Twitter in talks to buy online music firm SoundCloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/05/us-twitter-deals-idUSKBN0EG0XW20140605 <comment><USER2> I don't think Twitter would buy SoundCloud for audio Tweets or podcasts.

Rather, I'd argue that SoundCloud is the #1 source of up-and-coming music on the Web today. Between play and upload information from SoundCloud and mention and trend information from Twitter, Twitter could easily become a content- discovery powerhouse. Information about the "next big thing" will always hold value for marketers, and access to the trendsetters who are consuming the "next big thing" is worth even more.

Between their folded #music attempt based on We Are Hunted and their recent acquisition of Gnip, it's obvious that Twitter are trying to expand and sell their role as a destination for information about the up-and-coming.

That's why they'd buy SoundCloud - Twitter could let marketers learn what's hot next, who's consuming it, and then allow them turn around and sell ads directly to those influencers.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of MySpace.

<comment><USER4> The funny thing is before twitter was twitter it was birthed within Odeo, which could be compared as the soundcloud of the time

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's amazing how much effort SC put in making UI more sleek yet degrading UX thoroughly.

Stream is useless in its current form. It's much inferior to Dashboard (which wasn't perfect in the first place, but was quite usable, contrary to that one). For people taking SC activities seriously, like trying to listen most of the tracks coming from people they follow, there must be a way to hide/collapse tracks that were already listened to (like removing in dashboard). What about favorites of people I follow? I maybe not use it extensively, but it's a great way to discover new tracks. Dashboard provides it all and has a few tabs with different filtering and independent hiding (removing) and I would fix only this independence - removing entry in one tab should be enough and work for the other ones too - and improve the "More" button, to load at once everything that is left.

What should be clearly told is that new UI is definitely against any more thorough comments. Come on, showing only a few words? It's like you encourage SCers to leave these useless comments. And there is no place for discussion at all. Personally I like to discuss things. Yet I understand others that don't like comments at all on SC (because well, they are in fact often completely useless, as lot of SC users can express only praises or nothing), so they should be able to easily hide them.

Where are the features that everyone hoped for? Where are the marks next to the tracks that I already commented on them (and how many comments that were)? Where are the marks next to tracks that I already listened to? SoundCloud Next that was turned to be default is still more of a disaster than improvement. And it's sad.

Somehow this I-don't-care-about-UX-but-let's-make-it-look-sexier-at-least attitude is becoming quite popular in internet, which is a paradox, because nowadays the opposite mind should be predominant. GitHub did in the last few years similar changes (they had a few good ones too, though) and had to disable comments in their blog to stop the never ending complaints... Another thing: less is more, but too less isn't more at all. You have to preserve some basic functionality, otherwise removing features is like slapping users in the face. Here I can give Minus as an example - file sharing site that turned back into media sharing site w/ most of the features removed.

I think about doing some sane front-end using their API, but I always lack time to do stuff after hours...

If being bought by Twitter will help SC crew work better on UX, then I really hope it will happen. Otherwise it won't really change anything.

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought that the most recent news was that the deal was off [http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2014/06/04/addition- soundcloud...](http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2014/06/04/addition-soundcloud- twitter-also-reportedly-considered-acquiring-pandora-spotify/)

<comment><USER7> thought I heard that too... interesting

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Please buy Soundcloud. They have a great product that hasn't made many improvements in the last couple years. Hopefully an acquisition by Twitter would give them the resources they need to thrive, without too much negative oversight. (Vine is an example of a very successful Twitter acquisition.)

<comment><USER9> > [SoundCloud hasn't] made many improvements in the last couple years.

What, do you think, needs improvement?

I use the application for recording and storing occasional riffs I come up with as private tracks, and to listen to new music from people I follow occasionally. As far as I've experienced, they need not make a big improvement over the site as it is now, but given that I'm not a _power user_ , I might have missed lots of stuff.

<comment><USER8> The one that annoys me the most is playback. Songs will often stop playing randomly. It only seems to happen with the web client, not the iOS app, but it happens on a lot of different computers and people I have talked to.

<comment><USER10> Yeah I've experienced that too, I always assumed it was their equivalent of Pandora's "are you still there?" only without politely asking before shutting it off

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Super interesting -- but Soundcloud won't come cheap (they raised at a $700mm valuation in January [1] and are doing really well).

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/25/soundcloud- raises-60-millio...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/25/soundcloud- raises-60-million-at-700-million-valuation/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Berlin startup exit, it is dearly needed! We almost have no first generation entrepreneurs here, all we got is basically Samwer brothers.

<comment> k-mcgrady IMO it's cooler that Berlin has a company like SoundCloud that makes money! I don't know the numbers but base don what they're charging and the number of people I see with pro accounts they've got to be making decent revenues. Much cooler than a company that makes no money and gets bought by one of the big tech companies.

<comment><USER12> I don't think they actually make a lot of money as they have to pay a lot for infrastructure, though they have a LOT of traffic and imho that's not a bad thing. Products with a lot of traffic like Snapchat or Secret are amazing. They could all make money if they wanted, but they choose to build up the community instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Uh-oh. Are there any other companies than Whisper System that had an actual end-user product that Twitter has acquired -- and then _not_ killed off?

I don't recognize that many from:

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

Except for Dabble DB (Smallthought Systems) and Posterous:

[http://blog.dabbledb.com/2010/06/140character- dabbling.html](http://blog.dabbledb.com/2010/06/140character-dabbling.html)

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/30/4281780/posterous-is- shutt...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/30/4281780/posterous-is-shutting- down-tomorrow-here-are-the-best-alternatives)

I hadn't realize how extra-cruel the dabbledb thing was until I read this:

[https://blog.twitter.com/2010/more- dabbling](https://blog.twitter.com/2010/more-dabbling)

"Up until about a year ago, we[twitter] used an online database called Dabble DB to track and share information about our projects internally. While we've since moved that project management tool in-house (...)" [In other words: we realize this was a great product, and we still killed it, because, meh profits for twitter?"]

For those that didn't know what DabbleDB was: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wZmYMWKLkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wZmYMWKLkY)

So, while an acquisition might be great for the owners of soundcloud, I'm rather terrified as a user...

<comment><USER14> I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones I know off the top of my head:

* Summize -> search.twitter.com

* Tweetie -> Twitter for iPhone

* TweetDeck

* Vine

* Crashlytics

* MoPub

* Gnip

<comment><USER13> Thanks, I suppose I should have been a little more specific -- I'm not surprised Summize, Tweetie, Gnip and TweetDeck lives on. That said, Crashlytics, MoPub and Vine does seem to indicate that not every Twitter acquisition of an "independent" product leads to product death.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> According to Swedish media, refering to Financial Times, Twitter is in talks to acquire Spotify as well. Link that I can't visit: [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ad44fd2-ec08-11e3-ab1b-00144feabd...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7ad44fd2-ec08-11e3-ab1b-00144feabdc0.html)

<comment><USER11> Twitter raised $2.1 billion in its IPO -- Spotify is valued north of $4 billion.

<comment><USER16> Twitter's market cap is $20 billion, which is more relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's going to be funny when we reach the end of this _social road_ and we're all back on myspace essentially. Customizable personalized spaces where we share music, videos, and pictures of food.

Tom Anderson is my hero. The guy lives on a new beach every week while Zuckerberg is working 24/7 to rebuild myspace.

</comment><comment><USER18> As an individual who enjoys listening to music on SoundCloud, this acquisition would be great!

SoundCloud is an amazing platform for music discovery and streaming. I tried Spotify for a while but I returned to SoundCloud. SoundCloud seems to get "out of the way". I always find better music you would never hear in regulated mainstream music. There are a lot of talented artists who truly enjoy making good music on the platform that probably deserve to be in the Charts but they cannot afford to get record label deals.

With Twitter behind them, this could mean artists have a chance to get their work discovered faster. I hope this acquisition becomes a reality.

</comment><comment><USER19> As it so happens I've just launched a service built on top of SoundCloud. voliyo.com (non-mobile for now) aims to help musicians and photographers expose their content to a larger audience, and on the flip side, allows you to find new music whilst sitting back and enjoying a photo slide show!

If any photographers/musicians are interested in trying out the private beta, PM me and I'll happily dish out the invite links :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Interesting that both are/were part of Fred Wilson's portfolio . I wonder if there's other in talks with Soundcloud.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can any company survive on their own anymore? Need every one of them be absorbed by already oversized entities?

Vine is nothing without a distribution method, so that kind of acquisition makes sense.

If Facebook turns to Shitbook, I really don't want SoundCloud impacted, because they're unassociated and can thrive independently.

</comment><comment><USER7> Strategically beneficial for both in my opinion. Soundcloud could really use some help in terms of product design in my opinion. UI/UX could be a lot better. Maybe twitter team could help move that along

</comment><comment><USER22> Interesting. I'd be assuming it's for making audio tweets, but even then it's kind of restricting. Putting voice in front of other people is something people might not still be ready for.

<comment><USER23> With text/tweets, you can process the text and what it is about at a glance. With video, you have thumbnails and they usually give you a good idea what to expect from that video. With audio, there's nothing. I think people are not ready for that, because audio only is so hard to filter and "consume" without having to listen to it.

<comment><USER24> There's speech to text. Even if inaccurate, it gives somewhat of a preview that the user can edit.

