Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever - <AUTHOR> https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/08/why-bertrand-russells-argument-idleness-more-relevant-ever <comment><USER5> I'm a huge fan of sloth. I frequently take many months off between jobs, sometimes a year or more. I refuse to work more than 40 hours a week except for genuine emergencies (things like outages; being behind schedule never counts), and I'm close to drawing the line at four days a week. I always take at least three weeks off a year, and that's in a bad year. I take "mental health days" often and with no guilt. If you don't own your time, people will take it from you.

I'm perhaps speaking from a place of privilege, but it's not that hard to achieve. I've been doing this my whole life, from minimum wage jobs through decades of professional career.

Sit on the couch. Take a vacation. Quit your job. Say no to overtime always and forever. Blow off weekends often. Nothing is as important as others will tell you it is. You're going to die some day and when you're on your death bed you won't regret the times you did nothing.

<comment><USER6> I like your attitude. How, if I may ask, did you end up with your current philosophy? Was it through past experiences where people did take your time and you gave in?

I love the idea of taking lots of time off, but on a personal level I have a lot of guilt surrounding that. I know it's not rational since ultimately it's my life, but it's still something I need to work on to get over. If you have tips on changing my mindset surrounding this, I'd love to hear it.

<comment><USER7> I identify with his post. I always had a rebellious streak when it comes to people judging me. In return, I don't judge other people myself. It also saves a lot of energy :)

That's how I don't feel guilty. I am not doing anything and you can do whatever you want in life too.

I find it tough to achieve though. I am currently at 4 days per week but would like to be at 3.5 days, that's my optimum (lower than 3 days and I will go insane of not exercising my mind).

<comment><USER8> > lower than 3 days and I will go insane of not exercising my mind

It's not like paid work is the only place where you can exercise your mind

<comment><USER7> I agree but I find it the most practical place. If I can't exercise my mind, then there's nothing for me at work other than obtaining an income (no SF salary here so no financial independence possible).

<comment><USER9> I do the same only I exercise the body at work.

<comment><USER7> Nice one!

Fair enough, I thought about doing that too. I chose for the mind, but IMO the body is a good option as well, especially because if you choose the right profession (i.e. light to medium exercise), it probably means you'll live longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >we also need to challenge the cultural ethic that teaches us to value ourselves in proportion to our capacity for "economically productive" labour. Human beings are more than just workers. We need to learn how to value idleness.

I think much more than valueing idleness it's also a massive indictement of the system we live in. The number of people who I've talked to who legitimately don't know what to do without work during the pandemic is staggering.

It says a lot that as a society there is so little attention paid to instilling curiousity in people and fostering people's potential that, left without menial work to do, nobody knows what to do with themselves.

<comment><USER8> > The number of people who I've talked to who legitimately don't know what to > do without work during the pandemic is staggering.

The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.

\-- Bertrand Russell [http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html)

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure that this little nugget of wisdom has withstood the test of time. The average number of hours worked has fallen dramatically since the 30s[0] even as interest in passive entertainment has skyrocketed.

[0][https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s- history/](https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/)

<comment><USER12> The core of it stands that 'urban populations have become mainly passive'. Perhaps I'd consider revising to replace passive with consumers. So, we've been taught and continually urged to spend our idle hours consuming. So, it isn't a surprise to me that most folks don't know any other way to spend their time.

<comment><USER13> Consumption usually costs money and increases money velocity, which leads to a better economy. So it's a bit different than "idleness."

<comment><USER14> A better economy... Please define "better".

<comment><USER13> Money is worse when its velocity is low. This is associated with hoarding of cash.

The world could have 10000T in cash but if no exchange happens, everyone is poor.

<comment><USER14> Endless consumption is a delusion, regardless of how much "better" the economy appears.

Idleness doesn't necessitate consumption, and it's interesting that that conclusion was jumped to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why did Keynes believe that, say, a doubling of efficiency (through technology) would half work time for everyone? Sure it's a solution to the equation, but so is what actually happened[1]: half the workforce gets laid off. This halves the costs, which facilitates price reduction and thus a competitive edge. Did Keynes believe that benevolence would win over profit? Don't get me wrong, I wish it had, but that seems a little naive.

[1] It occurs to me that another solution is to keep the work force, but double the work. This also happened; it seems like there are plenty of jobs that are just busy work with no real purpose.

<comment><USER8> > what actually happened[1]: half the workforce gets laid off.

The article says as much:

> In a sane world, Russell thought, the factory would simply halve working > hours, maintaining the same wages but greatly increasing the time that the > workers could devote to the joys of leisure. But, as Russell observed, this > rarely happens. Instead, the factory owner will opt to keep half the workers > on the same hours and lay off the rest. The gains from the advances of > technology will be realised not as an expansion of leisure but rather as > drudgery for some and jobless destitution for others, with the savings > enjoyed only by the winner, the factory owner.

<comment><USER16> The reason this didn't happen is two fold.

First, workers gain skill by the hour. It's more efficient to have forty hour work weeks for a workforce of half the size than twenty hour work weeks with the same size.

Second, many things in the economy are arms races. Housing[0], cost of education, status goods, actual arms for our militaries, etc. We have enough productivity for things like food to be very, very cheap but it just drives up prices elsewhere.

[0] Specifically land value, but also housing in the physical sense since raw materials and labour are not unlimited.

<comment><USER17> Zeroth, the more unemployed, the more downward salary pressure on the employed.

edit: the reasonable expectation is that half of the workers are fired _and_ the remaining workers' salaries are cut. The Luddites were a result of noticing technological improvements lowered wages and employment at the same time.

<comment><USER18> It's kinda weird how the labour is almost always in oversupply.

<comment><USER19> Won't be if basic income becomes available :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Reading the title and actually reading what Bertrand Russell was talking about are two different things. Russell when he refers to leisure isn't talking about sitting on a porch staring up at the sky(or binge watching netflix), he is talking about pursuing interesting hobbies and learning into subjects not core to ones occupation(but also a little plain idleness as well). With most people in tech jobs and especially if you have a family, time is extremely constrained. I would love to get more involved in astronomy, study into physics and just learn more about various areas of history. Due to the pandemic work has for me increased tremendously and become very stressful. I sometimes wish I was unemployed so I can focus on these side projects which I love, but couldn't deal with the loss of income. If I had the extra time I would be extremely busy so to speak, so its strange when I hear about people who are bored during the past few months who are not working.

</comment><comment><USER21> Some of the highest goods (as in, virtuous or wholesome things) are those that are sometimes described by workaholics, or parents of over achievers, as "useless" or "wastes of time".

Art, music, sport, leisure, time with family- all these things (and more) put us in touch with the greater things in life. We collectively live out the human experience in a way that crashes through barriers of language, and in my opinion, we also encounter the transcendental.

Work is simply a means - not an end in itself. I work so I can provide for my family. The good I am pursuing is the welfare of my family. That gives my work a higher meaning. Those engaged in charity work or volunteer work (also a higher good) are usually paid the least.

I find that the people who fall into the trap of treating their work as an end, are the ones the most susceptible to burn out, depression, and low life satisfaction.

Make time for the "useless" things. Go for a walk, read a book, look at the birds, listen to music, write a poem, get out those pencils you never use, play an instrument, watch a good film, go fishing, spend time with your kids, buy something nice for your wife. But for goodness sake, forget about work for enough time each week. You'll feel infinitely better.

<comment><USER22> > virtuous, wholesome, ... higher good ...

what counts as virtuous etc, is just a set of beliefs you have. The person who "treating their work as an end" is not less happy, in the same way that a worker ant is happy doing what they were born to do (work themselves to death). Assigning your value judgement on someone else's life decisions just another way to be on a high horse. Who's to say that the workaholics are wrong to live the way they do?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) is now a popular goal among the young. If you retire early, however, you're going to have to figure out what to do with all the leisure time. It would perhaps be better to have people working fewer hours, but over more years - a longterm 3-day workweek would allow for plenty of leisure as well as work.

<comment><USER24> I can only speak for myself, but I know a lot of people with similar goals to me - I've worked a full-time job since I was 17, and upon leaving college, have always worked 2 or more jobs (typically one-full time, one entrepreneurial venture or part-time internship to gain experience - <USER2> I just work two full-time jobs, one of them my own company, and do some sporadic consulting as well).

I'm in my late 30's and plan on "retiring" in my early 50's. I had kids in my late 20's, so we're good there (it's been tough of course). I doubt I'll stop working and will probably switch to working 2-3 days a week for a few months at a time, or getting on a few boards of directors and being an advisor/consultant, or something like that.

I work 70+ hours/week on average and have done so for over a decade. I know this pace isn't sustainable; I'm falling behind every year that passes me while I watch 23 year olds put in the hours I used to. So for people our age, we have to put the work in now if we want leisure time later.

America is turning into a winner-takes-most society and I don't see that changing anytime soon. It will become harder and harder to be a "punch the clock" person and retire at a normal age, especially as life expectancy continues to get pushed out.

<comment><USER25> This honestly sounds just like my nightmares.

I'd rather go live in a tent than spend 10+ years putting in 70+ hour weeks just to retire when all of my best years are behind me.

