Mark Cuban Thinks the 'greedy' NFL is 10 Years Away from Implosion - <AUTHOR> http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/03/mark-cuban-nfl-implosion-10-years/ <comment><USER2> Baseball seems to have a lot more games than football, and it manages to stay in business.

Seems to me the head injury problem might taken a more prominent role in the future of football. If football becomes more commonly viewed as a gladiator battle that liquifies the participants brains, it might become less popular. Then again, boxing doesn't seem to going broke, either.

<comment><USER3> Boxing has fallen way off from what it was in the middle of the 20th Century. The big paydays at the top are much greater than they once were (so big, somebody said, that the fighters are even getting some). But it seems to me that it has fallen off in its share of the attention that goes to sports.

<comment><USER4> Mainly because MMA UFC has taken a big chunk of that attention

<comment><USER5> The problems started well before UFC. The problem was the exact same issues that Cuban is pointing out: the sport started to believe in its own hype that nothing was which caused an implosion of greed and corruption. Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard are the reasons why boxing didn't go extinct in the 80s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The NFL has tried to put player safety at the forefront of it's PR with all this concussion prevention talk; otherwise the talent pipeline would eventually start drying up as more and more parents would stop letting their kids play football. But I can assure you, alongside the head injury issues, Thursday games are only going to increase injury in the long term as they stand now.

The right move is to push for an 18 week/16 game season, each team gets two bye weeks and only plays on a Thursday game when coordinated with one of their byes to allow maximum recovery. The NFL can then sound the trumpets of encouraging player safety as well as broadcast more games.

For fun - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78qF72JwJwA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78qF72JwJwA)

#GoHawks

<comment><USER7> The talent pipeline for professional football is going to dry up no matter what. As more scientific evidence mounts of what we already know anecdotally lawsuits will increase along with the insurance costs for youth football. There is no stopping that.

<comment> k-mcgrady Isn't their this kind of risk in lots of sports? They haven't seen talent dry up

e.g. Motorsport

In the 70's Formula 1 there were 9 deaths and many more serious injuries. Safety has improved significantly in the last 15 years but there was never a lack of talent in the most dangerous years.

e.g. Boxing

I don't have specific evidence here but in a sport where people punch each other there has to be long term risk and it continues to prove extremely popular.

e.g. Rugby

Again little specific evidence but it's at least as brutal as the NFL and lacks the protection for the players. I know several kids in my local area who have suffered broken necks, paralysis, and I've heard of one death. And these were kids playing for their high school team. Yet it continues to grow in popularity and talent.

<comment><USER7> There is a huge difference between those sports and football. Youth football is sponsored and run by public schools whose residents will not want to cover the financial fallout from a lawsuit. Private schools have been ending football programs for awhile now because they have even less ability to pay for a lawsuit, it's only a matter of time before public schools go the same route.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As others are saying, I'm more amazed at how quickly society has recognized the health problems.

Pee-wee football saw a 9.5% participation drop from 2010 to 2012: [http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/popwarner/pop- warne...](http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/popwarner/pop-warner-youth- football-participation-drops-nfl-concussion-crisis-seen-causal-factor)

</comment><comment><USER9> I know personally I've been suffering Football fatigue these last few years. Frankly the only reason I watched much football at all last year is because my team was doing well (Broncos). Once Manning retires I wouldn't be surprised if I end up taking an NFL hiatus because it has gotten so ridiculous.

Throw in the fact most of the Thursday Night games ended up with at least one team playing horribly likely in part due to the short recovery period from previous games...

And that doesn't even get into the whole "expanding to London" thing which is such a cash grab that is in no other way good for the League...

</comment><comment><USER10> One of the best things about sports is that they are seasonal. If they weren't, people would grow tired of them and they wouldn't be that interesting.

For example, professional wrestling is a year round "sports" TV show. Without big events like special pay per view shows and such, it would have completely died. As it is, without "Wrestlemania Season" once a year, it would lose a lot of its audience over time because it would have trouble building to anything interesting. Professional wrestling has a resurgence once a decade or so because like many fads, there is a hook that gets people in, but since it never ends, people grow tired and move on to other things. The biggest performers - Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Shawn Michaels, Brett Heart, Steve Austin, Dwayne Johnson, and John Cena. Each one's careers coincided with a short "peak" in the business that eventually trailed off as another couple guys had their own peak 5-10 years later.

If NFL or any other sport moves towards more games, more tv, more exposure, it is going to risk being overexposed in a huge way.

