Netscape was before meeting Marc Andreessen. Zuckerberg may get some slack from the reporter and even Andressen regarding this, but it's a shame that a person can start off knowing so little about the industry they end up having such a huge impact upon.

<comment><USER25> I'm only 19, and even I remember a time when Netscape was still pretty popular, or at least a lot of people had Navigator installed. It was even mentioned or displayed in a lot of programming books, articles, and presentations. I wonder how he managed to avoid knowledge of it for so long.

<comment><USER26> iirc I'm one year younger than Zuck but still remember upgrading to Netscape Navigator 4.0 from a previous version. But then again I grew up in SV and my dad was in the PC industry. Zuck grew up the the East coast, and that's probably the biggest difference.

<comment><USER25> I grew up on the East coast too. When I was ten or so, it was really common for people around here to have that installed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > The American Enterprise Institute, I think, does a lot of good work.

meh</comment>


Code Shelter: A Maintainer Community for Abandoned FOSS Projects - <AUTHOR> https://www.codeshelter.co/ <comment><USER2> This is amazing!

As one of the creators of a distributed package manager for C++ and friends [1] we made a funny discovery:

Many C libraries that a big chunk of the ecosystem depends on, have not been updated for many years. Some of those can only be downloaded from sourceforge or ftp server.

Even worse, some libraries are copy and pasted from project to project and have no actual home.

We uploaded them to github and started maintaining them.

If you know any abandoned C/C++ projects or C/C++ projects you need a hand in maintaining, we are happy to help.

[1] [https://github.com/loopperfect/buckaroo](https://github.com/loopperfect/buckaroo)

<comment><USER3> If none of the big tech companies will step up to adopt openssl, we should put it down, like in a real pet shelter.

<comment><USER4> That whole Heart Bleed incident was a blessing for OpenSSL. It's now quite active: [https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commits/master](https://github.com/openssl/openssl/commits/master)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You should set up an opencollective.com account (like Patreon for FOSS projects) - I would support this project and I am sure there are others that would too.

<comment><USER6> That's actually a great idea, thank you! I'll get on that right now.

EDIT: I made one: [https://opencollective.com/code- shelter](https://opencollective.com/code-shelter)

What do people think the collective should be used for? I haven't used OpenCollective much.

<comment><USER7> no hypen :)

[https://opencollective.com/codeshelter](https://opencollective.com/codeshelter)

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I just changed the URL to remove the hyphen but couldn't edit my comment :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool initiative. IIUC it lowers the cost of asking for and vetting help, which can be substantial. Moving a project to a stewarding entity even more so -- actually I imagine easily matching/getting new maintainers on board could ease eventually moving to a stewarding entity, eg Software Freedom Conservancy (which I volunteer for) requires accepted projects to have multiple maintainers from multiple organizations [https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/](https://sfconservancy.org/projects/apply/) which is a giant leap for an unmaintained project. I believe other ~foundations also have extensive onboarding procedures/requirements.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a great idea, and certainly much needed. I wish the name wouldn't imply as much misfortune and this sense of giving all hope up on the part of the original author. They have possibly toiled along for years. Some name that inspires a sense of honor and gratitude might be a lot more attractive to potential code donors.

<comment><USER6> It's meant in the sense of "shelter from the rain". Why do you think it has a sense of giving up all hope? One of the main goals when creating it was to not require the creator to move the repo away from their name.

<comment><USER9> Maybe it's a subjective association. But isn't a shelter a place for a homeless person?

<comment><USER6> Yes, a place where they can get food, a bed and (hopefully) living conditions. In my mind, it's a positive. Sounds like it's not so for everyone, hmm.

<comment><USER10> It's fascinating, because shelters in and of themselves are positive things: they're built to be refuges or safe havens. Places where you expect help is at hand.

They sound negative when you start to look at the reason for them existing. Not because shelters are bad, but because homelessness and abuse and abandonment is bad.

From a UK perspective, shelter to me makes me think of a bus stop or an awning to get out of the rain, or to get some shade.

<comment><USER6> Yes, that's how I perceive it as well. The fact that you're in circumstance X might suck, but shelter for that is always good. It's interesting to me that people find the word "shelter" itself negative because they associate it with the unwanted circumstance. I wonder if the same happens with "haven", "succor", etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The "add project" link on the FAQ page 404s: [https://www.codeshelter.co/faq/](https://www.codeshelter.co/faq/) [ _fixed now_ ]

How would this project approach FOSS projects that were abandoned, then sort- of-picked-up by another maintainer, but with no actual continued development?

Example: Meteorite MKV repair engine

Original site: [http://www.mkvrepair.com/](http://www.mkvrepair.com/)

Original code: [https://sourceforge.net/p/meteorite/code/HEAD/tree/](https://sourceforge.net/p/meteorite/code/HEAD/tree/)

"New" code (last activity 3 years ago): [https://github.com/abarnert/meteorite](https://github.com/abarnert/meteorite)

I would love to see this project continued, and even added into other FOSS projects like VLC.

<comment><USER6> > The "add project" link on the FAQ page 404s: > [https://www.codeshelter.co/faq/](https://www.codeshelter.co/faq/)

Fixed, thanks for the heads up (there was an inopportune line break).

> How would this project approach FOSS projects that were abandoned, then > sort-of-picked-up by another maintainer, but with no actual continued > development?

The idea is that Code Shelter increases the bus factor, ie if the developer (or developers) of a project all drop off, there's a way for people to continue the project through Code Shelter.

What will usually happen is that a CS member will be interested in a project and notice that it's unmaintained. If the project is already in CS, they can just start maintaining it, or ask the maintainer to add it to CS. Since maintainers are volunteers, there's no guarantee that someone will take the project up, but the aim is to have a large enough pool of both maintainers and projects that matching is frequent.

<comment><USER12> Just to mention a tiny bit of friction that I find, that you're probably already aware of...

I would totally apply to do this but my OSS contributions are pretty sparse and go back a couple of jobs. I'm sure that I have the requisite experience but my GitHub profile for the last year and change is pretty empty. The application process totally discourages me from applying.

<comment><USER6> Yes, that's one thing that's currently a pain. How do you judge if someone is a good fit to take over (or, even harder, co-maintain) someone else's project just by looking at their Github profile?

Currently it's based a lot of "is this person already a maintainer of widely- used OSS libraries", as this is both a good signal and (hopefully) effectively foils malicious people, since, if you wanted to deploy some malicious code, you'd probably do it on the libraries you already have.

If you have any better ideas for how to "interview" maintainers, please let me know!

<comment><USER12> My expectation is that someone who is willing to attach their real name to something isn't willing to jeopardize their reputation and career over doing something malicious to a project.

Identity verification, similar to what Keybase supports, where people add a verification code to their social platforms might work here. Enough to verify to a certain degree whether someone is who they say they are. Maybe add a call to their employer to verify that they hold the role that they say they do also.

To me that would be enough skin in the game.

<comment><USER6> Hopefully that would solve that issue, but there's also the matter of someone being senior enough to be able to understand the direction of a project, set it, etc. Basically, you need to be able to trust every single one of the maintainers to have commit access on your project, with everything that entails.

For completely abandoned projects, it may not matter as much, but for projects that just need more eyes/hands, it's a larger consideration.

<comment><USER12> > For completely abandoned projects, it may not matter as much, but for > projects that just need more eyes/hands, it's a larger consideration.

Maybe add an agreement that if the community calls for a changing of the guard at some point that pending a review the maintainer will step down if the review process agrees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is kinda off topic, but how on earth did the team who took 300,000$ for light table end up foisting it off on _volunteers_?