<comment><USER24> Feel free. Different strokes. I spent 3 years of my life professionally gambling as one of my full-time jobs and lived more in those 3 years than most do in a lifetime, and founded a company with an eight-figure valuation that is a lot of fun to run. If I worked some boring desk job that I hated, sure.

Besides, my best years are ahead of me. I'll be in great shape in my 50s with nothing but time and options. The idea that your 20s and 30s are the best years of your life is a very antiquated concept.

<comment><USER26> Plenty of us here founded companies with eight-figure valuations. Not that uncommon on hacker news.

I did and I've never worked-worked more than 30 hours per week except for short bursts at a time. The more critical your work is, the more time you should dedicate to being at your best.

I don't take any umbrage at your chosen path nor do I disagree that america is a winner take most society. But when most is a bunch of unnecessary consumer faff, maybe enough is better to shoot for.

These days I work 15-20 hours per week. I spend as much time as I want abroad/surfing/screwing around on the internet. I'm 35. I don't care to fly first class or buy Vuitton. But I do have all my meals and my bed made for me.

<comment><USER24> Well I work two jobs plus consulting, so it's like 30-35 hrs/job if that works!

I agree RE: consumerism. I save / invest most of my money and spend it on services like you (though I cook most of my meals since it's a hobby of mine; but same idea with a nanny, housekeeper, etc). I wear mostly free clothing from vendors and my suits (such that I need them) are all from Indochino; I drive a 12 year old used SUV around and live in a modest townhome in a not- great area of my city.

I have "enough." I enjoy work, a lot. I get the feeling a lot of people don't like working, or like their job, or something. It's not a chore. 70 hours a week producing and working is indeed a hell of a lot of fun. Especially for those years when it was gambling... but hey, what I do now is still almost as fun.

EDIT: Well, I have enough for me. Not for my family. To retire at age 40 requires a hell of a lot more money than I have now for obvious reasons, even if I don't plan on giving my kids a ton of money to live off of.

<comment><USER26> It sounds like your priorities are on track. There are far worse things to do in life than to accumulate generational wealth and save your kids from the drudgery of meaningless jobs. How much money do you think you'll need to be comfortable?

That said I still have a problem with the idea that working 70 hours out of every week is good - even if you feel energized, certainly you can't be operating near your peak.

Take the world's best in the world's most star-driven market, Ronaldo. How many hours does he work every week? 10 real work hours, plus 10-15 of preparation? Would we expect him to be a better footballer if he also took a shift doing data analysis at McKinsey nights and weekends? Or is it better that he focus on being close to 100% of his potential on every match?

I'm sure you're extremely good at what you do and I'm genuinely thrilled to see what you'll produce when you can afford to be better-rested (if you don't burn out before). I'm sure it will be your best work.

<comment><USER27> Ronaldo most certainly "works" more than 25h a week.

I think it's very difficult to become world class working <40h a week. At the same time I don't think this is something everyone should strive for. If you want a nice relaxed/balanced life, there's nothing wrong with that.

However the world would be a much sadder place without the obsessive- compulsives that spend an inordinate amount of time on their craft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> We could start by not calling it "idleness" when we paint pictures, learn physics or read philosophy...

<comment><USER22> i think the utilitarian mindset is very pervasive (but for good reason) - <USER3> that does not generate excess value is called idleness. If you paint a painting for yourself to enjoy, and have no desire nor ability to sell it to somebody else, it's called idleness.

There's a reason why these activities are often funded by patronage in the old days (nobles and kings etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Also see Bob Black's _" The Abolition of Work"_:

[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the- abolit...](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of- work)

<comment><USER30> Or, similarly and more recently, Graeber's idea of "bullshit jobs". As mentioned in your link, we need to slow down economic growth if we're going to have any shot at all of slowing down climate change, and that will conveniently require us all to work a lot less :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Thanks to technology, the need for employment is at the lowest it has ever been, if someone is willing to make a lot of sacrifices when it comes to modern luxuries.

However, if one desires to live with luxuries such as, gasp, housing and medical care, then life becomes extremely expensive, especially in US cities.

So increasingly as I see it, you either need to be making big bucks as a developer/executive, or you need to be living in a tent on BLM public land with your only expenses being food and a phone bill.

<comment> non-entity > or you need to be living in a tent on BLM public land with your only > expenses being food and a phone bill.

Can you actually [legally] do this?

<comment><USER32> You just have to move around every 20 something days, although I don't know if it's enforced.

<comment><USER31> I can confirm it's not enforced, as it is difficult to track. I imagine that the worst that would happen is you are just asked to move, particularly if you have a giant camper or are making quite a bit of impact on the land you are occupying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > ... we have realised that it is worth taking an economic hit in order to > preserve health.

Have we realized this? I think you'd find a sizable chunk of the country that disagrees. And I also think it's still too soon to say.

> That, after all, is what money is for.

Money that we don't have. We can keep conjuring money out of thin air if we want, but the effects of infinitely deepening debt seem negative in every case study I've ever read (to say the least).

<comment><USER34> what the pandemic is making more obvious is that money is getting stuck in idle and infirm hands. further, money is being injected into the wrong hands in the economy. we need money being injected closer to productive hands (like essential workers) rather than the current centralized system giving it to far-removed capital holders, those who prefer rent-seeking and other non- productive ways of stalling the velocity of the economy for their own benefit.

<comment><USER35> This.

We need our tax laws geared to increasing the velocity of money.

I believe that with the growing global middle class we actually do need to print money faster than we are, because we don't want to be in a situation where people think that not spending is more valuable than spending. Wealth is not zero sum, and these new families need to partake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another important reason that "idleness is more relevant than ever" is climate crisis

[https://cepr.net/documents/publications/climate-change- works...](https://cepr.net/documents/publications/climate-change- workshare-2013-02.pdf)

<comment><USER30> Exactly this. I thought this must be the reason suggested by the headline and was really sad to see barely any reference to it even in the comments...

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The core issue here is Democracy and Human greed. Why would a majority vote for a 15h working week for everyone, when they could vote for a zero hour working week for themselves and a 60h working weak for some poor beleaguered minority? That's what we have today: employment rates are around 50%, the rest opt out and vote republican. Republicans cut things used by working people and throw money indiscriminately at pensioners and the rich (2 groups exempt from having to work).

This is the exact same issue with UBI. The universality of it undermines support.

</comment><comment><USER37> It's always seemed strange to me that the average work week, decreasing steadily for quite some period of time, seems to have stagnated around 40 hour work-weeks for decades, despite the massive increases in productivity leveraged by technological advances.

Personally I decided long ago that I simply don't care enough about money to try & advance upwards into high paying positions that would eat upwards of 60 hours a week, and possibly much more w/ off-time emails, phone calls, texts, etc. Instead I have a 40-hour work week, occasional emergencies where I of course do a little extra. I'm paid well for it, and have turned down every overture of advancement because I neither want the extra stress nor do I want to leave behind meaningful work in place of important-but-not-enjoyable work I'd have to do if I moved up a level. Instead I get to perform mission- critical work solving interesting problems, and get home early enough to have a nice family dinner, talk to my kids about their day, get beat by those same kids in Fortnite, and pursue multiple hobbies. Not only do I get ample vacation time, I don't work in a place that frowns upon actually using it.

I don't see why everyone couldn't have jobs that allow for this sort of lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER38> The article sets up a bit of a false dichotomy. It's partly inherent in using _idleness_ as the alternative to economically productive work. Did Russell himself use that term (edit: yes :-))? I'm guessing it's supposed to be provocative, to make it stick. But I'd imagine that's part of the problem. Many people would balk, and I think rightly so, at the connotations. There's nothing positive about undirected free time over a long period. And the article doesn't help with glosses like "Netflix in pyjamas."

The best alternatives to economically productive work are equally productive in different domains. For example, take gardening. You might be surprised at the quality of aerobic exercise you get working a large yard and garden. I recently took a heart rate monitor and found I could replace my morning jog. My heart rate was actually higher on average, and the sense of purpose was a welcome distraction from the work.

Unfortunately few are taught these kinds of healthful alternatives. I can only imagine what a difference in health and cognition there would be if schools taught hands-on agriculture and gave students garden plots.

<comment><USER39> > There's nothing positive about undirected free time over a long period.

I could easily fill that time with dozens of ideas. But you see, I'm lucky enough to be a "creative" person. That is, I'm in love with the things I invent. The more I invent, the more passionnated I am. I can sustain an incredible level of activity just to achieve goals I create myself. But these goals are mostly non economic. So being able to just do my stuff without having to prove an economical value to it would be very much welcome.

<comment><USER40> >I'm lucky enough to be a "creative" person

This is the kind of insanity Russel's original essay alludes to. If we weren't taught to fill every hour with "productive" work, then anyone could foster their creativity with idle pursuits that aren't limited by their ability to produce value.

People feel like they're not creative because they feel the constant need to produce something of value and are afraid to experiment with anything else. Creativity requires that type of experimentation.

The fact that we claim some people are creative and some are not is a complete facade. It's similar to saying "oh I can't draw" or "I'm bad at math" — well no, you've likely just spent less time practicing it... maybe you're too afraid to fail to even try.