Case in point - curling. One of the huge draws of curling is that for most Americans it is only on tv once every 4 years for the Olympics. That has added a mystique and an interest that makes it fascinating to watch. If curling was on every Saturday afternoon all year long, its ratings during the Olympics would drop.

<comment><USER11> It's not just the audience that grow tired, also the players. If you have an all year around sport then there will be no match that is the most important. All matches are equally important(unimportant) and the players become numb. Compare watching the early rounds of NHL each season with the Stanley Cup semi finals, winning the former doesn't mean shit but winning the later means _everything_ , when do you think the players will give their max, which one will be more interesting to watch?

<comment><USER12> As a Canadian this strikes me as incredibly true. I'm at the point where I really don't watch that much regular season hockey anymore. The NHL keeps extending the season and trying to add more teams and it is just becoming tiresome. But once the playoffs are on I would pit hockey against any other sport on the planet for entertainment. The olympics were another example of this. The hockey played was at such an incredible level that I watched every game I could. I couldn't get over how intense and entertaining the games were, and if more people saw that style of hockey it would be much bigger than it is now with over 80 games, 60% of which will be absolute snoozers.

Football has an incredible advantage in that its players get ~1 week to rest up in between games and with only 16 games, they are all pretty important. This means that most games are played at a high level of intensity and skill and are thus more entertaining. Moving to dilute this quality in pursuit of more revenue is a path I've watched the NHL walk down, and hopefully the NFL can learn from their mistakes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't see anything wrong with putting more games on Thursday. As long as teams still play 16 games a season, it won't make any difference to fans. The league is great because every game is important, not because every game is played on sunday.

<comment><USER14> It's also worth noting that there's already a Thursday game broadcasted on the NFL network.

The issue with spreading games out comes down to people's ability to schedule and set aside time to watch. Currently if you're a fan of one team you need to figure out if your team plays on Thur, Sun or Monday. If it's Sunday you then need to figure out if it's at 1:00, 4:30 or 8:00.

For those who don't want or intend to pay for the NFL Network, the options are only Sun/Monday.

I would argue that this "simple" schedule makes it easier for fans to tune in, and block off time to enjoy their team play.

<comment><USER15> Thursday games are broadcast on local networks in the cities where the teams playing are from, so you don't have to have NFL network to watch your local team.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> He has a point. One of the big values of the NFL is i) A limited number of games and ii) All played closely together (timewise) So _every_ weekend is important because a team's fortunes can really change from week to week. Baseball and Basketball teams can go on multi game losing streaks and it's just a bump. In the NFL it's almost certain death to playoff aspirations.

That makes for better analysis Monday through Friday. Because all of these events have been compressed and the future can be mapped out. Now you're spreading events over 4 days of the week you lose that "Completeness"

Having said all that violence and injury will be what kills the NFL before saturation. Negotiating the move to a more athletic spectacle vs warrior battle without losing the base of fans is key to continuing to have the best athletes chose football over other sports early on.

<comment><USER14> Your first point isn't an issue as they're not proposing extending the ovral # of games.

Your second point is valid, and I would add that the rhythm, and amount of preparation needed to play American football at the highest level is seriously compromised when you play on Thursday. If the NFL only has teams who have a "buy" week on Thur than the problem is mitigated (can anyone confirm this?), but it takes serious effort to prepare (and heal) for an NFL game and the players/coaches surely won't enjoy the abbreviated prep time caused by the new time slot.

<comment><USER16> Agree on the rest and preparation time. Also note the article mentioned the debate around playing less pre season games and adding 2 regular season games (which would start to dilute the importance of any one game)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Football is the most popular thing in America because it's the greatest > spectator sport...

Pretty controversial!

<comment><USER18> Yeah. NASCAR commonly claims that they are the largest spectator sport, and for certain definitions they are probably right. If you define spectator sport as a sport with very low active participation compared to the viewing figures, it's probably NASCAR. Not a lot of weekend racers or race car drivers out on the playgrounds of schools.

Wikipedia says MLB is the largest spectator sport [1]. NASCAR doesn't make the list (NASCAR estimates between 3-5 million per year).

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports_attendance_figur...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports_attendance_figures)

<comment><USER19> NASCAR fan here.