<comment><USER9> What if the _audio-tweet_ contained no words?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is super smart – Soundcloud needs to integrate more deeply with the hype / discovery abilities of Twitter.

Soundcloud songs overlaid on Vine vids, etc. could prove amazing as well.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think this could be an interesting move for Twitter. Especially for podcasting, since Twitter started out as Odeo, and pivoted due to lackluster interest in the medium.

<comment><USER27> What is Soundcloud's relation to podcasting? I'm not familiar.

<comment><USER28> It is used by many people, I listen the Andreessen & Horowitz's podcast there... [https://soundcloud.com/a16z](https://soundcloud.com/a16z)

Besides that, it is also the perfect app to upload and share fart sounds...

[https://soundcloud.com/royalty-free-musicfactory/fart- sound-...](https://soundcloud.com/royalty-free-musicfactory/fart-sound- effects)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I hope this doesn't happen.

<comment><USER30> Why? (Not snarky, genuinely curious)

<comment><USER31> I'm not the poster you're responding to, but I fear it would make SoundCloud more like Twitter, which would be a bad thing from my point of view. I like SoundCloud. Twitter annoys me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Incidentally, what are your soundclouds?

</comment><comment><USER22> i don't think it's podcasting anymore, but making the tweets really small like 1 minute or 50 seconds might be making people more interested in speaking infront of an audience, but if it's online music streaming they could choose rdio instead of soundcloud.

<comment><USER33> I don't think you can compare SoundCloud with Rdio. Two completely different services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> NOOO

</comment><comment><USER35> Audio tweets?

</comment><comment><USER36> An annotated soundcloud track is part of Jeff Tweedy of Wilco's promotion for his new solo album.

[http://www.stereogum.com/1684887/tweedy-ill-sing- it/mp3s/](http://www.stereogum.com/1684887/tweedy-ill-sing-it/mp3s/)</comment>


A window into ancient economics - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-vcs-of-bc.html?smid=tw-share <comment><USER2> What's especially interesting is the mention of "joint-stock companies". There's a little more detail on that here: [1] It's not clear whether these were ongoing entities or shares in a venture.

"Venture" in this sense comes from shipping, where a number of people would put in money to buy shares in a single ship voyage. When (and if) the ship came back, the profits were divided in proportion to the investment. (This is the source of the phrase "waiting for (their) ship to come in".)

But it's not a corporation. It's not a permanent organization. This is significant. The Roman Empire, even though it had a legal system and a stable government for several centuries, never developed the concept of the corporation, or of a common carrier. They had rich individuals as sole owners, and family businesses, but not larger multi-owner organizations. Something like a multi-city merchant company was out of reach. Even a commercial delivery service comparable to Wells Fargo (the stagecoach operation) was never developed.

Did Kanesh get past that hump and figure out how to set up a big business?

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=vYMmrenUywQC&pg=PA131&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=vYMmrenUywQC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=Kanesh+joint+stock+companies&source=bl&ots=XJRJv1hDW1&sig=VeMkca71Cf_wOYzG9NNn0rXWMIs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDIQ6AEwA2oVChMI3tePxNLNxwIVSTeICh3NbA7C#v=onepage&q=Kanesh%20joint%20stock%20companies&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER3> Fascinating article showing that even in ancient times, and despite taxes, subsidies, trade-agreements, etc. trade between parties has always followed its own natural rate. So as much as politicians and various special-interest groups want and claim to "control" imports and exports, history shows it's futile.

<comment><USER4> It's much more akin to convergent evolution than any "natural state" of markets. People design comparable instruments to solve comparable problems. It does not mean there is no design. Just like dolphins and sharks having evolved fins separately does not mean that there is a "natural law of fins", it means fins are pretty good at solving the problem they solve.

<comment><USER3> Interesting way to look at it!</comment></comment></comment>


A Quine Puzzle - <AUTHOR> http://wgreenberg.github.io/quine.zip/index.html <comment><USER2> The 'repeat' command ("repeats the last M lines of output, starting N lines from the end") isn't very well described by the documentation, so some experimentation is required. 'repeat M N' will produce no output at all when the output is empty, but will always produce M lines of output, by repeatedly looping through the last (min(N, lines of output)) lines of the output, when the output is not. That's not very intuitive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, the descriptions could use some work. That said, I tried to strike a balance between correctness and simplicity when describing the commands so people could quickly get to trying stuff out.

I do show that particular edge case (along with "print 0") in the examples, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does there exist a solution that doesn't rely on undefined repeat behavior? I finally gave in and looked at the answers, but it looks like they all use `repeat M N>M`, or `repeat M N>currentOutputSize`.

I kinda assumed that the interpreter was just there for convenience, and that its implementation of undefined behavior was irrelevant. But is the interpreter's implementation critical to the solution?

(Then again, I'm now reading the examples and realizing that the implementation of undefined behavior was front-and-center, so that's kinda my bad xP)

<comment><USER4> Got it!

cHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcmVwZWF0IDMgMw0KcmVwZWF0IDIgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcmVwZWF0IDMgMw0KcmVwZWF0IDIgMg0KcmVwZWF0IDMgMw0KcmVwZWF0IDIgMg==

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Spoiler:

cmVwZWF0IDMgMgpwcmludCAyCnJlcGVhdCAzIDIKcHJpbnQgMgpyZXBlYXQgMyAyCg==

<comment><USER6> Variant that doesn't rely on potentially undefined behavior of asking "repeat" to repeat before the beginning:

cHJpbnQgMApwcmludCAyCnByaW50IDAKcHJpbnQgMgpwcmludCAwCnJlcGVhdCAzIDIKcHJpbnQgMgpyZXBlYXQgMyAyCnByaW50IDIKcmVwZWF0IDMgMgo=

<comment><USER5> Good eye.

Also, [https://github.com/wgreenberg/quine.zip/blob/gh- pages/test/i...](https://github.com/wgreenberg/quine.zip/blob/gh- pages/test/interpreterSpec.js#L151)

<comment><USER6> Sure, but LZ doesn't necessarily allow that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A related idea:

It should be possible to write a zip (rar?) file that encodes a PRNG, such that it contains one zip: itself with the PRNG stepped forward one. (Even a "PRNG" that just outputs 1, then 11, then 111, etc, would be sufficient in most cases)

The hard part is making sure the checksum is consistent.

This would wreak havoc with any file checker that checks for recursive archive files.

</comment><comment><USER8> empty input gets empty output, solved

<comment><USER5> [http://www0.us.ioccc.org/1994/smr.hint](http://www0.us.ioccc.org/1994/smr.hint)

<comment><USER8> That's where I got the idea

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My solution, featuring only 2 distinct commands, no NOPs, and not relying on `repeat` at the beginning: cHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcmVwZWF0IDMgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcmVwZWF0IDMgMg0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcmVwZWF0IDMgMg==

<comment><USER10> Maybe it copy-pasted wrong, but this doesn't look like a solution to me. The output is shorter than the input, and contains commands in a different order.

<comment><USER9> I just tried it again, and then copy pasted from the output to the input; it still works. Did you select the full string and decode with base64?

<comment><USER10> hmm. Just tried it again, and it worked now. Nice job getting one that doesn't start with repeat!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
        cHJpbnQgMQpwcmludCAxCnByaW50IDEKcHJpbnQgMQpwcmludCAxCnByaW50IDEKcmVwZWF0IDMg
        MgpwcmludCAyCnJlcGVhdCAzIDIKcHJpbnQgMgpyZXBlYXQgMyAyCgo=

Wasn't terribly difficult, though not the shortest. What's the code golf answer?

<comment><USER12> I wrote an program to exhaustively search (in an intelligent way so that it terminates before the universe does). The minimal to do it without depending on undefined repeat behavior is 10 statements (and there's only one of this length). It's posted by JoshTriplett.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I made an Objective-C command-line tool that exhaustively searches for solutions.

[http://pastebin.com/H2nZ9Fxz](http://pastebin.com/H2nZ9Fxz)

It found JoshTriplett's 10-line solution and shows that it's minimal if you don't allow undefined REPEAT behavior, and it found daveloyall's 5-line solution and shows that it's minimal of you do allow undefined REPEAT behavior.

</comment><comment><USER13> A variant featuring only one number: cmVwZWF0IDQgNA0KcHJpbnQgNA0KcmVwZWF0IDQgNA0KcHJpbnQgNA0KcmVwZWF0IDQgNA0KcHJpbnQgNA0KcmVwZWF0IDQgNA0KcHJpbnQgNA0K

</comment><comment><USER14> repeat 4 2 print 2 repeat 4 2 print 2 repeat 4 2 print 2

</comment><comment><USER15> Challenge: find a solution with no undefined repeat behavior and no more than two consecutive print statements.

</comment><comment><USER16> print 2 print 2 print 2 print 2 print 2 print 2 print 2 print 2 print 2 repeat 3 2 print 2 repeat 3 2 print 2 repeat 3 2

<comment><USER17> It seams there are more than one solutions. Can we generalize a theory of this phenomenon?

