Politically-correct witch-hunt is killing free speech - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sarahadowney/this-politically-correct-witch-hunt-is-killing-free-speech-and-we-have-to-fight-it-7ced038d33ae <comment><USER2> I hope people realise this sooner rather than later. No matter which side of the political spectrum you are on, it is clear that PC culture is making the world a worse place for everybody.

Telling people which causes they must publicly support or else be assumed an enemy? Does that ring any bells? I swear there's another regime in human history that made you hang flags outside your house to show your clear support. This comparison is made to death so I won't name it, but the similarities - despite accusations flying in the other direction constantly - are constantly increasing.

Removing TV shows from Netflix because somebody covered their face in black paint, with no regard for context or what was being made fun of it? (hint: it wasn't black people).

"Cancelling" somebody's career because their daughter said something that might be deemed racist? "Cancelling" somebody because they said something 10 years ago that might be racist? Absurd.

I honestly think our society is getting soft. You cannot disagree with somebody without them immediately deciding whether or not they can publicly shame you or if you broke any laws in the process of hurting them. Comedy is getting less and less funny, debate is increasingly meaningless because you have to tip-toe around everything. We are making society blander and __less diverse __in the name of diversity.

Diversity at all costs: except diversity of opinion.

<comment><USER3> > Telling people which causes they must publicly support or else be assumed an > enemy? Does that ring any bells?

Are you talking about Kapernick being cancelled from the NFL by conservative cancel culture and the Vice President's staged NFL walkout to support conservative cancel culture?

<comment><USER4> Kapernick made a political statement as his place of work. He made a calculated risk to his career for the sake of his convictions. Choosing to take a stand strikes me as different than being pressured and judged for not taking one. As a non-fan of football, I read the distate for Kapernick's statement as foisting another political binary on fans (mostly by the media, not so much by kapernick). Should you kneel or not kneel? Now you _have_ to have an opinion.

I think the progression is:

1\. Make a political statement against an injustice (hashtags, kneeling, etc)

2\. Making a lack of support a form of complicity with injustice.

3\. Narrowly define what support looks like.

Exact quote from #ShutDownStem website: >> Unless you engage directly with eliminating racism, you are perpetuating it. [0]

[https://www.shutdownstem.com/](https://www.shutdownstem.com/)

<comment><USER2> > Choosing to take a stand strikes me as different than being pressured and > judged for not taking one

Fantastic point. And I would hope those in favor of democracy can accept it. If you choose to support a political party publicly, you can reasonably expect people to engage with you about it. But nobody should be able to coerce you to support any particular party or candidate.

What we are seeing now, is not the freedom to choose a particular stance or cause. We are seeing the mob react with force to a lack of opinion.

You must have an opinion. And it must be the right one.

<comment><USER5> >But nobody should be able to coerce you to support any particular party or candidate.

well, nobody is able to coerce you for not doing anything, but people can still judge you for it, and that may be perfectly reasonable.

Inaction can be as devastating as action. Withdrawing in the face of some injustice is as much of a choice as participating on either front.

It's an overused quote but really all that is necessary for evil to triumph is good people doing nothing. Of course today sometimes the causes are hyperbolic, but nothing is wrong with the principle. If someone is the victim of racism say, and people look away rather than stepping up, that's a failure.

<comment><USER6> >Inaction can be as devastating as action.

It can be but rarely is.

In the case racism, it isn't. Sitting in my house doing nothing isn't as bad as attacking blacklivesmatter protesters.

The call against inaction is an exaggeration to shame people into action for their side. It's the "if you aren't with us, you're against us" repackaged for the woke.

<comment><USER7> To take it another step further, a bias towards action can be harmful as well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere) . I have often wondered if Google/Alphabet erred in switching from "don't be evil" to "do the right thing".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The real story here is the story of someone who has actively avoided politics all of her life, but Twitter's engagement increasing algorithms got to her. It showed her outrageous Twitter mobs to feed her outrage cycle until she was hooked on politics and seeking out alt-right thinkers.

The interesting thing is that all those people in Twitter mobs that she's so upset about are also in an outrage cycle, hooked on Twitter.

The real hidden enemy here isn't political correctness, it's social media. It's the massive social experiment that no one signed up for, and it's driving us all insane.

<comment><USER9> I like your wording on this - outrage cycle. I agree that social media algorithms promote that, which is why I have largely withdrawn from twitter, facebook, and instagram. They're nowhere near representative of my real life social networks. While platforms like instagram have the capability to keep friends connected and inspire people, they've turned into toxic waste sites.

That said, their effect on society hasn't been limited to raging twitter tirades. Companies, governments, and other institutions seem to be bending the knee to their outrage, which has led to not only our cancel culture, but to things like the CHOP situation which went on for far too long. Leaders are scared of making the mob angry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "We're supposed to have a First Amendment right to freedom of the press, but this phenomenon is ruining it."

Writer of linked article claims to be a lawyer, but strangely seems unaware that the First Amendment protects speech and the press from the _government_.

No examples of government restricting free expression were given.

<comment><USER11> Id say the stance on platforms is stifiling free speech.

Private companies should not be able to moderate speech and claim to be a platform.

You're either a publisher or your not. If you're a public platform, your users should be protected by public laws.

For rhe most part the current state of affairs has worked so far but i would suggest it hasnt for some and is starting to show its weaknesses in a more polarized environment.

For the downvoters, this isnt some new opinion of mine because of the talking points from trump, ive had this view since the torrent debates of the early 2000s and other similar situations with people like snowden.

If you disagree because with what i have to say, please explain.

<comment><USER12> Are you implying that if I stand up a small public forum or message board for some niche interest using my own assets that I am unable to boot people off it or moderate in any way without being deemed a publisher and being liable for content?

<comment><USER2> I think it is about scale. If you stand up a public forum and you have 100 users, do your moderation choices actually sway a large percentage of public opinion? Consider instead a social media platform with a billion users and its moderation choices. It is time for us to use some common sense and not just dissolve everything down to that simplistic binary terms. Having a forum doesn't make you a publisher. Moderation isn't always bad. There are many other nuances like reach, scale, trust, etc. For instance, there is a huge difference between me posting disinformation of my private blog, and me publishing disinformation is a newspaper read by hundreds of thousands daily. My responsibility and influence over the public increases with the reach I have. We need to think the same way about social media.

<comment><USER13> > I think it is about scale. If you stand up a public forum and you have 100 > users, do your moderation choices actually sway a large percentage of public > opinion? Consider instead a social media platform with a billion users and > its moderation choices

Where's the line (aka "Sorites paradox")? And who is making the decision?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have to say that the web in its early days never had this level of politically correct moderation or witch-hunting acts until YouTube, Facebook and Twitter rose in popularity and were used beyond their intended purpose; as tools used to dox and cancel opponents. Fast-forward to 2020, it has gotten too far and out of control.

One could say that social media has definitely accelerated this nonsense to new heights, taking everyone who disagrees with the PC-crowd underground.

<comment><USER2> Social media empowered the mob, and gave them an inflated sense of worth for their own opinions. Because your opinion can instantly be broadcast to millions of people, it must have value. But along with this came the mob mentality, where this new power will be used to silence opposition.

The fault really lies in the companies, politicians, and media outlets who have given credence to what "the mob" on social media has to say.

Example: a comedian/author makes a tweet that is mildly offensive to some small minority, but they didn't mean anything by it, or it was just a joke. Somebody sees the potential to kick up a stink, and retweet it with "can't believe they just said this. apologise now". It gets maybe 10% the "likes" of the original tweet. A media outlet sees this tweet (some intern is browsing "latest tweets") and writes an article saying "Internet in an outrage: is x a racist?". Author immediately issues an apology, resigns from their job, and goes into hiding, their career destroyed forever.

What could have been done differently? The company they worked for could've stood by them. The author/whoever could have just ignored it. The media outlet could have had higher quality standards of publication. And almost nobody would even know what was said in the first place! Our society thrives on conflict, and any small hint of a conflict is blown up beyond all proportion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Appreciate the article, but a few points I feel are off the mark a bit:

> But despite his killer getting fired and arrested, the protests became more > violent, more destructive, and more divisive.

A lot of rioting and violence came in the early days, even before the arrest and murder charges. The vast majority of protests were peaceful. And this seems to insinuate that the protesters and rioters were the same people, which I don't think is a widely held belief.

And maybe the protests are about more than just the murder of George Floyd... If this was an isolated incident, maybe expectations of a quick return to civility would make sense, but it's almost like people (including white people) are tired of this happening.

> If you aren't posting #BLM, you're racist. If you ARE posting #BLM but you > say it in the wrong way, you're racist. If you're white and you're silent, > that's violence. If you're white and you're speaking up, you're talking over > black voices and only they should be heard.

Maybe this is several folks trying to take the culture wheel. The debate is messy right now and that's OK. It's a messy topic and people are tossing out their ideas.

If you want to post #BLM great. If you don't that's fine too. I'm glad we're having a conversation about it even if it's just to simply say we're all confused.

Props to the author for sharing her views. If folks take issue with what you've said, don't sweat it. And if you're looking for other folks on direction on how to "do it right", you're looking in the wrong direction.

<comment><USER2> > If you want to post #BLM great. If you don't that's fine too.

Anecdata: in a company all-hands 2 weeks ago, an employee asked the CEO why the company hadn't yet made a public statement about BLM. The CEO looked visibly agitated, almost fearful, and stumbled through some response that equated to "will we do that by the end of the week".

