Almost 80% of US workers live from paycheck to paycheck - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/29/us-economy-workers-paycheck-robert-reich <comment><USER3> As an outsider, I really don't understand how the US economy continues to function. With almost nonexistent social safety nets, jobs you can be fired from if you don't come to work while ill, lack of paid maternity leave combined with really expensive daycare, and healthcare you can only afford if you're healthy anyway, the only way for an average person to be able to prepare for contingencies is to have a lot of savings. But at the same time an average person cannot afford to save any money! Boggles the mind.

<comment><USER4> This IS the reasons a US economy is so strong. You got it all wrong. Extreme consumerism, inability to be unemployed (unemployment can end up in being homeless, so the transition period between jobs is almost non-existent, so the economy won't feel it, and the government don't need to pay benefits long term), enforcing businesses and insurance companies to cover the healthcare (inflating costs, creating jobs for middleman to shift the responsibility, building fear in people that if their wealth decreases they will be uninsured), not many social programs (so more money can be spent on public projects). All of those things are fuel to the economy, not dead weight.

<comment><USER5> The tail end of your argument is the broken window fallacy. On every conceivable metric the vast amount of bureaucracy and paper-pushing required by the uniquely dysfunctional US healthcare system fails to deliver any benefit proportionate to its gargantuan costs.

Put another way, if healthcare costs and the amount of insurance paperwork doubled yet again overnight, would that be "fuel to the economy" or "dead weight"?

<comment><USER4> The question will be then if the increased amount of uninsured people will affect the economy badly (by the inability to access professional health services) and if this will result in creating a new market for more efficient, low-cost health providers. This will be controlled by the government as always by relaxing the laws.

Once again - this is from a non-emotional point of view. I am not saying this is good. The way the US works and the way they push towards more "dead weight employee" rather than "social beneficient" works for now well enough to keep it as it is apparently. Otherwise, there will be a much stronger push for change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We are socialized from elementary school or earlier to value the most exciting toys, cool clothes and awesome food. If your family attempts to be frugal, it affects your social life. Kids grow up almost inevitably developing a magnetic, unconscious attraction to spending more than they can afford.

If we could teach sound financial discipline to younger people (say, by 'gamifying' it like we do everything else these days) while easing off on the consumerism, and somehow make it cool to be smart with money & limited resources, I think it would put a dent in the problem. We made computer geeks cool, maybe we can do this, too.

<comment><USER7> > while easing off on the consumerism

In order to make this work, we need a different metric reflecting the performance of our economy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article presents a graph where two metrics are overlapped on the same scale (union membership and percentage-based middle-class income), with a graph title suggesting that one causes the other. This isn't necessarily true.

Irrespective whether you agree or not with the article's arguments, in general correlation doesn't imply causality.

The drop in the percentage of middle class income could be caused by a bunch of factors, including (but not limited to) increased automation capabilities and increased reliance in off-shore low-wage workers.

<comment><USER9> > in general correlation doesn't imply causality.

Yes, we know. But it's often a sign that something interesting is going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What percent of workers around the world live paycheck to paycheck? Or by country? Comparative data is important and also hard to Google in this case.

<comment><USER11> Why is that important? Being able to compare to other countries isn't going to improve the lives of people living paycheck to paycheck.

<comment><USER10> It would help to understand whether this is a uniquely American phenomenon based on our culture/safety net/whatever. It would help me know whether this is a typical scary clickbait headline focused on the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Simply put, the vast majority of American workers have lost just about all their bargaining power._

And yet not a word about tens of millions of people immigrating to the US. As if supply didn't matter. It's unions and oligopolies. Sure.

<comment><USER13> It's because the economy isn't a fixed size pie. More people means more demand, especially in a consumptive economy like the US has (those scary trade deficits we run are clear evidence that consumption is higher than production).

It's also not the case that borders can protect workers from competition. Especially in the long run.

<comment><USER12> The increased demand is the other side of the squeeze on regular people driving the housing prices up. So they lose bargaining power both with their employer and their landlord or developer.

Meanwhile many other goods are manufactured outside of the US, benefiting primarily the mega corporations who can do international arbitrage on physical products.

There's also the third side of the squeeze where the native workers desperately need to contrast themselves from the millions of migrants. They do it by going deep into debt to get a college degree from an American university, which then goes completely unused except for its signalling value

 _the official rate hides more troubling realities: legions of college grads overqualified for their jobs_

<comment><USER14> Oh, please. If your educated, English speaking, healthy, native born fellow can't compete for jobs with an Honduran refugee that can barely spells his name; the problem might not be with the migrant to start with.

<comment><USER15> The Honduran will be cheaper, and there's no competing with that for many labor jobs. Which are disappearing, which creates the problem.

Labor a shrinking market demand and a growing supply, and we're not going to fix that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's making this sad is that salary and worker performance are almost always completely disconnected. A responsible worker has no way out of their situation. It's pretty demoralizing if you ask me.

<comment><USER16> A responsible worker might not buy such an expensive home or such an expensive car, or live such an expensive lifestyle. And perhaps then he could afford to work less – or perhaps continue to work just as hard, and instead invest the proceeds, and then become truly independent. That's a choice for everyone in a free country to make. That they choose to not do it, is no fault of "the rich". Expecting other people to pay for your own failing, is at best morally questionable.