<comment><USER18> It's probably a good chunk of a PhD thesis to come up with both the theory and an arbitrary generator for any language. However, you could probably brute force your way to the shortest solution in this particular language fairly easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> cmVwZWF0IDQgNA0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcmVwZWF0IDQgNA0KcHJpbnQgMg0KcmVwZWF0IDQgNA0KcHJpbnQgMg==</comment>


Show HN: SeedAndDew – Support open source with one subscription - <AUTHOR> https://www.seedanddew.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, this is Alex from SeedAndDew. The idea here to give people a way to contribute to open source as a whole with the revenue being distributed in proportion to how much you care about a project. The proxy we're using for now is the amount of time you spend reading documentation. We currently have 12 projects on board including projects like SQLAlchemy, Bundler, RSpec and Gorm and have a few more in the pipeline.</comment>


A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/26/americans-with-depression-anxiety-pandemic/ <comment><USER5> As a person with a history of depression and social anxiety I really do feel calmer since the crisis started, as if my state of mind was made for this kind of life. Less people on the streets, it's quieter, no one breathing down my neck in the supermarket, home office, no expectations on how to pick my clothes, how to behave, no trying to hide the weird stuff I eat (carnivore, high meat, raw, cooked and aged whatever gets on the plate), no forced socializing.

<comment><USER6> Do you live in a city? It sounds like you might enjoy living in a small town much more. Many small towns are very similar to what you just described all the time.

<comment><USER7> As a self-proclaimed weirdo and staunch individualist, small towns can be very difficult to just mind your own business in. Literally everything you do or don't do tends to get noticed and talked about amongst the residents.

There's something to be said for the anonymity of large urban center.

<comment><USER8> Absolutely. I grew up in a tiny town, and loved the ability to get way out in the middle of nowhere with no humans around. And hated practically everything else about it.

Small towns make your business everyone's. There's a desperation for gossip that's just gross to me, and worse, if you don't play along, you're an outcast. Which worked fine for me, except it makes you a target for local shitheads.

I get why others might like it if they're social extroverts who fit whatever local majority-normal is, if not, a city is a far better place to live.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression are very broad because they are necessary as _tools_ for practicing doctors seeing patients (as opposed to applying them to a random selection of people). If you turn the process back, and just ask how many people in the population fit under them, you'll always, even in normal times, get an unexpectedly large number. That doesn't imply that anything is wrong or that anything needs to be done about it, doctors don't use them like that. This is approximately the same phenomenon that causes medical students to self-diagnose themselves with every disease they learn about: one of the fundamental factors missing from such a diagnosis is that they haven't walked into a clinic. It's not a bug in the diagnostic criteria, it's just a misapplication of them.

One of the main ways of fighting over-diagnosis is to not apply diagnostic criteria for every known condition to random people who you have no a priori reason to suspect they might have those conditions.

<comment><USER10> I'm a PhD in clinical psychology, currently working with clients, whose research has focused on the psychometric evaluation of questionnaire measures.

I have no idea what you're talking about. The diagnostic criteria are not "very broad because they are necessary as tools". The diagnostic criteria are meant to be sufficient criteria for diagnosing a disorder. Questionnaire-based measures act as a scientifically validated proxy for a clinical interview to determine this. With a sufficient score on one of several validated diagnostic questionnaires, you can typically say with 80-90% certainty (specificity is the technical term for that percentage) that the person would receive a diagnosis from a clinical interview.

Psychologists and epidemiologists can and do research prevalence of mental health conditions by randomly sampling the population. This does not "over- diagnose" mental health disorders. That's absolute nonsense. Over-diagnosis is only an issue in cases where prevalence is below the false positive rate (technical term is "sensitivity") of the test. That is not the case here.

If you looked at the linked CDC study, they even mentioned the instruments that were used to support this statement. The PHQ2 and GAD2 are validated very brief measures of depression and anxiety that are sufficient for estimating the likelihood of a depression or anxiety diagnosis respectively. Likelihood of a false positive on the PHQ2[1] and GAD2[2] are both around 20% (100-specificity), which is just fine. Both of these are more than sufficient for epidemiological purposes if not for individual Dx.

The fact of the matter is that nationwide prevalence for diagnosable disorders IS high, and it's on the rise. Coronavirus has made people anxious and quarantine has made them depressed. And a LOT of people need help.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906530/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906530/) [2] [https://www.hiv.uw.edu/page/mental-health- screening/gad-2](https://www.hiv.uw.edu/page/mental-health-screening/gad-2)

<comment><USER11> Hold on, do I understand correctly your comment about the 20% false positive rate? So even if exactly ZERO Americans were experiencing depression, a random sampling would indicate 20% of Americans are showing signs of depression? And if it's 20% for both tests, that would would correspond to a 36% false positive rate for at least one condition [0]. So the headline that a third of Americans are showing signs of anxiety or depression is consistent with what you'd expect to observe if there was zero (or very small) true prevalence? How does that work out?

[0] assuming test results for anxiety and depression are uncorrelated, which seems unlikely. But even if they were 100% correlated, the joint FPR would still be 20%.

<comment><USER10> The situation is a little more complicated as these tests ALSO have a false negative rate. And that false negative rate is also about 20%. As well, the false positive rate is for scores _at threshold_ , which is 3 out of 5. If they score a 4 or a 5, the false positive rate drops dramatically.

As well, this isn't an antibody test. Diagnosis is not dichotomous but dimensional. A false positive on depression inventory does not mean the person actually has zero symptoms. It means that their symptoms might actually be mild rather than moderate because of the way they interpreted one or more of the questionnaire items.

In general, the way to look at this is that of the people who took the test, 80% of those who scored at threshold would likely receive a diagnosis from a clinician.

<comment><USER9> This doesn't address in any way the point being made about false positives leading to overly high estimates of prevalence in the general population, whereas nullc's comment is probably quite close to explaining the issue.

<comment><USER12> > This doesn't address in any way the point being made about false positives > leading to overly high estimates of prevalence in the general population

It does if you are aware of the fact that these tests are never used on its own to diagnose depression/anxiety.

The GP or psychologist determines if the client exhibits symptoms of depression, and THEN performs the test, often in combination with other tests that test similar things. Afterwards the results of those tests (as well as the dialogue that's been had with the client), are used in conjunction to determine if a diagnosis is appropriate.

I think it's rather arrogant to assume that psychologists/diagnosticians/statisticians are oblivious to the fact that tests have reliability/validity measures. Of course they are aware, that's their job.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure what you're replying to, I made that exact point upthread and was responding to the disagreement that followed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >"What's worrying is the effect this situation is clearly having on young adults."

I wonder if this is a perverse side effect of normalcy bias [0]? For me, a person in middle age, I can look back at my life and see a lifetime of fairly stable history with only a few traumatic events (9/11, 2008 crash). If you're 22, the current circumstances make up a much larger portion of your life.

>The toll has also hit the poor much harder, according to the Census Bureau data — throwing into even sharper relief mental health disparities that have long existed.

This seems completely, and sadly, reasonable. You probably couldn't design a situation in a lab that would screw over the poor more than COVID-19.

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

<comment><USER14> 9/11 happened to me in grade school. Iraq war happened thereafter. Then the financial crash. Then the subprime crash. And now covid. My life is shaped MORE by crises than by stability - not just the current one, but ALL of them.

<comment><USER15> Yes, the US looks increasingly more like a 3rd world country. One crisis after another.

<comment><USER16> Europe was an even worse place crisis-wise for the majority of the 20th century.

The sad thing about humanity is our living memory only goes back fifty years or so. Everything past that is just "back in the old days" and we forget how extremely recently all those things were even on a human timescale.

<comment><USER15> The US had its share of bad times in the 20th century too, including the largest depression ever, but at least it invested in economic development. Currently, the goal seams to be reducing all social investment and let the financial industry take control of everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Shit, our terrible healthcare system's given me what'd probably qualify as clinical anxiety for longish periods _several_ times in the last few years, and that's despite being well into the top 20% most economically-fortunate Americans, _consistently having health insurance_ , and not having _really_ serious or chronic medical problems in my immediate family.

<comment><USER18> Same here. I am totally terrified of being in an accident or having a serious disease and then getting wiped out financially as I have seen others in similar situations. If you are lucky things usually work out but it can easily happen that you are liable for a $60000 helicopter ride or a $300000 hospital bill because somebody (not even you) has filled out some paperwork incorrectly.

<comment><USER19> > I am totally terrified of being in an accident or having a serious disease > and then getting wiped out financially

For majority of people through history, a serious accident or disease would wipe them out biologically, not just financially. Were they totally terrified throught their lives because of it? I don't think so. It's all a matter of perspective.

I personally try to accept that my life will end, the ending will likely be agonizing and nasty, and it can happen at any moment. I don't know a lot about meditation, but I think some strains of meditation schools tend to focus a lot on this fact, with daily contemplation of decaying bodies etc. It's an ancient tradition which may actually contain a lot of wisdom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wonder what's the correlation between this and people being underpaid. I'm fortunate enough to have my own house after graduation so I don't have to pay rent. But I have friends that don't have this luxury and man, they are struggling. Besides eating and rent they can't afford anything else in a month. No question here what's giving them these feelings

<comment><USER21> I live in Denmark, where we lift a lot of the burden of civilisation together, to give everyone access to education, health/elderly/child care as well as a solid security system for those who get unemployed.

And here society is hard enough these days, pressing more and more people beyond their limits. I really wonder how you all do it in America.

<comment><USER22> The United States and Denmark are very different countries.

The U.S. has nearly 4x as fast population growth, 2x as many immigrants, 10x the incarceration rate, much greater religious and racial diversity, 100x more billionaires, 17% less GDP per capita, and 3x as much debt/GDP.