<comment><USER39> You're right. And unfortunately, as you said, things are not as clear cut even for me. For example, it took me long (and the good will of my beloved) to accept that I should work less and have more time for me, that it'd be much better for my health. Sometimes too I feel guilty of not contributing to society by "traditional" means, etc. So you're right, the inescapable necessity of work is still in our culture :-/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > Instead, the factory owner will opt to keep half the workers on the same > hours and lay off the rest.

People are the hardest resource to manage for a business. Finding them. Keeping them. Motivating them. Training them. Etc. Double the workers with half the working time is a lot more expensive.

So business will never choose to do this. If this would be better for society (emphasis on IF) then only regulation will make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER42> You get to praise idleness only after you burn out writing Principia Mathematica.

</comment><comment><USER43> Josef Pieper's "Muße und Kult" comes to mind as well:

[https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/08/10/leisure-the- basis-o...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/08/10/leisure-the-basis-of- culture-josef-pieper/)

</comment><comment><USER44> From the article: "Recalling the famous example of the pin factory that Adam Smith used to explain the division of labour, Russell imagined a new technology that will halve the amount of time it takes to make a pin. If the market for pins is already saturated, what will happen?

In a sane world, Russell thought, the factory would simply halve working hours, maintaining the same wages but greatly increasing the time that the workers could devote to the joys of leisure. But, as Russell observed, this rarely happens. Instead, the factory owner will opt to keep half the workers on the same hours and lay off the rest. The gains from the advances of technology will be realised not as an expansion of leisure but rather as drudgery for some and jobless destitution for others, with the savings enjoyed only by the winner, the factory owner."

This is, amazingly and depressingly, the only thing that will ever happen. This is capitalism, unfortunately, and profits flow up, not down. Capitalism seems to work best when the bottom feeders continue to feed at the bottom, in the same ways, without dramatic changes in behavior.

Can regulation fix this?

That's like asking if regulation can solve racism, or stop domestic violence. It can help, but it won't minimize it to such a significant level that it will mitigate the issue.

Russell's argument is great, but the cold harsh winds of our capitalist reality blow in the other direction.

<comment> 0-_-0 > Can regulation fix this?

What if it was illegal to work more than X hours per week? X=20 for example.

Actually, let me answer my own question: Everyone would need to have 2 jobs, and every company would employ twice the number of people.

<comment><USER44> I think that's the most likely scenario

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> >"Recalling the famous example of the pin factory that Adam Smith used to explain the division of labour, Russell imagined a new technology that will halve the amount of time it takes to make a pin. If the market for pins is already saturated, what will happen?

In a sane world, Russell thought, the factory would simply halve working hours, maintaining the same wages but greatly increasing the time that the workers could devote to the joys of leisure. But, as Russell observed, this rarely happens. Instead, the factory owner will opt to keep half the workers on the same hours and lay off the rest."

The cost for a single pin will be reduced and the labor required to consume a single pin will also be reduced. Money saved is an opportunity for leisure.

</comment><comment><USER46> > Bertrand Russell wrote "In Praise of Idleness" in 1932, at the height of the > Great Depression, idleness was an unavoidable reality for the millions who > had lost their jobs

What a passive attitude. Unless you're in a straight jacket idleness is a thoroughly avoidable reality. Hustle matters most when you're broke and unemployed. If you're doing it right being unemployed is a full-time job, job hunting. Or building your own.

<comment><USER47> You know that people live in places where: job market is limited, market for their skills is limited.

Even if you apply to every shitty job in your area you might run out of options. What then? Move to another city or another country? To do that you have to have some funds. If you have a house or property in one place you probably won't move so easily as well. So it might be that one has to wait it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> All this thought about the economy and working and idleness doesn't take things far enough. What we really need to abolish is human metabolism. The fact that we need to eat and hustle to grow and acquire calories and nutrients is the real oppressor. We need to scientifically find out how to stop metabolism so we all don't need to work and will never starve. Attack the root of the problem. Next in line is mortality.

<comment><USER49> I'm not sure if you're serious or presenting what you think is an absurdity, but I instantly knew human photosynthesis must be an existing science fiction trope, even though I don't actually know a title offhand.

Frankly, I expect this sort of thing before fusion power that is "too cheap to meter".

See:

[https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/151099/story- inclu...](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/151099/story-including- gene-splicing-to-give-humans-photosynthesis-capability)

<comment><USER48> The problem is we're just too energy intensive. There's an interesting exchange about average daily calorie needs (2k Cal) and how much sunlight collection you'd need to satisfy that energy need. Cool stuff. Bottom line, our bodies don't present enough surface area to get the job done. [http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2018/02/ask- physicist-...](http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2018/02/ask-physicist- how-many-calories-are-in.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Speaking from experience, simply wait for retirement. Then your idleness cup shall runneth over. But even that too shall eventually prove to be a bore...

</comment><comment><USER51> There are already movements applying this. Early retirement (FIRE), Tim Ferris 4-hour work week. Stoicism is also useful.

<comment><USER52> Indeed. But we can't all resell uppers and market self-help books/speaking engagements. So it's off to find our own niches or miners in need of shovels!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> [https://archive.is/3UiIz](https://archive.is/3UiIz)

</comment><comment><USER54> I distinguish at least two kinds of work: one where you earn money because you have no other sources of income. And work that relates to whatever you are doing on you own behalf - which can be very productive as well.

The first kind of work is a productive factor, like capital or land. It's just the brains and hands of a piece of flesh that does what it is told. A worker is always subordinated to capital, you are working for the capital of others. You never get the full reward, whereas people you never met will earn a share of every piece of value you provide.

It's funny, almost every second product I buy these days comes from firms which went to one or even multiple private equity hands in the past two decades. It is one of the reasons why I reduce my consumption to a minimum.

Neoliberalism hates equality, it hates social progress and it has absolutely no idea of how to do something different that would benefit society at large. There is no society for capital, there is revenue, returns and all human activity you are observing is partially there, because there is someone who just wants their profit.

Poles are melting, climate changes, species die out, capitalism (as it is implemented; the theory is much more progressive) could not care less about killing its own foundations.

It reminds me of avant-garde capitalists operation like facebook. It could only start on an open web, and its endgame is own all you presence online. Walled gardens, armes guards, cash flow.

<comment><USER49> >You never get the full reward

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_didn%27t_build_that](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_didn%27t_build_that)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Interesting article. It poses a huge dilemma. As more jobs become redundant, how should 'useless people' be compensated relative to 'useful people' without whom the economy could not operate?

To complicate matters, many of the 'useless people' could be highly skilled and could theoretically launch their own businesses and start competing against established businesses and take away some market share... But if the market is already saturated and consumers are already satisfied beyond their perceptual capacity, launching a business in such a saturated industry could not be regarded as a 'useful' activity in a broad sense (it's a zero-sum game). This means that being able to capture economic value (profits) from an industry would not necessarily imply that someone is useful; in fact, an increase in profits may not bear any correlation with an increase in consumer satisfaction in that industry; in a saturated market, the profits for a specific company or individual could entirely be the result of political lobbying, social scheming, or luck and have nothing to do with increased consumer satisfaction.

Given that useless people are still capable of capturing profits from an industry by starting their own business, it would be highly unethical for the incumbents (those who own the means of production in the saturated markets) to try to stop the 'useless people' from trying to compete (since that would deny them access to the same fair playing field which the incumbents themselves had benefited from in the past). Yet at the same time, it may be more efficient overall if, instead of trying to compete in a saturated market, 'useless people' would accept the reality that they are in fact useless and instead of trying to compete, they would get paid to be idle.

But if useless people get paid to be idle, then how will useful people who still need to work feel about that? Also, even for people who have useful skills, there may be more people who have those skills than there are positions to fill. How then do we choose which people should have a job and which should not? Does it make sense to select them based on skill if the skill level of the employee does not affect consumer satisfaction?

It seems like this would create an incentive for useless idle people to pretend to be or have been useful; they can't just accumulate enough money to go idle without having a backstory to go with it. Yet at the same time it is in the interest of incumbents (owners of the means of production) for these people to go idle instead of competing with them. To appease those who are still working, every member of the idle class needs an excuse (e.g. they sold their company to Google for a few million $). The economy then becomes centered around manufacturing backstories for new members of the idle class... Until the point where everything is automated and everyone can be idle.

I think the biggest problem with this story is that if we remove the market selection mechanism? What kind of alternative selection mechanism should be used instead?

<comment><USER17> I'm not sure if this rises to the level of a "huge dilemma" when we don't even compensate the "useful people" enough to live. As more jobs become redundant, the standards of the wealthy will become more extravagant, and require more bodies to fulfill. The difference in the income of owners will continue to drift farther from the income of workers.

Middle class people don't even have servants anymore, so we've got a long way to go before we have to worry about anything but an arbitrary number of unemployed decided through fiscal and monetary policy.