<comment><USER14> Well, unless you think $300k sets you up for life and unless they could get a revenue stream going, it's going to run out and be back in the hands of volunteers no matter what.

This line of questioning (or accusation) is a good example of the phenomenon where people often expect a disproportional amount of your future time because they once gave you a one-time quantity of money, or possibly by pointing to money that _other_ people gave you.

Look at it another way: $300k got us Light Table which was a pretty cool editor. I used it to help people get started with Clojure and I didn't pay them a dime. It didn't get us eternal paid support and maintenance, though. How could it? It also unfortunately never developed the ecosystem around it like Atom and VS Code were able to, so now it's here trying to find maintainers.

Also, pretty much all editors are dependent on volunteers to create plugins and ecosystem, even ones you directly pay money for like Sublime.

<comment> em-bee _so now it 's here trying to find maintainers_

and it found one

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I admire your bravey in volunteering and investing your precious and finite time in researching million lines of code that was forgotten by the rest of the world that some of its mettle, perhaps was still enpowering the program we use day by day but underappreciated.

Also, I think it's definitely a touching story to review how us evolve and obsolete code and algorithms, it's like a genetic and natural selection and we can learn from it to not let history happen again.

<comment><USER6> Thank you, but there's also a large number of projects which many people use but that aren't that actively maintained. It's those projects that Code Shelter mostly aims to help with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't particularly qualify for maintainer as I have not been very active in open source, but I found a bit I could contribute to puppet-samba.

I have more free time lately and a difficulty I have found is easily locating places I could contribute without a huge time commitment.

For example I found some pretty minor changes needed to make testing work on puppet samba, it was a 15 minute task but helpful in any case.

<comment><USER17> For puppet projects, they should go to [https://github.com/voxpupuli](https://github.com/voxpupuli) for community support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is kinda weird. I wouldn't consider tellform abandoned, but I guess it is.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't have to be, maybe they just need some help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is really cool, glad to see someone tackling this problem.

I have added several of my abandoned projects, here is a quick summary of them if there is any interest:

[https://github.com/satoshinm/WebSandboxMC](https://github.com/satoshinm/WebSandboxMC): Bukkit plugin providing a web-based interface with an interactive WebGL 3D preview or glimpse of your server - this bundles the NetCraft frontend in a Minecraft server plugin. There are requests from Spigot users [https://github.com/satoshinm/WebSandboxMC/issues/100](https://github.com/satoshinm/WebSandboxMC/issues/100) to make it active again, which is what inspired me to add it to Code Shelter.

[https://github.com/satoshinm/NetCraft](https://github.com/satoshinm/NetCraft): Web-based fork of [https://github.com/fogleman/Craft](https://github.com/fogleman/Craft) . Craft has been featured on Hacker News before, but it is pretty much abandoned, so I forked it into NetCraft, but then in turn ran out of time/interest to update it. The summary still applies: "Voxel game for modern web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux). Just a few thousand lines of C using modern OpenGL (shaders)." Heavily inspired by Minecraft, but much smaller and simpler.

[https://github.com/satoshinm/pill_serial](https://github.com/satoshinm/pill_serial): Triple USB-to-serial adapter firmware for flashing onto an STM32F103C8T6 "blue pill" minimum development board . With this firmware you can make your own USB-to-serial adapter, times three, by flashing a <$2 blue pill board.

[https://github.com/satoshinm/pill_duck](https://github.com/satoshinm/pill_duck): Scriptable USB HID device for STM32F103 blue pill (inspired by USB Rubber Ducky) . Another project for the "blue pill", this one lets you make an automated USB keyboard/mouse device, an imitation of the popular Rubber Ducky hacker tool, but a lot cheaper.

[https://github.com/satoshinm/pill_6502](https://github.com/satoshinm/pill_6502): emulated 8-bit 6502 CPU and 6850 ACIA for STM32F103 blue pill . Want to build a retrocomputer but an authentic 65C02 chip is too much? Play around with a classic processor without buying old hardware? Emulate it with the cheap blue pill, with enough support at least to run the Microsoft OSI BASIC ROM.

I have started a few more abandoned projects on [https://github.com/satoshinm?tab=repositories&type=source](https://github.com/satoshinm?tab=repositories&type=source) but these seem to have generated the most interest (especially the NetCraft/WebSandboxMC combination, but the pill_ projects can be quite handy), no longer can maintain them myself but would be great to see continued maintenance provided a community finds them valuable.

<comment><USER6> These are pretty great, I'm especially interested in the Arduino Nano rubber ducky ones. Do you want to be a Code Shelter maintainer?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Isn't this what's sourceforge is for?

<comment><USER21> Or the Apache foundation.

<comment><USER22> Doesn't becoming a Apache foundation project require that you have developers? Or do they have money to pay people to work on abandon project?

<comment><USER3> If a project becomes inactive, Apache puts it into the Attic and development ceases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Curious to know why the HN title is using `FOSS` but only mention of `FOSS` is on the site's /faq page. For free software zealots, the sites tag line "... maintaining popular open source projects..." may not spur action as OSS is missing that required RMS approved F.</comment>


Vampires (Programmers) versus Werewolves (Sysadmins) - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/08/vampires-programmers-versus-werewolves-sysadmins.html

<comment><USER2> tl;dr

A lot of noise to say "programmers and system administrators have a different job and they need to learn their differences to work together".

<comment><USER3> The problem with this article implies a bureaucratic division of labor when developers are often the sysadmins. Any upcoming startup can't afford to be resistant to change--and things will break, but nobody will know more about the software than the developer. This kind of thinking reminds me of the way the enterprise software world is run, and they're not exactly renowned for quality, either.

I've found that great scaling is the result of sending sysadmins to work along side developers, and having developers work with production/testing to learn about each's side struggle. It's not R&D vs Operations, they're on the same team! If you're building a house, you might have architects and builders, and while the architect draws the blueprints, the actual construction people are just as important since they have an equally good understanding of the other side, such as applying the materials in good form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The big takeaway here is that if it's really "versus", i.e. the programmers and sysadmins are having a power struggle, you're screwed. If one side or the other "wins" you're even more screwed.

If your programmers and syadmins are working at cross-purposes, then you have a serious problem that needs to be corrected _immediately_.

</comment><comment><USER5> So considering I do both am I a Werepire ?

But seriously, on small teams, you can't avoid that you will have a few people doing both for a while. We have a dedicated a sysadmin but we work with him a lot considering he has to deploy our code and devs are terrible at helping out sysadmins. I get in these arguments all the time with other devs about making sure it's easy for the sysadmin to configure and deploy the app. When they write code that depends on random libraries, they need to ensure that will be deployable on production servers running Linux and not OSX etc..

I feel having experience with both is important for sys admins and devs to understand each other.

<comment><USER6> Chances are when you work on a very small team you probably don't have a sysadmin at all. At the startup I work at, I do both and the more I work without a sysadmin the more I appreciate the work they do!

When we do have a dedicated sysadmin, at the very least he will be very appreciated by me, because I know he will be improving all the stuff I have done out of sysadmin ignorance.

<comment><USER7> I think it is extremely important to have at least one developer who has been a sysadmin in the past. One of my closest colleagues started his career as a sysadmin. At first I was a bit distrustful because he didn't have a lot of "real experience" or "education". But as I got to know him, I realized his sysadmin "spidey sense" was a godsend. He has a knack for knowing when things that should just work will in fact fall over. He also has a lot of deep OS and platform knowledge, so frequently when we would want to throw piles of code at something, he would suggest and OS tweak or similar to get the same end result.