<comment><USER17> You are somehow thinking that a responsible worker has money left over. Savings doesn't matter much if you are already using used cars, living somewhere cheap, eating cheaply, and yet still in the position where a flat tire is an emergency or getting sick and missing a day of work throws your finances in disarray. Saving $30 left over after paying for basic crap doesn't help and completely ignores mental health. Investing doesn't even come into the picture because there is never enough money to gamble (invest) with.

To be able to get to the point you describe, you have to make extra money at some point. those things you describe are responsible for folks with leftover money.

It also greatly assumes folks are lucky enough not to have things like an accident that disables them, a spouse that dies young and leaves you supporting children by yourself, a parent that needs taken care of instead of working, and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is an opinion article; if you're interested in the fact in the headline, it was produced by joint CareerBuilder/Harris Poll study. The results and details are here: [http://press.careerbuilder.com/2017-08-24-Living-Paycheck- to...](http://press.careerbuilder.com/2017-08-24-Living-Paycheck-to-Paycheck- is-a-Way-of-Life-for-Majority-of-U-S-Workers-According-to-New-CareerBuilder- Survey)

</comment><comment><USER19> What exactly constitutes NOT living paycheck to paycheck?

I mean, I used to be unable to pay bills until my paycheck arrived, I get it. But today, despite having a modest emergency fund and being able to pay all of this month's bills with last month's paychecks, I still would consider myself living paycheck to paycheck. I mean, I cannot quit my job for a month or two without substantial financial harm. So I might answer such a survey in the affirmative. Meanwhile, younger me from several years ago would look at my current bank balance with envy.

Is this like a survey of who feels rich? Everyone says no, but everyone below you on the scale thinks you are rich while everyone above you thinks you are poor.

<comment><USER20> Is that rethorical? It means being able to save money on every paycheck, or have enough saved (or a social safety net) that allows you to lose a job and not go bankrupt/lose assets if you spend a few months without pay. That's by no means "being rich" in developed countries...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How is that even possible if the median income is $59.000?

<comment><USER22> That's 4900 dollars per month before taxes. Substract taxes, health insurance, rent, bills etc and I think it becomes obvious why you'd live paycheck to paycheck. 59k is not much given how expensive some of the essential necessities (place to live, healthcare etc) have become. Throw in car and student loans just to get rid of any left over money you might struggle to save per month.

<comment> cup-of-tea What's strange is Europeans are constantly told that everything is so much cheaper in the US. I used to earn that median salary according to current exchange rates, and I had an incredibly comfortable life. Owned my own car. Never worried about finances at all.

<comment><USER22> Well some things are way cheaper in US, like gas which makes owning a car cheaper. Most consumer goods are also cheaper due to no VAT and stuff like that. But Europe has things going for it too. Free healthcare and free education being the top 2 areas were you save a ton of money compared to US (literally tens of thousands dollars per year you don't have to spend).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The rest of us live direct deposit to direct deposit.

</comment><comment><USER24> Were talking a lot here about median wage. The article specifies 80% or workers. What's the 80th percentile income?

</comment><comment><USER25> There's many arguments in this thread to the effect that if Americans had more money they'd just spend more, and not save, with others claiming the opposite is true.

I found it interesting that the recent Trump tax cuts offered the rare opportunity to get some empirical data on that question, because they had the effect that people were getting more of their paycheck.

If 80% of people were desperately trying to save, but couldn't, you'd expect that consumption would stay the same, and the savings rate would go up.

But if they were just didn't care to save and would by and large fit their consumption to their income you'd expect consumption to go up, while the savings rate stayed level.

There's a recent episode of Planet Money discussing the Q2 US GDP growth that goes into this a bit, consumption went up as a result of the tax cuts: [https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/27/633230414/gdp-...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/27/633230414/gdp- omg)

However, they don't break that down at all. It's conceivable that consumption just went up with 20% of the population, but this is presumably an easy question to answer.

There's a bunch of items like clothing which people will make last if they have to, but if they feel like they have more discretionary income will spend more on.

Did consumption in those categories go up in a way that indicates that people living paycheck-to-paycheck were now spending more?

<comment><USER26> I'd be interested in looking at the categories of this increased consumption as well.

Maybe they bought needed underwear they couldn't afford before or something that's a necessity.

Maybe they bought a laptop which provides them massive value as far as information goes.

We have to be careful of interpreting these results based on what we 'expect'.

<comment><USER25> Maybe I just have a simplistic view of these things, but I don't see how given sufficient data across the economy you couldn't tease out whether people were overspending or truly living at the limit.

After all, just "living paycheck to paycheck" says nothing about your income per-se. You could make several millions/year and struggle to pay your NYC penthouse mortgage and the loan on your Ferrari.

But the image that's invoked when you read that phrase is not someone who's absurdly rich and living beyond his means, but someone who's poor and struggling to make rent on their apartment or paying for their car.

In aggregate, if all those people would make $500 less a month you'd expect a significant spike in foreclosures, evictions, bankruptcies etc. It would look much like the 2007-2009 recession.

Or, if they truly weren't living beyond their means and were all given a $500 lottery ticket how that money gets spent says a lot about their situation.

Does such an injection of cash into the economy e.g. reduce the foreclosure ratio? That would indicate that people weren't truly living beyond their means.

Or does it only show an increase in consumer spending without any meaningful change in such numbers? Then it's more likely that those people were just bad financial planners, or just haven't thought to save any of their income.

<comment><USER26> I agree with everything you just said. Paycheck-to-paycheck is subjective, you need more data to explain the situation.

