A Letter on Justice and Open Debate - <AUTHOR> https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/ <comment><USER3> Some bright spots I've noticed in the past month or so in this area, for those who care both about justice and open debate:

\- John Carmack signal boosting[1] Sarah Downey's article "This PC witch-hunt is killing free speech, and we have to fight it"[2]

\- The critical comments on the obligatory "BLM" post in r/askscience[3]

\- Glenn Loury's response[4] to Brown University's letter to faculty/alumni about racial justice.

\- The failure[5] of a group of folks to cancel Steven Pinker over accusations of racial insensitivity.

[1] [https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1279105937404579841](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1279105937404579841)

[2] [https://medium.com/@sarahadowney/this-politically-correct- wi...](https://medium.com/@sarahadowney/this-politically-correct-witch-hunt- is-killing-free-speech-and-we-have-to-fight-it-7ced038d33ae)

[3] [https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gvc7k9/black_li...](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gvc7k9/black_lives_matter/)

[4] [https://www.city-journal.org/brown-university-letter- racism](https://www.city-journal.org/brown-university-letter-racism)

[5] [https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/12799365902367907...](https://mobile.twitter.com/sapinker/status/1279936590236790784)

<comment><USER4> Carmack's comment on the Cultural Revolution was strange. The greatest problem with the Cultural Revolution, its defining characteristic in most people's minds, was all the mass murder. McCarthyism or something might have been a better historical analog to what is happening, but it would have been pretty tricky to jujitsu that example into a slam against the left, or the kids today, or whatever was being attempted there.

The article he linked to was a little peculiar. As someone who's inclined to agree with the author about the First Amendment, the poorly thought out paragraph about racism - using a link to hate crime statistics to demonstrate the low numbers of "actual racists," but then making a remark like _The statement "black lives matter" is easy to agree with if you're a decent human being,_ which raises some questions about why we all have so many not-decent people (just indecent, not actual racists?) in our social media feeds - distracted from the overall message.

<comment><USER5> What is "the overall message?" Is it just the plain meaning of the words? Is the idea that we need to reform the police so they stop murdering Black people?

Or is it the New York Times' claim that "nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery?" [https://mobile.twitter.com/maragay/status/116140196616729805...](https://mobile.twitter.com/maragay/status/1161401966167298054).

Or is it that we need to "disrupt the western-prescribed nuclear family structure," as BLM's website claims? [https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we- believe/](https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/)

Or is it that "institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism" are all equivalent evils that must be "abolished," as BLM's DC chapter proclaims? [https://fee.org/articles/is-black-lives-matter-marxist-no- an...](https://fee.org/articles/is-black-lives-matter-marxist-no-and-yes/)

Or is it—as the 1619 project claims and which is now being taught in schools—the supposed historical fact that capitalism is an outgrowth of plantation slavery? [https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy- theory](https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy-theory)

Or is it applied Marxism?

> No doubt, the organization itself was quite radical from the very beginning. > Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors described herself and fellow > co-founder Alicia Garza as "trained Marxists" in a recently resurfaced video > from 2015.

Look at how much the debate has transformed within the last month. It started out with universal condemnation of a murder committed by the police in Minnesota. Now, we are talking about tearing town statues of Abraham Lincoln: [https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/26/uw-...](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2020/06/26/uw- madison-students-call-removal-abraham-lincoln-statue/3263355001/) ("Students in the UW-Madison's Black student union are calling on university officials to remove the statue of the nation's 16th president.") My high school, named after Thomas Jefferson, is thinking of renaming itself. We are debating whether the Constitution as a "pro-slavery document."

I am pro-BLM. To me, it's a matter of my faith, as well as my personal experience living in places like Baltimore and Philadelphia and realizing that Black people just aren't getting a fair shake. I think people of every stripe can do something to help finish the job of reconstruction. Libertarians can pitch in to help end police abuse of minorities. Conservatives can help push forward school choice, which the majority of Black people support. Middle of the road people can agree that we need to undo the pro-confederacy monument building that happened during the KKK era.