Whether or not the pressure actually exists, people are scared of what will happen if they don't conform. People have been fired over tweets, roasted in the media over not speaking out "when they should", and for things they said 10 years ago. Nobody wants to be on the front page of buzzfeed for being outed "as a racist". There is a collective societal fear that is driving us faster and faster off the PC cliff.

<comment><USER16> This.

I sometimes worry about anything I may have said years ago or anything I say now that could be construed as offensive by ... almost anyone at this point.

Early on (day after the _riots_ started) I posted an article about a POC business owner's business being destroyed due to protests (rioting) - I had someone call me gross and "where was your outrage when a Black man was killed by a cop? I didn't see you post anything then"

After that I started having to make a risk analysis before doing anything.

At this point you HAVE to say something about everything and cover your bases, or you're complicit; oddly enough you can say something AGAINST the movement, be called out, and apologize, and that's acceptable. But trying to stay out of the shitstorm? No, you're complicit. Say something positive, or say something negative and then retract it. But say something...

<comment><USER15> > I sometimes worry about anything I may have said years ago or anything I say > now that could be construed as offensive by ... almost anyone at this point.

I hear this complaint a lot and don't quite understand it. I don't think the goal in life is to not offend anyone. Just live your life as best you can and if others get offended that's OK. Learn from it if you want to, if it's nonsense ignore it. If someone injures you, sue them. If someone threatens you call the police. If someone stops being your friend get new friends. People are free to get as offended as they want and you're free to not let it bother you.

When there are laws passed that create penalties for offending someone then we have a problem. Until then the outrage about the outrage is just like the outrage itself.

<comment><USER17> The problem is that these rules worked in prior times, but social media has given the offended the power to group up with 10000 other people who would be similarly offended. And once they are all offended, they adopt a mob mentality and ruin the lives of people. There's no examination of evidence, no due process, and no deviation from the mob's mentality.

It's the exact opposite of the norms that the United States had been built on for it's history. And there's little to no legal recourse for victims of the mob who have been fired from their jobs and labeled as a racist online.

<comment><USER15> History has plenty of examples of mobs ruining people's lives without due process. I'm not disagreeing that it's bad just that I don't think it's a new phenomenon or even worse than it used to be. The mobs used to kill you not just harass you.

Unfortunately, something within us seems to want to blame, shame, control and punish other people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Are anyone's rights to free speech actually threatened? Or is there just backlash from the public.

I've noticed how this "You take away my free speech when I get backlash when I speak some idea that is now interpreted as X-phobic or harmful" argument seems to pop up among during movements that cause painful resistant power shifts.

also this....

"Personally, I think adding trans performers would breathe life into Drag Race. But I'm a viewer, and I don't get to decide that. The point is that RuPaul's Drag Race is RuPaul's show, and we don't get to scream and cry and throw tantrums until he changes his own show."

.... but what about free speech you were just arguing for?

why don't people get to scream and cry?

This appears to be conservative grief masked as liberally tolerant protection of free speech.

<comment><USER19> The culture of backlash from the public is causing free speech to be threatened. Both are true.

<comment><USER20> > causing free speech to be threatened.

[citation needed]. Social media platforms are not 1st-amendment platforms.

What's hilarious about the author of this article is her admiration for South Park. And yet, they did the satire of anyone with the ashen-faced fear of being "kicked off Twitter" as a fate worse than death.

I fail to see how the PC left is changing any of the things that really run society. If you don't like the noise, maybe take a break from Twitter? Because being kicked off twitter is NOT a threat to free speech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You're still free to write whatever you want, no one is taking that away. However, just because you have something to say doesn't mean that I or anyone else has give it the time of day.

I am also free to respond however I'd like, and in some cases there may be many more people that share my opinion rather than yours!

<comment><USER22> Agreed, but it starts to be a public interest issue when real harm is done to people, such as getting them fired.

I also think there is genuine psychological harm being done by mobs online. This is not so hard to see in other contexts, where it would be called bullying or harassment. Consider the cases of high school students publicly informing on their peers and denouncing them. Unfortunately, for political reasons people are trivializing that right now and acting like it's no problem at all, just everyday communication and no one has a right to expect different. That's ironic since I assume most of these people would say that they believe in a politics of empathy.

I also think that, contrary to a common objection, there _is_ a genuine free speech issue with denying access to the social media platforms which have grown so large as to become de facto standards for public communication. It's popular right now to say "it's not a free speech issue because they're not the government". But Facebook, Twitter, etc. are the public squares of our time. Private institutions that become that large and monopolistic begin to encroach on the public sector in importance, and it's too legalistic an argument to say that doesn't count because e.g. the first amendment only applies to the government.

Those are three areas that go beyond just expressing disagreement with someone, and have elements of actual harm in them. Also, all three are escalating and the logical next steps are worse.

<comment><USER23> societies and civil discussions will not adhere to some moral and orderly procession, so let's not cling to that unascribable ideal. we're also per capita way less violent and offensive toward each other than most of human history.

sometimes repercussions greater than disagreement is warranted, and psychic injury to usher in real, positive change is a small price to pay, smaller than during most prior evolutions.

but let's spell out clearly that the complainants are largely folks who want to assert power as privilege on minority groups and are meeting rightful resistance. it's true that sometimes the resistance goes too far, which is unfortunate, but that's a non-sequitur borne of an imbalance of perception, entitlement, and extra-sensitivity.

that's the nexus of the clash, and a key part of why it just won't be civil and orderly. this is the internet era's version of a power struggle. feet are gonna get mashed and we're not gonna like it.

<comment><USER22> This is a "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" argument. That is more honest than the argument I was criticizing, which pretends that significant harm isn't being done to people. You seem to be saying that they mostly deserve it, and if they don't, that's "unfortunate". Collateral damage, one might call it, in a righteous cause. I find it scary when people arrogate to themselves the right to injure others, and I doubt that it serves justice. But I appreciate the clarity.

<comment><USER23> you're welcome!

you're missing some of the nuance, the asymmetry of cause and action, though. there is already historic, perpetual violence, acting to subjugate and disenfranchise, and it's quite understandable and reasonable to resist that subjugation.

the resisters weren't initiating this thread of violence but rather had it thrust upon them. the initiators activate the risk of injury on the rebound, not the resisters. no initial violence, no rebound injury risk.

asserting dominance is risky business, no two ways about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't get the argument here. Is the Twitter mobs not entitled to _their_ free speech? To me this seems like she just doesn't like that a majority of people's opinions are changing and is trying to silence them.

<comment><USER25> If it's intimidation, threats, etc. then it isn't free speech, it's violence. That's why maliciously yelling fire in a crowded theater isn't covered by freedom of speech, the action is intending to violently harm other people. That's also why placing a bullhorn next to someone's ear and blasting a screed through it in a way that destroys someone's hearing isn't a behavior protected by freedom of speech (it would be considered assault, it's an act of violence; the person could easily express their screed without harming someone in that manner).

The mobs on Twitter frequently cross over into committing mass acts of criminal behavior through threats and intimidation, organizing to harm people. They don't hide it, this criminal behavior is all out in the open. Hurt this person next, no no no hurt this person. Threatening to harm people is violence (it doesn't have to be a physical threat to be violence), not freedom of speech.

<comment><USER24> I see what you're saying, but that sort of comes down to opinion. If you ask these Twitter mobs, I'm sure they'd say that are only responding in kind. They'd say that the people they're attacking are already attacking them or attacking others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think the move towards real identity killed free speech online.

Anonymity was easy for regular folks back in the 2000s.

I'm actually baffled at how some people so willingly express their personal views online these days.

<comment><USER27> It's called being discovered. You want your tweets discovered so that you can have a sense of something earned by writing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Social media is the Babel fish:

"... the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

</comment><comment><USER29> The author has a point. When going to upvote the article, I caught myself subconsciously running the risk analysis of HN DB getting hacked and the upvote data getting publicly exposed.

</comment><comment><USER30> People have complained about PC culture since at least the mid-90s. This article is yet another of the same. I have news for the author - the thing you're upset with isn't going away. You can't hide from it, and you'll never understand it.

<comment><USER31> Are you telling me that over-zealous leftist college kids aren't actually at the root of all the world's problems?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm thrilled to see this article here. Politically correct culture has gone way too far.

Privacy and free speech are quickly eroding and it seemed like not many people are willing to get loud about it.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's not only diversity. It is also the fact that grown ups will write f%%ck instead of fuck because it may offend some people.

A breast on TV sent America crazy. A woman breast. Sorry, a n%%%ple. Most of people had one right in front of their eyes at some point in life. Or their mouth, which is disgusting enough to have women cover their breast when breastfeeding.

I am French. Our culture is way more aligned with normality than others when it comes to fuck, fucking and breasts. But even here, when I compare to what we had as teens in the 80's,I have the impression that today we are back in the middle ages.

<comment><USER34> As a german, I think this is mostly a problem with American culture and law being exported globally through their monopolist tech giants. I used to think that the german youth protection laws regarding sexual content where over the top, but now the disconnect between the lived sexualized reality of teenagers and the public and the representation of it in the "social" media is bizarre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There's a simple solution: quit Twitter.

I resuscitated my old neglected Twitter account recently. It stressed me out and felt addictive, so I quit.

It turns out that if you're not on Twitter you don't hear that noise and it doesn't affect you.