This would be really interesting data to mine cross correlate if you can find good sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Robert Reich has become a very compelling and rational voice on these issues, making the problems and their causes much easier to understand. I strongly recommend his documentary at [http://inequalityforall.com](http://inequalityforall.com) as well numerous other easily found pieces he's put out.

<comment><USER16> Reich is a Socialist who wants to take everyone's freedom away for collectivist ideals that are proven to not work. It's a shame so many people fall for his crap. Inequality doesn't necessarily mean worse standard of living. I think most Venezuelans can attest to that... That's why everyone should be extremely wary when listening to Marxists.

<comment><AUTHOR> _" Here's a fun game to play with a right-leaning American: say the word "socialism" and count the number of seconds it takes for them to scream "VENEZUELA" in response. It is unclear how many conservative Americans could identify Venezuela on a map but, boy, they all seem keen to inform you that the beleaguered country is a shining example of why socialism will never work, certainly not in the US..."_

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/29/social...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/29/socialism- no-longer-dirty-word-us-scary-for-some)

<comment><USER28> What a _horrible_ article. Sneering, unnecessarily polarizing, full of ad hominems, and almost devoid of any real numbers or argument. Panders to the lowest of the left by picking on the lowest of the right and saying, "See!? Look!" Literally "stop thinking differently than me!!!" codified to vaguely resemble actual thought. The topics it is grouped with betray it as clickbait garbage.

<comment><USER29> Would you please stop using HN for ideological battle? This is not what the site is for, and destroys what it is for, so we eventually have to ban accounts that do it. Ditto for posting rants in general.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER28> Why does the comment I replied to not deserve the same warning?

<comment><USER29> That commenter doesn't make a habit of it.

<comment><USER28> Ban me, then. I can't find a way to delete my account and I'm tired of this crap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> can anyone compare this to canada ?

</comment><comment><USER31> If everyone from people earning $10 an hour to people earning 120K a year are living "paycheck to paycheck", then it seems misguided to think that the solution somehow lies on the wage side rather than paying attention to the consumption side and the issues of modern capitalist marketing.

The problem with modern American society is that it's developed a superbly optimized form of hyper-capitalism that is able to suck in every single marginal dollar while not delivering meaningful improvements in quality of life.

Areas of the economy that don't operate on that arena (food, electronics, clothing etc.) follow standard deflation curves and get drowned out by the areas of the economy that do.

Take children's safety for example. As a parent, you are expected to buy exactly up to your level of social status in marginal safety improvements for your kids, despite almost no tangible return on investment. If you are a working class family, your kids go to school on their own in a school bus and are latchkey kids in the afternoon while you finish your shift but if you are middle class, you're expected to ferry your kids to every single engagement because "what if something happens to them" and you have to participate in every hare brained exercise in child-rearing on the off chance that it adds some iota of chance to their success. Not doing so not only immediately makes you an outcast in every single social circle, in many cases, busybodies can also bring to bear the power of the state to compel you to behave or childhood services will be brought in to rip your child away from you.

With colleges, families stretch to send their child to the "best" college the child gets into, even if there are plenty of perfectly acceptable colleges for a quarter of the price. If you send your child to the best college, then at least you can reassure yourself that you've done everything you can whereas if you go for the "budget" option, you're forever going to be plagued with the thought of "what if?"

The American cultural pathological fear of every talking about or confronting death leads to the same thing with healthcare. If you have $100K in savings and a parent/loved one is suffering from some medical issue not covered by insurance, you will spend all $100K of that accumulated savings on experimental, last ditch efforts to save them. If you have $500K in savings, you will spend that $500K on a different set of treatments to save them. If you have $500K in savings, it would be morbidly unthinkable to only spend $100K of it and then look your loved one in the eye and tell them you think you're ready to watch them die now. Note that this would be the case even if the $500K treatment was no better or ever worse in outcome than the $100K treatment.

In Economics, there is a theoretical concept of price discrimination where the absolute maximum profit you could ever get from a product is to have some kind of mind reader device that could ascertain the exact maximum amount every single person is willing to pay and charge them exactly that amount for the product. Childcare, education, healthcare & real estate have ballooned in cost because the marketing of American society has become exquisitely tuned to do exactly this.

It doesn't matter how immune you are to this marketing message or how much you would like to reject it, this is marketing that works on a societal level to socially punish any individual who does not willingly give every single marginal dollar to some nebulous notion of the "better life".

Even if we could wave some magic wand and double everybody's wages (in real terms), you would not see any substantial increase in quality of life because those extra dollars would just be absorbed into even more pointless medical tests, fancy college campuses, increased land prices and bullshit helicopter parenting.

<comment><USER32> This is a great point and it equally applies to housing. Not just which neighborhood you live in, but whether you own a house at all. Spend a quarter million dollars minimum and get locked into a mortgage for decades for what actual improvements over a mediocre rental? Nicer baseboards?

This also occurs in the free time/life difficulty space and has the same societal pressures. Got life figured out and going well? You need to level up. You need a home to work on so you can go to Home Depot every weekend. You need a pet or child(ren) to take care of. Happy with your job? Climb higher on the ladder. It's morally questionable in this society for your life to be easy, regardless of your status.

Try telling people in a social setting, as a working age person, that you accept half the salary in exchange for working half the amount and are happy with it and don't need more. Watch their facial expressions.