I think when NASCAR says they are the biggest "spectator" sport they mean that their individual events attract more spectators to one spot than other sports, which for many tracks is absolutely true but misleading. Capacity at Daytona for example is around 150,000 seats which is far more than the highest capacity NFL stadium (Redskins at 82000). With that said, Indianapolis motor speedway has attracted almost 250,000 race fans for the Indy 500, but unfortunately not in recent years.

Anyway, what NASCAR doesn't talk about is that there is only one race going on at one track on any given sunday, and with a few exceptions the sport only comes around once a year. Compare that to the 14+ NFL games that take place in any given week during the regular season and there's really not much of a comparison. The NFL blows them out of the water.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If this is interesting to you, you might enjoy this long form book excerpt from a former NFL player:

[http://deadspin.com/my-injury-file-how-i-shot-smoked-and- scr...](http://deadspin.com/my-injury-file-how-i-shot-smoked-and-screwed-my- way-1482106392)

This reminded me of the dangerous, unhealthy culture I knew well as a high school player but had forgotten as the NFL's marketing efforts replaced that perspective with their own narrative over the years.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's worth noting that the commissioner of the NBA (the league in which Cuban is an owner) recently announced that they'll likely be putting sponsors' logos on NBA jerseys within five years:

[http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10637752/commissioner- adam...](http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10637752/commissioner-adam-silver- says-nba-jerseys-sponsor-logos-future)

<comment><USER22> It's also worth noting that Mr. Cuban is not allowed to criticize NBA policies.

<comment><USER21> I don't believe that's correct -- though he certainly receives more attention and scrutiny when he does so. Recently, he (along with pretty much everyone else) criticized the new sleeved jerseys:

[http://espn.go.com/dallas/nba/story/_/id/10198314/mark- cuban...](http://espn.go.com/dallas/nba/story/_/id/10198314/mark-cuban-dallas- mavericks-says-nba-made-mistake-new-jerseys)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've been playing fantasy football for 17 years and the past 2 have been the worst w/r/t the schedule. We now have 2 days to "manage" our teams: Tuesday and Wednesday. Instead of the occasional Thurs game, it's now nearly every week with multiple teams, etc. God forbid you get busy and miss Tues and Wed. It's definitely a fatigue. And forgetaboutit if you have small children. You almost need a personal assistant to help with the scheduling.

Edit: I think the player safety issue is completely separate. I would still get football fatigue even if we completely solved the head injury issue.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady >> "There's a certain richness to Cuban complaining about the NFL trying to take over every night of television. His team plays in the league that runs from October through June and has a playoffs that lasts slightly longer than the gestation period of small mammals."

>> "Still, Cuban's completely right."

Emm, how? People will get sick of too much or a sport and start turning off. Ok. Yet the sport he is part of proves his own point wrong. And the author still thinks he's right?

<comment><USER24> I can't find a more recent graph, but perhaps Mr Cuban means this gigantic gap in leadership is what will implode: [http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/wp- content/uploads/2007/09/...](http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/wp- content/uploads/2007/09/sportsregularseasonviewers.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Greedy" is such a meaningless criticism in the modern economy. He means short term greed that compromises long term greed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Aww you wait til that nice Mr Murdoch buys up all the rights and you can only get NFL on sky just like football in the UK.

Oh and Bar owners get ready to pay a lot more to show NFL in your bar.

Part of me thinks that its contract negotiation time with the players union.

The NFL ought to have relegation/promotion last team in each conference gets drooped and replaced each year.

</comment><comment><USER27> He is mistaken. Soccer is a 24/7/365 thing in South America and Europe and people don't seem to be getting tired of it. The sport itself is not what matters, what people care about is the competition.</comment>


A Free Wall Street Journal Login, Now Gone - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewzeitlin/rip-media-media <comment><USER2> So wait- thousands of people are openly confessing to "hacking" into protected computers via unauthorized access methods? Isn't this a criminal offense when perpetrated over state lines, a violation of the computer fraud and abuse act..? And how about fraud, conspiracy, illegitimately stealing services, and the like?

Meanwhile, OTHER people-- security researches, trolls, whoever-- some maybe have told the media about private data being shared on open links-- they get to go to jail.

It's almost like criminal laws are selectively enforced against people who corporate and powerful special interests don't like, and flagrantly ignored when broken by members of the establishment.

<comment><USER3> Almost like, yeah.

Much like white-collar crimes are punished way lighter in comparision with same-scale crimes of other sorts, even in the law itself.

<comment><USER4> This reminds me of the part in Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne uses anonymous shell companies to buy up Wayne Inc.'s shares while simultaneously being someone who brutalizes street criminals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great I just now find out this existed and it is too late!