<comment><USER36> Correct. Twitter is a bubble that magnifies the angriest opinions and makes them look more popular than they are. Outside of that bubble, most of these controversies don't even exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel pretty strongly that the vocal "majority" on the internet isn't at all representative of our local, national, or global communities. Both government and business leadership need to stand up to the bullying that these online mobs are doing, and employ reason instead.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is what we get when we connect everyone's minds to filters which amplify the most most viral and most vicious soundbites and rewards people based on how much blind rage they can induce in others.

If you avoid twitter and facebook and anyone that interacts too much with those things, you'll see a lot less of this stuff and probably be a lot happier.

</comment><comment><USER38> PG told me it's a good thing that there are things I'm afraid to say.

Up until more recently, it seemed the majority of folks on the internets felt they were obligated to let their freak flag fly.

So color me confused.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

Or at least give Jonah Goldberg credit for Liberal Fascism, written over a decade ago.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm extremely convinced the "anti-cancel-culture"-culture has to be the most thriving white collar subscription industry of our times. For people being cancelled I can't really tell how many dozens of blog posts with thousands of likes like this I see of people publicly talking about not being able to publicly talk.

Following the obligatory comparisons to 1984 for being cancelled out of the network-tv drag queen tv show community, comparisons to the Soviet Union followed promptly.

As someone who had family in East Germany let me tell you what Soviet cancel culture was. Being thrown into a dungeon where the light doesn't shine or someone being shot in the head by a Stasi agent.

Extremely bored people being cancelled out of some community by other extremely bored people on the noise generating machine that is social media is about as much Soviet Union as Trump fearing STDs was his Vietnam.

This reminds me of the valiant defenders of the intellectual dark web, which is so dark that it seems to occupy the permanent topspot on every podcasting service on the internet

<comment><USER39> The cancel culture in soviet union (i was a citizen) was very similar, more often than not you weren't shot in the head but you weren't accepted to university, couldn't get a goid job etc all because you or your parents shed the guilt of disagreeing with extremists communists. For the average person the culture was similar what were seeing today, during the Stalin times they preferred bullet or Siberia indeed.

<comment><USER5> Let's remember though the woman writing that article in particular is a lawyer and partner at a VC firm. I've seen Eric Weinstein talk about this stuff a lot, he's managing director at Thiel Capital.

We're not talking about factory workers being cancelled by the communist party for not spying on their neighbours, we're talking about a bunch of upper-class professionals being cast out of the intelligentsia, which annoys them a lot. As the saying goes, "the conflict is so fierce because the stakes are so low". But this is not the Soviet Union. Not even as a metaphor.

The entire cancel culture debate is in itself extremely limited to the kind of people who are overly online. Nobody who is flipping burgers or driving Uber is being cancelled, because they don't have an audience, or the time to waste and probably the good judgement to waste their time like we do

<comment><USER40> It's not about the professionals themselves, it's what this cancel culture run amok does to the climate of intellectual debate. We _want_ powerful people to be meaningfully engaged with civil society, and they aren't going to do that if they expect that they'll be treated unfairly. If the meaningful alternative to being "cast out of the intelligentsia" is to start exerting arbitrary power yourself... well, we can guess the outcome and it isn't pretty.

<comment><USER5> I think underlying the disagreement here is really a different estimation of how much this stuff matters. To many people these sort of debates between intellectuals appear very important, they have this idea that culture sort of flows down from the 'elites' and so on. Hence say, Jordan Peterson being very panicked about universities, and the university students being very panicked about Peterson.

I don't think it actually matters at all, it's like the Seattle autonomous anarchists. It's all simulated outrage. Ezra Klein points out in his book on polarization that the US was much, much more violent during the 60s and 70s, when there was very little polarization or cancel culture. Just count the number of political assassinations or compare riots then to today.

Today is peaceful by comparison. Reactionaries haven't turned around acceptance of gay rights yet, cancel culture hasn't cancelled the conservative judiciary yet and ushered in the red guard. Very little has materially changed, it's almost all pure spectacle, if anything a distraction for actual change. You see how much Zucc cares about being cancelled? Anyone remember occupy Wall Street? Maybe cancelling is at an all time high because of how little it actually does.

<comment><USER7> > I don't think it actually matters at all, it's like the Seattle autonomous > anarchists. It's all simulated outrage.

Perhaps not the best example. Two people have been shot and killed in the CHAZ, one of them a 16 year old boy who was killed by CHAZ 'security forces'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The thing I bemoan the loss of is general politeness.

Somehow folks have gotten the idea that it's ok to scream "Fuck You!!" at the top of their lungs in public or on social media if the victim is perceived to somehow be mildly racist for instance. And the entire cancel mob is impolite and unmannered. No charity, no nuance, no stopping to think or consider what is being said. Just rabid mouth frothing.

And really racism itself is impolite. It makes others feel bad for no good reason. It's anti social. So is sexism. It's extreme impoliteness and dis- consideration of others.

Ya, we get it, we should have the legal freedom to be impolite. But good people just shouldn't do it. For most any reason. We can always invent excuses why we should be disrespectful to others.

It seems the media really got on this trend early with a lot of right wing folks starting with Rush Limbaugh and progressing to Glenn Beck and Nancy Grace making an audience out of shouting and saying rude things in an attempt to be edgy. The current crop of protesters out screaming obscenities at police officers and the general public seem to have taken this to it's (hopefully) final conclusion. It's like a scene from "Idiocracy" really. And the current president is right in there, he's made an election platform out of impoliteness.

I've been listing to a lot of free audio books from the late 1800 and early 1900's. The amount of general politeness and manners exhibited from people was amazing. So different. It's too much for the current era, but I'd be ok if we went back to a little respect and courtesy of others in general no matter what someone thought or did or believed and this became custom once again.

<comment><USER42> A bit off topic but where do you get free audio books of old books?

<comment><USER41> There's a number of podcasts (Classic Tales for instance) where they read old books. And you can do a search and find a bunch as well ([https://librivox.org/](https://librivox.org/), [http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks](http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks))

But I've found one of the best sources is YouTube. Tons of readings of out of copyright books and you can usually pick a narrator you like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Well that was a really biased article.

The more toxic parts of cancel culture are a problem yes, but to blame _the left_ for Netflix deciding to remove episodes they shouldn't have removed is just silly, especially when the vast majority of people on the left don't agree with Netflix in those cases.

I'd argue that the part complaining about "the liberal media" is even more applicable to right-wing media. What she's complaining about has been done by Fox News and Murdoch owned tabloids for ages now.

And I have a very hard time taking anyone who recommends PragerU seriously. PragerU is an awful and dishonest propaganda outlet and should be treated as such. The fact that someone who claims to be pro choice, pro LGBTQ, and pro environmental issues would even claim that PragerU is "rational" makes me seriously doubt that person's judgment.

Honestly, the idea of abandoning your social political viewpoints just because you think that some people on the left are mean is a really dumb way to go about deciding your political opinions and who to vote for. It's reactionary and inevitably leads to putting more shitty people in positions of power.

You should stand for your beliefs even if that means having to agree with some dumb-asses.

\---

For a view on cancelling from someone on _the left_ , and talk about experiences with it, I can recommend Contrapoints' video on the subject [1]. It's long but worth a watch if you want to hear someone talk about it who doesn't just suggest that people abandon the left and vote against their interests.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8)

</comment><comment><USER44> Another boring take that loves to claim social change and strong opinions as limiting to free speech

<comment><USER45> Getting fired for saying anything Twitter disagrees with limits your free speech.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop- firin...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing- innocent/613615/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> > The entitlement required to think you deserve to benefit from someone else's > work by forcibly inserting yourself into it — while loudly criticizing it — > is stunning.

Eloquently worded.

<comment><USER47> This could be a comment about net neutrality, civil rights law, privacy regulations, or really any kind of regulation. But of course in those contexts, no one speaks of "entitlement". Only to demand freedom of speech is "entitlement".

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Social media is not the government, and has no obligation to maintain free speech. That said, social media has big problems.

The biggest is that they have, quite intentionally, encouraged the spread of outrage and mob mentality all across the political spectrum. These companies have installed levers for manipulating their users emotionally, and these levers are for sale. You can even fiddle around for free if you have the time, or get (un)lucky!

Oppressive PC culture, that can manifest as an almost Puritanical form of moral authority, spreads quick on social media. As someone who grew up in conservative, small-town America (and rebelled against it every chance I got), I'm not about to have my opinions dictated to me by the new boss either.

If your social sphere is mostly composed of middle & upper class, highly educated professionals, you might just feel surrounded by PCness. If you have any connection to the white poor and/or rural however, you also know that right-wing authoritarianism and racism are boiling too, with lethal results. As far as PC culture can be viewed as a defensive response to racism, I think it is clearly the lesser of the two evils, but it's probably a false dichotomy.

</comment><comment><USER49> I saw zero mentions of Trump or the current administration and their efforts to curtail free speech, threatening people into complying, the attacks on journalists or protestors.

Instead what I see is fear of 'cancel culture', the fear of BLM being a bunch of secret marxists (ironically she should be advocating for their right to freedom of speech as well, but it seems that marxists are more scary than nazis) and a bunch of links at the end to people who have done their fair share to either stifle free speech or cancel people on their own.