<comment><USER33> _This is a great point and it equally applies to housing. Not just which neighborhood you live in, but whether you own a house at all. Spend a quarter million dollars minimum and get locked into a mortgage for decades for what actual improvements over a mediocre rental? Nicer baseboards?_

What I got for buying a house is a fixed housing expense. When I got married, my wife - who was already living in one of the best school districts in the state with her (now our) two sons. We moved into a 3 bedroom apartment,1630 square feet for $1200 a month. Within three years, rent had gone up to $1700 a month.

We moved into a house - slightly further north but still in the most affluent county in the state and one of the top 30 in the nation - and now pay $2050 a month. We have 3000+ square feet 5 bedrooms, 3-1/2 baths, a separate large office, a garage, not attached to other apartments, and privacy.

The apartment we left two years ago is now renting for $2150. Our mortgage will never go up, our insurance and property taxes will go up slightly.

My parents bought the home they live in now in 1978 and their mortgage was $650 a month. In 2008 when they paid off their mortgage, they were still paying less than $1000 (insurance and property taxes go up). 30 years later. In 1978 it was a stretch, by 2008 it was nothing. They live in a small town, we live in a major metro area. Now, they don't have to worry about rent - <USER2> insurance and a reduced property tax amount since they are over 65. A house is a great inflation hedge.

I would mention that in the two years since we bought the house, the value has gone up $30K+. But, since we have no plans on moving to a cheaper area, equity is meaningless.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Adapt to Your Face Transplant - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/face-transplant-recipients-identify-with-their-donors <comment><USER2> Fixed Link: [http://nautil.us/blog/how-to-adapt-to-your-face- transplant](http://nautil.us/blog/how-to-adapt-to-your-face-transplant)

The one posted now re-directs to Nautil.us homepage</comment>


Vietnam 40 years on: how a communist victory gave way to capitalist corruption - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/22/vietnam-40-years-on-how-communist-victory-gave-way-to-capitalist-corruption <comment><USER2> This article seems to have a strong objective and anti-Western bias. For instance, why does an article about "Vietnam 40 years on" spend the first third discussing American tragedies during the U.S. invasion? It then discusses each problem in Vietnam in terms of Western actions and dedicates little if any space to the full spectrum of the issues the article is discussing.

That said, the facts and stories presented in the article are themselves interesting and enlightening.

<comment><USER3> I agree. It is well-written and engaging, but its focus on American atrocities somewhat detracts from the main point (and conveniently forgets to mention that Vietcong forces were no stranger to mass executions and torture themselves). It does bring home the extent of the destruction the war inflicted, though.

Unfortunate to see Vietnam turning into a new China.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, the piece has a very distinct bias, and it's sad to see what Vietnam has become, especially considering what it could have been had history gone a little differently (South Korea is a reasonably analogous case).

<comment><USER3> It is? When was South Korea under commercial embargo? I agree that the piece is extremely biased, but it's pretty clear that the US were about as keen on helping post-war Vietnam developing its economy as they have been with Cuba.

<comment><USER5> I think what he meant was, had South Vietnam won, it would have become a second South Korea.

<comment><USER6> What are you talking about? There was no "South Vietnam"... There was Vietnam and there were places the invading forces were occupying.

<comment><USER7> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Vietnam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Vietnam)

First google hit.

<comment><USER8> It existed in the sense that the Confederate States of America existed. A bunch of politicians unhappy about the countries government went into rebellion, coincidentally in the south, and then the fireworks began. But as a cultural concept, neither the CSA nor South Vietnam existed before their respective political rebellions aka they weren't "real countries". And after the rebellion was crushed they don't exist anymore in any real cultural/political fashion. If they won, they would have developed into real distinct countries eventually, but they never got the chance.

As far as invaders go, both sides invited so many vistors and advisors its hard to say who that is.

<comment><USER4> It's hard to say what a "real" country is in this case. The modern borders of Vietnam were _only_ drawn in 1802 when Gia Long unified the country. Within 60 years, the French colonized Vietnam and split it into Cochinchine, Tonkin, and Annam. Then, in 1954, it was split again by the Geneva Accords into North and South.

As you can see, most of these divisions were short-lived and that idea that Vietnam was one unified country for a long period of time before being arbitrarily split by warring politicians is not correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Articles like these are well-intentioned, but it's part of a quite ignorant and manipulative trend.

It makes one believe Capitalism means Coca-Cola, Microsoft and other corporations taking over the world, corrupting local governments and destroying local businesses.

At its best, this is a form of 'Crony Capitalism', but far from what Capitalism genuinely is.

<comment><USER3> Crony capitalism? How many "genuinely capitalistic" corporations show moral qualms when it comes to exploiting (or even engineering) weak regulatory frameworks in under-developed areas and engaging in the time-honored tradition of buying local officials?

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure there'd have many corporations and, if so, buying local officials would be useless, as they'd have limited power in the first place.

<comment><USER3> I'm talking in general. "Really capitalistic" companies don't have issues with corruption, as long as it is not paired with protectionism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an un-nuanced analysis of Vietnam's history that basically blames the United States for Vietnam's rampant corruption and the failure of the communist model (can you name a country where this has worked?).

The author uses stories of war crimes and American military destruction to paint the Vietnam War as USA (with the help of a puppet government) vs. the people of Vietnam. This narrative is naive and ignores the historical and political complexities of the time:

1\. Modern Vietnam was only unified in 1802, and then quickly colonized (and separated into three zones) by the French less than 50 years later. It is incorrect to think that Vietnam was always one country and the 1954 Geneva Accords arbitrarily split the country for the good of the West.