<comment><USER55> Try starting a business without any personal connections and watch it fail over and over again while customers keep telling you how much they like your product but you just can't compete with corporations financially. If corporations were on a level playing field with everyone else and they did not have a financial advantage in terms of having front row access to cheap money printed by the Fed, or their business didn't revolve around constantly trying to destroy small business competitors, I would have agreed that it would not be such a huge dilemma.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Because efficiency can lead to leisure or layoffs, what will the future bring?

Capitalism suffers if half of workers are unemployed. Because it is actually _in the market 's best interest_, we will develop social - <USER4> structures that enable improved efficiency and high employment (because more workers employed means more commerce and a bigger economy)

</comment><comment><USER57> Why a partisan article is being discussed here?

Really.

This is material affiliated to the Labour Party in the U.K. which is associated to the International Socialist.

Why is it a subject here?

<comment><USER58> Why are you so scared of different ideas?

<comment><USER57> I'm not scared of _different_ ideas but I know the left _censors_ different ideas.

But the reason I ask is this:

 _Please don 't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Bertrand Russell may or may not have been right, but he was definitely an elite who felt he knew what was best for the masses, even if he didn't take his own advice.

This is the guy that dedicated portions of his life to proving mathematics was derived from logic, who is arguing it's okay if people just wanna idle around.

<comment><USER60> > proving mathematics was derived from logic

A luxury he had because he didn't have to spend all of his time in the hamster wheel. That's how I _would_ idle around if I had the option to (well, ok, not that, because he already did it, but something like that).

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I get upset when I read essays like this that don't mention the role that the government plays in creating drudgery and destroying leisure. A good way to highlight this is to point out that in the US, the government at all levels spends about $20K/person/year. If that money was just redistributed to individuals, we would actually be living in the leisure-filled world predicted in the early part of the century. Instead the money is mostly just frittered away.

<comment><USER62> Ignoring the obvious "citation needed" for the $20k, think about what that money is spent on. There is some pretty nice stuff among that list, like public roads or schools.

<comment><USER35> Budget / number of americans</comment></comment></comment>


Recognize all contributors, not just the ones who push code - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kentcdodds/all-contributors <comment><USER2> It should not be in the README file. It should be a separate CREDITS file. README is for things people need to know to get started with using the project.</comment>


Software development skills for data scientists - <AUTHOR> http://treycausey.com/software_dev_skills.html

<comment><USER2> Going the other direction (from pure software engineering to data science), a great resource I found is a book called "Think Stats": [http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/](http://greenteapress.com/thinkstats/). The book is available as a free PDF download in addition to the print version.

The book covers statistics concepts by prompting the reader to explore a large dataset with Python, writing statistical functions along the way. A lot of it is fairly basic, but it's a good primer.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm doing the John Hopkins/Coursera "Programming in R"[1] course at the moment.

This course seems to be written for statisticians to learn programming, but as someone going the other way it is _painful_.

There's an assignment[2], where a function prototype is

      makeCacheMatrix <- function(x = matrix()) {}

makeCacheMatrix doesn't make a matrix (it wraps a preexisting matrix in a structure that lets it cache the inverse of the matrix along with it).

While I understand that the problem is a constructed one to teach R scoping, the completely wrong naming of the function makes me wince everytime I see it.

[1] [https://class.coursera.org/rprog-014](https://class.coursera.org/rprog-014)

[2] [https://github.com/rdpeng/ProgrammingAssignment2/blob/master...](https://github.com/rdpeng/ProgrammingAssignment2/blob/master/cachematrix.R)

<comment><USER4> I have taken the same classes, and they get much more interesting. Chances are that you could complete the work for the first courses in a couple hours without the lectures, or maybe just skimming the notes. I recommend doing that quickly and moving on to the later material, so that you don't get discouraged thinking that you are completely wasting your time.

<comment><USER3> Do they really get better? I'm either going to jump straight to the (R) Statistical Inference[1] course from JHU, or switch to the Berkeley/EdX Spark course[2].

I use a lot more Spark in my day job than R, but I really should learn statistics more formally.

[1] [https://www.coursera.org/course/statinference](https://www.coursera.org/course/statinference)

[2] [https://www.edx.org/course/scalable-machine-learning-uc- berk...](https://www.edx.org/course/scalable-machine-learning-uc-berkeleyx- cs190-1x)

<comment><USER4> I thought they got better compared to the first few classes, but they do really revolve around R. For a rigorous treatment of the subject matter, the MITx course on Probability is really good. [1] You could also take a look at the two JHU "Mathemtical Biostatistics Bootcamp"[2] courses. Those are also quick compared to the MITx course, but a little more careful about the math than the courses in the data science specialization are.

I haven't ever used Spark, and I like R, but I am going to take the Berkeley/EdX course.

[1] [https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-probability- science-...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-probability-science- mitx-6-041x-0)

[2] [https://www.coursera.org/course/biostats](https://www.coursera.org/course/biostats) & [https://www.coursera.org/course/biostats2](https://www.coursera.org/course/biostats2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'Software Carpentry' has some good lessons on the same material:

[http://software-carpentry.org/lessons.html](http://software- carpentry.org/lessons.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this would be appropriate for all self taught programmers.

</comment><comment><USER7> R, python or ruby would be a start C would be a dream

spend the time to find folks that know R or similar and have written extensions. You want doers, not academics.

<comment><USER8> Would not FORTRAN make more sense than C if a real compiled language is required for performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What about the other way around?

<comment><USER10> You could start with a book like "Practical Data Science with R". This review [http://www.amazon.com/review/R3IOXEI69G6044](http://www.amazon.com/review/R3IOXEI69G6044) gives a very good summary of it's contents and the intended audience</comment></comment>


Why coffee drinkers generally live longer - <AUTHOR> http://www.mnn.com/food/beverages/stories/why-coffee-drinkers-generally-live-longer

<comment><USER2> Tea is addictive like Sugar</comment>


Ask HN: Are there ways to get your programmers treated like celeb CEOs? - <AUTHOR>

Just read the recent post about Steve Jobs and Fadell on pbs.org and the comments about it.
Posts like these always make me wonder if i can treat(or get them treated like) my programmers and others like celeb CEOs(or atleast half of the spotlight). The media spotlight, the praise, etc when something good is done. This might be tough for services companies but seems to me like its very much possible for product companies.
Most times its only the leader who gets the credit although a whole dozen programmers(and others) are mentioned in the credits and have strived equally hard. Money doesn't please all too much. Recognition goes an extra mile than money.
The credits list which only a few look at and the talkshows and events which a few attend(not every startup organises something big like a Mac event or CES). Any other ways of getting these sweet guys recognised for what they've done? <comment><USER2> Many companies don't _want_ their programmers to be recognized as stars -- that's the fastest way to convince your competitors to hire them away from you.

I'm not saying that this is a good strategy (for one thing, making your developers feel appreciated might make them stay in spite of a flood of calls from head hunters), but it's something to keep in mind... if nothing else, it's a good reason to consider recognizing people within the company rather than acknowledging them publicly via credits.</comment>


Analyzing the chords of 1300 popular songs for patterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.hooktheory.com/blog/i-analyzed-the-chords-of-1300-popular-songs-for-patterns-this-is-what-i-found/ <comment><USER2> When I first saw that blog post I was inspired to create a visualization of some of the data. You can use it to explore the chord progressions and play them in the browser:

[https://briancort.com/songviz/](https://briancort.com/songviz/)

I also made a visualization to explore chord harmonies:

[https://briancort.com/chordviz/](https://briancort.com/chordviz/)

<comment><USER3> Very nice! Did you get the chord data from hooktheory or somewhere else? It seems to me that scraping is the name of the game in this field, but it would be nice if there was some "standard" dataset to work with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Netflix show "1983" keeps insinuating this tense chord at closing credits (and more subtly as nondiegetic background). It seemed to resolve, or rather stumble into a disonance as if just the exact wrong note was played.

It was driving me mad -- a few times I caught myself during work hours trying to reproduce it from memory in MuseScore. It was finally played fully in the last episode, and the aha moment was that what appeared to be a minor chord before The Chord was a major seventh and the progression resolved neatly. What it seems to have been done is to play multiple variants that played component notes differently at different velocities (the strength with which you hit a piano key). It's like it moved by aporias, each time leading you into a different impasse. The show's plot is sort of like that too.

This is to say -- there's more to music than chord progressions, and there's more to chord progressions than chords :)

</comment><comment><USER5> The feels like it was written by someone who didn't understand music theory, but the author does discuss the 4th and 5th chords. And yet the story is written as if he didn't expect to find that they show up everywhere.

Still, don't want to be too negative, it's very interesting that he used data from guitar chord websites, that's a clever data source.

<comment><USER6> Yes, after all I-IV-V is the most common chord progression.

It would have been nice if the author also had analyzed chord progressions instead of single chords.

Who knows how many Pachelbel's progressions he would have found! :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM)

<comment><USER7> > _would have been nice if the author also had analyzed chord progressions > instead of single chords_

Last heading in this first section:

 _"If a song happens to use a particular chord, what chord is most likely to come next?"_

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but that is not a complete chord progression.

I meant something like I-V-vi-iii-IV-I-IV-V

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > If you write a song in C with an E minor in it, you should probably think > very hard if you want to put a chord that is anything other than an A minor > chord or an F major chord.