She even links to Andy Ngo who is a known liar and provocateur and has even himself encouraged violence against people he disagrees with. Frankly I'm disappointing this article is even given a millisecond of anyone's time of day.

<comment><USER50> If Biden wins in November, Republicans will be hunted, and you will be dead within a year.

This is what someone who she links to (known nutball Scott Adams) said YESTERDAY.

But this is totally a good faith article that we should all read and absolutely belongs on top of a serious discussion forum like HN. Yep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I stopped reading halfway through because this article has sort of mixed agree-ability for me but I guess my takeaway from this is that it's good to be careful about calling extremes and jumping to conclusions when evaluating others.

<comment><USER51> And just to get my word out there: I think the transgender passage was kind of meh. To me it sounds like the article conflates the fact that biological sex exists with the idea that it's somehow extremely important in our everyday life. I think it's important to respect everyone's biological needs but the way we see each other should definitely be our gender identity. Pressing on "the importance of biological sex" kinda feels like a good way to make people believe their identity must be defined by their biology.

(By the way, I am curios as to how biological sex is treated during a transition. Like, changing your body isn't instantaneous, apart from that there's also intersex people, so is it really all-binary from a scientific POV?)

And the Rowling piece kinda read like a non-apology to me, sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Jon Ronson wrote an entertaining book on the subject ([https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/So_You_ve_Been_Public...](https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/So_You_ve_Been_Publicly_Shamed.html)).

It recounts several examples of internet self-righteous mobs lynching people for minor and larger offences.

In particular, one conclusion of the book is that aggressively not making amends for bad behaviour, even raising the bar for offensiveness, is the optimal survival strategy. See Trump ...

</comment><comment><USER53> For a superbly witty satire of academic "cancel culture", give a listen to Zadie Smith's short story "Now More Than Ever":

[https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-authors-voice/zadie- sm...](https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-authors-voice/zadie-smith-reads- now-more-than-ever)

</comment><comment><USER54> Counterpoint: progress is messy. In an ideal world, we'd shape society through rational democratic debates where everyone is discussing in good faith. Maybe we'll get there one day, but there are a lot of things in the way: poor education, economic hardship, inaccessible healthcare, wealth inequality, and biases deeply embedded in our culture. These factors not only make a lot of people unequipped to express nuance in their frustrations, they also don't exactly incentivize them to do so.

(And even if these issues are resolved, there are also the complexities of crowd mentalities that affect even very rational people. To overcome these complexities will take a mindfulness not really currently studied or practiced at scale.)

Throughout history, we've seen that change usually comes from very messy, ugly, forceful action. Polite discussion has its place, but when people are pushed to the limits, politeness is discarded and those who take action get what they fight for, polite or not. In those moments, enforcing "politeness" only works to preserve the status quo.

Politically correct mobs are a form of this - they are ugly and indiscriminate, but effective at shaping culture by stigmatizing ideas that have been used to justify harm. I'm not saying it's great - this is only a description of what is, not what ought to be. But people being mean or annoying online is as old as the internet, and is not limited to politically left-leaning people. It just happens that the mean left internet people are on the side of society's conscience, and luckily for now it's generally working for the greater good by correcting some big imbalances in American history.

Of course, the lack of accountability and balance makes this powerful hammer prone to swing wherever gravity carries it. It's dangerous, but to lash out against it is to lash out against the atmosphere for climate change - we need to address the root causes. We need to improve the livelihoods of everyone so they don't feel desperate and angry - this requires tackling hard economic and healthcare problems. We need to improve critical thinking so people can identify the truth - this requires solving difficult problems with our education system (which also tie into economics and healthcare). We need people to be more empathetic - this requires better urban planning, and all of the above. We need so many things and solve so many tough interconnected problems to get to the point where nuance and good-faith discussion rule society. Interestingly, these are all the problems that the mean left people are trying to fix. So it's possible to be on "their side" and not be in love with their techniques. It feels complicated, but isn't that what nuance is for?

Pushing back against the mob for being too uncivilized is trying to stop the swinging hammer, when it's probably best to just stay out of the way, and help finish building what the hammer is working on.

<comment><USER17> But here's the problematic part of your statement:

"Politically correct mobs are a form of this - they are ugly and indiscriminate, but effective at shaping culture by stigmatizing ideas that have been used to justify harm".

How do you define "harm"? It seems that the modern edition of "progress" is trying to eliminate psychological harm by controlling people's speech. Is psychological harm really something worth trying to eliminate in our society?

I'd argue no. Our society thrives on free speech and truth, and attempting to silence people for the sake of keeping the feelings of others intact is not a trade off that's worth making. A book I read that was very informative on the topic was "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Jonathan Haidt - I'd highly recommend looking into it.

<comment><USER55> The "harm" is the literal murder of black people, transgender people, gay people, etc. The tweets don't do the murder, but status quo the tweets are supporting does.

I think some here, when talking about freedom of political speech, lose sight of the actual stakes behind the politics.

<comment><USER17> I'm definitely against any tweets calling for the murder of anybody, I'll say that. But the "anti-harm" movement is not as benign as you think. For instance, see the firing of David Shor, who merely tweeted a study comparing the effectiveness of violent and nonviolent protests. There's an instance of someone who tweeted AGAINST harm, in that he was advocating for nonviolence. Yet he was still censored.

This article does a good job outlining some of the craziness: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop- firin...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing- innocent/613615/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I hate to remind everyone but PC culture is here to stay. We can all complain about but the fact is no one has a solution, except for staying off social media (which I generally have been doing, and I've never been happier).

Need proof? Go watch the movie PCU, made in 1994.

<comment><USER57> PC culture has always existed, in different forms.

You couldn't say that you were gay or even supported same sex marriage, without effective excommunication from society 50 years ago in US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I feel the muckraking media lit this candle by starting a generational war between millennials and boomers in Great Recession, Occupy Wall Street days. IMHO, this is when the "destroy the other side at all costs" really took off.

</comment><comment><USER59> What's killing free speech is failing to set and enforce reasonable limits to hate speech and eventually forcing an over reaction to deal with the severe consequences of that neglect.

</comment><comment><USER60> Having your organization investigate everything you've "liked" over the past 10 years seems horrible.

</comment><comment><USER61> If you didn't do something wrong, do NOT apologize. That is what gives them their power.

</comment><comment><USER62> I like that the author is going into how insecurity has caused this problem. I really wish they went into more depth on this issue. If we look back, neoliberalism (trickle down economics) has stoked the fires that have led to this issue. When Regan came into office, he set the stage for deregulation, privatization and tax breaks for the rich. This has caused the average American to sink into a role that is defined by economic insecurity. Of course this economic idiocy has been embraced by both political parties over the past forty years. So what we see today is a compounding of all of the issues created by bad policy. This is why we see people doubling down on in group identity and focusing on what I've come to call the brand self.

This has noting and everything to do with Marx, Edward Said, the Frankfurt School, or critical theory. They are simply a way to justify an in group narrative. I'm not saying that these narratives aren't just, but often times they are create a black and white us vs them mentality that is there to reinforce limited self beliefs. So when we are talking to someone that has taken on this role of insecurity, we are talking to their anxiety that they've justified using sound social theory. That's why all rational thought seems to disappear and subjects often can't be changed.

I, for one, am tired of biting my tongue because I know one wrong word can turn a great night out into a three hour conversation about x, y, or z social issue without much back and forth. often times I'll be out and know that, by simply saying the word vaccine, my night can be ruined. These conversations don't live in the rational world. They live deep down in a state of anxious insecurity.

</comment><comment><USER63> Eh. In my observation, people who whinge "PC speech is out of control!" are often really saying "I don't like being called out for saying whatever I like!".

<comment><USER42> The article was a lot more nuanced than most people who say "PC speech is out of control". And I think they have a good point. Pulling up tweets from ten years ago to get people fired is horrible.

Ten years ago, I hated gay and trans people because of the way I was raised. I've changed significantly in those ten years.

Hell, I had a psychotic break. Should the things that I said then be forever held against me? I clearly wasn't in my right mind. The people that have held those things against me were all from the "far left". That's one data point but it's something I've seen over and over.

I ran a convention where I had to fire a volunteer because they said something "unacceptable" on Facebook. Defending them was not an option if the convention was going to survive. I've seen what happened to conventions that tried to defend people who had said similar things. It's still ugly years later.

I say this as someone who would march in the protests here if I wasn't at sufficient risk Of dying from COVID. I've been in the pride parade here despite my sensitivity to heat and poor physical condition at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> The end gives it away:

> I'll end with some quality, free-thinking people and resources who aren't > afraid to post their views. I have found it immensely helpful to diversify > my feeds with different opinions and people.

Which is, of course, why it's almost 100% right-leaning libertarians, mixed with a token handful of reliably leftward-shooting people like Taibbi and Tracey. There's not a legitimate progressive voice in that whole list that I can see. Not one.

This author, and this article's intended readership, isn't interested in legitimate online discussion. She just wants a different echo chamber than the ones she's being presented.

<comment><USER43> For someone claims to be pro LGBTQ, pro choice, and pro environmental issues, she sure recommends a lot of "quality" resources that certainly aren't pro any of those things.

<comment><USER42> Just because the author has an axe to grind, that doesn't invalid everything they say. It's possible to read critically and decide what's worth discussing.

<comment><USER64> An appeal to free speech made insincerely isn't much of an appeal. The question is whether she feels strongly enough about the inherent value of contrasting enough to preserve them in her own recommendations.