But I also believe that our country rests on mostly admirable principles and history, and that Marxism is a recipe for suffering while capitalism is uplifting billions of people before our very eyes. I can hardly blame people who are skeptical when they are forced to chant a slogan that was coined by self-avowed Marxists. You can't blame people for being cautious in their support of a movement that has under the same roof a majority of well-meaning people who simply want to eliminate police brutality and inequality, and a vocal minority of people who view those problems as an indictment of our entire country and it's institutions. The far left, in characteristic fashion, has taken something most people could agree on, and pushed it further and further until normal people are forced to push back to keep society from crumbling beneath their feet. And that's a tragedy for everyone, especially people who care about the core concept of fixing policing in America.

<comment><USER6> _Or is it that we need to "disrupt the western-prescribed nuclear family structure," as BLM's website claims?[https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we- believe/](https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/) _

Why is this problematic for you? They're not saying children don't need caregivers, or that families are bad. They're saying the American nuclear family has downsides compared to other models, notably the extended family model common in African and Asian cultures. What makes a nuclear family "nuclear" is that it's self-contained; it's practically by definition not intergenerational, the way many effective non-American families are. It's an especially resonant point given the amount of effort American culture put into making sure black nuclear families couldn't succeed.

I feel like criticism of the American nuclear family has been pretty much fair game for decades; it's not like BLM invented that concern.

<comment><USER7> "They're saying the American nuclear family"

Not the 'American' -> 'Western'. And that's just way of making the 'family' consistent with 'Colonialism' and 'White People' because it suits their bigotry. The nuclear family is pretty closely similar around the world, outside of mostly aboriginal communities. Obviously it's somewhat different in different places, with multi-generations under the same roof.

I view this as fundamentally antagonistic - it's 'making stuff up' to find supposedly powerful and inspiring words, 'defining the enemy' ever more as 'White People'.

It defines their struggle as not one to 'finish school and gain competence' but as merely against the forces of 'White people'.

Of course by most objective measures, nuclear families are good for society.

This is the inherent problem when we mix radicalism with 'good intentions' \- they end up mestastisizing the 'grain of truth' (ie racism exists) into everything (ie everything is racist).

<comment><USER6> No, pretty much none of this is true. The English/American model of isolated "nuclear" families isn't even the norm throughout Europe (see, for instance, Italy), let alone throughout the world. I decline to take the rest of the argument you're making seriously, since your foundational premise isn't even accurate. Anything else I'd say would just be restating my previous comment.

<comment><USER7> Having lived quite long enough on the Continent (in multiple continental countries) to know otherwise, this is obviously not true.

At very least English families have more in common with German families than German families do with Italian or Spanish families.

But it's moot: because family structure across civility is not fundamentally different with respect to the antagonising view of BLM.

Aside from some degree of intergenerational cohabitation, it's not that different in advanced countries.

The BLM statement with respect to family is unfounded bigotry, specifically created to concretise and define the image of their enemy.

It's very similar to Trump specifically trying to use the term 'Wuhan Virus' so as to invoke 'blame' for the virus on China. There is a 'kernel of truth' to complicity in China - in that China did some very bad things during the early phase of the pandemic, but that doesn't justify the use of this kind of language to blame them for the entirety of the problem. The language he uses here is to provoke - and to shift blame for the inadequacies of his own system, using crude language mapped onto an external group. When in doubt, use xenophobia.

BLM attacking the 'Western Family Unit' is shifting the narrative and denying any responsibility for a very foundational problem within the community - <USER2> that is >50% of Black children have little no relationship with at least one of their parents, and that rates are about double for Black families as they are for other groups [1]. Now - obviously it's a very complicated problem (i.e. incarceration etc.), but it's a lot easier to dismiss if you don't have to see it as a problem, rather, merely an oppressive measure by your villainous opponents.

The argument "The Black community has challenges at least partly due to the deep fragmentation of the family unit" can simply be dismissed and ignored with the radical, and ironically xenophobic statement: "The family unit is colonialist and racist".

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African- American_family_struct...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African- American_family_structure)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I grew up in a very religious family. It was funny how you could get ostracized from the community for not following the guidelines. This really (REALLY) depended on the individual communities more so than say the religion and the relative power of that religion in that area. (EDIT: from my experience with 4 christian based religions.) For example, in Utah, not being Mormon or even being found out to consume caffeine could get you in all sorts of hot water.