God forbid your song deviates from the most 1300 most popular songs!

<comment><USER9> co-founder of Hooktheory here. When this article was published (2012), it was based on the first 1300 songs in the library [[https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab](https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab)]. At that time, the two most common chords after E minor for songs in the key of C major were F major (59% of the time) and A minor (34% of the time). The library now has about 12k songs and the percentages have changed. Still the same two chords, but now F major (IV) is only about 34% of the time, and A minor (vi) is about 24% of the time. Here is an updated plot of the most common chords after E minor for songs in the key of C major [https://imgur.com/a/lBfVK0X](https://imgur.com/a/lBfVK0X)?

<comment><USER8> I was responding more to what I saw as the rather blunt application of statistics to the songwriting process. Admittedly I'm new to your site, but I'm curious about the theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hooktheory is about the best songwriting tool I've ever used, delighted to see this on HN. Their Hookpad software is completely magical and helps not only to write chord progressions, but to learn music theory as well.

<comment><USER11> It doesn't seem well-known, but their daily ear-training challenge is really excellent, at least for a beginner like me.

[https://www.hooktheory.com/ear-training](https://www.hooktheory.com/ear- training)

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately this is flash based :(

<comment><USER10> They have ported the main software to HTML5 quite a while ago, but a lot of smaller things (like demos in the blog post series in the original posts) are lost in Flash, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I found it a bit weird to "normalize" everything back to C. Couldn't just use numbers instead? (To make it friendlier for those less comfortable with that, put a hover over to show what that means in each key at each point in your analysis.)

Good call on the guitar tab sites being wrong almost all the time!

<comment><USER14> I think the reason to not use roman numerals is because what Roman numeral would you use for B major. B diminished is IV, but B major is not in the C scale, neither is B minor or B augmented, or B sus2 or Bsus4. It makes sense to write it all normalized to the key of C because songs may borrow chords from other keys in similar ways

<comment><USER15> You use uppercase Roman numerals to indicate a major chord. So it is then easy to distinguish between vii⁰ and VII and is the standard way in music theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article was ok, but check out HookTheory's chord progression visualizer:

[https://www.hooktheory.com/trends](https://www.hooktheory.com/trends)

It's fun to play with and has helped me find songs to hear how the same progressions can be different across different songs. Personal favorite progression is I-IV-VI-V...which is shared by "Whatya Want from Me" by Adam Lambert and "Concerning Hobbits".

<comment><USER17> I think you mean I-IV-vi-V.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It seems just about everything just arranges 1,4,5,minor 6. I've played music for over 20 years, it seems the Nashville Number System works for almost everyone!

</comment><comment><USER19> I actually did something similar but less formal for an automated-composer experiment. I took several dozen tunes I liked, and extracted out the most common chord progressions found in them.

I normalized it such that "key" was irrelalent because transposed keys are generally considered the same such that I was more concerned about the relative relationship between chords per song.

After the analysis gave me my Markov-chain-like progression list, I randomly generated a some test tunes. While most of the results were agreeable, some I didn't like, and ended up trimming the offending chords out of my list.

I realized I probably would need to analyze 3 levels of progressions -- a moving window of A-to-B-to-C -- to get better results, or at least better tests. I never finished that step.

But I should point out that I was interested in generating progressions that sounded good to _me_. Ultimately I want to make tunes that I like even if I use a computer to help. That means I can use manual adjustments and/or backtracking the chain generation when needed. Therefore, going 3 levels was probably overkill. Leaving it at 2 gives me "happy accidents" anyhow.

<comment><USER20> Generating "happy accidents" are my primary interest when it comes to using ML/AI for music composition. 8 times out of 10 I can generate my own but I'd love to be able to cover that last 20%. This seems like a sweet spot for current technology.

Any chance you'll open source your approach?

<comment><USER19> I find diminishing returns. If I try to add logic and gizmos to get it to automatically be closer to my ideal, it just complicates things and would probably take 10x longer to "finish". Thus, a "perfect" composer may be do- able, but the end result would be a Swiss-Army Spruce Goose. That is if the sheer complexity doesn't introduce bugs to make it worse.

As far as open-sourcing it, I'd have to clean it up to be presentable to humans-that-are-not-me, being it's a ball of ad-hoc experiments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> First time I've seen a website need Flash in quite a while. I can't even remember if there's a sane way to install it any longer.

</comment><comment><USER22> I just happened to see this article/website while listening to a "70s hits" channel at the hotel I'm staying.

Have you ever considered analyzing the hit progressions thru time, to see if and how our tastes change?

Also, using a self-generated formula that a hit song is probably 25% root progression, 25% melody over that progression (the hooks), and 50% lyrical content...I wonder if some attempt at integrating all three of those items could yield fruitful, interesting results.

Great work, BTW...as a lifelong musician/songwriter, I enjoy sites like yours to help gain a deeper understanding about how professionals manipulate the sonic palette to craft songs and interesting melodies.

</comment><comment><USER23> Obligatory [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I) (Axis of Awesome, Four Chord Song)

<comment><USER24> (I love this video, it's very funny)

I think it's important to be clear that a song is so much more than just the chords. Axis uses a few "tricks" to get things to sound the same:

\- strip away everything except the chords & play them all on the same instrument \- shift all the songs into the same key \- play all the songs at the same tempo

It's a funny exercise that, but it's a bit like saying all cars are the same because they have the same basic structure. Obviously there's a difference between a Camry and a Bugatti.

<comment><USER25> They also shift the progression by one measure so that they can include all the vi-IV-I-V songs. "Check out how many songs use these two chord progressions" just never caught on as a title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> _What stands out here, is that IV → I (F to C) is not only normal, it actually shows up just as often as V → I (G to C)._

Amen!

<comment><USER27> Just leaving a note here so you know someone got the reference :)

Having grown up on Billy Joel (among others), I actually tend to prefer the sound of IV -> I over V -> I. Glad to see the plagal is equally represented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've been working on an IDE for music, check it out [http://ngrid.io](http://ngrid.io)

</comment><comment><USER29> D major, E major, and A major are the V of V (G), the V of vi (a), and the V of ii (d) respectively. So that's why they are more common than other random non-diatonic major chords.

Also I wouldn't be surprised if Ab major was the next most common chord. 'I' near a flat-VII and a flat-VI is pretty common. Like Kiss From A Rose from a few years back.

<comment><USER30> I've seen the Ab chord show up so much more in music after the '90s. The Dm Ab F combination in particular.

EDM music just takes all these chords and adds a 7th to it

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Circle of 5ths is fundamental to song structure, probability is largely based on that

<comment><USER32> probability -> probably

:)

<comment><USER32> FTR, they're completely different words. Aiming for clarity, not pedantry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Flow Machines is an AI music generator [http://www.flow- machines.com/](http://www.flow-machines.com/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Now how long before an AI writes the PERFECT song?

<comment><USER35> No such thing. But AI will definitely write pleasing music in the next 10 years~.

<comment><USER36> Depending on pleasing, but for me they have already for the last 7 years. [https://www.jukedeck.com/about](https://www.jukedeck.com/about)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have to believe scholars who study pop music did this research decades ago, though probably by hand.

</comment><comment><USER38> Any "Music Theory" for hackers publications, similar to the ones available on DSP?

</comment><comment><USER39> Surprised to not see more jazz chords like #9#5.

</comment><comment><USER40> (2012)

</comment><comment><USER41> This is the best part about data science, that should really just jump right out at you, and if it doesn't then please, please, please never try to apply data science to anything by yourself, because you will be sealing people into tombs of misery.

The point here, is that if you look at 1,300 shitty songs, and try to learn about what music is, with those as your example, you are setting yourself up to just make more terrible music.

Maybe a more readily tangible example is: if you were to try and learn about how to create fake dating profile images, but only learned with profile pics of ugly people, then all of your fake dating profiles will probably be unattractive, and they'll never fetch a second look, much less dates.

I mean, this guy cites:

      Celine Dion
      Taylor Swift
      Pharrell Williams
      Adele
      Bruno Mars
      3 Doors Down
      Green Day
      Lady Gaga
      Gorillaz
      Linkin Park
      Avril Lavigne
      Daft Punk

This _tripe_ (and I _mean_ tripe) has been forced down my throat for decades, and it _still_ is incredibly terrible.

I don't ever want to learn anything about music from _this_ music. It's awful. It all needs to burn. And if you locked me in a room with AI that learned how to create music with these examples as it's template, I'd probably climb the walls and eventually commit suicide. I mean, I'm half way there as it is, and yes, I do blame this kind of music, at least in part.

<comment><USER42> > I mean, this guy cites:

Well...you seem to know a lot about artists whose music you abhor...I'm curious to see what artists/genres you'd recommend :-)</comment></comment>


If you can't build the blog, you can't build the business - <AUTHOR> http://thestartuptoolkit.com/blog/2011/11/if-you-cant-build-the-blog-you-cant-build-the-business/

<comment><USER3> Anyone else find video content annoying, especially of the talking head variety?

Written content is nice as I can scan it in 10 seconds and decide if it's worth focus. Video needs to be watched in a linear fashion and takes at least a minute to process.