2\. The Viet Minh, who fought and expelled the French were a multi-ideological group that included non-communist nationalists. Ho Chi Minh systematically eradicated the non-communist factions and consolidated power. Some of the fanatical anti-communists that arose later in South Vietnam were those that had had family members murdered by the communist faction.

3\. This narrative ignores the Republic of Vietnam as a true sovereign state. It is incorrect to describe RVN as simply a puppet of the US. True, the Vietnam war was a proxy war, but its involved nations had agendas of its own and ignoring these is patronizing and false. People vote with their feet. In the 300-day grace period after the 1954 division that allowed open migration between the two Vietnams, 600,000 people migrated south compared with around 150,000 to the north. Around 1975, those who could scrambled to escape the country. Over the next 20 years, over two million less fortunate people would risk their lives on rickety boats to flee the communist regime. It's a very naive picture to paint that the US was bombing all the of the poor Vietnamese who just wanted independence into submission.

Aside from the lack of historical nuance, the author goes on excuse the communist regime from blame, with incredibly disingenuous passages like this:

"The US left Vietnam in a state of physical ruin. Roads, rail lines, bridges and canals were devastated by bombing. Unexploded shells and landmines littered the countryside, often underwater in the paddy fields where peasants waded. Five million hectares of forest had been stripped of life by high explosives and Agent Orange. The new government reckoned that two-thirds of the villages in the south had been destroyed. In Saigon, the American legacy included packs of orphans roaming the streets and a heroin epidemic. Nationally, the new government estimated it was dealing with 10 million refugees; 1 million war widows; 880,000 orphans; 362,000 war invalids; and 3 million unemployed people."

The US did not leave Vietnam in ruins. War, _two-sided_ war did. In Saigon, where did war widows and orphans come from? From the North killing the fathers and husbands in war. Who created the refugees and destroyed two thirds of the villages? The North, when it invaded the South. War is complicated, and obviously both sides are complicit in this tragedy, but not in the author's eyes. (Unsurprisingly, he doesn't mention the scores of summary executions and systematic torture of ARVN veterans in "re-education camps" post 1975).

The US made plenty of blunders and ill-conceived and unwarranted political plays during the course of the Vietnam War, but North Vietnam does not get away blame free here. And while our standard history narrative in the US mostly half-apologetically describes Vietnam as a mistake and tries to forget about it, few people stop to consider if perhaps the US was on the side of "good" (or at least, the better of the two) in this case.

How might Vietnam be different today if it had gone the way of South Korea (which, at the time, was _even poorer_ than Vietnam)? When looking at its Cold War era allies (USSR, PRC), it's no surprise that Vietnam ranks so poorly on corruption. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

<comment><USER10> Replace "Vietnam" with "India" and "USA" with "British Empire" and you be reading from the same template few decades earlier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "gave way to capitalist corruption"

Those anecdotes read like someone who never read "Fire in the Lake". The article anecdotes sound less corrupt than BAU in in the urban areas during the war.</comment>


Intellectual Dark Matter - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/intellectual-dark-matter-2e5890aa8d8f <comment><USER2> I wish there was a better way to preserve the kind of institutional knowledge that is necessary to do cool stuff. It's insane to think of all the effort spent to relearn the basic knowledge we once had (e.g. relearning how to build complex hardware because a prior company went out of business), and that all this accumulated knowledge can be lost when a company or organization goes under. I think part of the reason this happens is because of an over-reliance on textual documents and informal processes that are hard for the next generation to uncover or dig through in short amounts of time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Better than you might think looking at the title. (e.g. it has nothing to do with the "Intellectual Dark Web")</comment>


Nobody's Going to Help You, and That's Awesome - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/07/nobodys-going-to-help-you-and-thats-awesome.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Already ordered the book!</comment>


The Master Of Power, Seduction And War - with Robert Greene - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/robert-greene-power-interview/ <comment><AUTHOR> At minute 37 he gives a snippet about his interview with PG</comment>


Ask HN: Found a major vuln in competitor's software. What now? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everybody,
Let's assume that I have a web app, and I have a competitor, with very similar product. I found a major vulnerability in their software and I can destroy all of their data.
Usually, if I find something like this in someone's software I would write him an e-mail, because I am a nice person. This is a good thing to do, right?
But in this case I just don't know what to do. I don't want to lower my karma, destroying their business, plus it sound like a real crime. But I don't want to tell them either — they are my competitors.
What would you do? <comment><USER2> Tell them; be a mensch; life is long.

Many years ago when the web was young I worked for a company that had accidentally left its intranet open to the web. We didn't know. It was hard to find, but if you knew the URL you could access it (on some weird port).

But on the intranet was a link to a competitor. The competitor found the intranet because it appeared in their referrer logs. One of our employees had clicked through to the competitor and left a trail.

The CEO wrote to us and told us. Looking at our intranet logs we knew that they only looked at that one page.

The CEO of that company became a fairly well known VC. All of us had a great deal of respect for his actions. They could have accessed details of our product plans, revenue and employees.

Ultimately, his company was more successful than we were.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tell them, very anonymously. You don't want to risk them accusing you of anything. Or, just forget it about it completely, which is probably the safest option.

Do not do anything destructive. It would be highly illegal and you could _very_ possibly end up losing years of your life in prison. It's not worth it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cautiously: tell them.

You want to protect yourself from retaliation. It's not unknown for people who report vulns to be prosecuted.