What I from the left has similarities to the religious fervor of my youth. You either believe and are part of the solution. To do that you have to convert everyone, and if you aren't with us then you're against us. It might be that it just evokes a similar emotional response to me as being on the "outs" with my childhood faith.

Many people want to have faith in something. We've torn down religion as fairly corrupt, government has been likewise torn down for many people. Now we have massive leaderless movements that offer the same sort of thing.

My issue with this movement, is it's amplified the worst of our human nature by having social media (which I recognize I'm consuming right now). If you don't want global censoring of opposing ideas we need to have a better way of performing human interactions online. We need more humanization of people through technology not the dehumanization of people through technology.

<comment><USER9> > My issue with this movement, is it's amplified the worst of our human nature > by having social media (which I recognize I'm consuming right now).

What movement do you mean?

> If you don't want global censoring of opposing ideas we need to have a > better way of performing human interactions online.

I absolutely agree with this. My experience with online interactions is that they've been filled with polarized sentiment for a long time (I've heard the sentiment "never read the comments" about news articles on the internet for at least 5 years), not just in the last few months.

<comment><USER8> Movement as in general cultural shift with the advent of social media. Not really a specific movement as in #somemovement.

For example. I'd fucking love to have this conversation with a group of people and instead of getting a ^ or (Insert down arrow) see your expression, you either nodding along, or making a slight facial tweak that lets me know I hurt your feelings so I can see, oh crap, I shouldn't have said "movement" and instead said cultural shift. That real-time feedback that build empathy and makes me not want to piss you off, or makes me walk away thinking, we'll we're never going to see eye to eye.

The movement from me having lunch with friends, to losing them on facebook because they support #somemovement and I have a nuanced opinion about it.

EDIT: I'm also not implying I hurt your feelings with the word movement, I'm creating a narrative specific to this thread to create an example of how in a in person setting I might have picked up on that, but in text I have to be super clear instead of being able to have an easy back and forth to get to the nuance of what I meant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Firing people for expressing "distasteful" views publicly is nothing new. In 2003, MSNBC fired the host of their most popular program, Phil Donahue, for expressing his opposition to the Iraq War.

> An internal MSNBC memo warned Donahue was a "difficult public face for NBC > in a time of war," providing "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the > same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

Fortunately for Phil, he was well-off and probably wasn't relying on the income.

With at-will employment, companies have enormous leverage over their workers' freedom of expression and it's disappointing to see this letter with some ostensibly "left" signatures attached leave that consideration untouched.

<comment><USER11> On a related note: arguably one of the biggest "cancellings" of the post-9/11 era was that of the Dixie Chicks [1].

 _" Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."_

The above comment (made by the lead singer at a concert in England) was all it took for them to receive death threats and get blacklisted by thousands of radio stations in the US.

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

<comment><USER12> They were hardly cancelled though, they were more feted after the controversy. They went from the CMA to winning album of the year at the Grammys, got on the cover of Rolling Stone, etc. In many ways they vaulted from the country music backwater into the mainstream.

Interestingly enough, they changed their name to "The Chicks" 2 weeks ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think this comes down to a lack of trust in good-faith debate. People don't trust that someone "from the other side" will actually have the empathy and generosity required to have a good-faith discussion on a topic.

Also, I believe that we're constantly hearing so many voices trying to convince us one way or another, that our own discussions on those topics end up being attempts to convince others. That would explain "safe spaces" to some degree -- people don't want the pressure of having someone else try to convince them of something they don't agree with.

Some of it just the two-party system. The points don't matter, just which side of the line each person is on. I wonder if more parties would help depolarize the situation. I'm really not sure.

<comment><USER14> _> The points don't matter, just which side of the line each person is on_

That's because it isn't just about ideas, it's about power. Politics and government now are not about coming to consensus solutions that everyone, or at least everyone but a small minority who just wants to game the system, can live with. Politics and government now are about imposing on everyone whichever set of ideas gets a slim 51% majority. That isn't the way it was supposed to work.

I personally would like to see a Constitutional amendment that would require a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress to pass any legislation, and a 3/4 majority required to override a Presidential veto. That would at least require some amount of bipartisan consensus, and therefore some amount of actually somewhat reasonable debate instead of just shouting back and forth, before a public policy was imposed on everyone.