So yeah, sysadmins on all development teams from the get-go are now a must in my book.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I was never a sysadmin, but for 8 months in my university days, I worked as a systems programmer for the CS Department at my university. I worked on stuff that automated system deployments, backups, imaging, etc. Its actually in the process of being open sourced now at <http://www.labnet.ca/> (Its actually a pretty incredible system I recommend anyone who is interested in this type of stuff to check it out).

Because of this I worked with some awesome sysadmins and unix/linux gurus so even though they were a bit rusty, I had enough core systems admin skills to have a good intuition about how to solve most of the problems I have normally. When I run into roadblocks I know some awesome sysadmins that I can hit up to get me over the hump.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> First, I highly recommend "Deployment is just a part of dev/ops cooperation" [http://www.kitchensoap.com/2009/12/12/devops-cooperation- doe...](http://www.kitchensoap.com/2009/12/12/devops-cooperation-doesnt-just- happen-with-deployment/)

Second, this isn't a question unique to the dev/ops relationship. What about the dev v. project manager? If you have a good team of developers, why have a PM? Having worked as a dev, a system engineer, and newly in the PM department, everything I've done since being a 'code monkey' is motivated by a desire to make the dev's jobs easier. Maybe that's because of my roots, but I think it makes the most sense.

Where I work, we have a useful distinction between Sysadmins and System Engineers. Broadly speaking, admins are the i-dotters and t-crossers and do things with well-defined processes while engineers are responsible for everything else. As an engineer, I wanted to make as much information about the production environment available to the developers as possible. I also worked to make sure the dev environment would mirror production as closely as possible given that we only had one dev sandbox (requests for a staging environment were declined). These two things, combined with being a good teacher, meant I rarely had requests for CLI access to any of our environments.

<comment><USER9> _What about the dev v. project manager?_

Bah! Devs vs. DB admins, that's where the blood stains the rivers red, the crows feast like kings, and legends are born!

<comment><USER10> And here I thought it was sysadmin v DB Admin.

I guess no one likes the poor DBA...

<comment><USER11> Right, nobody likes DBAs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's simple. Give developers access to production servers but not root privilege. Deployment and configuration change should go through change request ticket, whose main purpose is communication to the group and maintaining a history of changes to the production site. Change tickets can be as simple as sending an email to a group list or an elaborate system of reviews and approvals using ticket tracking app.

Implementation of the change ticket can be done by developer, qa, sysadmins, DBA, or ops, depending on the needs and required privileges. Routine stuffs should be automated.

It usually takes a few times of site down and screwup before some form of process to be put in place.

</comment><comment><USER13> Developers should never have system level access. They should never be able to meddle with the core infrastructure their code runs on.

This has nothing, however, to do with who should be able to publish new code to the website (we're talking web apps here, right?) - that is something that should be handled by documented process, and automated tools to ensure accountability. Hypothetically, as the senior sysadmin, I'd _like_ to sign off on every change that's going public, because I'll have to deal with the fallout if something is wacky. Realistically, I'd also like our senior developer, or failing that, even a more junior developer to be able to push code to production in an emergency if the right people are there to approve it (perhaps not hte proper technical staff, but they can get the okay from the owner to go-ahead). Accountability, automation, and process are key here. The deployment system should be accessible to some people who could potentially get fired for using it wrong, and it should be very clear to them what the right thing to do is. The deployment system could even warn them of this and include official signoff, etc.

</comment><comment><USER14> I often think that most of the benefit you get for making changes to production systems is from getting someone else involved when you make that change - whether it's an incredibly formal process (which can be justified for some systems) or "want to sanity check me making this change" it all comes down to getting other people involved so they will say things like "You do have a backout plan in case this screws things up, don't you?".

<comment><USER8> If the only thing your sysadmin is doing is 'looking over the shoulder' at code they may not (probably don't?) even understand, you need better sysadmins. You should be sanity checking with peers, whether that be other devs for a code change or other sysadmins for an environment change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find it interesting that he seems to disagree with his co-founder on what seems like a key issue moving forward.</comment>


Tesla Cybertruck reservations hit 146,000 - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/23/tesla-cybertruck-reservations-hit-146000/ <comment><USER2> Some relevant context:

\- Model 3 deposit was $1000, ~300k pre-orders in a few days

\- Model Y deposit was $2500, but pre-order numbers are still unreleased

\- Cybertruck pre-order deposit is $100

\- Many people are placing 3-5 orders per household [1] due to buggy pre-order forms

\- Tesla explicitly states (now, not previously) that "pre-orders" are not "orders" [2]

\- Many aspects of the vehicle and presentation are otherwise nonsensical [3]

[1] [https://twitter.com/btsparks/status/1198453324741111810](https://twitter.com/btsparks/status/1198453324741111810)

[2] [https://twitter.com/lorakolodny/status/1198410917794312192](https://twitter.com/lorakolodny/status/1198410917794312192)

[3] [https://twitter.com/tedstein/status/1197904256466112514](https://twitter.com/tedstein/status/1197904256466112514)

</comment><comment><USER3> As a "coastal techie" (I completely stole this from another thread, but so apt...), I put down 100$ to be part of the ride. Somewhat because I skipped the model S and 3 reservations but also, damn, even to be in the first 10k delivery of this truck will be a wild ride - my young kids would never forget the experience if Tesla pulls this off and Telsa manages such a brutal design but casually delivered as one of the production vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's shocking how many people are upset about Tesla and this new design.

How can so many people prefer the status quo in car designs to something new and different?

You really hate Tesla and prefer the current designs from GM?

<comment><USER5> It makes sense they're upset. People spend countless hours researching the difference between a ram 1500 and a tacoma sr5 and they slightly prefer the "look" and "stance" of one over the other. One is more "hunkered down," the other is more "stoic."

Then comes this angular abomination, a ballooned version of the robotaxis in Total Recall, and fits absolutely nowhere in this truck buyer's mindset.

You can take the perspective of blaming the truck buyer for being dumb, or lame, or not visionary enough, but that's not a reasonable or productive perspective.

As far as I can tell, this truck may appeal to people who are in the market for a Hummer-type extreme vehicle, hardcore tech futurists, Tesla fanboys, and people who don't give a shit and are willing to try whatever. None of these categories IMO represent today's truck buyer.

Disclaimer: I'm a tech futurist who doesn't give a shit, and I want one.

Edit: misspelling.

<comment><USER6> I was kinda horrified when I first saw it. Now I'm thinking I'd drive one!

<comment><USER4> It looks fucking awesome. Like a futuristic yacht. People that think this is ugly have no taste.

I'm not gonna buy one but can't wait to see it on the road.

<comment><USER7> The radical function over form design is an artistic statement. The art world continually has movements that critique and respond to restrictive conventions imposed by previous movements. Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" comes to mind.

I think this design is supposed to challenge our concept of what we think is ugly and beautiful. It's intentionally shocking, and it's brilliant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Making the pre-order deposit $100 was a great play by Tesla.

"$100" in the context of "shiny new car" is so minuscule; tons of people are going to put that $100 even if the have only the faintest whim of wanting that car. And Tesla will be able to say, "check out our millions of reservations," as ammunition against the naysayers.

<comment><USER9> Sure but others care much more about reserving their place in line than they do about the amount.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just had a discussion with a friend who is an engineer. He thought this truck design was done by a 3rd grader and is evidence of Elon going crazy (literally).

I love the design. It's how I wanted my own vehicle to be made. The most simple possible with the most strength and easiest to repair. I know it's ugly, but I...don't...care.

Please, someone tell me why stainless steel (as Elon designed this) is superior to aluminium (this is my friends primary argument, I think he hates steel) he said it was lighter and cheaper and didn't corrode as easily. (I know, but what can I say?)