Obviously don't use it. That risks not just your business but a prison sentence.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just tell them, if you do it correctly, you might get to know your competitor a little better and over time, there might be a way for you guys to focus on different markets with the same products, discussing difficulties you both have and so on. Eventually you want to look yourself in the mirror and be happy with what you've accomplished, and not be ashamed of what you've accomplished.

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't be evil. Tell them or don't. Don't exploit it.

Edit: I would tell them.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here are the options: a) keep silent, b) exploit it, c) tell them,

c) is the worst option; there are enough examples of people getting busted for "hacking", double so for hacking a competitor. b) is better. If done with caution you will not get busted, and you will get richer. a) is an acceptable altenative. You will not make money, but you won't get busted either.

It's sad, but we live in a time where honor and fair dealing is not recognized, and we must live with it.

<comment><USER8> This is where we're at with HN now? Comments cheerleading people into committing felonies?

<comment><USER7> Your sarcastometer needs to be returned to the manufacturer for major overhaul. It has lost calibration. (Actually the last line in my comment should have given it away, it recalls a comment on Seneca the Younger by a French philosopher, can't remember the name. He called him "a man of honour in a time when such did not exist".)

The comment was supposed to make two point: first there is this prevalent opinion here that market forces will invariably guarantee an outcome that is beneficial to society. This would suggest option b) or c) for the OP, dependent on his skills and connections. I dislike both, and so do you.

Also, both of us know that people have gotten into trouble for disclosing vulnerabilities, even when they were disclosed only to the owner/manufacturer. This isn't acceptable, neither to the person who pointed this out, nor to society in general, because it leads to vulnerabilities left unfixed, and unfixed vulnerabilities have a knock-on effect on the wider world.

<comment><USER8> After reading this comment and re-reading your first comment, I've come to the conclusion that we work from different definitions of the word "sarcastic".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a no-brainer: tell them. Yes, they're your competitors but when they find out your accountant is stealing from you, wouldn't you rather they told you?

</comment><comment><USER10> Tell them. If you can't win the market by being better than them, exploiting it to make them fail means you already have.

</comment><comment><USER11> Forget you knew this and get back to your life. Did we learn nothing from Weev? Do you think your competitor might like seeing you in federal prison? All it takes is one jerk at your competitor's company (or any of their investors) to call in the feds.

<comment><USER8> If he actually exploits the vulnerability, calling the police doesn't make them jerks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Write a blog about it. That way you will have told them about it and also your prospective customers. So win-win for both. They get to fix it and you probably get more customers.

Obviously it can happen to you as well so be prepared.

</comment><comment><USER13> If it were bill gates he would probably delete all their stuff.

I am not saying you should do it, but a lot of successful people got to where they are without being too nice.

</comment><comment><USER14> I find these decisions are easier to make if you reverse the roles. If you were in their shoes, what would you want/expect your competitor to do?

</comment><comment><USER15> Tell them, becoz the safety of the users is more important then your competition.

</comment><comment><USER16> Send same email again, but this time to their enemy! [kidding]

</comment><comment><USER17> Send an anonymous tip</comment>


Ask HN: How can Higher Kinded Types help in domain driven design? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Higher kinded types create a context arlu d the types(and ultimately the values) they wrap. This can type classes which implement a the same function in different ways for the same value wrapped in a different higher kinded type, for example. So if your domain deals with values in two contexts, and you want to manipulate them using a common language, higher kinded types are a pretty great way to achieve that. They also enable parametric polymorphism, and that creates a LOT of predictable behaviours for free, which in turn allows you to automatically derive typeclasses, interfaces, and theorem proofs in certain situations.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't mean to be rude, but maybe pick up a book and try to find out yourself?</comment>


So long, Retina - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rinik.net/so-long-retina <comment><USER2> Have the retina. It's an awesome machine, and his points are correct:

* A lot of them suffer from burn-in, mine doesn't (I have a samsung display). I'm lucky!

* The scrolling is jittery at times. Yes I do notice.

* You can't really update anything inside.

None of these things bother me, at all. Update things inside? Last time I did that was to upgrade a 2GB to a 4GB for my previous laptop. It cost me as much as my Apple upgrade from 8GB to 16GB. When you upgrade you 'lose' the old components anyway, you might be able to sell them and recuperate a very low amount.

The jittery scrolling is definitely noticeable, but it's not really bothersome. I guess if it irks you then you're in for some frustration.

The burn-in is the one issue where Apple dropped the ball, but it's obviously not big enough to get the attention of major media (like the death grip issue of iphone 4). I'm still hoping Apple will get a firmware update or at the very least will fix the problem and allow replacements. Yes, I know it's a "hardware" problem, but tech like this is so complex it might very well be solvable through a firmware update.

But the screen. Oh the screen. It's like being reborn with new eyes. Everything looks so sharp and awesome. I've had it for a week now and I still sometimes just stare at text, and sigh. It really is great, and there's nothing like it out there right now. It's as if Steve Jobs is standing behind you massaging your face. Highly recommended, and completely worth these "hassles".

Anyway, this article is FUD. 3 out of 4 of his "issues" he could have predicted before buying the machine. The last one Apple will probably fix in the future. He doesn't talk about the other advantages, i.e. battery life, weight, compactness...

<comment><USER3> Honestly to me, burn in seems completely unacceptable for a computer so expensive.