<comment><USER15> " _That would at least require some amount of bipartisan consensus, and therefore some amount of actually somewhat reasonable debate..._ "

What you would get would be a lot of back-room deals and strange bedfellows. Like now, only more so.

<comment><USER14> I'm not so sure. The back-room deals that go on now are not about getting the other side to vote for things they really don't want to vote for, as much as horse trading on which bills come up for a vote vs. getting stuck in committee or tabled. It would be harder for either side to get any value out of that if a 2/3 majority was required to pass a bill--back-room deals can't get that many votes to switch in the opposition party about something that's really contentious.

That's not to say that any bill that gets enough bipartisan consensus to pass a 2/3 vote must be good; plenty of bills that have passed in the past with that much consensus have been bad. But I think it might change the dynamics in at least something like the right direction.

<comment><USER16> That's because the tools in place to override a tabling are the 2/3 vote tools.

Make everything 2/3 vote and you increase the need for the dealings that override the current 2/3 vote tools.

<comment><USER14> Which tools are you talking about?

<comment><USER16> Bills can be forced out of committee to the floor via a discharge petition ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition)), but it requires a 2/3 vote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find it weird that so many people seem to think that "attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity" (I guess this is a fancy way of saying cancel culture?) is a big problem, because frankly I have no idea how big a problem it is. Where are the statistics on this? How many are actually impacted by it? There are many articles citing examples and saying how dangerous it is ([https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/25/online- shaming-d...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/25/online-shaming- dangerous-rise-internet-pitchfork-mob/)), and yes there are certainly such examples, but are these just outliers? Is this like air travel, where really for the most part it's ok for people to speak their minds and people get overly freaked out because of rare events?

Actually curious to hear what people on here think about this.

<comment><USER18> If you'd like to see how big of a problem it is, post "males are not females" or "males do not have periods" or "all lives matter" or "we should not be giving hormone blockers to children" to your Twitter or Facebook accounts. Go right ahead. If you feel even the slightest bit of trepidation over publicly stating any of those things, then you will see first hand how big of a problem it is.

*edit

this very post will be down-voted

<comment><USER8> I could see myself getting fired from my company for stating one of these views. Even as I write this, I feel it's important for me to state the following.

I think the "all lives matter" is a anti-slogan to something important so I wouldn't say that. I think the first two are based on sex, which is not really disputed. You can gender identify how you'd like though.

I think the hormone blockers is a complex issue and I'll leave it at that.

But I recognize that if I held radical ideas (which the ones you pointed out are either on the edge or beyond it), I very well might get fired for expressing them in a public forum if someone showed that to my companies HR. To deny that is just me being blind.

To be clear, I took my job with that explicit knowledge that, any public information on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, or here would be scrutinized. I don't like it, but I also went into that with my eyes wide open.

<comment><USER19> "Males are not females" is a radical idea? You might be surprised at the number of radicals in this country, then. Enough, in fact, that it seems a stretch to call it "radical".

<comment><USER8> >I think the first two are based on sex, which is not really disputed. You can gender identify how you'd like though.

I specifically addressed this with my opinion which I feel confident won't get me fired in my comment. I could have been clearer in saying, I don't believe that the idea that sex males are not sex females is a radical idea. Gender wise I'll respect anyone being called whatever they would like to be called.

I don't understand the gender issue, I don't really think I need to. I do respect that people have complex feelings which are made easier by me addressing them in the manner which they prefer. It's no sweat off my back as long as it doesn't impede the scientific study of sex differences in order to better treat and identify diseases specific to sex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> anonms-coward I think most of the people being able to speak against the mob opinion have many things in common. They are rich, famous, and are generally hard to cancel. Carmack, JKRowling and maybe even pinker are in this category. For example, one writer got fired just for tweeting "I stand with JK Rowling". ([https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/scots-author-sacked- bac...](https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/scots-author-sacked-backing-jk- rowling-2904530)) . Many professors have been suspended just for not speaking tone in tone with the popular opinion. If Pinker wasn't this famous, he might have been fired by now.