<comment><USER11> "Strength" is the last thing you want in a car. Cars crumple in an accident because that significantly cuts down on injuries to both the passengers and whatever is hit; if your car won't crumple all that force transfers in to flinging you straight through the windshield.

<comment><USER12> Do you think the designers might have considered this prior to releasing the car?

I get it, people might make mistakes in the design etc, but it's not as if this is the first time Tesla has produced and released a vehicle into production, do you think they've considered how this car will cope with an accident ? Maybe you feel they think stainless is "cool" so went for it?

I'm totally aware you might be right, but I doubt they haven't thought of this.

<comment><USER2> Many analysts (and Elon himself) put Tesla at between 10-20 months from bankruptcy at any given moment. [0]

In all likelihood it didn't matter what the truck looked like at the reveal. All that mattered was that it justified another capital raise.

[0] [https://bgr.com/2019/05/20/elon-musk-tesla-cut-costs- running...](https://bgr.com/2019/05/20/elon-musk-tesla-cut-costs-running-out- of-money/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I haven't seen much discussion around the "exoskeleton", Musk compared it to the techniques that enabled development of monoplanes, by having the body absorb stress rather than just being baggage on top of the skeleton.

Is this a big deal or not?

</comment><comment><USER14> But how many of these will wimp out later and not pull the trigger?

<comment><USER15> That I think was the reason the deposit price was dropped to $100. That's nearly nothing at the price these will come in at so Tesla gets a nice big number of 'pre-orders' to wave around and get second and third waves of press coverage while basically selling people tickets from the take a number roll at the deli.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Twenty thousand flamethrowers at $500 a pop meant about $10 million in revenue in about 100 hours. Literally afterwards he could sale amost everything..

</comment><comment><USER17> Call me crazy but I wonder if the windows breaking during the demo was actually on purpose, a Trumpian intentionality. There were a lot of headlines about the truck, such as: TESLA TRUCK'S 'UNBREAKABLE' WINDOWS SHATTER DURING DEMO, etc. And people think, Tesla has an unbreakable truck? Lemme check that out...

Trump does this consistently: he'll misspell a tweet or quote a fact slightly wrong and the media jumps on him, replaying his error over and over, meanwhile the substance of his message gets out.

<comment><USER18> The window problem reminded me of this [https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a19049/airplane- wind...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a19049/airplane-windows- round-so-planes-dont-rip-apart/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What lead time are they giving Preorders 12months? Preorders makes this sound like a kickstarter campaign

<comment><USER15> It's not that it's basically just reserving a spot in line for when they start shipping.

<comment><USER20> Yea they have done this for every release. If you put some money down you get delivery early. If you bail you get refunded. I got my model x deposit refunded without any hesitation. I bought my model 3 and was very happy with it.</comment></comment></comment>


The VPN is dying, long live zero trust - <AUTHOR> https://www.networkworld.com/article/3487720/the-vpn-is-dying-long-live-zero-trust.html <comment><USER2> In 2013, Google moved off VPN. Here are some of their details: [https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp/](https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hm perimeter-based is opposite of zero trust not vpn. You can use a vpn in both

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, I've never even heard of zero trust until now. Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Using the Canon Hack Dev. Kit -- Enables Cameras to Perform Neat Tricks - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/using-the-canon-hack-development-kit

<comment><USER2> CHDK is great, but Canon's point&shoot cameras are so hackable because Canon made it so (you just have to put something on SD, no need for permanent firmware change), presumably for their own internal reasons (easier debugging?).

This is a question that bothers me a great deal - with all the flourishing of Open Source, are our systems on average getting more Open?

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the disadvantage of openness for Canon? It's not like the firmware was limiting features as a way of artificially segmenting the market, so they're not losing revenue because of circumvented price discrimination. Presuming that there are controls outside the firmware's control which prevent hardware damage (and therefore warranty claims), what's the issue with limiting customer service and warranty claims to only issues experienced with the standard firmware?

Why not go a step further and ship the camera with a grandma-friendly firmware but host an open source community which provides various Canon-curated firmware versions? What could be done to make Canon's cameras suitable for even more cool hacks? How could this not sell cameras? Those most trusted by non-techies to recommend products surely would hold more favorable opinions of those cameras as a result.

</comment><comment><USER4> CHDK is amazing, not least because it runs on such a wide range of cameras. I'm doing some book scanning at the moment using a home-made scanning support, Tesseract OCR software, and an ancient A570 camera running CHDK so I can get a remote shutter. Setting the whole thing up was far less painful than expected.

</comment><comment><USER5> CHDK is an awesome hack.

Last time I've heard of it, no DSLRs was supported, only PowerShots. It looks like they managed to get custom firmwares working for the 400D, 550D and the 5D mkII — still all very alpha stage, but that's very good news. :)

<comment><USER6> Looking at the gallery in the OP, most of the features enabled by CHDK are standard in DSLRs anyway - RAW shooting, longer shutter speeds, full manual control, etc. As a DSLR shooter, I was looking through that gallery thinking, "what does CHDK allow that I can't already do with my camera?" until I realised they were doing it with P&S cameras.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk hopes to connect a device to a human brain within the next year - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-joe-rogan-podcast-language-neuralink-grimes-baby-a9506451.html <comment><USER2> Oh Mr Musk Don't you remember love? Once, it made the world go 'round</comment>


Taxi driver protests in Europe actually increased Uber app downloads - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2014/chart-taxi-driver-protests-europe-actually-helped-spur-uber-app-downloads/

<comment><USER2> There is no such thing as "bad publicity" :)</comment>


62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They're Afraid to Share - <AUTHOR> https://www.cato.org/publications/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share#introduction <comment><USER2> Most interesting to me is how common this is across demographic groups.

>Self‐ censorship is widespread across demographic groups as well. Nearly two‐ thirds of Latino Americans (65%) and White Americans (64%) and nearly half of African Americans (49%) have political views they are afraid to share. Majorities of men (65%) and women (59%), people with incomes over $100,000 (60%) and people with incomes less than $20,000 (58%), people under 35 (55%) and over 65 (66%), religious (71%) and non‐ religious (56%) all agree that the political climate prevents them from expressing their true beliefs.

<comment><USER3> Well as a POC, there's plenty of things I don't feel comfortable sharing. A lot is situational. It's _really_ hard sharing anything that might make people realize they might not be as "progressive" as they think they are – regardless of where they are on the political spectrum.

Liberals are frequently unaware of their blind spots (but if you take care, they can be corrected). And then there's a swath of conservatives that don't think they're racist. If you should suggest it, it's too easy for them to dig themselves deeper into a hole.

All too frequently, I'll wish I stuck to non-political / comfortable topics – and remembered that political-correctness is there to protect _me_ as an individual, so I can live in my bubble and get on with the day, even though PC-culture might be bad policy for society.

<comment><USER4> > And then there's a swath of conservatives that don't think they're racist.

You are aware that the way you phrase it makes it sound like we all are?

I've recognized a few times that I say things in a way that makes people mad even though my original point was fine.

<comment><USER5> > makes it sound like we all are

Ding ding ding! Yes. We all are. Conservatives and liberals.

Everyone is programmed with racist attitudes from the culture-at-large. Many or most never question these unconscious attitudes.

In my experience, folks who have been actively working on racism and social justice for years if not decades are the first to admit that they too carry racist, largely unconscious, beliefs and attitudes.

A lot of people don't seem to grok unconscious bias.

<comment><USER6> "We all are. Conservatives and liberals."

Genuine question, does this include black people?

<comment><USER7> Yes, because racism is:

Racism, also called racialism, the belief that humans may be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called "races"; that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral features; and that some races are innately superior to others.

[https://www.britannica.com/topic/racism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/racism)

<comment><USER8> Pretty fancy description. I was taught that racism was treating someone wrong because they didn't look like myself.