Video is for screencasts. Writing is for making a point.

</comment><comment><USER4> Corollary: If you can't blogspam the Hacker News, you can't build the blog.

<comment><AUTHOR> It appears you use the word "Corollary" in a different way than I understand it Perhaps I simply don't understand what you mean.

Could you perhaps elaborate and make a complete and cogent argument?

Thanks.

 _Added in edit: Not sure why I got the downvote. This is a genuine query - <USER2> don't understand how the statement

        "If you can't blogspam the Hacker News, you can't build the blog."

follows as a corollary from the statement

        "If you can't build the blog, you can't build the business."

It just doesn't, at least, not to me. That's why I'd like a better explanation, and not just a quick, throw-away sentence._

<comment><USER4> I'm so weary of this absolute garbage on HN. Sub-Shaun Fanning startup BS. Go away.

<comment><AUTHOR> Firstly, I didn't make the video, I have no connection with it. I found it an interesting argument/point-of-view, and I thought it made some useful points.

You seem to think it's completely content-free. I'd really like to hear _why_ you think this is complete BS.

In short, rather than just dissing it, I'd like to hear a clear and cogent counter-argument. Otherwise you're just adding to the noise.

I can see that others agree with you, because despite getting two upvotes within minutes of being submitted, it's now languishing down in the 500's. It's been flagged. But I find it _really_ frustrating that people won't actually create value by producing decent counter-arguments.

You say:

        > I'm so weary of this absolute garbage on HN.

I've done my homework, I've done my best to find out what you would like to see, and guess what: You've never submitted anything! I also see that pretty much every comment you've made has been a negative one. That's a shame.

So what _do_ you want to see?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


BlackRock($7T Assets) CEO Larry Fink:Climate Crisis Will Reshape Finance - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/business/dealbook/larry-fink-blackrock-climate-change.html <comment><USER2> A cynical take:

Most of BlackRock's assets under management are invested in index ETFs. Index ETFs are essentially undifferentiated products. The indices are defined by other companies (S&P, MSCI, FTSE, NASDAQ, etc.) and you can get your index ETF from other providers (State Street, Vanguard, etc.) So in practice it's a fairly competitive market. As a result, management fees and margins are very low.

Investor activism is a way to promote more growth into active investments that are more profitable. If you are concerned about the climate crisis, you can consider those investments, but keep that in mind. Maybe I'm too cynical but I think it's really hard to be a ethical investor. You don't want corporations that exploit minerals or workers in the third world? That cuts you from Apple, Samsung, etc. You don't want to fund wars in the middle east? No government bonds. And so on. In fact if you were really concerned you would probably avoid those types of investments in the first place and focus on local businesses, etc. (but much higher risk).

<comment><USER3> > Most of BlackRock's assets under management are invested in index ETFs

BlackRock aum is $7tr. Their ETF business is around $1tr

> . Index ETFs are essentially undifferentiated products

There are 2300 or more ETFs in the US. There's enough variety there, with products indexed by the big guys and also "self indexed" products that undifferentiated is really not a suitable word here

<comment><USER2> Yeah I was wrong about index ETFs in particular but my general point remains: most of their AUM are in passive funds (ETF or not). According to their last annual report, only 27% of AUM are in active funds. [https://ir.blackrock.com/files/doc_financials/2018/ar/2018-A...](https://ir.blackrock.com/files/doc_financials/2018/ar/2018-Annual- Report.pdf)

Regarding the small ETFs: yes that's kind of my point. Most of the volume is still in large, broad index-based funds, and BlackRock is looking for a good story to get people to invest more into the more 'niche' funds (which includes all the green/no-carbon funds).</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Top Challenges for Real Estate Investors? - <AUTHOR> What are the top 3 challenges you face when your looking to invest in a property (assuming you have capital and or enough liquidity to invest)? <comment><USER2> The cliche on " location " is true. This relates to the liquidity of the real estate: will more or less people want to buy this property when I go to sell it? Also relates to long term increase in selling price verses property tax: Are the carrying cost so high it eats gross profit and no one will want to buy it? I tend to hold for 10 years or more- what expenses ( roofs, heating/ Ac, stuff like that) are you probably going to face over that time period.

</comment><comment><USER3> liquidity would be one.

The returns aren't that great.</comment>


Google Stanistaw Lem doodle - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/logos/lem/ <comment><USER2> Thank you for posting this. If I had to take one book to an island for the rest of my life, it would be a toss up between The Cyberiad and The Star Diaries.</comment>


Studying the Brain with Quantum Mechanics - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/xsGJkSDtLvo <comment><AUTHOR> Quantum mechanics may not seem like it has anything to do with human psychology, but some psychologists are starting to borrow concepts from the field to help make human behavior more predictable.</comment>


MITx Opens First Course for Enrollment - <AUTHOR> http://mitx.mit.edu <comment><USER2> Big news for me is: MITx certificate.

Last Fall Stanford took the initiative to organize live online classes. I took "Introduction of DB" and got a certificate from the professor. Some students complained that Stanford name was not on the certificate. Stanford apparently did not agree to distribute free certificates to online students. When you have a few CS students paying a high price to receive education, it's hard to give an official document for free. coursera.com was created by Stanford teachers who thought they would be better in a startup mode.

What makes MIT initiative unique is that its certificates will be MIT branded ("MITx"). This is a winning strategy, as more people will turn to those classes. Some may continue by applying to MIT itself. It will also help MIT brand reach. Note those certificates will only be free for this pilot course.

You can argue that having a certificate is something that matters or not vs actually learn something. I think a lot of people around the world will feel very proud to receive an official document that proved they know those skills.

<comment><USER3> They are offering MITx certificate for free for this pilot course because, I quote from their website "In this prototype version, MITx will not require that you be tested in a testing center or otherwise have your identity certified in order to receive this certificate." As I see it, this certificate will be more or less of equal value as the Stanford online course certificates, since their is no way to ensure authenticity of the student.

Their plan in (near)future is to charge a small fee and conduct tests at authorized testing centres(ETS centres for example) where ones identity can be confirmed. Since that way they can confirm that their is no foul play involved, the student will also be given course credits from MITx(Discussed here: <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-faq-1219.html> ). That for me is really exciting.

<comment><USER4> it really is. I only hope that eventually these credits will be recognized by employers. would they be be willing to hire someone who completes an entire curriculum successfully through MITx over someone who took a similar education at Big State U?

<comment><USER5> The quality of the graduates will bring the employers. Employers only want a mechanism of sifting the wheat from the chaff. If MITx tests students at the rigor of regular MIT courses, there is no reason why employers won't be tripping over themselves to hire MITx grads.

Furthermore, this will annihilate the monopoly that sub-par institutions currently have on conferring degrees and other certifications. Students who have MIT level ability will no longer have to settle for second best. They can prove themselves at the top institutions without having to worry about the 10% acceptance rate.

If executed properly, this will revolutionize post-secondary education and save students and taxpayers billions of dollars. It has long since been proven that the majority of post-secondary institutions are nothing but glorified testing centers. Why not cut out all the excess, and let MIT do the teaching while a test center does the testing?

Also, this will dismantle the broken R&D incentive structure that is publicly funded academic research via tenured professors. The research scientist will be a dedicated profession unto itself, as will the post-secondary professor. Public funding of scientific research will no longer involve the ridiculous process of journal publication, and will instead focus on delivering results to the taxpayer based upon a research contract (much like privately funded research).

Structural inefficiency in academic research has caused an immeasurable slowdown in scientific progress over the past few decades. With one fell swoop, initiatives such as MITx have the ability to rectify this gross misallocation of resources.

<comment><USER6> Employers like MIT grads because MIT makes you learn 1) how to learn 2) to get shit done. Soul-crushing courseloads may not be optimal for learning, but most employers care more that you're smart, get things done, and can learn fast on your own.

By allowing people to take things at their own pace, MITx will perhaps be more optimal for learning the material, but will not provide the same intense environment in which "hardk0re" MIT students are forged (for better or worse).

You could perhaps try to imitate this by taking a soul-crushing courseload from MITx and having a support network of others doing the same. It also makes a big difference whether your support network aspires to get certified so they can get a comfortable job, or aspires to (or actually does) build brain sensors or self-driving cars or musical Tesla-coil hats that play the Mortal Kombat theme (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEgaI6WouQ0>).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a college student, all these free online classes from MITx, Stanford, etc. are killing me. I really want to take them, but I don't have time for these and my regular school work (and full-time job).

<comment><USER8> Signed. I wish my university would just start using these courses instead of their own curriculum, as they tend to be highly outdated or even plain wrong.

<comment><USER9> Couldn't agree more - I really want to spend more time taking such amazing courses FOR FREE rather paying humongous tuition differential and sit in a class where the course material is not challenging/thought provoking enough?

Instead of offering separate certificates for courses, why don't they make this an open platform? Say I might be registered at a community college, and instead of choosing to register for "CSXX - Artificial Intelligence" I register for ai-class.com. ai-class/udacity/mitx validates my creds against my university's database and whatever grades I get in quizs, mid terms and finals are pushed from ai-class/udacity/mitx-s to my school's transcript generation system. If ai-class/udacity/mitx-s give an API - kids who maintain schools website should be able to integrate this within a semester.