And she doesn't. She's Just Another Angry Libertarian, only protesting when "her" side is criticized. If you agree with her, she makes sense. If you don't, she seems... duplicitous.

To wit: I don't trust this woman (or most of the posters here) to preserve _my_ speech. Or that of many others. I mean, we're literally seeing _armed suppression of peaceful protestors_ in the news. And what's the Real Problem in her head? The protestors. Because they yelled at people on the internet.

<comment><USER65> Yep, amazing how many brave online free speech warriors don't give a single shit that there is government action violently suppressing free speech, you know, an ACTUAL first amendment violation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Culture cancels abhorrent ideas, same as it ever was. Notice how it's COMPLETELY unacceptable to suggest slavery should be made legal. Or children sent to work in factories. All commonplace 150 years ago and we only benefit from the ideas being practically unutterable.

<comment><USER2> > Culture cancels abhorrent ideas

My issue with cancel culture, is that social media and the general "outrage culture" has magnified beyond all proportion, what constitutes an "abhorrent idea". Slavery and child labor is a very different level of abhorrent to "I prefer my sexual partners to have vaginas" (which is not abhorrent at all to any sensible person). This article is calling out the latter. This isn't about saying society should tolerate every single possible opinion there is to have. It's about bringing back some common sense to discourse, and not allowing the mob outrage of social media to dominate our society.

<comment><USER66> Well, it makes sense to ask the question whether that's bigotry, and I completely understand why a mob may form when the mainstream can't even hear the discussion, which is what the article and your comment display. To be first worried about cancel culture over the issue at hand is to be deaf to the issues.

<comment><USER2> Honestly, it doesn't make sense to question if that is bigotry, especially when transgender and LGBTQ rights are predicated on sexual freedom and liberation. Asking sincerely if that is bigotry shows that the questioner is willing to contradict their own strongly held views, in order to call somebody else a bigot.

<comment><USER66> No, it's a very important and basic question: what does it mean to treat someone's gender identity irrespective of their genital status. I don't know the answers, this isn't one of my main issues that I follow, but it's pretty clear the question makes sense.

<comment><USER2> Sexual attraction includes attraction to genitals. You cannot separate the gender identity from the genitals when it comes to having sex. Just because somebody says they're a woman, doesn't mean I want to have sex with them. This applies to trans and biological females. Plenty of biological females are unattractive to me. That isn't bigoted. Why does them being trans suddenly make me a bigot? It's such a ridiculous question to ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> It's far more than free speech being killed. "If you're not with us, you're against us". "Silence is violence". Remember Pol Pot? If you're not a revolutionist, then you're counter-revolutionary.

That said, isn't this logical under the moral framework of our political correctness? You're either correct or you are not, after all. It's a binary decision. If you're not correct, why do you insist staying incorrect? If you do, of course you're a bigot, a racist, a xenophobia, a fascist, or an evil person. So, all conservatives "should be jailed". All republicans "are evil". A black police is a "black Judas", as yelled by a protester. A group of protestors can trespass private property, and the property owner is public enemy no. 1 if he stands in front of his house with a rifle. Residents in Seattle CHAZ have nothing and "should not have nothing to complain" because CHAZ "is Summer of Love", and because "personal loss is nothing compared with fighting justice". Really, there's really no boundary under the current moral framework of the US progressives.

And isn't this what we really want? All the media I read or used to read, be it The Atlantic, the WAPO, the New Yorker, the NYT, the NBC, the CNN, the ABC. They all tell me that we should brace such moral framework. We should join such progressive movement. We should ditch law and order when a nation is hurt and sinned. We should examine what we believe and cancel what's evil. See, if "math is racist", what else is not?

And really, isn't this what we choose? We chose to vote Kshama Sawant, for instance. Then, it shouldn't be a surprise that she led hundreds of people to break into Seattle City Hall, and why is it a surprise that she or someone leaked the mayor's home address even though the address is classified by law?

Either we have a better moral framework, or we probably will have to accept what we have now and more in the future.

</comment><comment><USER68> People saying my opinions are wrong is anti free speech!

</comment><comment><USER69> Unfortunately, the totalitarians are already in control.

</comment><comment> fake-name [citation needed]

> The point is that RuPaul's Drag Race is RuPaul's show, and we don't get to > scream and cry and throw tantrums until he changes his own show.

Wow, this article _literally_ doesn't understand what free speech is.

Aaaand it more horseshoe theory of politics, references the quillette, and says they're now libertarian. Nothing of value here.

</comment><comment><USER70> Thesis needs work. There is a dearth of mass capitulation to lawful orders for sheltering in place or wearing masks, and booing isn't censorship (and before you argue that it's another form thereof, tell me again that gentrification isn't a term charged with meaning beyond the OED).</comment>


Ask HN: What legal forms do you need? - <AUTHOR> Hey all,
I am putting together a library of do-it-yourself legal forms for digital businesses (www.lawvolcano.com) and wondering what legal forms would you use? NDAs, etc.
I have a list of ideas but want to hear any thoughts. <comment><USER2> Mutual/Bidirectional NDA, partnership agreement, JV agreement, royalty agreement, statement of work, employment/contractor agreements

<comment><AUTHOR> Great suggestions!

<comment><USER2> Personally I just use RocketLawyer.com for all of these things. They make filling in the blanks easy, and most form inputs have explanations of what they are actually asking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> I gotcha. I am focusing on do-it-yourself forms that other legal form providers may not have -- and designing these forms for digital businesses.

<comment><USER2> Its a good cause. I spend about $500/year on rocket lawyer! Make the forms easy to download and fill out, and you got a winner on your hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I once saw an employment agreement cause a revolt. Be sure things look reasonable from the perspective of both parties. Contracts should be as readable as possible, and only as long as required. People can walk away if things feel unfair.

</comment><comment><USER4> in addition to what has already been said....

startup forms, tax forms, living will forms, freelance assistance forms enabling the solo- entrepreneur.

Visa type forms for helping with immigration h1-b etc.

SLA for differents types of services

excited to check your site after some of the 'coming soon' headlines disappear :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Any way to reach you and notify you after we launch more forms?

<comment><USER4> I subscribed :-) also added an email to my profile on here

<comment><AUTHOR> Great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> MNDA, indep contractor, employee contract, the list at [https://hofstadter.io/legal/](https://hofstadter.io/legal/) , master service agreement / SoW for service contracts</comment>


WikiLeaks Won't Tell Companies How to Patch CIA Zero-Days Until Demands Are Met - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wikileaks-wont-tell-tech-companies-how-to-patch-cia-zero-days-until-its-demands-are-met <comment><AUTHOR> The only disclosed condition, so far, is that the bug gets fixed in 90 days. Nothing different from the usual practice. And a thing that companies have done before (like some famous cases where google gave 90 days to Microsoft and the released the bug to the public).</comment>


Ask HN: I want to move to USA, what I need to do? - <AUTHOR> I am from Argentina and I want to move to the US and start a business, I have capital to invest and I am a developer myself. Any of you have experience in this? Is this possible in the Trump's era? Also I have Polish citizenship too.<p>Thanks! <comment><USER2> You might want to look at the comments and threads by Peter Roberts, who's done AMA threads on Hacker News before:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=proberts](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=proberts)

It's obviously a huge amount of information due to the great variety of kinds of visas and the complicated details about eligibility and practical considerations, but maybe some of the information in those threads will be helpful to you. Also, maybe Peter Roberts will be willing to do another thread at some point -- it's clear that a lot of Hacker News readers were very interested.

It might be somewhat expensive, but you may want to hire an immigration lawyer in the U.S. for a consultation, especially someone with a practice specialized in technology and startups. Some of the immigration lawyers have incredibly detailed and helpful knowledge about what works and doesn't work and can help you understand your options in your specific situation. I'm sure the lawyers would point out that there are many different kinds of immigration paths, and that small details about your situation and plans can affect your eligibility and likelihood of approval for each of them.

Best of luck to you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much! I will read more about Peter and will ask for a consultant :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Investor visas are not terrible. EB5 is great provided you have 500k to put in a single investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well that is much more than I have, I am planning to go with 100k, is there any other program or something? I pretend to relocate. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> The 500K minimum is to get a green card. All you really need is a E-1 visa, which Argentina seems to qualify for. That visa has no minimum investement, so with $100K, you should easily be able to open a US company, and start a legitimate business. And get your visa.</comment></comment></comment>


If labor is being replaced by capital, then the revenue should come mostly from… - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@2noame/if-labor-is-being-replaced-by-capital-which-it-is-then-the-revenue-should-come-mostly-from-12fc4985c90#.jspb3knqq <comment><USER2> A couple of years ago I was very much in favor of a universal basic income (UBI). But as support in the tech community grew, I became more skeptical of the idea. The election of Donald Trump has really solidified my opinion that it's a non-starter.

Lots of engineers, including myself, love the idea of a UBI. Many of us spend much of our free time tinkering and learning. And that time spent often directly translates into the improved marketability of our labor skills. For people out of work, what could be better than having enough income coming to support yourself while you learn new skills, pursue new business opportunities, or volunteer?

The thing is, software engineers are a self-selected group of individuals, generally much more self-motivated than most any other group in the country. This is especially true of American engineers, and of many of those who find themselves in America.