<comment><USER6> No worries, there's an easier way to get through that doesn't require a login at all.

<comment> qwert-e I use the aptly-named "innocuous Chrome extension"

<comment><USER7> I've paid for the digital subscription for 15 years. What's the aversion to more people paying? Perhaps the price would go down.

<comment><USER8> Because if it's important, I'll hear about it somewhere else. And if it's interesting, I can find other articles. Content is a dime a dozen these days, why would I pay for it?

<comment><USER9> Classic tragedy of the commons.

<comment><USER3> A failed concept (though in that specific case it might be on point)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have a lot of respect for WSJ for actually having a paywall. I find this a lot more honest than the ad-based "social contract".

Never will I understand the moral obligation to allow a third party to try to manipulate me into buying something unrelated that I don't need in order to be allowed to read what I actually want to read. If you don't want me to read something without paying, then do just that. Don't try to control and subvert my computer to show me ads.

</comment><comment><USER11> A quirky article about free access to a paywall, but false claims that Sam Biddle is actually a journalist

</comment><comment><USER12> Buzzfeed, seriously? I know they have some professional investigative journalism articles[0], but this certainly isn't one of them.

0.[https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/the-tennis- racket?utm_te...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/the-tennis- racket?utm_term=.nrekqvogkj#.pqx01ge20M)

<comment><USER13> As someone who _despises_ BuzzFeed this article was about something I didn't already know about and was both somewhat interesting and informative. I liked it. Not every piece needs to be investigative reporting nor a rehash of reddits front page. This was a good example of middle ground</comment></comment>


Mathematicians who died under unfortunate or unfitting circumstances - <AUTHOR> http://www.kellenmyers.org/deaths.html <comment><USER2> Two whole schools of mathematics died in "unfortunate and unfitting circumstances", namely the Lwów school and the Warsaw school:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Lviv_professors](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Lviv_professors)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_AB- Aktion_in_Poland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_AB-Aktion_in_Poland)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Ruziewicz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Ruziewicz)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82odzimierz_Sto%C5%BCek](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C5%82odzimierz_Sto%C5%BCek)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Auerbach](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Auerbach)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Kaczmarz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Kaczmarz)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_%C5%81omnicki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_%C5%81omnicki)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliusz_Schauder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliusz_Schauder)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Saks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Saks)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Mazurkiewicz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Mazurkiewicz)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Lindenbaum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Lindenbaum)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Dickstein_%28mathematici...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Dickstein_%28mathematician%29)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Chwistek](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Chwistek)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Marcinkiewicz](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Marcinkiewicz)

Some members emigrated before or during the war and spread all over the world, mostly in the US. After 1945 almost none of the original members were still alive and in Poland/Ukraine.

<comment><USER3> Many of L'viv (then Lwów) professors (for example Stefan Banach, of the Banach-Tarski paradox fame) survived only because they were hired as "lice feeders" in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Weigl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Weigl) institute, and he managed to persuade Germans that they need consistent data, so they can't take his feeders away just because they are Jewish or Polish.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeder_of_lice#Lw.C3.B3w_academ...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeder_of_lice#Lw.C3.B3w_academics_and_intellectuals_as_feeders)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tycho Brahe

 _Tycho suddenly contracted a bladder or kidney ailment after attending a banquet in Prague, and died eleven days later, on 24 October 1601. According to Kepler 's first hand account, Tycho had refused to leave the banquet to relieve himself because it would have been a breach of etiquette._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe#Death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycho_Brahe#Death)

</comment><comment><USER5> "Turing committed suicide in 1954, by eating a cyanide-laced apple, although the circumstances of his death were ambiguous enough (deliberately) so that his mother could maintain, for her own sake, that it was an accident."

I feel that this is an unfair statement. There are lots of reasons to believe Turning's death wasn't suicide.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Death)

I also think that Fermat deserves an honourable mention for particularly poor timing.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_Last_Theorem)

<comment><USER6> Fermat lived almost three decades after he proposed his "Last Theorem" and was hardly inactive in that period. Had he even thought he actually had a proof, he would have published it, and we would all know it was wrong.

A far more likely scenario is that he had a false proof, discovered he had a false proof at some point after he made his marginal note, and didn't bother to publish the fact he had made a fool of himself in some obscure marginalia.