<comment><USER4> I had burn in on my apple cinema display. got the screen replaced in warranty, happened again mildly on the new one later (warranty has ended).

my 27" imac had serious burn in problems. got the screen replaced in warranty. hasn't repeated yet.

neither a cinema display nor an imac is cheap.

burn in problems are common. shrug. if it's completely unacceptable, there are a lot more completely unacceptable screens, and have been for a long time, yet no one seems to be complaining.

a sibling to your comment says 1st gen ipads can get burn in issues and this is expected by apple and not considered a serious defect when it isn't too strong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is precisely why I did not buy one. I know it's a brilliant machine, but it's also the first of its kind. Anyone who's ever been an apple early adopter knows that it doesn't always end pretty. v2.0 of the retina's are going to be solid, I have no doubts.

<comment><USER6> I have a buddy who's a certified Apple tech who basically has said the same thing. If you don't like being on the bleeding edge and prefer to play it safe with your hardware purchases, wait for the 2nd version where all of the major gripes have been resolved.

<comment><USER7> Bleeding edge technology, or a cutting edge that slips. I like to get version > 3.0 of things, or buy the best of the last generation of technology, or high quality second hand, if I am using it for actual work.

<comment><USER6> You don't get the bragging rights of having the latest/greatest. But you do get solid gear that actually works properly. It's a tough tradeoff!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _It works best with 1440x900 resolution. So if you like 1680x1050, your GPU will have to do extra work._

The display's native resolution is 2880x1800. Why would you set it to half the native resolution? That defeats the whole point of having all those pixels! You might as well have a 1440x900 (non-retina) display.

Setting the display output to 1680x1050 is totally whacked - that is displaying each pixel in 1.7 native pixels. Mind. Boggles.

<comment><USER9> When it comes to Apple's Retina displays there's a bit more to it than what you're used to:

\- when OP says 1440x900 he means the pixel doubled version. All GUI lengths / fonts have the size of their 1440x900 versions, but there are twice as many pixels, enabling high resolution graphics and fonts. It's basically a crotch because Apple never got around to make their OS resolution independent, however from a programmer's standpoint it's actually not that bad, you just have to specify images with @2x postfix in the filename.

\- higher resolutions are not scaled in the same way you're used to. They're actually rendered internally at double the resolution after which they're overlayed with the screen's native grid for some interpolation-like process. The result is vastly better than what you know from usual screen interpolation, it's hardly noticeable actually.

<comment><USER10> A crutch is something that helps you when you are unable to stand on your own..

A crotch however, is an area for your genitals to play

<comment><USER9> Thanks, unfortunately it's too late to edit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Trollbait. 3 out of the 4 bullet points are also true for his previous 3 year old MacBook Pro: 1440x900 is the best (actually max) resolution and it's not user-serviceable or upgradable.

As for the screen burn-in, the very thread he links to notes that Apple had been replacing defective units. You don't have to "get rid" of it, just bring it in to an Apple store.

<comment><USER12> I have the previous model macbook. I've upgraded the ram twice, and I have the higher resolution screen option. The setup described by the author would mean I'd lose screen real estate and be stuck at whatever ram I bought, so they don't seem like bad points to me.

<comment><USER13> The three-year-old model (which I also have) has a native 1440x900 display, so abalone is right about that -- though you're right that RAM was upgradeable on the 2009 model.

But the bigger question is, why the crap is this polluting Hacker News? This horse isn't getting any deader. Yes, OP's complaints are legitimate, but so old at this point that the only reason to post this is Apple-bashing. It's tiresome, and it's decidedly not news. Let's talk about something interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love my Retina. I haven't noticed problems with scrolling, I have my resolution set higher than 'Best for Retina'.

I upgraded the SSD with ease, pops in an out once you remove the pentile screws to open it up. It's easy to do and your point about "None of the components can be upgraded" is incorrect. I don't believe anything else can so it is limited but this was enough for me.

Source for one way to upgrade: <http://twit.tv/show/know-how/10>

<comment> X-Istence Do you have a source for this upgraded SSD? Would love to purchase a higher capacity one.

<comment><USER15> Aura Pro from <http://www.macsales.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Retina is a fascinating and revolutionary laptop. But it's the first generation, and most companies' (including Apple) almost always mess up their first generation products in substantial ways. Everyone I know with a Retina is mostly happy with theirs, but I am going to hold off until the Retina grows into its high price. Meanwhile, a 13" macbook air and a 27" cinema display costs the same and is more compelling to me.

<comment><USER17> How's the MacBook air for dev? Was debating if it was powerful enough or if I should get a pro.

<comment><USER16> I do almost everything remote via ssh, so I'm not positive. The macbook air has an i7 upgrade which should help, but my guess is it's still significantly slower than the pros.

<comment><USER17> Thank you all for your replies. Really helpful!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh for Christ's sake, this is what passes for the "top story" on Hacker News these days?

<comment><USER19> Slow news day I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "I got rid of my retina macbook pro today."

While I can understand the issue being something that annoys you, deciding to simply rid yourself of it - despite the bug being as you state "not something that disturbs your normal workflow" - strikes me as rather silly.

<comment><USER16> He presumably returned it, getting his money back. It's not silly, maybe he just felt it wasn't worth the premium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sucks, but I think it's a good idea to wait a generation for stuff like this; even if it's apple. I got a big IPS LCD from Sony back when they were a new thing. I thought $1500 was well worth it for 1920x1200 in 24". I still use it but it has a similar burn in issue.