But most Americans are not that self-motivated. Worse, most middle-aged Americans are downright hostile to the idea of continuing education. (Even many software engineers are still hostile to formal education.) The echoes of the well-paying company job from the 1950s still reverberate today, and it's fubar'd most Americans' expectations. They expect to be able to find a well- paying job around the corner; without having to change their interests; without having to challenge themselves intellectually; and without having their self-esteem challenged by the inevitable failures encountered when you don't have the crutch of taking orders from someone else.

I don't think this is going to change anytime. Things are slowly changing, but not in the way we expected. I think there was a paper that came out recently that said younger people are less anxious about finding work than previous generations at their age, but mostly because they're more content playing video games. So, at best, a UBI will simply enable a more passive labor pool less reactionary and prone to voting for a Donald Trump. At worse we continue down the road of intensely bitter political warfare, with each party jockeying to capture the elusive "give me the same job my grandpa had" voter.

Also, engineers (including myself) probably have some pretty rose-colored glasses in how we view ourselves. We're probably not as self-motivated as we think we are. The differences are probably marginal at best, amplified by the tremendous growth of the past 20 years which, historically speaking, we shouldn't expect to continue indefinitely.

<comment><USER3> You can also view this more charitably: I think people advocating for UBI far away from the workers it would affect don't realize how patronizing and aggressive it is. If somebody has been working a job for thirty years, a difficult, skilled job that people depend on, and is then suddenly told "here's your allowance, now study hard" by someone who was lucky enough to get their studying out of the way when they were a kid, it's not just "hurting self-esteem," it's directly destroying their source of dignity. Moreover, those in power control the companies that they can spend their basic income at, and the elite institutions they'll need to suck up to if they want to enter that world: the income enables survival, but there's no real power there. If you go to "middle America," you'll find an awful lot of people willing and happy to find new jobs that require "changing their interests" and "challenging themselves intellectually," but face constant setbacks not just financially but from distant organizations that don't see their potential. People don't want the same job their grandpa had, they want a _job_ \--not a couple dollars to keep them alive and powerless.

<comment><USER2>
      "it's directly destroying their source of dignity."

I understand that. Much of family is in that boat, and I understand their perspective. I grew up poor (homeless on a couple of occasions). I started working 20 hours a week at the age 14 washing dishes and cooking, and have always held a steady job, often to my own detriment (should have spent more time studying).

I understand that people in immobile economic situations struggle to maintain a sense of dignity and autonomy. But life will destroy your sense of dignity when you put yourself out there. Ask anyone who completed law school, as I did. Success and humiliation often go hand-in-hand. Poor people don't understand that well enough.

So I understand and appreciate the argument about dignity. But if my treatment of that argument seems less than sympathetic, it's because I've learned that people _should_ learn to disentangle their sense of personal dignity from their economic circumstance and social status. Appealing to their culturally- informed sense of dignity is the same excuse Islamic terrorists use to excuse their heinous acts.

At the same time, I know that that sense is real (however "wrong" it may be), and that it substantially effects the viability of UBI, just like it does peace in the Middle East. And there are similar issues that go unaddressed by UBI, such as the necessity to channel people into constructive activities. Bare economic necessity already does that, and it's not clear how that could be replaced. We don't want armies of citizen sleuths spending their idle time shooting up imaginary pizza parlor child pornography fronts.</comment></comment></comment>


John Resig - JavaScript Library Loading Speed - <AUTHOR> http://ejohn.org/blog/library-loading-speed/

<comment><USER2> Although this article is pretty old, it's the fact that John pays attention to details like this that makes me completely confident in my choice to use jQuery.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here is some more recent data (02/03/09): [http://blog.creonfx.com/javascript/mootools-vs-jquery-vs- pro...](http://blog.creonfx.com/javascript/mootools-vs-jquery-vs-prototype-vs- yui-vs-dojo-comparison-revised)

Unfortunately that article doesn't test jQuery 1.3, but you can find 1.3 benchmarks here: <http://docs.jquery.com/Release:jQuery_1.3#Performance>

</comment><comment><USER4> This is over a year old. It would be interesting to see if there's any changes, especially with jQuery 1.3's browser feature/bug detection.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is over a year old. At the pace these libraries evolve, this is not very useful data anymore.</comment>


Cartridge cannot be used until printer is enrolled in HP Instant Ink - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ryandonsullivan/status/1218149470220632064 <comment><USER2> I don't understand why people keep buying these inkjet scam printers. It's been like this for almost 2 decades.

That's about the time I switched to laser printers. Currently I equipped myself and my family with a Brother HL 3152CDW. I got it for around 160-180€. The included toners print 1-2k pages. A new toner does 2-2,5k and costs around 60€ per color (genuine Brother) or around 50-60€ for a 4-color-toner set from noname brands. We have the printer since maybe 3-4 years and had to buy 1 black toner. I think I got a noname cartridge for around 25€.

If you want a smaller device and save a little money, get a b/w laser printer for less than 100€.

If I need to print photos, I go to a store with instant printing kiosks. It takes a few minutes to print dozens of photos and it's cheap, around 0,20-0,30€ per print (10x15cm).

I hope laser printers will never become such a scam product like inkjet...

<comment><USER3> >I don't understand why people keep buying these inkjet scam printers

>If I need to print photos, I go to a store with instant printing kiosks.

Your solution to inkjet printer ownership is... paying to use one.

"I don't get why people keep buying cars. When I need to use one, I just hail an Uber."

<comment><USER4> I do the same, and it works well for me.

The printers they use at print shops are not the same crappy, consumer-grade inkjets that people have in their homes - the quality is _much_ better. And you don't need to deal with a constantly "needy" printer that guzzles ink like it's going out of fashion, and needs cleaned/declogged/realigned every time you look at it.

<comment><USER5> According to my Wikipedia research, the photo kiosk printers are not even inkjets at all. They are thermosublimation printers. In any case, their output looks just like chemically developed photos, no comparison to any inkjets I have seen.

They might also be wax printers. When I worked (student job) for a medical imaging company, they had their customers use wax printers IIUC. At least that was what they used internally.

<comment><USER6> At the other end of the market, if you're putting photos on your wall, specialist photo printers who target the art market have quite a few different process options and some very interesting paper options, although you'll be looking at maybe GBP10+ or equivalent for an 8x10 print.

Many will give or sell you cheaply a sample pack - it was a revelation to me how good and broad the options were. This includes printing using old fashioned optical photo paper and a machine which is effectively a projecter to expose the image on it - I like this for black and white prints especially.

<comment><USER7> I have one of the Canon PRO-1000 printers. There was a really good sale going on a couple years ago, where I could get the printer + 2 full sets of inks for just the price of the inks.

It is incredibly expensive to operate, especially at low print volumes. If I were printing on it all day, it would probably be fine -- but I end up wasting probably half the ink in startup cycles.

But, when using good papers, it produces the most amazing prints I've ever had.

Now that I've used one, I'd never buy it again unless I had some sort of business that produced more volume -- but until I use up all the supplies I bought, I have the most amazing prints!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a lot of nerd rage about nothing. He bought an ink cartridge with a subscription plan. When you stop paying the subscription it stops working. He could cancel the subscription, send the cartridge back and replace it with a normal cartridge.

I have a mix of music I bought from iTunes before Apple Music and Apple Music. If I cancel my subscription, I don't have access to the subscription music but I keep access to the music I bought - DRM free.

What's the difference?

<comment> mark-r The difference is dark patterns. They made him believe he was registering when he was actually subscribing.

<comment><USER8> Why would he think he needed to enter his credit card information just to "register"?

This is the marketing page for Instant Ink. It seems pretty clear to me:

[https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/l/](https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/l/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yes. This is how it works, this is what he clicked the button "I agree" for.

He could have chosen the old way and buying the cartridges himself on a regular basis, but he chose the subscription model and now he wines about it.

What you need to understand about the subscription model is that you DON'T own the cartridge and you DON'T pay for the cartridge. You pay for printed pages. If the ink runs out, the printer automatically orders a set of new ones, for no additional cost. You receive a package to your preferred postal address, that contains the new ink and a sealable, labeled, post-stamped bag in which you will put the old ones and send it back to HP.

I absolutely love this model. I pay the minimal 2USD for it (if I exceed the monthly printable 50 pages, I get another 10p/$1, or upgrade my subscription. Unused quota accumulates up to 100p), and I get a monthly email about the detailed pricing.

Also, this way the used cartridges (dangerous waste) are handled properly and an environmentally friendly way.

<comment><USER10> "I absolutely love this model."

You are right, the model is great for some people in some cases. However, its a model where companies use software to lock you out of being able to use your hardware. This is becoming extremely widespread. Consider also the farmers having to deal with the John Deere tractor licenses and being unable to maintain their own equipment (or Apple preventing you from being able to upgrade or repair your macs/iphones).

The problem is that as the practice scales, people end up with no real property rights, and are just ensnared in a hundred terms of service agreements that they literally cannot escape while living a normal life.

Lots of potentially dangerous things are harmless or even pleasant on a small scale.

<comment><USER11> While I agree I think that domestic printing is and should be increasingly obsolete so I opted for free tier printing specifically because I wanted a fallback (like keeping an old USB CD-ROM drive in case - like my canon camera firmware was not online and only on the CD they sent me).

If you are occasionally forced to send in a paper form or your flight carrier insists on a printed boarding pass etc. it doesn't make economic sense to keep a printer functional at normal cost.

I see HP free tier as a legacy support system.