The only mystery surrounding Fermat's understanding of his own "Last Theorem" is precisely _which_ false proof he most likely had.

<comment><USER7> _Fermat lived almost three decades after he proposed his "Last Theorem" and was hardly inactive in that period._

Indeed, just to clarify: The reason it is called his "Last" theorem is that it was the last of his many claims to have been neither proven nor refuted; nothing to do with when he made the claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Grothendieck apparently died recently:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck#Retirem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck#Retirement_into_reclusion_and_death)

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately, we recently lost Ralph Faudree under terrible circumstances as well.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Faudree](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Faudree)

<comment><USER10> The page doesn't even mention his death, save for wikipedia classifying the page under '2015 deaths'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rajeev Motwani

Rajeev Motwani was a professor of Computer Science at Stanford University whose research focused on theoretical computer science. He was an early advisor and supporter of companies including Google and PayPal, and a special advisor to Sequoia Capital. He was a winner of the Gödel Prize in 2001.

Further,

Motwani was found dead in his pool in the backyard of his Atherton home on June 5, 2009

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajeev_Motwani](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajeev_Motwani)

</comment><comment><USER12> John von Neumann -- December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957 (cancer) -- was a Hungarian and later American pure and applied mathematician, physicist, inventor and polymath. He made major contributions to a number of fields,[2] including mathematics (foundations of mathematics, functional analysis, ergodic theory, geometry, topology, and numerical analysis), physics (quantum mechanics, hydrodynamics, and fluid dynamics), economics (game theory), computing (Von Neumann architecture, linear programming, self-replicating machines, stochastic computing), and statistics. [1]

"A von Neumann biographer, Norman Macrae, has speculated that the cancer was caused by von Neumann's presence at the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests held in 1946 at Bikini Atoll." [2]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Later_life](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Later_life)

</comment><comment><USER13> No Hypatia? Skinned alive by Christian mob..

<comment><USER14> If you're actually interested in Hypatia you can read this series...

[http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2015/02/hypatia-part-i-mean- stre...](http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2015/02/hypatia-part-i-mean-streets-of- old.html)

<comment><USER13> Thanks, having basically understood the "Cosmos" account of her life it was good to read a detailed researched account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hermann Minkowski. Died suddenly of appendicitis at the age of 44.

"In the early years of his scientific career, Albert Einstein considered mathematics to be a mere tool in the service of physical intuition. In later years, he came to consider mathematics as the very source of scientific creativity. A main motive behind this change was the influence of two prominent German mathematicians: David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski." [1]

[1] [http://www-history.mcs.st- andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Minkowsk...](http://www-history.mcs.st- andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Minkowski.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> Jacques Herbrand died at 23 in a mountain climbing accident. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Herbrand](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Herbrand)

</comment><comment><USER17> Issac Newton is on this list, his death at 84 hardly qualifies as unfortunate or unfitting. I mean, even today, 84 is well above life expectancy in most of the world.

</comment><comment><USER18> On a related note, "Dangerous Knowledge" is a great documentary "about four of the most brilliant mathematicians of all time, Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing, their genius, their tragic madness and their ultimate suicides". [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520274/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520274/)

<comment><USER19> Do Cantor or Gödel's deaths count as suicide? They weren't really self- inflicted, but more due to mental illness.

Thanks for mentioning the documentary: I will check it out...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just for the records, Grothendieck maybe "disappeared", but he also died a couple of months ago, it was all over the press...

<comment><USER21> Grothendieck was Satoshi!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I once had a couple of slides on Cantor->Turing->Gödel that finished of the AI101 lecture I held. One could create a narrative that their particular work lead to their unfortunate deaths and I'm pretty sure I actually read that somewhere but think it is far fetched (particularly for Turing) and didn't mention it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yutaka Taniyama, suicide

</comment><comment><USER24> Felix Hausdorff committed suicide in 1942, after having put in quite some effort to escape Nazi Germany.

</comment><comment><USER25> Maurice Audin was a young Mathematician who died in 1957 in Algiers under torture by the French Military because he supported the Algerian independence cause.

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

</comment><comment><USER26> William Rowan Hamilton, credited as the inventor of quaternions, died of a severe gout precipitated by excessive drinking and overeating.

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

</comment><comment><USER27> Archimedes! Run through by a sword by an impatient soldier while he was trying to finish up a math problem instead of heeding a summons to some bureaucrat or general or something.

<comment><USER28> I'm actually amazed that he reached the age of 75! I didn't know people could become that old back in those days. Was he an exception?