<comment><USER9> There's a couple of definitions. Formal academia and colloquial definitions have drifted apart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing that has slowly eroded American ideals (IMO) is the politicization of literally everything. Not only can you not have or share a "bad" thought on politics itself...but something completely unrelated to politics (that is now politicized) is also something you could be burned at the stake for. Then there are just people that share their politics openly and often to spite others.

We've essentially split into two Americas, one red and one blue. The people in the middle (which I generally identify with) are left in the cold...and not only are left in the cold but are attacked by both sides for not abiding by the doctrine. Honestly, the Left is the worst at this. They will actively try to ruin your life over wrongthink. I am much more likely to share a controversial opinion with someone on the Right than on the Left. But it's both sides, a local race here has a Republican attacking another Republican...for endorsing Romney in 2012. It's like I'm living in a bizarro world.

Horseshoe theory is real.

<comment><USER11> Everything is political; being apolitical just means you support the status quo.

<comment><USER12> Or being apolitical just means you don't have time or inclination to obsess about the political origins and implications of every atomic micro-decision in your day because doing so is a tremendously tedious and unproductive burden that frequently yields no meaningful insight or behavior change. Not every one needs to be an activist about every thing.

If a person feels strongly about some special political cause, fantastic, they ought to make their case convincingly. But the idea of castigating others for not putting in the time or enthusiasm to share their superior moral clarity is exhausting.

<comment><USER13> I generally agree. It's impossible to have a knowledgable position on every single issue, and a full-time job to have a position on whatever is popular in a given week. The end result is that on most issues, most of us default to the status quo, because, well, that's how the status quo works. It's literally the default until enough people care to change it.

In other words, "you don't have time or inclination to obsess about the political origins and implications of every atomic micro-decision in your day because doing so is a tremendously tedious and unproductive burden that frequently yields no meaningful insight or behavior change" is a lot of words to say that you support the status quo.

I think everybody does, on issues that aren't important to them.

<comment><USER12> Semantics, but I view "support" as an active measure.

There are loads of issues folks are just not engaged with enough to have a qualified opinion (their perspective not mine), which is fine. I view that as living in the status quo but not necessarily evidence of endorsing the status quo.

For instance, do we really expect your average citizen (American in this case) to have a thought out POV on qualified immunity? Policing tactics? Effective tactics to address diversity in the workplace? Herd immunity? Actuarial risk assessment of economic activity during the pandemic? If not are they supporting the status quo?

I think most people just shrug and I don't blame them. Processing information in the era of the death of expertise has made even having an opinion right now an absolute hellscape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was raised in a conservative family. My views have shifted greatly leftward over the last 20 years. I avoid sharing my views at work not because I am afraid for myself, but because I don't want to make conservative colleagues of mine feel unwelcome. I prioritize their comfort in our shared work environment over the enjoyment I would derive from a vigorous political argument. We are there together to work on difficult technical and business problems -- not to solve (or even define) what needs changing in American political life. If I want to talk politics, I'll jump into the comments section of a blog.

<comment><USER15> I go back and forth on this. I think you can always find people in your life with whom you could have these conversations with. Especially at work I think you'd have a high chance of finding someone with whom you'd actually want to discuss these things because you respect them a lot given their work ethics and personality. They'd have different ideas and thoughts than you but wouldn't try to "convert" you in any way.

I don't know... I think discourse with real people in real life is still worth something.

The only thing I simply won't discuss with anyone, either online or not, is theology. It will never lead to anything good. I think everyone has to find their own way there.

<comment><USER16> > The only thing I simply won't discuss with anyone, either online or not, is > theology. It will never lead to anything good. I think everyone has to find > their own way there.

Ultimately, yes, each person must arrive at their own personal set of beliefs and conclusions, if that's what you mean. But surely silent introspection without ever engaging with anyone else can only take one so far? Everyone is exposed to the ideas of others, and discussions often lead to epiphanies or meaningful progress in someone's own personal journey (conversations with counselors and therapists come to mind). Maybe experience will also teach me that theology/spirituality/some other prickly topic is just never worth discussing with anyone, but I also believe that it's possible to have productive discussions about a topic that is this close to what makes us human.

...Sorry, I just realized this post counts as discussing theology with you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there a baseline for how high this was in the past other than the mentioned 58% a few years ago in the article?

I can't imagine that there wasn't substantial amounts of this during say, the heights of McCarthyism or when gay-rights weren't as accepted. Not to mention another interesting meta question, are people nowadays more prone to share that they feel like they cannot express their opinion?

My grandparents for example have it so ingrained to not question religious belief that they probably wouldn't even perceive it that way. Or just women in general. The stereotypical "housewife" only a few decades ago wasn't participating in public discourse at all and certainly not expected to. With the exception of a few high profile intellectuals women were mostly excluded from political life. I have a hard time even comparing this to today.

<comment><USER18> I'm sure it existed back then to some extent (and to a large extent in specific periods, such as McCarthyism), but all that predates social media, which makes it so much faster and easier to spread this information to everyone in your life.

In those days, you'd have to have someone want to bring it forth to the police or government for anyone to bother, and most people won't know about it until it hits the newspaper, if it does. But now it's the court of public opinion with instant judgement and you can be fired from your job, unfriended or blocked by half your friends, and everyone publicly disavowing any association with you before you even find out about it or have a chance to defend yourself. Which, from what I've seen, rarely makes a difference. The damage is already done and doesn't usually ever get undone.

Of course a bunch of people are going to keep their mouths shut on political views in this environment. They want to keep their career and friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think a big part of this is that the definition of "say" has changed dramatically in the past decade.

Today, people interpret that to mean, in part at least, "broadcast on the Internet where I have no control over the audience and where it will be recorded digitally and available indefinitely".

10-20 years ago "saying" just meant verbalizing something around a handful of people you could see. You'd know who you were talking to, and if you said something dumb, human memory and time would soften its edges eventually.

Ask people in the 1990s if they would self-censor themselves when appearing on TV and they'd probably say yes at the same rate that people say they self- censor when "talking" today, in large part because computers are such a large medium of communication now.

</comment><comment><USER20> This reminds me of a quote:

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor" \- Desmond Tutu

And being silent is not even an option, because now "silence is violence".

<comment><USER21> > "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of > the oppressor" \- Desmond Tutu

I don't really like this quote.

It starts off with a false premise, because neutrality is required in order to _have_ justice. A neutral assessment of oppression is that it's wrong.

What Desmond Tutu is really getting at is that so-called "neutrality" which defends the status quo when the status quo is oppression is wrong. But that's not what actual neutrality would do.

And then the quote gets put forth to quash demands for actual neutrality as illegitimate, even when the people in need of it are the victims rather than the oppressors.

<comment><USER22> > It starts off with a false premise, because neutrality is required in order > to have justice.

I mean that's just not true? There are quite a few subjects that are currently polarized where each side considers theirs to be just and enforcing it justice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Makes sense to me. No one wants to get burned at the social media stake. It feels no matter where you land on the political arena you're liable to get reamed by those who think your views are too strong or not strong enough.

<comment><USER24> And the more moderate your views the more likely it is that the flack will come from both sides.

<comment><USER25> "Moderate" views are just the status quo, so of course that's the case. In an oversimplified 1-dimensional view of politics ("both sides") where you have a left, center, and right, you will always be criticized by the other two.

<comment><USER26> There is absolutely room in the middle for compromise. We are not the extremes put forth by the news agencies, but shades of grey.

Perhaps more bluntly, are you yourself a Nazi, a Communist, or happy with where the US is politically? If you're none of the above (as you likely aren't), then you must be able to see that moderate views can still be left or right-leaning.