How this'll benefit the current status quo:

For the students:

Not everybody can go to Standford, MIT for various reasons - but to have a number of courses in your transcript from such prestigious institutions will open doors for him - not only intellectually but also professionally. When he registers for courses, at the beginning of the semester - the registration software shows him the current offering which is a Plain Old Lecture center class by an inhouse faculty and an online class from Prof. Ng. He decides whichever works for him - or may be register for both and see which one suits him and drops the other one.

I strongly believe in the phrase "You become average of the 5 people you hang out with" - think if your classmates are as smart as people in hackernews. [Gawd - no curves in that case!]

For Professors:

They'll be disrupted. I mean, right now the challenge a professor faces is only when there is another professor in the same department offering the same course that same semester. So they tend to use the same slides from the book, same projects (this makes me mad) for generations really. The content is stale compared to what's out there in the real world. Obviously, students paying tuition would want value for their money and for many, going to a good school is gateway to a great job - only to find what he learned in class has been deprecated by industry standard. Students seeing more value in an online course would ditch the stale professors. Furthermore, many hotshot professors really don't give a shit about teaching - they really want to do research, but the department wants them to teach as there's no substitute for that course. If they adopt ai-class/udacity/mitx-s, burden on research profs can be lightened a bit. But bottom line, Professors have to be innovators to bring the students to his class. And if you really enjoy teaching like Prof. Walter Lewin - the world will be tuning in and you'll get paid too (read next point).

For Universities: Oh you feudal system, you need to innovate to survive. Let me show you why this will make your profits soar: (1) by allowing students the flexibility to choose from you'll invite more clients (er, students) (2) Even if you can't afford superstar faculty like Prof. Thrun or Norvig, you can still pay udacity to use their course and get them in your portfolio. Think of the savings! (3) If you have superstar profs - you can do this too! Just allow other universities to use your courses and charge them for that! Then pay a cut to the professors for doing such a wonderful job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I come from India. We have the world's toughest entrance examinations to get to public funded courses. I got an engineering degree through one of those. However once I got through the admissions, I found the courses outdated. The professors got into colleges after bribing the managers and were sub-par in their teaching, the labs under-funded and there were frequent strikes at school for things like proper lodging. However the tough entrance exams meant that most of the students graduated and became successful self-taught professionals. I think something like Mitx, has the potential to become the single curriculum for the entire planet. Kids would be demanding this instead of the stale university offerings. Some of them pay ridiculous amounts of money for getting into private colleges without any merit scholarship. Check the below link. Mitx could become the university of alderaan for planet earth!!! Think about a million hungry Mitx grads a year getting through grueling MiT level coursework. That could take technology to unforeseen levels.

<http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Alderaan>

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know of any downsides to enrolling? Like others, I'm doing school/work full time already but I'm letting my curiosity get the better of me (enrolled on Udacity only so far). Is it wrong to assume that if you pass, you pass, if not you can just try again when you have the time (and it's being offered of course)?

Edit: add MITx and some coursera courses as well... this semester's been gentle so far, why not liven it up?

<comment><USER12> I have this question as well. I read through the TOS, Honor Code and what have you but I did not find anything concerning re-enrolment/negative implications when not able to finish the course/drop out half way or be just really bad at it.

I would really like to do it and could most likely also take the time to do so but for me there is a possibility of something more important coming up in the future resulting in me having to cut back on the curse. If something like: "If you want to enter the next course/a different one and your record shows that you began a course which you did not finish, then you have to do X/will be given a lower priority etc." applies, I would reconsider enrolling.

Does anyone have any further information on that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "features interactive instruction, online laboratories and student-to-student and student-to-professor communication"

Gerald Sussman is one of the professors (coauthor of SICP and father of Scheme). If the first statement is true, this is quite an opportunity.

<comment><USER14> He and Agarwal seem like odd choices to teach this lower-level undergrad class. Maybe because it's so high-profile?

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure I get you. At MIT it is encouraged for the most prestigious professors to teach even freshman level classes. In fact, Sussman and Ableson themselves taught 6.001 (SICP) when I took it as a first semester freshman. I was taught by all sorts of famous people all throughout my undergrad MIT education. The big names especially chose to do so when they were developing a new approach to teaching the material.

<comment><USER14> Ahh, ok. I'm not sure you get the more average university experience then. I spent 5 years at a fairly large research state university without ever having a class from the department head, despite the fact that his main focus was also AI. I've even had a few lower-level undergrad classes taught by under- qualified first year PhD students.

<comment><USER15> Ah. I'll never again whine about how much my MIT education cost me! (Even though I never got to take a linguistics class with Chomsky.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I look forward to the day independent learning is respected, and education quality can be decoupled from expense.

I believe portfolios will become increasingly important in differentiatiing candidates in the future.

As I take these courses, my goal will be to build up a strong enough github profile, and project list to get past any online course discrimination.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am looking forward to the labs. How are they going to give us remote students the much needed hands on experience? Anant Agarwal is an exceptionally good teacher as can be seen from the 6.002 ocw videos. Lots of energy and enthusiasm! This is wonderful!

<comment><USER18> I'd assume with a circuit simulator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The announcement notes " _The book can be purchased on Amazon._ "

Amazon notes " _Only 17 left in stock--order soon (more on the way)._ " Such "free" courses will have a very interesting impact on book sales.

ETA: Now 15.

<comment><USER20> The announcement also notes: "While recommended, the book is not required: relevant sections will be provided electronically..."

Amazon now states ships in 1 to 3 weeks

and

24 new from $80.00 / 29 used from $51.49

so it won't be hard to get a copy before coursework starts in March.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm interested in CS, IT and Business. I'm also looking to see a rigorous test after the class. I'm ready to pay the equivalent cost of running the courses and taking the exams.

This has a lot of value for someone thrown in a third world country with no financial possibility to join a decent University in the developed world.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm so signed up :D

There are so many offerings, even since I last made a little list of them for myself ( [http://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2012/01/adventures-into- online...](http://gergely.imreh.net/blog/2012/01/adventures-into-online- learning/) ) that it's incredible.

Let's get down to knowledge...

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm really excited for this -- I think MITx will continue where Stanford left off. Is this the disruption that will finally open a high-quality, reputable, higher education for the masses? It's going to be awesome to be a part of history with this course. :)

</comment><comment><USER24> Honestly,i dont care about certification and employers.I just need the right knowledge to help me create my own stuff.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 6.002x Circuits and Electronics is the first class and is open for enrollment. The class will begin in March!

<comment><USER25> Pretty cool. Looking forward to the release of some CS classes</comment></comment>


Thoughts on Consoles and Certification Processes - Jonathan Blow - <AUTHOR> http://the-witness.net/news/2012/07/thoughts-on-consoles-and-certification-processes <comment><USER2> As a still regular game player, I have basically abandoned the android and iTunes stores, when it comes to finding games.

The problem is most games on these systems are terrible, and often either don't have a demo, and want to ckle and dime me to be able to make progress through the game.

On the other hand, while I might not like all the games on the Xbox online store, I find them to be of reasonable quality, have demos, and never require me to pay to make progress through the standard game.

I have found several friends have had a similar experience. Perhaps we are just dinosaurs, but I wonder if games on mobile are going to crash (or have already crashed, how many are selling any kinds of numbers? obviously some do well).

<comment><USER3> Within 2 to 3 months on either Google Play or iTunes, I grew completely bored by the offer. And I've purchased every hit from the beggining of mobile gaming era.

Every once in a while there is a game worth playing, but vast majority are suffering from lack of combinatory input space of touch.

There's only so many quality game mechanics which can be devised from having your fat finger on extremely small screen. Those that suffer less from that are puzzle games which don't really appeal to casual audience which dominates mobile & social games market.

<comment><USER4> Agree 100%. I don't understand why there isn't (at a minimum) a clip-on thumb- pad and 2-button controller for the iPhone. We don't need it built in like the Xperia Play but I need something to get my giant thumbs out of the field of view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I respect what's being said here I don't agree.

I've taken many games through MS, Nintendo and Sony certification and while the rules seems bizarre and arbitrary they are not that hard to take in to account when you start designing a game. Once the console hits the street they rarely change.

I've failed many times in technicalities that were annoying but at the same time they've found real issues with the titles that made it a better game.

Although it does 'waste' developer time it smooths the user experience in to a sort of homogenised consistent experience so users of ALL ages know what to expect on a platform saving them time.

For example implementing a clever save game system sounds like it makes sense but most users will not understand why when they save and turned off the console their save game was lost. If they are consistently told DONT TURN THE THING OFF WHEN SAVING they get a consistent experience that THEY control. It's not the best technical solution but it's the best real world solution. Remember a LOT of people turn of their console at the mains! There is no distinction between shutdown and turn off in their mind. These are mass consumer devices and need to act like toasters and high end PCs at the same time.

The QA people in S,N and MS really do user test this stuff. Most console players are so technically illiterate it's shocking they are allowed to drive a car.