<comment><USER20> The problem with JKR in particular, is that she is "speaking out" against a group of people who are extremely oppressed, and using outdated / debunked info to do so.

Because of who she is, and her massive audience, this does real damage.

A person's right to even exist in society shouldn't be up for debate.

<comment><USER21> No one is debating whether trans people have the right to exist.

<comment><USER20> JKR is in fact doing that, everyday. Basically, if trans people aren't free to even use the bathroom in public that matches their gender identities, then we can't live in public society.

<comment><USER21> LMAO the right to use a public restroom of your choice == the right to exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> With seeing more letters like this recently, I wonder if they can really have much of an effect. They seem to just ask kindly that people act more kind, which often doesn't do a whole ton. What is needed is to change the way communication is occurring away from viral algorithms promoting the most viral content (outragebait), which only certain companies and people can do.

<comment><USER23> > What is needed is to change the way communication is occurring away from > viral algorithms promoting the most viral content (outragebait), which only > certain companies and people can do.

Exactly. Articles like this are fine and all, but they're generally preaching to the choir; the audience they really need to reach is indifferent to the arguments, and like it or not, calling for someone to be cancelled is _also_ an exercise of their free speech rights.

Social networks don't want to change anything, because culture wars drive engagement (even if they slowly make the platforms uninhabitable).

I don't know what's to be done except to move away from social networks into smaller communities (Slack groups, etc.) that have their own norms of discourse.

<comment><USER24> > Social networks don't want to change anything, because culture wars drive > engagement

Is there any public evidence that outrage-driven engagement is profitable? It's a statement that is frequently repeated, but I haven't seen any evidence for it.

<comment><USER23> Admittedly, there's no smoking gun here, just inferential evidence from the fact that they don't tweak their algorithms to curb it. Which, admittedly, could be that they don't have the resources to do it -- but in either case, my point is that the solution probably will not come from the social networks on their own accord.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Walking back from the precipice we're on is going to be very, very hard.

</comment><comment><USER26> When I try to visit that page, I get an error saying "504 - this request was canceled", which is darkly amusing in its appropriateness.

<comment><USER27> You can find an Internet Archive snapshot here: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200707133437/https://harpers.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200707133437/https://harpers.org/a-letter- on-justice-and-open-debate/)

FWIW getting server errors on this did make me chuckle, because the publisher of Harper's Magazine has had a reputation for being a neo-Luddite when it comes to web publishing [0]:

> _He described being trapped in a corridor in the early 2000s "by a small mob > of what I can't help but refer to as 'young people.' " Those youths, he > wrote, demanded that he open the magazine to online readers. What he told > them was "essentially, forget it." The web, to him, "wasn't much more than a > gigantic Xerox machine" designed to rob publishers and writers._

[0] [https://web.archive.org/web/20160112032957/https://www.nytim...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160112032957/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/business/media/harpers- publisher-standing-firm-in-his-defense-of-print-and-paywall.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One of the most fascinating things to me about the 1960s has always been the fashion in which power was transferred from the old left of the day, to what was then known as the "New Left" \- Tom Hayden's crowd. I've always wondered what it would look like to see something like that happen in real time.

One might hope to see the then-"New Left", now both physically and ideologically very much the _old_ left, face their supersedure with greater equanimity than their own predecessors, to whom they offered no more kindness than they are receiving now. They, too, had their little lists, back when they were young. To bleat about having earned a place on others' lists now fails to favorably impress, for all that it's unsurprising.

</comment><comment> anonms-coward I think this is very important.

Mob justice over what people said years ago is very dangerous. And due to the global nature of the internet, it is very hard to get the mob off your back. It seems many students have been denied their college admissions due to stuff they tweeted as a teenager. It seems in the modern world felons deserve redemption, but bad tweeters do not. Not to mention that cancelling people over what they said in the past is so stupid, that if applied consistently, will lead to funny scenarios. For example, if teenagers should be punished for their past tweets, why shouldn't be Joe Biden for saying on the record that he doesn't support same.sex marriage in the 2008 VP debates. This is not even counting what opinions biden held in the 20th century.

It seems that we have come to a point where you simply can't speak on certain topics, neither in the affirmative nor in the negative, and so most people end up saying what will keep the mob at bay. Case in point, all the people attacking JK Rowling do not want to say that any man who self ids as a woman should have access to women's private spaces.