I'll refrain from opining as to what is cause and what is effect, but the differences are many.

<comment><USER23> > 17% less GDP per capita

US GDP per capita was 9% higher than Denmark for 2019.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\)_per_capita)

> 3x as much debt/GDP

Denmark has a dramatically greater household debt to income ratio than the US, and is one of the most indebted countries in the world. They're in horrible debt shape. Their household debt as a percentage of disposable income is 282%, the worst in the world; that contrasts with 105% for the US, which is only slightly worse than Germany at 95%. Denmark's quality of life is coming at the expense of the future, as they load up massively on debt today to fake their standard of living.

Take a look:

[https://data.oecd.org/hha/household- debt.htm](https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm)

<comment><USER24> >Denmark's quality of life is coming at the expense of the future, as they load up massively on debt today to fake their standard of living.

It's probably worth it in the end. How much longer do we have to endure low quality of life for the sake of some future? Let's say you endured and now your son becomes an adult. Is that now the time to start improving things and enjoying a better quality of life? Probably not, people will say it isn't time yet and we aren't ready, therefore your son will have to sacrifice his happiness and wellbeing too, for his children.

The average person in Denmark will probably die of natural cause, after a relatively happy and fulfilling life. Doesn't seem like they're getting any worse either for it.

What do we have to show for our sacrifices? Nothing it seems. The powers that be will cry about muh inflation all day and won't bail out people, but they're ready to bend over and print money if the corporations and ultra rich need it though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I mean how much data and analysis do we really need at this point to realize America is a complete shit show at the moment.

Statistics be damned, Inductive Reasoning needs to take center stage here.

<comment><USER22> Ah, very insightful.

Is there a consensus on what makes it bad and how it should be remedied?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd like to see anxiety and depression rates associated with age and social media usage. In my personal experience, social media gave me a lot more negative feeling than positive. I know a lot of people handle it better than I do, but I'd still like to see.

I'm also curious if this is associated with more diagnoses because we've become more aware of these issues as a society, or if this can be associated with the internet and our modern "always on" lives. My guess is that the former is more of a reason, but I'd love to see some studies in this area.

</comment><comment><USER27> I find the direct linkage to corona to be a little misleading. My gut feeling says this is a broader sign of the times:

* Rising youth unemployment

* Gig economy & the uncertainty that comes with it

* Crushing study debt

* Little hope of owning property

* Rapidly increasing inequality

* Offshoring & automation

* Healthcare system where serious sickness can lead to financial ruin

* Debt fueled systems (or credit score if you prefer - a system that kicks people when they're down)

I'd venture that the sane response is anxiety or depression. But yeah sure go ahead and blame it on the immediate trigger - <USER2>

<comment><USER28> >* Rising youth unemployment

Before COVID?

>* Little hope of owning property

This realistically only applies in a few hot cities in the US and to low income groups. The middle class still can easily achieve home ownership in most of the US.

>* Rapidly increasing inequality

This is just a political talking point. It has no realistic impact on the day- to-day life of the bulk of the population. Whether Jeff Bezos has 1 billion or 1 trillion doesn't really matter to someone making 90k living in Chicago.

>* Healthcare system where serious sickness can lead to financial ruin

Again, this doesn't apply to a huge portion of the US population because they have health insurance. Remember that the reason that healthcare is so hard to change in the US is because it works for the majority of the population.

<comment><USER29> > Again, this doesn't apply to a huge portion of the US population because > they have health insurance.

Let me guess you've never had to use yours for anything major.

<comment><USER28> I have. Procedure totaling about $90k. HDHP covered everything after the first $4k. HSA that company contributes to covered the first $4k. My expense = $0.

Instead of talking about anecdotes or making lame personal accusations, just look at the data: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690297/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690297/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> US politics are making me seriously anxious. Will I have to leave if I want my kids to grow up in a healthy democracy? Where would we go? Will there be violence before/after the election or transfer of power?

More than anything, I don't have much of a sense of hope for something better. Maybe things go ok and "the bleeding stops", but it'll still be a long, difficult slog to start fixing all that's broken.

Oh, yeah, and there's _also_ a deadly pandemic on the loose.

<comment><USER31> You forgot that global warming will displace 1/3 of the earth's population by 2070, and that the WHO is now estimating that the coronavirus response will lead to 1 billion starving people (1/7 of the population), up from their beginning of year estimate of 135M.

That's 10x more people than died in WWII (including civilians on all continents). As a percentage of population, it's 3x more than WWII.

In the WHO numbers, I don't think starvation implies death, but it's clear the earth has never seen a humanitarian crisis of this scale.

(Edit: my percentage of population math was off. It's 4-5x WWII on that metric.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm a very mild type II bipolar, and I recognize that depression is a biochemical affair, but the situational aspect cannot be ignored either.

I have ongoing anxiety over the fascist coup that has taken place in the US, as well as the fact that we're cooking the planet and being actively blocked to try to remediate that. I don't know how to be at peace with that.

<comment><USER33> I might encourage you to reconsider the reality tunnel you are subscribing to.

Not because it is false, but because it is opinion-based, and interpretive, and reliant on certain assumptions. If it is making you miserable, it might be worth exploring a different, equally compelling, version of reality.

<comment><USER32> I'm always welcome to new input, but the two cases I cited have compelling facts behind them.

Being that I'm not thrilled to carry these notions, I'd be more than happy to have my mind "changed".

Go for it: change my mind. I'm not spoiling for a fight -- I genuinely don't like being "wrong."

<comment><USER34> Not op, but to phrase it another way, consider if it's benificial to worry about - vote for who you want etc. But that doesn't mean you have to watch every political "event" \- you'll just burn yourself out.

I'm not saying bad things aren't happening - just that if there's nothing more you can do, try not to envolope your life with it. It's like high school drama - it can feel like it's your entire world but in reality it doesn't necessarily matter.

<comment><USER32> I understand what you're saying and I would if I could (and I try). But my understanding of things is that shit's gonna get a lot worse.

If it was just me I'd say fuck it, party and watch the world burn. But I have kids, and I don't want to go down without a fight.

<comment><USER35> Get worse how? apart from the pandemic, what has fundamentally changed in the US that is _so_ bad. The world will go on, and yes maybe the balance is a bit more on the right, but the pendulum swings on. The partisanship is just a way to keep you tuned in to the news, it's a farce, there is not _that_ much difference between democrat and republican.

So the real question is, would you like to pass on this kind of anxiety to your kids, or give up this fatalistic bs, and start filling your days with more quality content.

<comment><USER32> Get worse? I believe that global warming is going to come at a faster clip than predicted. I'm still naive/hopeful enough that if the world collectively worked to remediate it we could get through ok.

I don't see that happening until shit hits the fan and its effectively way too late.

Couple that with the political landscape that indicates this election is going to be a shit show and if Trump is properly voted out will not leave office. Instead his plan is to light the fuse for Civil War II.

If you think I'm Chicken Little crying that the sky is falling, then that tells as much about you as it does about me.

As for you judging my parenting: I've been very guarded about these worries around my children. That said, my teen age daughter has insisted that she will never have kids. It was only a couple of months ago that she confided that it was because she didn't think she'd live long enough to do that.

Bear in mind that this teenager, being a teenager, pays as little attention to what I say as possible and this realization was entirely her own.

So there you go, Mr. Happy Go Lucky Ramblerman, who just thinks wishing things away will make it all better. It won't.

It's my duty as a citizen and a father to pay attention and do whatever I can to speak up or act whenever I can. I don't do this often enough or well enough, but I will continue to try.

So again, thanks for telling me how to parent. I look forward to you accepting the favor in return.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I believe the existential crisis so many are experiencing has been caused by the pandemic, but perhaps not in the way one might expect when approaching the problem rationally. Yes, we are more isolated, and perhaps concerned for the safety of ourselves or our loved ones, or even for some abstract concept of community or society, but depression is characterized by anhedonia: the inability to feel pleasure. Are we all sitting around, so preoccupied by the crises of the day that we have become numb to pleasure? That doesn't describe depression, although perhaps anxiety. I would describe depression as the loss of most strong feelings, not only pleasurable ones, and that is why death becomes so alluring: fear of death has been numbed as well.

No, an existential crisis is rooted in the meaning, or lack thereof, we are able to ascribe to our lives. And the pandemic has in many ways restricted our connections to those sources of meaning. Whatever stories we were telling ourselves about our life's purpose, the plotlines we imagined for ourselves, have been disrupted. The student has had their university all but taken from them. They cannot experience it in quite the same tangible way as they once did. The same is true for the worker who derives his meaning from labor. For many, that connection has been damaged, if not severed. It is the loss of meaning that accompanies the dawning realization that our sources of meaning were nothing more than illusions to begin with.

We realize now that life goes on without these guiding influences; that the rituals we perform do not in fact earn us the favor of the Gods. We come upon the idea that perhaps life really is meaningless and that we were in fact only existing previously because of a foolish, irrational faith. It has been thrust upon us, entirely by happenstance (and not because of any rational deduction or brilliance on our parts), that we are fools, rubbing our prayer beads and voluntarily deluding ourselves into thinking that some bit of our finite, meaningless lives could somehow persist alongside the infinite.

"For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite."