Display tech is a shady game, figuring out the actual panel mfg is hard, and years of custom modelines have taught me to avoid being an early adopter on displays. Retina is "teh futar" though, and I welcome it once it's been refined; we've needed higher dpi in large displays and software that can handle dynamic dpi well for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've noticed that scrolling in Chrome is pretty bad on my retina Macbook, but in Safari it's super smooth.

<comment><USER23> I noticed this too, you can make it better by going to chrome://flags and enabling GPU composition on all pages (leave threaded compositing off though, seems like a good idea but it has some implementation problems with back and forward gestures). It's not perfect, but it does make a marked improvement to stock settings.

<comment><USER22> Wow, it's like night and day. Thanks for the tip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a retina. It has the burn-in problem. It's not noticeable and doesn't bother me.

It's the price you pay for 1st-gen, new technology.

<comment><USER25> I have a retina. It has the retinitis pigmentosa problem. It's quite noticeable but only bothers me sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have one of these I haven't noticed any of those problems you mentioned but I do have 1 dead pixel that is starting to drive me nuts. Anyone else notice any dead pixels on theirs? Other then that I love it, fastest most beautiful machine I've ever used.

<comment><USER27> A single dead pixel is pretty hard to notice on the rMBP. Chances are that it is multiple dead pixels. I love my machine but it's going back at some point because it has what seem to be 3 dead single pixels, a couple doubles, a quadruple, and maybe an octuple. Only the two big groups are noticeable during my typical workflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Seems like it's just too 'high-end' currently. I would definitely consider it if they ever made a low-end retina. Actually, I think Vizio had a retina competitor and it looked pretty good, so did the price.

</comment><comment><USER29> Haven't noticed any problems mentioned on my mbp retina. The text and most images are so incredibly clear that other screens look pixelated to me.

</comment><comment><USER30> "After a couple of days" he noticed that "it's a disposable machine" and "none of its components can be upgraded"? Those are valid complaints, but they're public knowledge. If he didn't do the research before buying it, it's a little silly to be complaining about those two things now.

<comment><USER31> You should give the full quote. "Started noticing some of the well known problems" implies that he did know about them, just didn't notice the negatives of them himself the first couple of days.

Lots of hate on HN for this article...

<comment><USER30> That makes it worse :D He knew it wasn't upgradable, bought it anyway, and now he's complaining about it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> If Samsung makes some of the retina displays, does that mean more laptops will have it soon?

<comment><USER33> Eventually, but two problems that could slow down the process (meaning, not necessarily "soon"):

(1) Apple has made lots of forward looking investments to get long-term lock ups on supplies even if the manufacturer is Samsung. So perhaps they've already bought the next 1 or 2 years of these displays that Samsung can produce. Samsung would then have to build more factories to supply the needs of other OEMs, where the OEMs did not help invest ahead of time to help build this capacity themselves.

(2) More significantly: the operating system and its software eco-system must actively support high-resolution displays. Since Windows 8 is more popular on the low end, there might not be much incentive for Microsoft or their software partners to actively change their software to support what would initially probably be a very niche market for them. Without the software, there isn't much motivation to produce the hardware. Apple doesn't really have this problem: they've sort of forced the issue by releasing the hardware first, they've upgraded their OS to deal, they've primed the market with a few enabled apps, and their users are fairly high end, will demand more apps, where the app developers will quickly oblige (Adobe came out with a HiDPI version of the Creative Studio tools recently).

Eventually we will all get high resolution displays, but it will probably take much longer for the PC ecosystem than the Mac ecosystem. If its successful enough on Mac, however, I would expect the process to speed up on PCs so they remain competitive.

<comment><USER34> There have been high-end Windows laptops for a while now that had higher resolutions than Apple was willing to go. For example, for several years, Sony has had a 1080p option on the Vaio Z's 13" screen. That's a lower PPI than the Retina screen, but it's a much higher resolution than the 1366 x 768 resolution of a MacBook Air.

Nowadays, I think 1080p screens are starting to creep into even smaller 10"-11" devices. And with the light Apple is shining on high resolution screens now, I expect this will accelerate, and we'll see more high resolution screens on laptops filtering down from specialty PC laptops to midrange ones, and extreme high resolution screens start to show up on the specialty ones.

This is a lot like how it worked in the iPhone vs. Android world of phone resolution. Android phones jumped up to 800x480, then the iPhone jumped all the way to 960x640. Android stayed at 800x480 at first, then 960x540 (qHD) screens became more common, and now a device doesn't count as a high end Android phone unless it has a 720p screen, a higher resolution than the iPhone (though usually at slightly fewer PPI because of the different screen size).

<comment><USER33> You can't just upscale most apps for a higher PPI. The art is mostly pixel based and upscaling will create artifacts. So for some boosts in resolution, this is ok, the art just gets smaller, and app developers slowly adapt by making their art bigger. But from 1X to 2X...upscaling works a bit better but is still not ideal, while you really have to go and completely redo your pixel art.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The burn-in/ghosting issue only affects the earliest batch of screens. I just took my retina into the Apple store, and they will decapitate it and add a new screen for free. Annoying, but it doesn't affect all whole line.

</comment><comment><USER36> Wow, that's kind of petty. The author is _never_ going to find the perfect laptop. There are always going to be some issues, so deal with it. While I am always in favor of throwing out apple products (apple sucks), this article is just stupid.

<comment><USER31> How is it petty? He stated multiple valid reasons why he decided to switch laptops on his personal blog. Nothing petty about them either, I can imagine jittery scrolling being very annoying/disruptive to some people.</comment></comment>