<comment><USER29> > It seems many students have been denied their college admissions due to > stuff they tweeted as a teenager.

How many of them have still been denied after showing genuine remorse for their views? Nobody is owed a college admission.

> all the people attacking JK Rowling do not want to say that any man who self > ids as a woman should have access to women's private spaces

Nobody's saying that men who falsely claim to be women should have access to women's spaces.

<comment><USER30> > Nobody's saying that men who falsely claim to be women should have access to > women's spaces.

What are they saying?

<comment><USER31> That trans women are women.

<comment><USER30> In what sense? That is, in terms of their gender, or their sex, or both?

<comment><USER32> "Women" is not a sex.

You don't see people saying "trans women are biologically female" for a reason.

<comment><USER33> Things are getting just a little bit ridiculous in America when you have people saying "women" is not a sex.

<comment><USER34> male/female are biological descriptions. Men/Women are social constructs. A man can wear a woman's dress, but a male cannot be pregnant and give birth.

<comment><USER30> > Men/Women are social constructs.

What does it mean for these categories to be social constructs? What criteria makes one a man or a woman?

<comment><USER34> > What criteria makes one a man or a woman?

That's up to the society, hence their definitions as social constructs. For example, when you shop for dresses, do mostly men or women come up? Articles of clothing by themselves are not tied to the biology of a person's sex... meaning a vagina/penis is not required to wear a dress.

But most of society (as it is now) has deemed that woman are associated with dresses, while men are associated with suits. That image is now changing, although slowly, with trans and other non-binary genders.

An easy way to see this is to ask yourself if you think it's acceptable for men to wear dresses? If so, ask why we don't see more of that in the workplace.

<comment><USER30> > That's up to the society, hence their definitions as social constructs.

So, if someone identifies as as man, but society disagrees, is that person a man? What reasons would a society have to change their criteria to include this person in the category of "man"?

<comment><USER34> There are lots of reasons that a society would change. Some factors would include newer generations introducing ideas that the older generation didn't take heed to.

Marriage used to be strictly between a man and a woman. Now society says it can include homosexuals. Women used to stay at home to take care of the house, while men worked at jobs to provide for the entire family. Now society says both roles can be taken up by both men and women. Black people used to sit at the back of the bus, and now anyone can sit anywhere.

I mean, society constantly changes. We see it in history, we even see it today within our own lives. Places like Saudi Arabia are currently having their own version of woman's suffrage even as we speak.

So given this, in your example person, I would wager that society would deem that person not a man, since the hypothetical society has already decided it that way. But that's not to say that person will give up on not being recognized as a man. Our human history has shown us that we don't just stop at an idea, some of us go all the way to pave new rights for entire future generations to come.

Whether or not society adopts the new definitions, well, that's up to the people living in it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm not sure if it's crafty or cowardly that the first section co-opts support by attacking Donald Trump and "right-wing demagogues".

Whatever their faults (and the historical right-wing witch-hunt parallels like McCarthyism), Trump and conservatives are not the enemies here - this modern censorship and cancel-culture trend is entirely an attack from (and problem of) the _Left_.

It is shameful, illiberal and will only be stopped if we are crystal clear where the blame lies.

</comment><comment><USER36> >While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture

The "radical right" enclaves on the internet are literally the only places where you won't be banned for not falling in line.

We need to have this discussion in more than one dimension. Left/right and authoritarian/anarchist are orthogonal metrics.

<comment><USER37> I'm not sure which "radical right" enclaves you are talking about.

Donald trump and conservative groups on reddit for example are some of the most ban-heavy groups around. Where are you thinking about?

<comment><USER36> TD is not far right. 4chan is "far right". 8chan is "far right". But there are regular far left threads on chans advocating for all kinds of radicalism (including violence) as well as making legitimate talking points - no one gets banned, even though the sites primarily lean right.

The only "side" interested in actual free speech currently is the "far right", unlike left leaning forums and media outlets which explicitly censor one particular point of view, regardless of whether it is backed by legitimate science which should be open to discussion.