Maybe the kindest reading of your comment is that the average person that's overly critical on Facebook only sees in black and white, left vs right. And if so, we completely agree :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's _lots_ of shit i do not talk about at work.

This is nothing to do with the political climate of the US in 2020, it's very much to do with the fact that formative experiences early in my career very strongly influenced the prior that work and personal lives are streams that shall not be crossed, and coworkers are not to be trusted.

<comment><USER28> Does it not concern you that a significant portion of those surveyed think it's okay to fire someone for their (financial) support of a political candidate? You don't have to talk about it for people to find out — it's part public record if you are contributing more than $200.

Seems insane to me.

<comment><USER29> People in this thread claim to be concerned about others not feeling comfortable expressing their political views. And yet, a sibling to my comment which was simply expressing a political view is flagged/dead. [https://i.imgur.com/9UtP4mU.png](https://i.imgur.com/9UtP4mU.png). Will people speak out for this view, even if they disagree with it?

<comment><USER30> The president is not an omnipotent king.

<comment><USER29> What does this have to do with my comment? I'm not saying the president flagged the thread, I'm saying HN users did. I don't think the president browses HN.

<comment><USER30> The comment was about firing a CEO who donated to Trump. I'm pointing out that the US is a democracy which doesn't have a king. Being president doesn't mean one can do & act as they want..unlike donating to a would be king who would not be limited/balanced by the other branches of government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If the majority hide their political views then there is no way to engage with them and ever present your side on issues.

Which migh sound bad but is actually a natural response to being forcefully fed extreme ends of political stances.

So the debate over media and internet missinformation might be for nothing. People adapt arround obstacles. In the end there could only be bots responding to bots and campaign members patting eachother on the back for the number of likes the bots generated.

<comment><USER32> > If the majority hide their political views then there is no way to engage > with them and ever present your side on issues.

Was this ever true? Do the majority of companies encourage talk about religion or the majority of churches encourage talk about politics?

The people react to stimuli like {media, campaigns, bots} just like they do any other marketing: there is a game theory response to stimuli. If they get overwhelmed on one platform, they will change habits (eg. move to a different platform, discuss only in person where there are no bots, discuss these topics less). I suspect campaigns have been around long enough that more people (with the help of information widely distributed on the internet) have gained a different tolerance to the same old campaign tricks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Looking at the methodology it looks like a reasonably conducted survey, but it has a basic methodological flaw: it cannot distinguish between any particular models, such as "a privileged group oppressing contrary beliefs" versus "the peace treaty of tolerance is functioning and bigots must suppress their beliefs to keep its protections." Further, the causes of self censorship need not be identical. Both of the two models I just posited can be in play at the same time in various subpopulations and around various issues. And there are lots of group/individual relations you can posit for this. Social science is hard.

So this data set might be an interesting preliminary trial, but releasing it as a finished study is either sloppy or malicious on the part of the Cato Institute.

Edit: Reading the other comments on here, I'm inclined towards malicious as it seems spun to create just the kind of rhetoric that we're seeing here.

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting...I wonder if there was an implied context for the survey. I think there is a difference between saying something in a discussion between friends over a cup of coffee/glass of beer and putting something in an email or social media of any kind (i.e. anything that leaves a permanent record without the full context of the discussion and crucially missing any non-verbal cues).

</comment><comment><USER35> Is it wrong to say some beliefs should be "shamed away"?

The thing is, aside from traditional liberal and conservative views, it has been documented how the Internet gives play to a variety of essentially delusional belief systems; flat-earth, anti-vax, 5G fears, "crisis actor" conspiracies, etc. Basically, things that in earlier times someone might imagine one day but give up through realizing that their friends and neighbors might (correctly) think they were crazy if they continued to entertain such idea.

And this isn't to say such ideas are absolutely distinct from political ideas - just about any type of delusion is now given a particular kind of political spin since the committedly delusional are an easily directed group.

The situation is - once people got their ideas from the neighbors and maybe their schools and churches. Gradually, they came to also get their ideas from mass media. This was already somewhat artificial but at least it kept a single social authority. Now, people get their ideas from mass media and "the Internet"("dispersed", "narrow-cast" media), with mass media struggling to keep up some unity of beliefs (though mass media itself easily cast as a manipulator of its own sort).

<comment><USER36> I don't think it's _necessarily_ wrong. All society is is norms and taboo. If someone is violating the social norms and/or breaking taboo the natural response is social shaming. This can have negative consequences but it's hard to argue that it is wrong to do this all of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Just the other day a tribunal upheld the dismissal of Lecturer who was fired for views expressed in a conversation with his superior.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education- news/...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education- news/southampton-university-lecturer-sacked-woke-culture-remarks-jewish- people-a9632451.html)

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Worth noting that that's not American. I don't know if or how the cultural or legal issues differ, but it's not obviously apples-to-apples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The political environment in the USA is interesting. Common thought is that the media and general sentiment on social media are representative of the countries overall opinion.

But this is not really true, people arent as swayed as the internet likes to believe. It's a giant fabricated hive mind, where a ton of people feel adversarial towards the commonly held opinions, which are in fact, not commonly held.

</comment><comment><USER39> Cancel culture has quenched political discussion. It's impossible to share views, even among coworkers you might consider friends, without serious risk to one's employment.

The effect is likely more polarization since we cannot moderate each other's opinions with stories of our own experiences.

<comment><USER40> > Cancel culture has quenched political discussion.

To the extent "cancel culture" describes something new, it has not.

> It's impossible to share views, even among coworkers you might consider > friends, without serious risk to one's employment.

It always has been, for certain views.

 _Which_ views are more safe and which are more dangerous has changed over time. People who think that it has suddenly become dangerous is people who have views that have recently become less privileged in this context.

<comment><USER41> I can tell you, mentioning I'm in a polyamorous relationship with my coworkers feels _less safe_ today then it did 5 years ago. People before didn't really understand (they still don't) but I usually encountered an attitude of live- and-let-live tolerance. Today I get 3 reactions: conservatives who are afraid to say anything so they avoid me, progressives who treat me like some kind of novelty, and the rest who don't care. I don't consider this progress.

<comment><USER40> I suspect that _specific_ issue is less to do with "cancel culture" and more to do with and more to do with polygamy and polyandry in recent years becoming,among other things, reality TV fodder and thus issues that are more in the public consciousness and about which people are more likely to have come to a somewhat firm opinion on.

<comment><USER41> That doesn't match my experience. People are afraid to speak openly to me and that does me a disservice.

<comment><USER42> > People are afraid to speak openly to me and that does me a disservice.

I'm ideologically aligned with you, at least on this, and I would be afraid to speak openly. I think you are correct about this diagnosis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This doesn't surprise me. I am also afraid to express myself for fear of being rejected by most of my friends or excluded from my professional network.

It is sad that I can only be honest and say things such as "let's wait for the facts" under a nickname on some dark corner of the web.

<comment><USER44> Maybe take some self-examination. Your friends should be your most sympathetic audience, if you're afraid of expressing your opinions even to them, maybe you need to have an honest converstaion either with yoursself or with them.

<comment><USER43> My family is my most sympathetic audience. Also, my closest friends understand me well and accept who I am.

However, I have tons of friends apart from the groups mentioned above; people that I appreciate, whom I have met through different hobbies or passions. None of these bonds have a connection to politics, but it is common for some of them to bring up political topics during these months. I reserve my opinions on these topics because I understand that there are a lot of emotions involved. Moreover, we all have biases. We are not at war, we just digress on the solutions the country needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I think there needs to be a distinction between political ideas and political ideologies. Especially in the United States, where there's an obsession between the GOP and the DCCC, even though neither political party represents a majority.