<comment><USER37> fine points up to the third paragraph. you said yourself that the pathways of meaning have been blocked - of course then things would feel meaningless! there's doesn't need to be a _M_ eaning to life for life to have _meaning_

<comment><USER36> I agree, the meaning of life is just that simple: to be alive. No greater meaning exists, and that's fine. We can live life without so much meta- analysis.

To arrive there though, we often need to see other personal sources of meaning exposed as illusory, or at least I did. I am trying to describe that process in the third paragraph.

<comment><USER37> Good to hear; it'd be hard to be capable of the perception of the start without also being capable of seeing the road past & through the conclusion at the end of your comment. I just tend to take issue with the naïve cynic nihilist take i detected in the latter half of your initial comment.

ps you may enjoy Nietzsche if you haven't been exposed to him yet - <USER3> project essentially starts with - OK, we've been freed from the prison of (religious) dogma, now what? His greatest aim, imo, was to answer the question of the (totally true, accurate) nihilistic observation you've reached. start w _beyond good and evil_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The quarantine made my depression and anxiety disorder much worse. About two weeks into quarantine, I started feeling paralysing sorrow about everything that ever happened to me, and the view of the future became grim.

I guess the time alone made me confront my problems in a way I couldn't handle, so I resumed my psychotherapy and went back on anti-depressants. I still haven't figured out the way to get out of this only-bad-thoughts loop. Morning Yoga helps a bit, and sports, in general, seem to take the stress away, though not for long. Maybe someone can share their experiences coping with that?

</comment><comment><USER39> The 'cure' of endless and pointless lockdowns is indeed proving worse than the disease, particularly when the CDC estimates overall mortality from the virus will be only 0.4%:

[https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/data- cd...](https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/data-cdc- estimates-covid-19-mortality-rate/275-fc43f37f-6764-45e3-b615-123459f0082b)

For reference the seasonal flu is 0.2%, for which we do... precisely nothing.

<comment><USER40> I'm confused by the downvotes on this. The comment is quoting CDC numbers, this is not some fake news report.

The 0.4% mortality for coronavirus is the CDC best estimate.

The 0.2% is from the CDC website for the 2017 flu season.

Edit: The parent comment has apparently been flag removed. But it was claiming that the reaction to coronavirus (lockdown) is worse than the damage from the virus, and used the above comparison to flu mortality to support this claim.

I'm not sure why this comment was flag removed, since it used data to support a position.

<comment><USER41> Nearly 100,000 people have died of COVID19 and there's good evidence that this is a substantial undercount. All this in a context where we shut down transmission vectors (being indoors, with lots of people). Most estimates I've seen suggest we'll hit 150k-200k deaths by end of year. 2017-2018 flu season killed about 80,000 with no mitigation efforts. Just on the face of it, this virus is far more than 2x deadlier than the flu.

<comment><USER42> > there's good evidence that this is a substantial undercount.

I don't know about the US, but most European countries count anyone who died _with_ corona as a covid death. No matter how clearly you died to something else.

<comment><USER43> While that may be true, most European countries still undercount the true death rates since there are large discrepancies between each country's official covid deaths and excess deaths.

<comment><USER44> Playing devil's advocate, how are we sure excess deaths are due to covid and not the lockdowns instead? (Suicides, cancelled surgeries, etc.)

<comment><USER45> Ok, playing systems-engineer here: we'd call those secondary COVID-19 deaths caused by the either _de facto_ or _de jure_ lock-downs.

Why, oh why, are some people so obsessed with lowering the number of COVID-19 related deaths at every possible opportunity? Its weird.

<comment><USER46> > Why, oh why, are some people so obsessed with lowering the number of > COVID-19 related deaths at every possible opportunity? Its weird.

Maybe they want to minimize the amount of secondary COVID-19 deaths?

<comment><USER45> Fair enough, but WHY?

Here is a less contentious example:

1\. consider a severe, long drought

2\. this will damage the livelihoods of many in the hinterland - farmers and those in the small town that service them

3\. many may be driven to suicide.

Would you not agree that such excess suicides are 'caused by the drought'?

<comment><USER46> Yes, but it's not quite the same, because the suicides etc for COVID-19 are not directly caused by the virus, but by our reaction to it, and some believe it's an over-reaction.

I'm not an expert on the actual, real dangers, e.g. how many and who will die, so that's not what I'm concerned with. If they're terribly high, doing what ever is necessary to stop it is right, I consider that obvious. "Flattening the curve" makes generally sense to me, in a "let's make sure our hospital system doesn't collapse" kind of way.

I live in a county of a bit over 300.000 people in Germany. We have 10 known active cases in the county. We're still in a very constrained soft-lock-down, i.e. schools not running normally, half the offices not open, mandatory masks, public services on emergency-only-level etc. We're still taking damage economically, obviously. Lots of people are scared to death in a very real way, and are _still_ afraid to leave their houses.

Is it still the right call to remain in this state today? Will it be when we have 0 active cases, but there are counties nearby that still have more than 0? By saying "well, everything that happens happens because of COVID-19", we're removing our agency from the equation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I've dealt with depression and anxiety for many years. I just want to tell anyone who happens to read this: it's ok to ask for help, it's ok to go to therapy, it's ok to use antidepressants.

Find the tools that work for you and keep asking for help when you need it. (Believe me, I know how hard it is.)

<comment><USER48> Isn't antidepressants in America one of the reasons of the opioid crisis...?

<comment><USER49> I assume that's a genuine question and that you're not trolling.

Opioids are a very different class of drugs than anti depressants (including medication to treat anxiety).

While people with mental issues may use opioids for self medication, no reasonable psychiatrist would ever prescribe such medication for psychological issues.

Oxy and their ilk were massively pushed by Purdue and their "colleagues" as a non-addictive pain relief if applied correctly.

They lied, of course, and that's where the US is now with the opioid crisis, since those drugs were massively over-prescribed.

It can't be mentioned enough that if you have serious mental issues then appropriate medication may be one of the pillars to help you out of the deepest circles of hell.

While it maybe a crutch (sometimes temporary, sometimes long term) it can be immensely helpful if properly prescribed and monitored and seriously be the difference between life and death.

edit: slight clarification

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The nation's been psychologically wrong-footed during an election year where the incumbent is the most controversial president in decades (one who's been impeached, even), the challenging party's primary process has been subjected to accusations of corruption and favoritism (at best) by the presumed nominee's opposition, and been riddled with suspicious errors. That alone would be a memorable storm and a half for our political history, but it coincides with a sweeping collapse in institutional trust, economic hardship, concerns of government overreach, and fear of mortal peril.

And we're just inaugurating the decade.

<comment><USER51> America has a profound ability to diagnose individual problems, and an active inability to diagnose social problems.

The American psychological industry cannot be let off the hook. DSM-5 is a handbook for how to blame society's failures on individuals. We need scientific doctors capable of considering not only the realities they are allowed to accept but also the realities of the actually existing world in which their patients live.

We desperately need legitimate mental health institutions, but for-profit healthcare and for-profit education cannot provide that.

<comment><USER52> > DSM-5 is a handbook for how to blame society's failures on individuals

I staunchly disagree with this, this has never been my experience with any of the psychologists/psychiatrists I have seen (I've seen somewhere around 6 over the course of my life).

Blame has never been a component of any psychiatric treatment I have experienced. The DSM is a book of diagnostic criteria to identify the issues you are experiencing, to help guide the provider in finding an appropriate means to help the patient cope with their problems. There is no question of blame; blame is basically irrelevant to the treatment.

I also don't think identifying someone's problem as being a result of society is clinically productive. Is telling a depressed person "Listen, you're just getting screwed over by society" going to be helpful? I think not, because the corollary to that is "and you can't change society, so you're stuck like this".

I do think it is important to consider how society is impacting the mental health of all of its members, but I don't think that discussion belongs inside your doctor's office.

<comment><USER53> > "and you can't change society, so you're stuck like this"

I think OP meant that psychologists/psychiatrists don't recognize the social nature of mental illness at all. Just because you can't change society doesn't mean you should tell patients that they can lift themselves out of depression through sheer willpower, healthy eating habits, and exercise. Those things can help but if you don't know how you're going to pay rent next month and you've got two kids, you're going to have serious anxiety.

<comment><USER54> Being anxious about a freight train heading straight towards you is not "anxiety" any more than grieving for the loss of a loved one is "depression." Medical doctors have absolutely nothing to do with the natural and accurate negative feelings associated with not being able to make rent.

<comment><USER53> But in most cases depression _is_ a natural response to the difficulties of life. It's like when your immune system triggers an inflammatory response to infection. It's painful but natural; and the cause is external. Willpower can't cure depression any more than it can reduce inflammation. But in the case of mental illness, the external agent is socioeconomic hardship, family dysfunction, loss of a loved one, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I recently read "Man's Search for Meaning", written by a psychologist who survived several years in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Frankl's main thesis is that humans have a deep need for _meaning_ in their life, which he defines as producing some kind of work, caring for others, or having enriching experiences. This strongly resonates with me. I believe America's consumer culture undermines this need. Many work "bullshit jobs" only to be able to afford to consume things — the work itself is not _for_ anything more meaningful than a paycheck. Mass manufacturing lets us care of most of our material needs ourselves so there is less culture around caring for each other than there used to be. There are an infinite number of "experiences" available, but most are simply consuming a thing created by someone else and endlessly reproduced. There is nothing particularly enriching about watching the latest Hollywood spectacle, nearly instiguishable from the previous ten movies in the franchise.