<comment><USER29> I don't think so - there is a widespread confusion about life expectancy. If, for example, child mortality was high compared to modern times, the life expectancy at birth was low.

However, for those who survived childhood, the life expectancy would not be very much different from modern.

Example: triplets were born, but one died at birth, another when he was 10, and another lived to 80. So, life expectancy at birth is only 30 years, but measured at five years of age it is 45 years, and measured at 20 years of age it is full 80 years.

This short article gives some explanation. [http://www.livescience.com/10569-human-lifespans- constant-2-...](http://www.livescience.com/10569-human-lifespans- constant-2-000-years.html)

<comment><USER30> 75 would have been somewhat unusual in the US in 1900:

[http://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Tbl_10.html#w...](http://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Tbl_10.html#wp1041324)

It shows the age 30 life expectancy, in 1900 it was 35 years, so 65 year old. Compare to today which is 47 years (77 years old).

There are life tables for historical periods, but the modern data is likely more reliable and still shows quite some difference.

Your link makes a good point about life expectancy at birth not being the right measure, but there is a very real expansion in life expectancy that has taken place. I guess infectious disease control probably pulled a lot of that expansion into the last 100 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think the photos of Archimedes and Isaac Newton are inaccurate. Edit: seems to be a bug in iPad safari causing the wrong images to display...

</comment><comment><USER32> Anyone else between 1950s and 2010s?

<comment><USER33> Gareth Williams (26 September 1978 – c. 16 August 2010) was a Welsh mathematician and employee of GCHQ seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) who was found dead in suspicious circumstances at a Security Service safe house flat in Pimlico, London, on 23 August 2010. His decomposing naked remains were found in a red North Face bag, padlocked from the outside, in the bath of the main bedroom's en-suite bathroom.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams)

Philip Taylor Kramer (July 12, 1952 – February 12, 1995) was a bass guitar player for the rock group Iron Butterfly during the 1970s. After this he obtained a night school degree in aerospace engineering, he worked on the MX missile guidance system for a contractor of the US Department of Defense and later in the computer industry on fractal compression, facial recognition systems, and advanced communications. His disappearance on February 12, 1995 caused a mystery lasting for years.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Taylor_Kramer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Taylor_Kramer)

<comment><USER34> Kramer obviously disappeared into a wormhole as part of his research into faster than light communications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> That Galois story is obviously a fairy tale. Probably the story is written by his father who is the real one behind. Math history is full of those urban legends because its better like this. A hero of his time.</comment>


Singapore teen blogger Amos Yee granted US asylum - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/25/asia/singapore-amos-yee-us-asylum/index.html <comment><USER2> I've been to Singapore once and find it to be a beautiful city/state. That being said, as an American, I do find some of the policies a bit disconcerting as it reminds me of one of my favorite dystopian books, 1984.

* People love to talk about how bad Duerte is in the Philippines (he is), but in Singapore, 18oz of marijuana gets you a _mandatory_ death penalty: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_Drugs_Act_(Singapore...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_Drugs_Act_\(Singapore\))

* Singapore is a 1 party system that has been controlled by the same family (the lee family) since what, the 1920s? It isn't a democracy when there is one party, it is a monarchy, just call a spade a spade. It seems to work for them, but they're simply fooling themselves calling it that.

* You can not legally import chewing gum into Singapore and there is a $700 fine if you happen to spit it on the street: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore)

* They very much censor media / free speech. If they didn't, this article wouldn't be news.

* Littering or any petty theft can result in a caning, which depending on the severity, is split up over two days. This is to keep the punished from bleeding to death (seriously).

* Only the government elite can afford to drive vehicles. This is due to the taxes and registrations for even a 20 year old car being around 100,000 local currency. They force the public to use transit.

* They require iris scans of every citizen and permanent resident (as of Jan 2016)

on and on. Sure it is great and there is no crime and the economy looks great, but it bothers me the lack of freedom to innovate, to do something different, to be wrong. I can't quite place it, but never felt comfortable there even if I'm safer in Singapore than I am here in Chicago where I currently type from.

<comment><USER3> There's a great deal of misinformation and wrong-headed insinuation in this comment.