When you ask respondents on political ideas, like voting rights, immigration, state welfare, infrastructure, etc, a much broader and more moderate viewpoint emerges.

Also there seems to be a more growing disconnect between people in power and the masses. I think as data science becomes a more developed craft, more people will become aware about the motivations of our political actors. Sensationalism and political correctness are usually signs of a deeper problem---

</comment><comment><USER46> Perhaps if the choices were not stark, perhaps if you werene't staring down the barrel of calamity, perhaps if America didn't have the capability to inflict immense suffering around the world or make a huge positive contribution, perhaps if political changes didn't directly affect your livelihood, perhaps if which rights you had and how much violence could be directed at you didn't depend on the politicians in power - perhaps - then we wouldn't need to worry about politics, and could talk about it as if it were the weather.

<comment><USER47> Politics has always been high-stakes, but politicizing everything would effectively mean destroying society.

"I am a pro-choice atheist. When I lived in Ireland, one of my friends was a pro-life Christian. I thought she was responsible for the unnecessary suffering of millions of women. She thought I was responsible for killing millions of babies. And yet she invited me over to her house for dinner without poisoning the food. And I ate it, and thanked her, and sent her a nice card, without smashing all her china."

[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rkpDX7j7va6c8Q7cZ/in- favor-o...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rkpDX7j7va6c8Q7cZ/in-favor-of- niceness-community-and-civilization)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> The actual question asked was

>The political climate these days prevents me from saying things I believe because others might find them offensive

With the 62% includes anyone who "strongly agrees" or "somewhat agrees."

I would answer "somewhat agrees" to that question, not because I'm afraid to share my beliefs but that I don't want to discuss the topic or I'm not knowledgeable enough to have confidence discussing my beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER49> almost 500 comments and noone mentioned that the Cato institute has a fairly strong conservative bias: [https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cato- institute/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cato-institute/)

If someone says something racist, they are exercising free speech.

If someone in return calls that out for being racist, and shames them, they are ALSO exercising free speech.

So long as the government does not punish either of them, noone's Free Speech is being compromised.

But the outcome of this exchange is that the first person is going to claim repression then vote in this survey and say they are afraid to share their political views.

Frankly, the only problem I see is people's inability to introspect.

</comment><comment><USER50> The very fact this article was flagged and banished from the front page so quickly, really speaks volumes towards the study's point - does it not?

</comment><comment><USER51> What "sharing" though? Not discussing at work? I don't talk about anything non-business other than "appropriate business small-talk" with people I only know professionally. It's common courtesy.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, I'd need to see some historical baselines before I care about these percentages. If they've stayed roughly flat for 100 years versus wild 50 point swings just in the last 5 years... those bring two completely different takeaways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Is there any reason to think this self censoring applies when answering to polls ? The "shy X voter" hypothesis is often dismissed (and slightly untestable), but could this be a sign ?

<comment><USER53> The November US election is going to be very interesting in that regard. If people are truly so upset with the current state of social discourse enough to hold their nose and vote for Trump again, it might just embolden some more vocal and confident push back. Of course, that doesn't seem very likely given all that's going on in the world. But I would have never predicted his winning the first time around either.

<comment><USER54> I'm not sure people upset with the current state of social discourse have much incentive to vote for an incumbent. That seems inherently counterproductive.

<comment><USER53> I think that people upset with the dominant narrative may be the reason Trump got elected in the first place. That same socially dominant sector has been railing against him non-stop for 4 years (as well as everything else they're doing). So if some people are afraid of speaking out against that narrative, the idea of secretly punishing it with their vote might come into play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> That's really nice. World is so much better with fewer political views. I like a racist who can keep his/her views to him/her-self to be honest. To be honest, when people say there is some political views they are afraid to share, it is not about budget spending, or military operation in Syria I bet.

<comment><USER56> Looks like they might be afraid of exactly this kind of black-and-white labeling

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> > The survey found that many Americans think a person's private political > donations should impact their employment. Nearly a quarter (22%) of > Americans would support firing a business executive who personally donates > to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's campaign. Even more, 31% > support firing a business executive who donates to Donald Trump's re‐ > election campaign.

Holy shit. Am I reading this right? 53% of Americans would support firing someone based on a donation to a presidential campaign? Later in the post it says this figure rises to 71% of people under 30.

I've always wondered how far this extends in the minds of people okay with this. If they found out in a year or two that someone donated to trump's campaign, does that justify firing too? I imagine this dystopia where someone gets fired for a donation, only for their new employer to find out about the donation and fire them too, and so on, leaving them either unemployable, or dividing employment along party lines.

\</comment><comment>-

edit: Yes, it crossed my mind that we're assuming these are disjoint groups. We might be double counting the intersection of the two groups. The true total is the percent listed above minus the percent who support firing a Trump donor while also wanting to fire a Biden donor. I can't imagine the intersection being significant, so I left it out. I expect these figures are approximately accurate if the survey is accurate.

<comment><USER58> > Holy shit. Am I reading this right? 53% of Americans would support firing > someone based on a donation to a presidential campaign?

Are you against this in principle, for all possible presidential candidates regardless of how bad their views and policies and actions are (by your own definition of "bad")? Or do you just think that, right now, no major candidate is "bad enough" that you would advocate firing someone for supporting that candidate?

<comment><USER59> > Are you against this in principle, for all possible presidential candidates > regardless of how bad their views and policies are

Not the GP, but of course yes. If someone is good enough for your political and legal system to advance his candidature at the elections and be voted by citizens, then who has the right to damage me for my legitimate political choice?

<comment><USER60> There are a lot of very fringe political parties; getting on the ballot in at least a few states isn't that big a hurdle. Without necessarily agreeing or disagreeing, if you're a CEO (and the context of the question was around business executives) is it necessarily unreasonable if a board decides that their CEO's support for some controversial fringe presidential candidate is a distraction? (This seems less clear with a rank and file worker but they're also more expendable if something is becoming an internal controversy.)

<comment><USER59> I understand that fringe political ideas can have a negative impact on the personal relationships in a work environment, especially for people in prominent roles.

However I guess the keyword is _can_. Tolerance should be exercised from all sides and political ideas should not be a motivation in and by themselves. However it's also true that the CEO of a company is in some cases him/herself a political figure, so I guess it depends on the case.

<comment><USER58> What is your response to the paradox of tolerance?

<comment><USER59> That the solution to it- becoming intolerant towards intolerance- is an option that needs to be regulated. The default of society should be tolerance, and very well defined limits should be put on it, if the need arises. If any actor in society is free to decide what it is fine to to be intolerant to, then you have effectively given people license to be intolerant. Which is what is happening now.

So, to be clear: intolerance should be frowned upon by default. The community can decide to be intolerant towards some things, but those things must be agreed, shared and made clear once and for all. And at that point, that agreed-upon intolerance becomes a law and can be actually enforced by the state itself.

<comment><USER58> I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but it sounds similar Popper's standard response to the paradox: that we should reserve the right to use force to suppress intolerance, but it should be a last resort. And I agree.

However, I'm not sure what kind of "regulation" you're referring to, because if you mean that, say, only the government gets to decide when to use force to suppress intolerance, there's the obvious problem of "what happens if the government is intolerant?"

<comment><USER59> > there's the obvious problem of "what happens if the government is > intolerant?"

Well, I guess that at some point you have to accept one risk or another. Any system can fail in one way or the other.

I personally don't like laws limiting freedom of speech; but I also don't like angry mobs that openly and proudly exercise intolerance of anything that falls into their own entirely subjective definition of intolerance.