Frankl observed about his fellow prisoners that people could survive anything if they had something to live _for_. But when our lives are meaningless and we fill that void with shallow pleasures and distractions, we are ill-equipped to have the resilience needed to get through something like the current pandemic. When something bad enough is going on that Netflix no longer takes your mind off it, then to what do you turn?

<comment> caleb-allen It seems that American culture and/or economics have, in recent decades, moved toward primarily consumption rather than primarily production. My point of view is that the backlash and anger against capitalism I perceive from younger generations is a result of how unfulfilling consumerism really is.

I think individualism and personal liberty has been conflated with a selfish sort of consumerism, from the end consumer up through corporate cultures. Want something new? Buy it! Are you a business wanting to make inroads in a new sector? Don't research and produce. Acquire!

It is no surprise to me, then, that corporate debt is at an all time high, corporations and individuals are less prepared and resilient than ever, and that this crisis is violently exposing that.

<comment><USER55> _> I think individualism and personal liberty has been conflated with a selfish sort of consumerism_

Yes. It's important to note, too, that this isn't something American people spontaneously decided to do. It was a deliberate strategy by rich business owners to _sell_ the country on the idea of consumerism being great (because it was great for their businesses).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I went through a several years long period of pretty extreme anxiety. I went through sleepless nights, racing thoughts, near panic attacks on public transportation (for seemingly no reason!) In retrospect, it was a pretty terrible time, despite the fact that a lot of things were going well in my life from an outsiders perspective.

I can honestly say that therapy along with a lot of introspection got me to a much better place, despite my doubts from time to time. For anyone going through it, know that it actually, honestly is something you can get past with help.

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://archive.vn/7dj2r](http://archive.vn/7dj2r)

</comment><comment><USER57> I thought i had conquered my anxiety with lifestyle changes and then this happened. For someone who depends on their community but lives alone, this is major. I'm sick of people shaking me off for feeling depressed despite their introversion or their social circle being their family. For those of us alone, and isolated, who are extroverted, this blows the big one. I feel crazy every day. I'm not even sure if i want to code anymore. I miss meetings. I find myself crying with no reason everyday. Like I'm a middle aged man and this is honestly the hardest non self induced hardship I've ever dealt with. Oh... damn

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm telling you, the elite of this country in the 90s and the early 2000s sold this whole country up the creek. Both sides of the political spectrum pushed ultra capitalist policies and broke the common fabric of America. All meaningful blue collar work was outsourced, large swaths of intelligent highly competitive workers insourced from other countries, artificial boosting of financial assets, etc. The old America is rotting, the new America we see is bright and shiny. This will take a long time to fully surface, 50 years maybe, but it will eventually.

<comment><USER59> Not just America, but all nations have decided that let's gut out the local manufacturing of goods, allow complete exploitation of labor in one country and then reap the benefits. Now there is only one place that knows how to make stuff. Executives benefited tremendously at the expense of their homeplace. This way the entire fabric of the country tears apart and gets so tangled that voices of reason, science, truth and liberty gets drowned and no one knows what to believe anymore. The state of democracy is in danger. From top-bottom to left-right, the entire nation is dividing and these troughs will not be easily coalesced. Don't worry, services are starting to go to this centralized authoritarian regime too, not just physical goods.

<comment><USER46> > The state of democracy is in danger. From top-bottom to left-right, the > entire nation is dividing and these troughs will not be easily coalesced.

Divide et impera. But it doesn't even have to be a conspiracy and "class warfare", it seems that "enemy action" is hard to tell apart from "we've just let things happen and this is what happened".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Well, duh, the expected prevalence of any disease diagnosed entirely by the fiat of a group of people enriched by the disease being more prevalent is pretty close to 100%.

In other words, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

This is not to deny the reality of depression and anxiety but to cast doubt on the diagnostic criteria purveyed by a special interest group whose members get richer and more respected the more they can convince the world that the thing they do is needed. All professions justify their own existence.

</comment><comment><USER61> Though this is a troubling outcome, the questions asked seem a little vague for the times. Basically everyone will "feel down" or "feel nervous" given the risk facing them and their loved ones.

I feel nervous every time I go to the grocery store, but it would need to be causing problems in my life to be clinical anxiety.

</comment><comment><USER62> I feel fortunate that I have a south-facing balcony I can sunbath on during the day. Sunlight is a great antidote for many people when they're feeling blue, but this has now become inaccessible to many. Sunlight through windows just doesn't cut it; glass blocks too much UV.

</comment><comment><USER63> Probably correlates very closely with the increase in hysterical media and news reporting.

<comment><USER64> Either you're overestimating how most people consume news media, or i'm underestimating it.

Unless you think the fact that journalists are more often depressed and/or anxious make their reporting more "hysterical". In this case you might be onto something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I can't read the article but does it say what it was before covid? I'm not sure if this is a virus related thing or just a longer term trend.

</comment><comment><USER66> What a world we live in...

Tucker Carlson on Fox News yesterday tried to directly correlate the findings in this study to other news agency reports ( lies according to Tucker ) on the coronavirus... see the video @ around 6:50ish headlining this story on Fox News:

[https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-cnn-msnbc- are...](https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-cnn-msnbc-are-peddling- panic-moral-judgment-not-science-and-data-in-coronavirus-coverage)

</comment><comment><USER67> With psych stuff, I can't help but wonder how much of it is shooting the arrows and then placing the target...

</comment><comment><USER68> In las vegas, our unemployment rate is very close to hitting a third so. No surprise there.

</comment><comment><USER69> I suspect a third of Americans are now displaying symptoms of mental health disorders that were already present. Mental health disorders are drastically under reported in the US, and due to various stigmas most people are unwilling to except mental health illnesses as actual illnesses until they are prepared to harm someone.

This is the number one problem most police officers deal with when engaging with the public. Many people have mental health disorders they are not aware of resulting in all manners of poor decisions and disorderly conduct. Some of these disorders are severe and demand medication and some are exaggerated by existing medications. I recommend talking with experienced police officers and listening to some of their war stories.

My sister-in-law is also a managing mental health counselor and says the number of undiagnosed mental health disorders could represent as much as 40% of the population.

In my own experience I find that people hide from this by frequently changing their social situation and environment through out the day, such as driving to an office. When you are stuck at home full time with nowhere to go suddenly coping and distraction mechanisms are gone which becomes clear to the coinhabitants. I am on my fifth military deployment so I have gone through this a few times, and you can readily see the people lacking of a regular rhythm of emotional stability and stress management. You are with these people all the time as you live, socialize, and work with them. On a military deployment you can't rely on a frequent change of scenery to hide your insanity.

The most common example of excuse that people would hide behind pre-pandemic is finances. Bad financial situations are stressful, but stress is not a mental health disorder. Extreme stresses though often exacerbate pre-existing illnesses. In that regard bad finances don't produce mental health disorders as frequently as suggested but instead exaggerate pre-existing conditions that become more clearly identifiable.

The difference between stress and a mental health disorder is something called _homeostasis_ , which is the ability of the brain to return to a state of regular emotional equilibrium following an incidence of high stress. The military refers to the cognitive process of actively maintaining homeostasis as _resiliency_ and it's part of our annual training. The inability to return to resume functions of prior behavior following a major stressor is likely the result of a mental health illness.

[https://www.academia.edu/4970988/Mental_Health_DSM- V_mental_...](https://www.academia.edu/4970988/Mental_Health_DSM- V_mental_disorder_and_homeostasis_dream_sleep_and_day_time_interaction_of_cerebellum_and_cerebrum_in_the_regulation_of_behaviour_emotion_and_cognition)

</comment><comment><USER70> I strongly feel there is a link between modern foods and our gut/brain axis that is causing a lot of this.

<comment><USER71> You may be interested in watching Robert Lustig's lectures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> no paywall:

[https://archive.fo/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/202...](https://archive.fo/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/26/americans- with-depression-anxiety-pandemic/?arc404=true)

</comment><comment><USER73> if you want to understand what's going on zoom out and look at the last 200 years of civilization and society. Nietzsche is probably the best resource who predicted this. You can read _" Ecco Homo"_ or " _Thus spoke Zarathistra "_ and see the parallels in our modern life. He predicted the herd mentality which we've created. We despise and fear mental pain which is required for growing and most of us rather Netflix'n'Chill than read a book. Parents who put their kids on Ritalin or give them a tablet to be quiet.

Then as part of the herd-mentality we have the social-justice-warriors and activists and the cancel-culture preachers who try to fill this void with their own faulty logic (as a way to cope with their own pain - <USER4> something terrible is happening but drawing dangerous and false conclusions they are nothing but fools).

Today we have also the PsychologyIndustrialComplex which is filled with people who have no idea what they're talking about. It's no surprise that the product of all this is collective depression, rising nihilism and anti-natalism, and hate. Technology's (and Science and Academia in general) role in this is to produce ways of "making things easier" (coping mechanisms) but no longer to produce greatness. So science and knowledge as taught today is not the way out but part of the cause.