>People love to talk about how bad Duerte is in the Philippines (he is), but in Singapore, 18oz of marijuana gets you a mandatory death penalty

There's a great deal of difference between endorsing extra-legal killings (Duerte) and having laws with extremely harsh punishment (Singapore). The reason for Singapore's harsh drug laws is that, at least up to 1-2 decades ago, it was a major transport/business hub in the region of significant drug trafficking. The overtly harsh policy was meant to fend off any chance of Singapore becoming any sort of drug trafficking hub.

>Singapore is a 1 party system that has been controlled by the same family (the lee family) since what, the 1920s?

Lee Kuan Yew took office as Prime Minister in 1959. Also, this notion that the country has been "controlled" by the same family also needs to be put into context - Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong have been two out of the three Prime Ministers in Singapore's short history as a nation. Many members of the extended Lee family hold prominent positions in the private sector and government-linked corporations. So does the family hold a lot of influence? Highly likely. But is it "controlled" by the family? I'd like to see more evidence of that.

>there is a $700 fine if you happen to spit it on the street Which is akin to a littering fine.

>They very much censor media / free speech. If they didn't, this article wouldn't be news. Do they, though? There are 4 broad classes of "censorship" you could talk about:

1) Yes, there are strong laws against inflammatory statements relating to race and religion. These are significant, do curtail freedom of speech, and should be challenged or at least debated. Unfortunately, Amos Yee ran afoul of this. This is the only reason he's in trouble.

2) There is a requirement for websites having viewership above 50,000 a month to register as a "news organization"[1]. I personally strongly disagree with this, but also this has to date never been used to curtail speech. (Note: I'm not a fan of the "but this law/policy hasn't been abused yet" as a defense for a bad law/policy. I'm just stating the fact that it hasn't.)

3) Outright incitation of violence. I'm not sure how this varies across different countries/states, but I don't think this uniquely Singaporean.

4) Libel/Slander. These laws are standard. Yes, the Lee family has gone after opposition members who make factually false attacks.

But nested in the claim that "free speech is censored" is the insinuation that people cannot criticize government officials and policy. There is almost nothing further from the truth. In fact, Singaporeans are regularly self- deprecating how much they complain and rag on the government for bad policies. There is nearly no curtailment of the freedom to criticize, attack or badmouth policy, government or government officials (up to libel and slander).

There is also no illusion about the biases of media Singaporeans consume. Everybody in Singapore grows up knowing that the major news outlets have a pro-government bias, being closely linked to people in government. Everybody in Singapore grows up hearing the cliche that the history lessons are "government propaganda".

Singaporeans are among the most internet-savvy country-population in the world[2][3]. The Internet in Singapore, barring a laughable "symbolic list of 100 websites blocked"[3] is unfiltered. People who want to find alternative views, who want to organize against policy, can.

>Littering or any petty theft can result in a caning, which depending on the severity, is split up over two days. This is to keep the punished from bleeding to death (seriously). Littering only results in fines. Vandalism can and has resulted in caning. No doubt, caning (especially in the prison form) is harsh, antiquated corporal punishment. But harsh is different from unjust.

>Only the government elite can afford to drive vehicles. This is due to the taxes and registrations for even a 20 year old car being around 100,000 local currency. They force the public to use transit.

The first statement is so blatantly false I'm not going to bother refuting it. Cars are expensive and are a middle/middle-upper-class good. Singapore has a system whereby ownership of a car requires a license that costs up to tens of thousands of US dollars. This sounds over-the-top - but is also the correct solution from an economists' point of view. The government wants to reduce the number of cars on the road, so it taxes car owners. The cost of the license is determined by supply and demand via a market mechanism (e.g. the price has gone down during recessions). Meanwhile, the government plows significant funds into expanding the public transport network. Of all the Singaporean policies to complain about, transport is among one of the best thought-out, _unless_ you already have a notion that a car is something everyone should own.

>They require iris scans of every citizen and permanent resident (as of Jan 2016) As of Jan 2017[5]. And is this really different from finger-print scans? Is this any more intrusive?

\---

There are many reasons to criticize Singapore, but please stick to facts.

[1] [http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/mda-rolls-out- licence-...](http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/mda-rolls-out-licence- scheme-for-news-websites) [2] [https://data.gov.sg/dataset/mobile-penetration- rate](https://data.gov.sg/dataset/mobile-penetration-rate) [3] [http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet- users/singapore/](http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/singapore/) [4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapore#List_of_banned_websites) [5] [http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/authorities- to...](http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/authorities-to-collect- iris-scans-from-singaporeans-prs-starting/3398728.html)

<comment><USER4> In a way I agree with the transport choice. Gas guzzling cars are a terrible choice for moving people around. It does fund a pretty massive industry of mechanics, dealers, gas stations etc but for a small dense population like Singapore it makes total sense to discourage cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All of the Singaporeans I know a) hate him, and b) totally missed the point he was making, albeit somewhat ham-handedly.