I would like the state to protect me from those who try to set the limits of freedom of speech as it suits them; but I understand that if the state wants to take from the people the power to silence unacceptable speech, then it must provide some minimum guarantee by taking it upon itself. Best of all would be no laws, but education and common sense, and of course tolerance, from all parts: but again, what do you do if that fails?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> For those that don't know, you can set a setting in your profile "showdead" that will show you the views that got "flagged" as not to be on hackernews. This is an inherently political thread and you probably want to know what people beyond the majority agree with. I mean in a literal sense it's quite funny that if you express a bad political opinion on HN you'll be hidden from view. That would seem counter-productive in inherently political discussions. I know HN doesn't want to get into politics, and maybe there's a discission to be had about priviledge there, but I think the first step would atleast to be seeing what people are actually saying.

</comment><comment><USER9> More interesting is the cause: "because others might find them offensive." Americans are discovering that freedom of speech doesn't imply freedom from societal consequences over what people heard, and the Internet has amplified everyone's speech such that the radius of hearing is out of one's control if one decides to say something on the loud channels.

</comment><comment><USER61> These day did you want to know how people are going to vote, you have to ask them how their neighbor is going to vote.

<comment><USER62> That's a very interesting idea. Do you think people will be more forthcoming this way?

<comment><USER61> I think that's one of the techniques used by Robert Cahaly to predict the Trump victory. He calls it "social desirability bias"

I read something where he thinks that the bias is even worse this time around, he's calculated Trump down by 3 points right now.

<comment><USER62> > he's calculated Trump down by 3 points right now

Do you mean Trump has less support this election by 3% compared to the last election?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> This used to simply be called "It isn't polite to talk about politics". Most people are compassionate and simply don't want to upset others or ruin a pleasant visit.

</comment><comment><USER64> Things like twitter have unwittingly become Orwellian. A log of everything you've ever said and thought for the rest of the world to see.

This is why the future of the internet is going to be a closed end internet.

Something that isn't accessible by everyone.

Whether through paid entry, invitation, or geography, the future of the internet is going be more closed end than it is now.

The open ended internet of today will become a junk yard of spam and identity thieves in the future.

Early adopters and rich people were the first to get on the internet and they'll be the fist to get off of it too.

For something more private.

</comment><comment><USER65> Interesting skewed the numbers are towards Republicans. I wonder if this will reflect in the upcoming elections.

</comment><comment><USER66> I don't share some of my political beliefs for the same reason I don't talk about my atheism to my grandmother right now, so soon after my grandfather died. While I think they're right, they're both hurtful and unproductive to express. IMO one both should have some views that would bother people (because reason leads one to them), but sometimes choose not to express them because one's opinion isn't the most important thing in the world for other people to hear. I wish the OP meant that 62% of people have a conscience. Instead, I think it means a lot of people are afraid other people will get mad and fire them if they're openly racist.

"Strong liberals" are apparently the only people who are proud enough about what they believe to be judged for it. Or maybe it's just impunity because it's illegal to fire people based on race, gender, and (often) sexual orientation, so they feel protected. Overt racists should lobby for similar protections, although I don't think they'll have a lot of luck.

<comment><USER67> The racist label is tossed around so frivolously these days, like Nazi, to become practically meaningless except to intimidate people into silence.

The truth is that strong liberals have become extremely aggressive in intimidating and shaming anyone who disagrees with them in the modern era. And it's disturbing and completely corrosive, toxic and destructive.

I believe the U.S. needs its right brain and left brain to openly discuss and debate issues because neither side has a monopoly on morality or correctness.

Democracy doesn't die in darkness. It dies in uniformity. Have you ever lived in a one party country? It's the closest thing to hell on Earth.

<comment><USER32> > Have you ever lived in a one party country?

The USA _is_ a one party country -- it's just very good at marketing it as two parties. They never actually solve the problems they claim to care about -- they just keep using the same wedge issues for successive elections.

Until we actually have competition from other parties, the two party oligopoly (enforced by entrenched interests at the state level) makes our political system as useless as a one party political system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'm not too concerned about people in "the land of the brave, the home of the free" who feel unable to express themselves in words. Their actions (or lack thereof) speak much louder than any words. Injustice is self-evident, and 'I know it when I see it.'

</comment><comment><USER69> Conservatives are making this all about them. Reality is more nuanced than that. For example, as a communist, I have to be extremely discerning about the context under which I share my political views. Sixty-plus years of American anti-communist propaganda has a pretty damning effect. And that type of political suppression, conservatives generally agree with. So let's not pretend like the broader Right consists of champions of liberty or anything.

</comment><comment><USER70> From the IPCC imposter report climate-change denial billionaires shop, that's a rich and trustworthy factoid.

</comment><comment><USER71> One way of approching this issue is The Kolmogorov option proposed by Scott Aaronson: [https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3376](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3376)

It can be summarized as " Instead the iconoclast can choose what I think of as the Kolmogorov option. This is where you build up fortresses of truth in places the ideological authorities don't particularly understand or care about, like pure math, or butterfly taxonomy, or irregular verbs. You avoid a direct assault on any beliefs your culture considers necessary for it to operate. You even seek out common ground with the local enforcers of orthodoxy."

SlateStarCodex has a related post on the concept titled "Kolmogorov Complicity...": [https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov- complicity-...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity- and-the-parable-of-lightning/)

<comment><USER72> SlateStarCodex an ironic reference in this context, nice to see it back up.

<comment><USER73> Sorry to hijack ... what is the story now at SlateStarCodex ?

I checked as late as a few days ago and it was still disabled ... and now it appears to be back ?

<comment><USER72> I just went to it from the parent comment, then checked the main page which notes:

 _[EDIT 7 /21: This post is now a month old, and I am cautiously optimistic that the Times has changed their mind. There is no further need to take any of the actions described below.]_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Americans are afraid a lot... Of the police among other things.

</comment><comment><USER75> try being a Libertarian

but work is not the place to discuss politics or sex. it is dangerous to have an opinion on anything other than sports and even then only at the team level.

<comment><USER76> Try liking Ayn Rand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> There is a remarkable corollary in these statistics:

> Nearly two‐ thirds of Latino Americans (65%) and White Americans (64%) and > nearly half of African Americans (49%) have political views they are afraid > to share

According to the first chart, 42% of "strong liberals" feel like they can share their political views. That group is disproportionately white: [https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/27/5-facts- abo...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/27/5-facts-about-black- democrats/ft_20-02-26_factsblackvoters_01). So there are all these people of color who are substantially more afraid to share their political views than a group of disproportionately white liberals on the far left.

<comment><USER78> For those who aren't aware, the reason for this is well-known: the average POC statistically leans right on all social issues except for race.

<comment><USER40> > For those who aren't aware, the reason for this is well-known: the average > POC statistically leans right on all social issues except for race.

Blacks are the most supportive of abortion legality in most or all cases of any race other than Asians, so that's one issue that isn't race that Blacks lean to the left on.

[https://www.prri.org/research/legal-in-most-cases-the- impact...](https://www.prri.org/research/legal-in-most-cases-the-impact-of- the-abortion-debate-in-2019-america/)

<comment><USER77> It's complicated. They are also more likely to say abortion is morally wrong than many other groups, which has political implications. (Legality versus non-legality isn't really the main issue today.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


World's happiest places - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/04/23/happiest-places-world-oped-cx_ewe_0423happiest_slide.html?partner=rediff

<comment><USER2> Oh, a slide show that automatically moves to the next page after a given time. Awesome idea! Now I won't have to push any buttons. The pictures got loaded almost halfway on my wonky wireless connection before the page decided that it was time to skip to the next slide. And never mind the fact that this doesn't work nicely when you open it in a new tab.

(Web != Television)</comment>