Here are a few videos, though you should probably read the books if you can:

1) Nietzsche and Psychology: How To Become Who You Are [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfyCzLbcAvk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfyCzLbcAvk)

2) Nietzsche and Morality: The Higher Man and The Herd [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE67Ye91Ii0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE67Ye91Ii0)

3) Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra: The Last Man and The Superman [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnhMJl11JUo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnhMJl11JUo)

4) Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Becoming Gods [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XrVnjpVdWE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XrVnjpVdWE)

there is also _" The conspiracy against the human race"_ by Thomas Ligotti (which was stolen by the producers of "True Detectives" for a monologue without giving credits). [https://archive.org/details/TheConspiracyAgainstTheHumanRace](https://archive.org/details/TheConspiracyAgainstTheHumanRace)

</comment><comment><USER74> As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope. The U.S. is more and more resembling a failed state, a mere shadow of what it used to be.

<comment><USER67> As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely?

Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?

<comment><USER75> This is very true, as an American. There's almost no difference in the vast majority of daily life for most Americans if you just pretended like the president doesn't exist.

<comment><USER76> Scant comfort for immigrants whose residency and livelihood are under threat, or Americans who have lost loved ones indirectly due to bad decisions made by the president, or non-Americans who have to live in a world shaped by American action or inaction on foreign policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Given the stress of the current crisis, this does not surprise me. The topic of the news for the past two months now is that there's a doom plague, a mask might not save you, people are violating quarantine to spread the plague, the economy is going to collapse, and Trump is making it all worse. People have lost their jobs, are being told they can't work, that they must stay home, they must stay away from other people, they must be afraid, etc and so forth. So in light of that, it does not surprise me at all that depression and anxiety are ramping up in the adult population.

Neither does the breakdown by age surprise me, with it being worst amongst 18-29 year-olds, and declining with age. I would love to see a finer breakdown in that category. Here is my hypothesis:

For the youngest of adults, especially those just now entering adulthood or their professional careers, this is probably the first societal shock they've experienced. They did what they were supposed to according to The Plan of How The World Works. They persevered through the soul-crushing hell that is high school, and got the best grades they could, and applied for colleges, and are ready to become adults. Or maybe they didn't get quite so good grades or dropped out and were banking on being able to support themselves with some kind of basic labor or service job. Or maybe they've taken out all the student loans to go to college, and are coming into what's supposed to be the beginning of their professional career to an economy that's about to collapse. Or if they haven't graduated, now there's the uncertainty if whether or nor they'll be able to finish their degree, with there being question about when/if campuses will open back up, or whether the online classes offered as substitutes will actually do any useful teaching. Regardless of the myriad variations available in the above, the basic situation remains the same: here they are, their life finally about to begin, and now the economy is collapsing, everyone's dying, a fascist oompa loompa controls the government, and generally the world is over. Well, shit. Now what?

I speak somewhat hyperbolically in describing the above, of course, but I stand by my basic point: The youngest adults are beginning their adulthood in fairly bad situation. And unless they're old enough to remember the previous societal shocks that were supposed end the world, but didn't, it's all to easy to come near the despair event horizon or even cross it.

Compare those who are a little older, or hell, a lot older. They've seen the Housing Crisis, War, 9/11, the dot-com bubble, and so on and so forth. And yet, they didn't die and are still here. Odds are, at least one of the previous crises made their life worse for a time, or messed up what was supposed to be a bright future or golden opportunity. And yet, they didn't die, and are still here. And the older they are, odds are, the more times they've seen that the world was about to end, and then didn't. And the more likely they've internalized the lesson that in crises like these, how well they come out of it depends largely on their attitude and how they apply themselves to getting through it. And so we see that with the older and older age groups, the anxiety and depression numbers are lower and lower.

This post might sound a bit ranty, and like I am projecting, and I'd be lying if I tried to claim there weren't threads of that woven through it. But it is not my intention for this to be just a "toughen up you whippersnappers and get off my lawn!" type post. No, if I had to have a message for the youngest of adults, it's this: I get it. The world just got turned upside down an nobody knows what's coming next. But, the future is not over, and things will get better. There are still opportunities to be found, and you _can_ come out of this stronger.

</comment><comment> nca-peripherals Before this incident (I've been through a few disasters and violent incidents), I was already on my 13th antidepressant (vilazodone) which doesn't appear to be working. Also on propranolol, clonidine, atomoxetine, carbamazepine, baclofen, gabapentin, and 40 mg/day of CBD. I buy CBD isolate (pure CBD) in bulk and make my own sublingual tincture using a precisely- measured ratio of ingredients comprising:

\- Organic coconut oil

\- Vitamin E T50

\- Grape seed / citrus extract

\- CBD

in a dark glass container filled into sterile saline spray bottles for use.

If you don't do this, then you're probably either being cheated or don't know what you're taking.

Anyhow, so far this new antidepressant doesn't seem to be working so the dose is getting upped. If this doesn't work, it's back to mirtazapine and weight gain. The only other options involve anticholinergics, extrapyramidal issues, electricity, magnets, and/or brain surgery.

I also have gradually, over the past few years, developed some sort of neurological decline vaguely reminiscent of vascular, frontotemporal, or Lewy body dementia or chronic traumatic encephalopathy (I was born cyanotic over several hours because of incompetent Kaiser Permanente doctors and was hit in the head extremely hard as a teenager twice and didn't receive proper medical care).

I can barely speak, I stutter a lot, my memory is disappearing, and my level of consciousness and clarity is declining. I can't code in any language anymore and I used to work in Rust, Haskell, C, Crystal, and so on. My sleep is a mess... one or a few hours here and there at all times of the day. I use every bit of concentration to write this. If it's an incurable condition, I will go somewhere very, very remote in Montana or Wyoming and breathe nitrogen.

<comment> tokamak-teapot It sounds like you're in a bad place. Lots of us have been there. Seek help from others, please. There are people around, hopefully in your local area, who can help.

<comment><USER78> Sounds like they are and have been.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> What age? I've noticed way more young people (teenagers and early 20s) exhibiting signs of anxiety and depression than people my own age (mid 40s). I never knew anyone with anxiety or depression growing up. But that probably has a lot more to do with mental illness not being discussed back than it not being around. But, even among me friend group nobody exhibited the signs that I see so clearly prevalent among my own kids' friend groups. Is it social media? Some chemical that has entered our environment? Is it something having to do with growing up in a post-9/11 world?

<comment><USER80> I think they would say that their future prospects are a lot dimmer than yours were, precisely because boomers have strip-mined civilization for their own benefit and left your kids' generation holding the bag.

At 37, I'm among the oldest of the millennials and I don't entirely agree with that assessment, but I think that's what they'd say.

<comment><USER79> That doesn't explain teenagers. My teens and their friends are not aware of that sort of things at all. That is more of a college-student mentality.

<comment><USER81> Teenagers are sensitive to the cognitive dissonance that accompanies learning how society works and their place in it, even if they're not yet able to articulate those feelings. Some are more precocious than others but anything a college student would be able to tell you about their relationship to society was developing for years beforehand.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Personal statements of Oxford applicants - <AUTHOR> http://www.studential.com/personalstatements/university.asp?universityid=201

<comment><AUTHOR> Admin editing practices here on HN taking very strange turns.

By removing the information that the site also provides details on if they were admitted or not the link becomes somewhat pointless.</comment>


O'Reilly Definitive Guides to All Things Programming on HumbleBundle - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com/books/definitive-guides-to-all-things-programming-oreilly-books?hmb_source=humble_home&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_2_layout_index_2_layout_type_twos_tile_index_2_c_definitiveguidestoallthingsprogrammingoreilly_bookbundle <comment><AUTHOR> 15 Definitive Guides for $15.</comment>


Learning new programming languages - <AUTHOR> https://codelympics.io/blog/learning-new-programming-languages?utm_source=hn&utm_medium=forum&utm_campaign=hn_learning-new-programming-languages <comment><USER2> there was a nice infographic I read from quora a while ago: [http://carlcheo.com/startcoding](http://carlcheo.com/startcoding)</comment>


Bridging Economics and Data Science - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/about-data/9351f95863e0

<comment><USER2> I'd encourage any economist that has a knack for programming to really put in some time towards the area. I've owned econpy.org for about 3 years now (although I haven't updated it in a long time). I also own economics.io and run econpy.blogspot.com.

It's much easier (relatively speaking) for an economist to pick up some programming than it is for a programmer to pick up some economics. Economists are already familiar with the types of questions that are important to economists, and more importantly, how to frame them. The trouble with economics is that you can't just pick it up overnight as it is a way of thinking more than it is a tool set. Programming on the other hand is something that you can "get working" overnight (economic programmers don't need to be algorithmic theorists -- they just need to be really good at getting/scraping data and organizing it so they can run analyses on it).

Over a year ago, I dropped out of my PhD program in economics because I was not at a school that was going to allow me to do the econ/cs type work I was working on. Leaving my PhD program was one the best things I ever did because it has allowed me to pursue whatever I want to do with the skills I've acquired.

The problem with academic economics is that the data most economists use is so bad and outdated -- such as data from FRED, BLS, and other publicly available sources where everyone and their uncle can download the same CSV dataset that was aggregated by some government employee. The race then is to see who can put together the most elegant econometric model to handle all the issues with the data. The rules of the game change when you create your own dataset and thus have control over while variables to include, the aggregation, the frequency, etc.