<comment><USER6> Singapore's philosophy of governance is the same as the PRC's, just with velvet gloves on. People look the other way because they've been able to keep the standard of living up, but if there's ever a sustained economic downtown and loud discontent with the PAP, the fiction will be disposed of quickly and we'll find out how much of a democracy it really is.

<comment><USER7> SG makes me wonder about my personal convictions regarding liberal democracy. I still personally believe liberal democracy is best for those of us in the West. Then again, we are hypocrites ourselves from funding Saudi Arabia to electing Trump based on promises of draconian anti-liberalism, so I'm not sure how well we can make the argument ourselves.

[0] I really hope this need not be said, but I mean liberalism not as in left politics, but liberalism as in liberal democracy.

<comment><USER8> I neither voted for trump, nor do I support Saudi Arabia

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I worked in Singapore last April, a wonderful city/country. I can't speak to how much 'freedom' there is in Singapore, but I would go back to work there in a heartbeat if another good work opportunity occurs.

I noticed no poverty, everyone seemed busy and industrious. Anyway, I loved it there.

<comment><USER10> Poverty is easy to clean up when being poor is a crime.

<comment><USER7> I take it you've never been to SG.

There are poor people and it isn't a crime to be poor.

<comment><USER10> Homeless get jailed pretty quick. So there is a wealth floor below which you are treated as a criminal.

<comment><USER4> What is the state of jails though? Do they take care of the extreme poor and give them some training so they can be functioning in society?

<comment><USER10> [https://www.quora.com/What-is-life-like-in-a-Singaporean- pri...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-life-like-in-a-Singaporean- prison?share=1)

But I don't think the question matters. Prison could be relative heaven and you'd still be denyng the basic human right to liberty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> apparently, one of the crimes Amos Yee was convicted of in Singapore involved making disparaging remarks about both Muslims and Christians. and that sort of speech can actually be a crime in Singapore (as it can in the EU).

so, after the US granted him asylum, some in the SG government noted that there are plenty of other people in the world who are making these kinds of illegal "hate speech" statements who ought to also be granted asylum in the US.

as an American, i don't always know what to make of this. free speech means different things in different democracies. the US definition of free speech rights is not the only game in town, or even the best game in town (?).

fascinating.

<comment><USER12> > as an American, i don't always know what to make of this. free speech means > different things in different democracies. the US definition of free speech > rights is not the only game in town, or even the best game in town (?).

There isn't anything to think of it in that sense. Other nations / cultures are free to establish whatever they decide are their rules around speech and so to is the US. There isn't more to it than that: the US is one of the strongest defenders when it comes to speech and has been for centuries.

I can say things about Trump any time I please (the Internet is of course overflowing with the nastiest possible things directed at Trump, every insult possible), that would get people arrested in the majority of nations on the planet if directed at their leader/s. That principle has made the US stronger rather than weaker. If your 'democracy' is so fragile that it can't allow for an insult toward its leadership, well, good luck, you're not going to last long.

In the US you can create rap videos, pretend-murdering the President. You can create fantasy documentaries simulating murdering the President. I find those things obnoxious and I'm glad they're protected speech, they're of no threat to me or the President. I'll take that over prison for insulting the king every day of the week.

<comment><USER5> I totally agree with the point you're making but I do want to make it clear this is also (mostly) the case all over the "western world", for instance. (it varies slightly country-by-country.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ugh, heck no. Autoplay video when visiting the page.

Maybe link to a better page instead?

<comment><USER14> When I saw the page being slow to load and the video repeatedly trying to play, refresh, play, try to play a different way (trying unsuccessfully to circumvent my autoplay blocker), I just disabled javascript. Page loads instantly and the content is right there with no visual clutter.

<comment><USER13> Thanks, that's a good tip. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Our Favourite Drugs (USA, by region) - <AUTHOR> http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/web/0904/trans0409ourfavoritedrugs.html

<comment><AUTHOR> An important point is that this is not a visualization of drug _use_ ; it's the result of polling law enforcement officials about the drugs doing the most damage in each region.

</comment><comment><USER2> NB: Only drugs that aren't federally taxed.</comment>