Ideally I'd print nothing. It's maddening how much bureaucracy still requires printing.

But I agree that on devices that you depend on it is weird.

I live in Amsterdam and have a subscription bike (and I pay for the fact that I will always have a replacement bike if any issues come up)... but I guess I wouldn't like a situation where I couldn't buy (and repair) a regular bike.

<comment><USER12> Really? I live in the Netherlands as well and haven't had to print something in ages. If I have to I'll just go to the library which is right next to the supermarket.

I do write the address on envelopes by hand, which I would use a printer for if I'd own one.

<comment><USER13> Things I print: manuscripts to edit (easier to mark up), crosswords to solve, sheets for PnP RPGs, print and play games, patterns for children, etc

<comment><USER14> I basically markup manuscripts 50% of my day, I live in OneNote (on Surface Pro). For MS I'm quite impressed, there's a few annoyances (and work won't let me try OneTastic) but overall it works -- I've not printed anything for my own use since I started using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> InkJet printers are a scam. And not [only] because of the "genuine" cartridge lock in, but because they are trash devices.

I had 2 "low-end" HP printers that would die after 2 years (warranty period). The way they would die is very interesting: The printer would receive the document to print, pull in paper, start priting but not pull the paper so everything would get printed on one line. Then, when it is done printing, it would move the paper properly, in steps, without printing anything, until it's "done", when it would eject the paper. That is a software problem, because 1. it can pull the paper precisely, and 2. it can print. It just desynchronizes the pulling of paper with the printing.

After that, I got another HP printer that was 3 times the price, which works right now, but it's absolutely trash quality. It cost 100€, and I'm comparing it's color print quality to a color laser printer at work, from Konica Minolta, which is actually 5 times the price, the but the quality, speed of printing, reliability and cost of maintenance (and the fact it's been printing hundreds of pages per day for 5 years without duying yet).

InkJet printers are awful in quality, cost more to own, require regular maintenance, break or pause in critical moments ("Please wait while the printer performs head alingment", "The printer is priting a test page. When done, please scan the page and click OK to continue. ", "The printer is cleaning the head surface. Please wait. This may use up a large amount of ink. ") and slower than laser printers.

This is not mentioning the fact that print quality in black is atrocious on cheaper InkJets, which specify a huge resolution but in reality the dots are misaligned and fuzzy.

Basically, awful devices. Printers in general are awful devices, but consumer InkJets are a whole different level.

Edit: I just checked, Konica Minolta in Belgrade (Serbia), represented by Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, literally only does "Industrial InkJet printers" now, and has subscription models for whole printers, where a company pays a monthly subscription for a printer, and has that printer maintained on-premise, replaced with no downtime, refilled and has some level of additional support. I'm not sure that's what my workplace uses.

<comment> semi-extrinsic My conclusion is that unless you're printing 50+ large photos or hundreds of 4"x6" pics per year, the total cost of just ordering prints from a print shop is much lower than owning an inkjet.

<comment><USER16> One benefit of this Instant Ink subscription thing: you pay per printed page, not for ink usage. Doesn't matter if the page is white with some black lines, or a full-size photo.

But yes, if you don't need them _now_ professional printing is quite cheap and you need to invest quite a bit to get the same quality at home.

<comment><USER17> When I print once a year, and the heads dry out before each job, and then the printer dies completely one day after the normal warranty period, do I stil just pay the minimum monthly fee and receive all the replacement e-waste for free, or are there other charges (like buying a new printer?). Does HP pay the recycling fees (and buy carbon offsets) for waste stream this produces?

This is exactly my usage pattern for printers, and why I switched to a laser printer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Was he tricked into buying a an ink cartridges subscription and hadn't noticed he was paying for one?

<comment><USER19> On top of the fact that he bought an inkjet printer in the first place, which seems silly enough in this day and age.

<comment><USER20> I bought a quite expensive (300 euro) color laser printer about 4 years ago (a HP, but I'm happy with it). I have never replaced the toner, but do need to print from time to time. If I had bought an inkjet printer I'm pretty sure I would have spent more on cartridges by now. Mostly because cartridges dry out. Not on HP printers, but on some, it causes the printer to fail permanently too if a cartridge is dry (Epson comes to mind).

<comment><USER11> Well instant ink has a free tier. So I have bought an $80 inkjet and then payed a total of about $5 on ink since then when I went over the free limit.

Across about 3 years so far.

But HP spy on me via my printer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have an HP Envy 7800 series printer that is not enrolled in Instant Ink and it works just fine. HP asked me once during driver installation to subscribe to the subscription service, I said no, and it has not asked me again.

One technical advantage HP has over Brother is the printer head is integrated into the cartridge. I previously owned an expensive Brother office inkjet printer and the printer head got into a bad state where no matter how many times I cleaned the head or replaced ink I had streaks. Another issue with Brother is it would not let me print black and white if I did not have color ink installed (HP does).

Compared with the Epson EcoTank is there is an unused ink reservoir (called an ink pad) that will collect ink during cleaning cycles and other operations. Once this reservoir is full the printer has reached end of life (and Epson does not recommend servicing it). The EcoTank is really expensive as well.

</comment><comment><USER22> I bought an Instant Ink printer in 3Q 2019. I don't print much so a free 10 pages per month (on a sale priced all-in-one) appeals to me.

My biggest concern is privacy / security. In theory HP - or someone else? - can now see anything I print/scan/copy. I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with the idea.

</comment><comment><USER11> The cartridges are also special high capacity ones, but essentially you pay for the subscription to use the cartridges (which are sent for free automatically) at the cost of your data.

Page limits are defined by the tier you are on.

It would not make sense to allow the user to continue using them out of, because their retail price is generally above the subscription costs, so it would otherwise allow people to keep subscribing and cancelling.

<comment><USER11> I should clarify. It's in the contract you're meant to send them back to HP. They have a postage paid bag to return them in. That's true when they run out but also when you cancel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Great so many people consider Brother. A year ago I've had enough of the mainstream printer mafia and thought I need to support a different manufacturer. Got DCP-J772DW. It's an inkjet, but feels well built and cartridges last. Also, the Linux CUPS driver is easy to adapt for FreeBSD. There is a HOWTO on FreeBSD forums if anyone considers going this way.

</comment><comment><USER24> This service seems to send a new ink cartridge when the current cartridge is running low. The monthly price depends on how much you print, and there is a free tier that allows for 15 pages/month but you will be charged $1/10 pages if you print more than 15 pages. It seems you need to provide a credit card even for the free tier.

[https://instantink.hpconnected.com/](https://instantink.hpconnected.com/)

[https://support.hp.com/nz-en/document/c03767640](https://support.hp.com/nz- en/document/c03767640)

They seem to brick your cartridge to prevent the plan being cancelled just after they send you a cartridge, which could be done on the free tier. I don't like it in theory but it makes sense they would disable it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've always wondered why someone hasn't started a company making expensive but fixable printers with ink reservoirs that can be refilled from bottles. You could charge 10x more than what HP and co charge for the hardware, and sell replacement parts and repair services to sustain the business. Surely you could carve out a niche of consumers disgruntled with the current ink cartel and it would look good in the modern age by cutting down on people buying new throwaway printers when they run out of ink.

<comment><USER26> According to this[0] comment Epson does exactly that!

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22083308](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22083308)

<comment><USER25> Nice. But I still dream of the day we make open source printer hardware and software with refillable ink and replaceable/repairable parts!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How do you get into a situation where you're automatically paying $5/mo for your printer and don't know about it?

</comment><comment><USER28> Reminds me of some of Netgear's newer switches that don't let you access much of the configuration until you register it to a Netgear account...

[https://kb.netgear.com/000061528/GS108Tv3-GS110TPv3-GS110TPP...](https://kb.netgear.com/000061528/GS108Tv3-GS110TPv3-GS110TPP- Firmware-Version-7-0-2-5)

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder how this is different from literally any other subscription service like Spotify and Netflix: Your subscription has expired, so the owner of the goods wants you to stop using his stuff.

</comment><comment><USER30> Even when you buy HP cartridges, the printer can detect how old they are, and they arbitrarily stop printing well after a certain amount of time. A cartridge absolutely does not guarantee s certain number of printed pages

</comment><comment><USER31> I just print my stuff at the office - bunch of massive enterprise printers there.

Home printers don't make sense to me on cost, time & scale.

Then again not all employers are cool with incidental personal use.

<comment><USER6> Some enterprise printers can be set up to keep a copy of every page they print (and scan), at least for a period of time. Bear that in mind if any of what you print is something you'd consider sensitive.

<comment><USER15> Printers at my work place are network only, and the server keeps copies of everything scanned and printed. Every user logs in to the printer with a 6 or 9 digit PIN and chooses which document to print or where to store the scanned file. You can encrypt the file and decrypt on the printer, I'm not sure if the printer returns the key to the server for later analysis.

<comment><USER31> >Printers at my work place are network only

Think you're misunderstanding OP. This applies even to keycard/pin printers.

Basically all those big fat enterprise printers have harddrives in them that capture prints. Really don't get why, but apparently that's a fairly universal thing in enterprise printers. As best as I can tell even IT dept isn't always aware of this so a lot of them get sold/disposed with that hdd in it....

<comment><USER15> > and the server keeps copies of everything scanned and printed.

The end result is the same, it's all logged and stored.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> $64,000 question here is-why are you still using Inkjet Printer?