Censorship has undeniably become a leftist problem, if you insist on reducing the high dimensional space of political leanings to a single myopic dimension. Unbelievable that in 2020 people are shamed for going to the last places on the internet where discourse is unrestricted.

<comment><USER11> You can't in good faith make the claim that the far right is interested in actual free speech. They'd rather see people get dropped from helicopters than let those they deem to be "degenerates" voice their political opinions.

TD, /r/conservative, /r/uncensorednews [1], and all the shitholes on voat have one thing in common, they all ban pretty much anyone who goes against their narratives.

And TD was far right, not as far right as /r/uncensorednews was, but still pretty far right. But perhaps your Overton window is much further to the right than mine (and northern Europe's) is.

[1] The subreddit was banned about two years ago but had 100k+ subs and featured pretty frequent racism, anti-semitism, transphobia, and neo-nazi imagery (the head mod is a self-described neo-nazi after all).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or > coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting.

I get it. This is aimed at left-wing people who think their side can do no evil and thus proceed to censor any disagreement. But it's still funny to me that this whole thing needs to be preceded with 'the right is bad, but believe it or not, people on the left might do some bad things too', as if any side has a monopoly on virtue and goodness.

<comment><USER39> Would you at least entertain the possibility that one of the sides could, at the moment, be a bit worse than the other?

<comment><USER40> That wasn't the question. If cancer is the deadliest disease, that doesn't mean we can't talk about the obesity epidemic(or vice versa depending on the actual stats, I'm just making a general point).

Imagine if, every time someone wanted to talk about helping end the obesity epidemic, many other people chimed in about how dare you talk about obesity when cancer still exists. And the only way you could make a point about obesity is to put a disclaimer that cancer is totally worse than obesity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is a bit rich considering Harper's has fired multiple editors over the last couple of decades because John MacArthur didn't like their liberal views. How is that not "being cancelled"?

</comment><comment><USER42> It's disappointing that, while they name DJT and the "radical right", they don't explicitly call out the "radical left" (it's assumed within the article, but it would be nice to call it out).

One of my favorite internet apologists has a saying that people who don't have good arguments have to resort to bad tactics, and for many people that I've had conversations with (especially among the left, but also among the right) this has often been very, very true.

While I don't support BLM/M4BL (the hashtag, not the sentence), I do think that several valid points have come up. And even though I disagree on their conclusions and sometimes their methods, it has at least caused me to think critically about how I understand the situation and what should be done about it.

I hope that the future can continue to be a place where we don't think of ideas as either "safe" or "unsafe". Any view we come across that challenges us can frighten/scare us away. Maybe it causes us to change our views, maybe it doesn't, but the introspection is valuable. I feel that's what a lot of people who want to silence debate are missing. Perhaps they don't want the introspection. Maybe they just want an echo chamber.

Regardless, let's fight for a world where ideas aren't crimes, and that people are strong/wise enough to debate and engage them in a way that makes everyone better.

<comment><USER43> > it would be nice to call it out

I think it's important to consider the primary audience here. If this were a Wikipedia article, a neutral perspective would be important, yes. But this isn't a Wikipedia article. It's a persuasion piece aimed at the members of the left, and writing from the perspective of the left (or at least not from blatantly outside that perspective) makes it more effective.

<comment><USER44> I agree and would go even farther. This article would be 0% effective if written in a neutral style. When you're trying to reach people stuck in an "us vs them" mentality, you have to identify yourself as "us" before you start criticizing "us". Otherwise the criticism will be seen as identifying yourself as "them" and people will start railing, not against what you're saying, but against all the other arguments associated with "them".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> It's interesting to note that as of the time of me writing this comment, over half of the comments on this thread have been down-voted.

<comment><USER25> I noticed that too. Many of them seem to be downvoted for using specific viewpoints as examples.

<comment><USER45> I think having thoughts about the meta-arguments here is perfectly ok, but having strong opinions about the actual topics is not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> > The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by > trying to silence or wish them away.

Unregulated markets have had near a century of exposure and yet here we are. So I think maybe we also need reform to stop the wealthiest just buying good press coverage of ideas which they find convenient.