Long story short, if you are an economist wanting to do programming, learn to adapt those skills in academia (best way is to find a great advisor -- if there isn't one in your economics department, check the business school as bschool professors are often much more open to highly empirical analyses and care [marginally] less about getting the theory perfect). Or, if you want an easier lifestyle that is much more rewarding, ditch academia for the private sector. You'll find the economists in the private sector to be much more knowledgeable about cutting edge technologies and willing to listen and learn from what you have to say.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have an econ/finance degree and also worked for several years in finance. Then I quit my job and learned how to code. Now I have a web app with a paying and growing customer base. Knowing how to program will give you special powers when combined with your econ background. Congrats!

<comment><USER4> I have an econs background too. I learned to code in my final year of uni and now do some freelancing. You are right that knowing how to program will give you special powers!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> He nails the point, and then misses it himself:

 _the key to success is in cleverly selecting, finding, or creating a data source that answers a particular question_

It's about asking the right question and then finding or generating the right data to answer that question. That's what makes it science.

</comment><comment><USER6> When you need to study 30 plus income statements from 30 plus entities around the globe, you wonder less about the tools and more about getting it done. Then you become a "spreadsheet monkey", but that is only because nobody has been able to create a better tool since 1995.

I understand the pain of seeing people using old tech and taking hours to do tasks that should take seconds, but do not underestimate the importance of specific field knowledge and the fact that many people do not have time to learn coding. If you think about it, it is an opportunity for you to build a bridge between those 2 worlds. For example, nobody has produced yet a decent tool to consolidate financials...

</comment><comment><USER7> This is the same in the social sciences. I'm currently a PhD student in one of the top Communication departments in the US, and it's painful to see how far behind in technical skills and tools the curricula are (eg., Excel and SPSS). I've been self-teaching Python, R, and SQL, and extending my knowledge base from simple regression-based stats to data mining and machine learning, to make up for it. Not only does that allow me to work on massive datasets (and push the field forward across methodologies), but it allows me to improve more 'traditional' approaches by sharing data and models (eg., with .R scripts).

<comment><USER8> I'm in a well regarded sociology department and there's a huge gap between the sociologists who take technical things seriously (programming, stats) and those who don't. People have actually rolled their eyes in classes when we read papers about simulations. I was lucky: we have a core group of students who program and gather data using modern tools, but I gather this is rare both within my discipline and without.

<comment><USER9> That's a real shame, data science will hopefully cut through the theoretical BS that are the results of so many social science thesis'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A financial economist professor once mused that "current phd students are limited in the problems they can solve because they can't program." Of course the programming language he preferred was Fortran. :-)

Excel is the best tool for 80% of what bankers and consultants do. It can middle through the next 10%. The problem is it has just no way to do the last 10%. Either it's too slow or just can't handle the size or computations required.

</comment><comment><USER11> Like the author, I have an Economics background but have gotten into programming as I graduated from working on Excel. Economics has suffered because of a lack of good data - this is why so many explanations by economists begin with assumptions. I'm hopeful that the data sets now available will improve economic models and that people working in the public sector will put them to good use.

<comment><USER12> I also come from an Economics background, and am now a software engineer/budding data scientist. As I've delved more into machine learning topics, I'm amazed (though not surprised!) at how both academic and industry economists are still mostly focused on running OLS/logit/probit regressions, and not other classification techniques. My undergraduate thesis did use some computational models that sought convergence for dynamic & stochastic conditions, but that was definitely not the norm.

<comment><USER13> Macroeconomics and empirical industrial organization are leading the forefront in terms of theoretical and applied technical advances. You ought to look at discrete choice analysis sometime--great stuff.

I can't speak for industry economists, but the reason we academics tend to spend so much time with OLS/Logit/Probit is their flexibility and scalability.

<comment><USER12> Macro was my favorite subject! I was lucky enough to take the first year PhD sequence during my last year, which was my first taste of coding =D

I think in industry (anti-trust at least), they stick with the older models because their value has legal precedent, and using new methods would require some more legal hand waving by the attorneys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Analysts in finance/consulting certainly haven't had to upgrade their skills, but analysts in media/marketing definitely have had to.

Certainly there are people in this space who can't do much beyond spreadsheets, but there are many analyst now who use python/pandas or R to do work.

</comment><comment><USER13> The biggest issue I see from the ivory tower I'm surrounded by is that economists typically doubt the results of data mining. Neural networks, machine learning, etc. are all well known toolkits in computational economics (one of my specialties) but the results from their application are rarely believed.

<comment><USER15> Jared Bernstein answers Barry Ritholz on related themes today:

[http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/economics-as-market- failure/](http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/economics-as-market-failure/)

It's really hard to tell, especially outside the field, whether someone's computation has found signal and not noise in their data series, or even whether that data series has any significance for different times and different places ...

(You can "Monte Carlo" the past as much as you want, it won't become the future.)

Edit: I probably should have just referenced Sliver's Signal and Noise and left it at that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ditto. I am following a similar path. I am curious if there are any groups dedicated to people like us (econ/consulting/finance people learning data science) to help facilitate the learning process?

<comment><USER17> By _facilitate the learning process_ are you referring to the programming aspect or the math aspect of data science?</comment></comment>


Can I get some advice - <AUTHOR>

I have a fairly successful website that generates about $3k per month in profit, with solid growth in the recent past and easy continued growth in the near future. The only reason why that 3k is not 30k, or 75k per month is because of my laziness.
I have a list of 50+ things that need to be done with the site, changes, additions, writing etc... and I just can't seem to focus on getting them done.
I have people contact me to advertise all the time and I just tell them we are not accepting new advertisers right now, because I am too lazy to deal with yet another contact, and going back and forth with my tech people to get the ads implemented.
I have absolutely no technical skills and I outsource all of the work on the tech side overseas. The trouble is that I hate being a project manager and walking people through my vision.Also, good help is hard to find.
I also have a well-paying full time job and a growing family and I cannot devote myself to the site wholeheartedly until the revenue allows me to quit my job.
Some of my options as I currently see them are:
1. Sell the site. I have been approached several times by very good and well known acquirers about selling to them. I said no because I know there is so much revenue to be unlocked with a little bit of work that I just can't let it go at a much lower valuation.
2. I could just continue along as I have been, making minor improvements very slowly and just leave some money on the table.
3. I could look for a partner to help actualize my vision and unlock the potential.
Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> I'm in the middle of purchasing a site from someone in your exact same position. He felt that the site could make double what it's currently making with some TLC. So we agreed to a profit-sharing agreement where he gets a cut of the money I make off the site. I get a lower risk for loss if the site under-performs, and he has the potential to make a lot more money. It's something worth considering.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally, I'd say that #3 gives you the best option to open up a new lifestyle for yourself. $3k profit is nice, but $30k would allow you to travel the globe while still being able to work on the website when you needed to - you and your partner both, likely. Work from the south of Spain or France, then head over to Hong Kong for a visit. Just take your laptop.

The other options leave you static in lifestyle - or at best, without personal growth.

Of course, #3 is likely the most risky as well, because you'd need to find an honest and reliable partner that complements what you put into the business well.

I've done (and still do) PM work, so I know what you mean by needing such skills to direct one's vision.

Best of luck - take advantage of your website creation! Use it to build up an envious lifestyle! ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. If you can make a compelling case that there is more revenue with a little more work, then you should be able to get a higher valuation.

Even a shack is worth a million bucks if it's in down town Manhattan. It doesn't matter what YOU are doing with it, it matters what you both know they can do with it.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's as simple as that: Hire People; since the website makes a lot of money, you can hire coders and designers and they'll do the work. Contact me, (find email in profile) I can be helpful.

BTW: If you wrote down the URL of the website, you would get more help

</comment><comment><USER6> Royalties is the word you are looking for.

Sell the site for a nominal cost. Take a percentage cut of all sales/profits whatever as per negotiation.

Low risk for buyer, you get to be lazy and reap the rewards of your site's full potential.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd go with 3. It's always better to increase the value of the site, and I mean....if you need any help, I'm sure you'll find someone from the Hacker News community.

...if anything, I'd be glad to help you out! :)

</comment><comment><USER8> "my tech people to get the ads implemented." - Ad Server, like openads or even a service like buysellads would probably save you a ton of time & hassle.

</comment><comment><USER9> care to post the url to the site? i think it would be easier to find a partner that could take care of the technical side if they were also interested in the content of the site.

</comment><comment><USER10> _I cannot devote myself to the site wholeheartedly until the revenue allows me to quit my job._

$3,000/month isn't enough to quit your job?

How long would it take to get it to an income where you could quit your job?</comment>


Telecommuting Has Changed Real Estate - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/realestate/how-telecommuting-has-changed-real-estate.html <comment><USER2> > 13 percent worked at home full time.

That was really surprising for me. Maybe it's that area's unique situation. I know quite a few people working remotely, but for an overall number, I wouldn't guess above 5%. It's great that the number's raising.

<comment><USER3> >> John Burns Real Estate Consulting, a firm with offices across the country, found that roughly 30 percent worked at home between one and four days a week; 13 percent worked at home full time.

That's very surprising. My knee jerk reaction was, there's no way that 13% of the working population with degrees is working from home. Anecdotally, I only hear of very few people working from home.

But, then I check the statistics for Remote job posting (from stackoverflow) on [https://skilldime.com/app.php?PieChart2=Remote](https://skilldime.com/app.php?PieChart2=Remote) and found that 846 out of 7591 job postings (roughly 11%) were fully Remote. and another 469 (~5%) were onsite+limited remote. And, even more impressive is the fact that those remote jobs don't pay less than the same jobs in most cities.</comment></comment>