<comment><USER33> For some hobby stuff inkjet is just what you need. Not everything works with laser printers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why are people still using _printers_ at all?

I cannot fathom any reason outside of art / photos why you would want to print a document when you can view it on just about every device available to you. When was the last time you were in a room without a screen? A room where nobody had a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or TV? Do you view Word documents in the shower?

It seems like from a financial and environmental perspective, printing out forms is exceedingly wasteful.

<comment><USER16> 1) art/photos

2) sending letters

3) handing in forms to government services etc

4) paper is a lot more practical to just stick somewhere/hand around for whoever to use, e.g. checklists

5) making signs/labels for stuff

6) handing in homework

<comment><USER35> I agree with all that though only the first option definitely needs color (inkjet) printing.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but parent was only asking about "printers".

<comment><USER35> yeah i was trying to make a charitable re-interpretation of the parent

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This model is perfectly good. However, the laws are still outdated with respect to it. Here are simple proposals:

\- hp (or Apple) can sign you up for this, but then they cannot call it "buy" in the shop. Rent an iPhone (Android phone) or install a printer may be what it should be.

\- they need to inform you about the price. In EU a shop cannot write prices without VAT. Install for X EUR + Y EUR per month is what should be on the sticker.

\- finally, there is the antitrust. If somebody tries to replace Y with ads, this must be legally part of the price. Higher price for consumers is what makes a good reason to split a monopoly.

<comment><USER37> Is there in fact an Apple program that amounts to renting? I'm only aware of the iPhone upgrade program, where you pay monthly and can get a new phone once a year after turning your old one in. But if you pay for two years, the phone is yours, outright.

I'm a buy-with-cash kind of guy, but the above isn't rental and shouldn't be described as such. It's a payment plan with some incentives designed to keep iPhone sales up.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you detect license infringement on closed source software? - <AUTHOR> How can one check whether a closed source commercial software using an open source code while infringing the code's license? <comment><USER2> Can you describe what you're trying to do better? Is it your open source code and you want to know who's using it? Or is it your closed source code and you want to know the licensing of everything you're using?

</comment><comment><USER3> Bugs and symbols. There's a mac command line tool I can't remember the name of that pulls all the readable (and more) text from an application, this has been used to find out what made a closed source app (e.g. private iOS apis).

<comment><USER4> Is it maybe the strings utility: [https://linux.die.net/man/1/strings](https://linux.die.net/man/1/strings)?

<comment><USER5> There's also nm(1) and objdump(1).

<comment><USER6> There are also tools which are platform specific. On macOS, for e.g., the Mach-O format can be disassembled by `otool`, for objective-c projects (and maybe Swift) you can use `class-dump`</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is vacation rental site Airbnb illegal? - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/vacation-rental-site-airbnb-be-illegal

<comment><USER2> Yes it's illegal. There has never been any dispute on this matter. In practice it's a relatively unenforced matter.

<comment><USER3> How? If I understand how Airbnb works then they don't run the rooms, just the booking. So what's illegal about taking appointments?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You know, there's more than one set of laws in the world.

</comment><comment><USER5> Airbnb is legal. It's their users who may be breaking the law. Like Craigslist and users who aren't paying use taxes on the stuff they buy.</comment>


John Lam (Microsoft Program Manager) About IronRuby - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/interviews/IronRuby-John-Lam

<comment><USER2> I more of a C# developer than a Ruby developer, but I must admit I find the feat of building dynamic languages on top of the CLR (which really requires quite strict type-safety) pretty impressive.

I'll take his word for it though that the Ruby community at large probably is mostly Mac and Linux-dominated and hence goes a little bit "meh" at this effort.

Knowing the general Linux-community (or anti-MS community if we want to be extreme) I'm a little bit sceptical about how or if this will change.

I do however see his point about client-side Ruby for rails application and such being a selling point. If that applies to the current Ruby-community? We'll see how it turns out.

<comment><USER3> "I do however see his point about client-side Ruby for rails application and such being a selling point. If that applies to the current Ruby-community? We'll see how it turns out."

Right now you can do client-side Ruby for Rails|Ramaze|Merb|Whatever using JRuby.

It rules.

Except there seems to be a weird But It's Java! revulsion in some of the Ruby communities.</comment></comment>


Google Patents Transition To Autonomous Driving For Cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.conceivablytech.com/9983/products/google-patents-transition-to-autonomous-driving-for-cars

<comment><USER2> Couldn't the TV show inspector gadget be considered prior art?</comment>


Ask HN: What hipster skills or project are you working on due to plague lockdown - <AUTHOR> I'm making spanish rice, falafel, and hummus from absolute scratch.<p>Is someone out there growing wheat and making naan or tortillas? <comment><AUTHOR> I just learned cooking white and brown rice together doesn't work because the white rice will keep absorbing liquid until it's saturated, leaving hard/uncooked brown rice. Whoops. Haha.

<comment><USER2> You might have better luck with brown and wild rice</comment></comment>


Dear recruiter, "open floor space" is not a job benefit - <AUTHOR> https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/03/20/open-floor-plan/ <comment><USER2> Don't tip off the recruiters, if they do figure out that we're filtering on "open office space" then they'll stop putting that in the job descriptions, and we won't be able to easily tell anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it really depends on the company, and the interior architecture of the office. We have what is considered an open floor space, but have rooms available for private meetings and for heads-down working. Couple that with a headphone-respecting and results-only culture (as in, nobody cares if they see you on facebook, you're only judged on your overall output) and I don't really have a problem with it.

Its also not really feasible with the size of our office for people to have individual offices. We've set up privacy curtains and worked with the natural partitions of the space to at least mitigate the potential issues with a purely open plan. We also have our desks set up in functional pods where you're working next to people on your team. I'm just saying it can be done correctly, with the right interior planning.

I've also been in an office that went the opposite direction and had individual offices for everyone, and I felt that to be too isolating and depressing over time, although there were other factors that made me feel that way too.

Take it with a grain of salt though - we're ~60 people, and I've seen some of the bigger open-floor offices that seem more in line with the arguments presented here. It really comes down to the individual company and their needs.

<comment><USER4> I don't want to have to wear headphones.

<comment><USER5> > but have rooms available ... for heads-down working

Seems like you don't have to.

<comment><USER6> So, I can make one of those rooms my permanent office? Ok, I'm down with that. Otherwise, it's not the same thing.

<comment><USER7> I basically did this at my job. The open office chatter and sounds really affects me, and I really don't feel like pumping more sound into my ears all the time just to drown out the sound I don't want to listen to. So, I started grabbing the same small private space in our office every day and worked there all day long. Now everyone knows it as my "office", even though it's mostly said as a joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the biggest problem with open floor spaces is that they include the sales/marketing teams, most of whom (in my experience) speak on the phone or with each other all day. Sometimes, believe it or not, on speaker.

I don't mind working with fellow engineers in the same table in a quiet room every now and then. It's when you have no escape to work in quiet focus that it becomes a problem.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, we have sales and marketing on a different floor - A year ago we were all on the same floor before we expanded upstairs, and it was pretty insane!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel like the article ascribes way too much to the "control" aspect. In my experience, the truth seems closer to the "ignorance" than to "malice"; companies are _lazy_ : they see other companies touting their open floor plans — big ones, like Facebook! — and think, if Facebook is doing it, it _must_ be good! That, and/or it's just cheaper / easier to cram people into an open floor plan than trying to figure out walls.

Mix into that that so often recruiters seem to be outsourced to a third-party company composed of people who know next to _nothing_ about engineering, and it shouldn't be surprising. They're parroting what they've seen other job posts tout. Until a significant number of job postings start listing "closed floor plan" or something along those lines, the cycle will continue.

And, it's not even just "control": it's also a loss of productivity through noise and disease. The last time I was in an open floor plan and a mild cold struck, it cost two engineer weeks. That's a couple thousand dollars; if a better layout could have quarantined that even slightly (it went through four people), the extra space required _might actually pay for itself_ after some modest amount of time. But I don't know for sure, and someone would actually need to do the math, but nobody can: things like illnesses, and illness spreading are so untracked that it's a completely hidden cost that shows up on no ledger.

<comment><USER9> Agreed, but if you're on the receiving end, how much will you care about parsing the motives of the horrendous conditions you find yourself in? Mostly, if you're wise, you'll just want to avoid those conditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Open-plan offices are inherently age-ist. It's well known that older adults have more trouble identifying the location of sounds, discriminating between foreground and background sounds (dynamic range), etc. This means that someone talking elsewhere in the office seems just like someone talking right in their ear, requiring a _conscious effort_ to block it out or concentrate on the person who is actually talking right in front of them. A noise level that wouldn't bother young people at all can thus be quite harmful to older people's productivity, putting them at a disadvantage and effectively "filtering them out" of many workplaces. It's only a matter of time before some of the people now singing the praises of open workspaces start filing lawsuits regarding those very same workspaces, as each position suits their personal interests.

</comment><comment><USER11> If I see "open floor space", I better also see "a pair of headphones of your choice"

<comment><USER12> That's actually generous of you. After working remote for almost 3 years, I won't even consider a position that requires me to go into an office.

<comment><USER13> If only big corporations realized what a massive productivity boost working naked is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My god I saw a picture of Facebook and it looked like hell to me.

</comment><comment><USER15> I really like this open office plan trend. Well, not for me, but for the companies I compete against. ;-)</comment>