I'm now an indie dev and if I'd only been an indie dev I would probably feel like the author (I'm not sure of their history). Having been at the 'pro' or 'mass market' end of the industry I have a lot of sympathy and respect for the manufacturers TRCs.

<comment><USER6> With a reasonable save system, the system behaves exactly the same as it does now, only save games aren't corrupted if power is lost in the middle of saving. It makes the device work _more_ like a reliable appliance, not less.

There would still be an indicator whenever the game is saving, the game just wouldn't throw away potentially hundreds of hours of investment if power is unexpectedly lost in the middle of a routine (and frequent) save.

Hell, I'd be happy if it was just an option, so that clever devs whose saves don't take up much space can implement journaling and don't have to display the warning, but those that will lose their shit when power is lost do. It sounds like the existing console certification processes won't even allow that.

<comment><USER2> In practice, it is quite hard to lose saves on xboxes (one example I am familiar developing for). The warnings are, I think, just for extra safety, as it is REALLY annoying to lose a save go with 50+ hours.

I lost such a save on Final Fantasy VII about 15 years ago, and it still annoys me to this day.

<comment><USER7> But there is a difference between "quite hard" and uneffected by sudden losses of power. It is easy to make it the later, and then suddenly the "extra safety" is simply unfounded paranoia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The icon for game save actually kinda makes sense in another way. I want to know when I can turn the console off and go to bed after I have completed a checkpoint. Even if you can avoid savegame corruption, I would be very annoyed to complete a difficult section and return to the game the next day to discover that I'm back to where I was before and have to do the difficult part all over again. Especially since modern console games seem to be designed with a difficulty curve where 99% of the game is very very easy and the other 1% is frustratingly difficult.

Do games consoles not implement some kind of transactional system for game saves anyway? It would seem very harsh to lose all progress in a game because of a power cut! Especially since modern games don't seem to have any way to allow the player to make multiple arbitrary save files as backups.

Makes me nostalgic for the days of "you will know that the game is saving because your PC will be completely unresponsive for 10 seconds".

<comment><USER9> Yeah I don't think he was complaining so much about the icon per say; more that every game developer has to make a save game system that handles corruption rather than calling a save api.

If it was done via an api then the xbox could automatically show the 'saving' icon, delay switch off until the save is complete, and handle corrupt save files with a lot less work per developer...

<comment><USER6> My understanding is that games on the current generation of consoles are assumed to corrupt your save if power is lost while saving. The response from the certification process of these consoles is to warn the user about this every time every game starts rather than to require a robust save system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Don't agree at all. I've been in this business since 2000 - in teams that shipped for PSX, DC, PS2, XBOX, GC, 360, PS3, WII - The rules are there for many other reasons:

\- Backward compatibility. For example it was not allowed on PSX to use certain tricks to draw the triangles faster, as future emulators would've had problems with that.

\- Save systems. Made for not yet smart kids, not so smart parents. The save system has to be robust, so much that it has to write exactly how many blocks it's gonna write - you are buying a memory card, you need to know how much is going in there.

\- DVD/CD-ROM/BluRay speeds. You can't just stream tons of things and expect to work. You also need to consider where/how your data is, and how you react to I/O errors - it's different per consoles. Also how you handle multiple disk games.

\- No frame rate hitching (yes, more allowable nowadays), but in the past - severe frame hitches would've made your certification not possible. After all, on all consoles ever released the code is running in ring 0 - the game code runs along with whatever is there that serves as a kernel. And there is reason for that - maximum hardware explotation (which also takes years to learn)

\- Security - just think about this - how easy is to steal non-console game data. It's much harder on the consoles. Yes people eventually break them. But nothing is easier than unzipping .IPA iphone file.

\- Size of the games. Really - As much as I love my new Nexus 7, my dear iPad, by humble TouchPad, and my fancy PlayBook - there has been none AAA games shipped there. Infinity Blade is very close, but not AAA (too short).

\- The biggest game for mobiles have not yet reached 1GB, while console games have been shipping sometimes 10GB of data, for older consoles.

\- Why this is important? - You can QA an indie game much faster, and easier (check progression breaks), than AAA title.

\- Multiplayer, scoreboards, etc. - This is where the life of the new console experience is. Cheating here is the plague, and makes players go away. Certification is there to help, but not isolate problems.

\- And most of all - no audio hitching (yes, unlike many modern PC games).

\- Let's not forget - localization, safety zones (no swastika in German), etc. French correctly hyphenated, etc.

There are many fine details, that would bring an indie title into AAA. Most obvious is content, but overall stability, much less perceived bugs (It's possible that AAA game ships with much more bugs than indie, but then again it's played by much more people/hours).

TRC's are good. They save in long term both the publisher, and the console manifacturer.

<comment><USER11> "TRC's are good. They save in long term both the publisher, and the console manifacturer." This is exactly one reason why developers are looking for greener grasses. Jonathan already said it but developers and console manufactures could economically save a lot if those TRC's/TCR's/Lotchecks would be handled more intelligently. Looking at that "save" message, why isn't there a standard message implemented by the manufacturer developers could use? Then you could just make a checkmark in the TRC docs saying "using default save msg" and everyone would save a little time. If I was a manufacturer I would take care that developing for my platform was economically for developers and me alike. And I fail to see some of your arguments for TRC's. What does size (hours, gb, dead animals?) have to do with a game being AAA? Some iOS games deliver a greater quality in terms of customer enjoyment than traditional console 'AAA' games. Furthermore Jonathan was not totally against TRC's but just used examples that make totally sense from a developer perspective.

<comment><USER10> About standard save - well it might be possible - but it's not clear how it should be done.

In certain games, the saving is done asynchronously. This means you have to collect (serialize) all the save game data in very short amount of time in a buffer - a millisecond might be a hitch for an 60fps shooter. Then write the data asynchronously.

So there is not much an API could help - either write the data in second thread, or use async function to write it. (open/close the file is also good to be async, or on a second thread if possible).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I worked on a game that had 2 months scheduled for "getting through cert", out of maybe 10 total. And this was for a title that was a sequel, on an engine that had gone through cert dozens of times.

</comment><comment><USER11> At first I thought - Jonathan Blow, just another hipster indie game developer - but boy was I wrong. His 'rants' are pretty spot on. The whole market is moving too fast for those Dinosaurs to keep up with competitors. Where Apple and others improved the user experience I hope to see that the Ouya tackles TV based console gaming without the whole baggage of cert, closed platform and super strict rules that limit innovation business and gaming wise.

<comment><USER13> He is the exact opposite of a "hipster". He is a very smart (and in my opinion humble) guy.

I don't know where his portrayal as an arrogant guy comes from.

He held an amazing talk / presentation at Rice University called "Video Games and The Human Condition": <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU>

<comment><USER11> Great talk! Thank you for the link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If the user shuts done the machine while the OS is writing a file, that file is corrupted/incomplete. That notification is way better than ending up with a broken save.

<comment><USER7> The point, is there are better technical ways of achieving the same goal. That is basically the second thing Jon says in the linked post.</comment></comment>


Quantum simulator with 51 qubits is largest ever - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2141105-quantum-simulator-with-51-qubits-is-largest-ever/ <comment><USER2> Is this going to be put to use finding bitcoin hashes or what?</comment>


Paypal finally close to what it deserves - <AUTHOR> http://chew-kok.tumblr.com/post/33471369080/paypal-finally-close-to-what-it-deserves

<comment><USER2> PayPal screwed us too, just not very big, but we won't use them ever again. Bad news is, when you are in business, many of the other businesses who call you a "cherished" customer will fuck you in a second the instant you present any liability to their business model at all. Problem is, they won't be honest with you up front about what _your_ place in that business model is. They'll lie to get you to believe you are the cherished customer. Just remember they're all whores who only do it for the money and that will guide you to make wise decisions that CYA at all times.

</comment><comment><USER2> In general, I have problems with all credit card processing laws and companies. The actions of Visa and Mastercard when they "blacklisted" Julian Assange are especially troubling. The federal govt. allows these companies to position themselves where they can literally destroy a business in just a few days or weeks (mine could last only 2 weeks or so without them) and no one seems to care, we (and our courts - DOJ) are more concerned with whether or not Microsoft, Google, Mozilla or AOL makes the free browser you are using.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the idea payment service provider we are looking for? There will be always a trade-off between flexibility and risk control. On one hand, we don't want our account be frozen to damage our business. On the other hand, we also don't want our money be stolen due to some fraud action. what's the best example of a payment service provider? I suspect that a payment provider can easily satisfy merchants when they are small (e.g. startup), but will come into the similar situation when they grow up to a big one.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are tens of thousands of horror stories like yours in multiple tech and IM discussion forums i kid you not.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a business that relies solely on PayPal and reading every story like this makes me afraid of being the next one. What are global, _not US-only_ , _not credit-card only_ PayPal alternatives? Plus points for MassPayment API equivalents.

</comment><comment><USER6> The person wasn't fired because that person was an algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER7> Indeed. Paypal needs to shut it's doors.

<comment><USER5> Well, _that_ would screw over all merchants who were not screwed over by PayPal itself.</comment></comment>