<comment><USER47> > Unregulated markets have had near a century

Where? Source please.</comment></comment>


Nightingale (YC S14) Launches Its Support Platform for Autism Therapy - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/24/nightingale-launches-its-support-platform-for-autism-treatment/

<comment><USER2> It's been inspiring to see two young founders focusing on such an important problem.

I met the team a year and a half ago in Mountain View -- they really care about this problem and they are working their asses off to build the right team to provide a stellar solution.

Would love to see Nightingale eventually offered to a more general audience. Therapy has such a stigma associated with it and I think technology can really lower the barriers for receiving treatment.

</comment><comment><USER3> Video demo here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY4G4EjoyUo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY4G4EjoyUo)

This looks very promising and useful knowing that most therapists in 2015 still take data on a piece of paper and draw graphs by hand!</comment>


Formation of Tesla Advanced Automation Germany - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/blog/formation-of-tesla-advanced-automation-germany <comment><USER2> Not only has Tesla created the greatest external challenge to the German auto industry that I can think of. They also have the nerve to attack them in their own backyard where they can take advantage of German suppliers etc. What will be next? A Gigafactory in Europe?

This is great news for people who like tech but must be worrying for the German automakers who have yet to come up with a trustworthy answer to Tesla.

I believe one of VW, Mercedes Benz and BMW will bankrupt in 5-10 years. None of them have taken EV serious yet and I fear it's soon too late. The EVs that they have come up with as answers to Tesla are almost cartoonish like vehicles. Take a look at this Mercedes EQ: [http://www.autoblog.com/2016/09/29/mercedes-benz- generation-...](http://www.autoblog.com/2016/09/29/mercedes-benz-generation- eq-concept-paris-official/)

Or this VW I.D.: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/28/meet-the-i-d- volkswagens-f...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/28/meet-the-i-d-volkswagens- first-purely-electric-car-on-track-for-2020/) Same blue lights. I bet they will come with a space suit and a laser gun as well.

Both are still concept cars but they represent what they expect their EVs should look like. Mind you that this is something they plan to market in 2020 so it will probably be 2021 or later. And their planned 2020 EVs are inferior to Tesla model S, X and 3 in 2016/2017 in many ways, not just design wise. It is as though they think only hipsters will drive EVs in any foreseeable future.

So when in 2021 they realise that they underestimated that ordinary people want an EV that looks no more spacey than a combustion engine car, but comes with wireless upgrades, long range batteries, large trunk, fast acceleration, high safety rating etc., they will have to wait another 3-4 years until they have a real answer ready. By then, model 3 has been on the market for close to a decade and even better Tesla models with better range, faster charging etc. have been introduced. And the Tesla cars will have been trained with tens of billions of miles of self driving by then. How are the Germans going to catch up?

<comment><USER3> At least VW and BMW have real, practical and selling EVs.

But those are huge companies. They cannot say "let's only sell EVs". They can't even say "let's downplay gas-driven cars and emphasize EVs".

What do you want them to do? Fire 95% of employees and sell 1% of the cars they are selling today?

Of course Tesla looks forward-looking. They are all-EV, they are fighting for profitability, they don't have existing business to protect.

And protect you must your existing business. "Pivoting" is one of the favourite words in VC and startup circles, but it's also fairy-land, not a plausible economic decision in this situation.

<comment><USER4> The conventional wisdom is that you must cannibalize your existing business yourself, otherwise someone else will.

Seems to me that VW and BMW are not really pushing for EVs as much as they should – at least, I don't know anyone who is buying them instead of a VW or BMW with an internal combustion engine. Then again, I live in Finland, where nobody has an EV anyway.

<comment><USER5> I live in Seattle and electric BMWs are everywhere thanks to BMW's own ReachNow car sharing service:

[http://www.bmwcarsharing.com/](http://www.bmwcarsharing.com/)

Basically the cars are paid for by the minute and come with free street parking. You can unlock/lock through the app or a smartcard. This feels like BMW is trying to both figure out EVs _and_ a possible post car ownership society.

Tesla will be similarly doomed when most people don't own their own cars (Tesla's most valuable asset is its brand and that means nothing when you aren't buying the car!).

<comment><USER6> 1\. Tesla is pivoting into an energy company that happens to make cars on the side. If it doesn't die because Model 3 flops (not saying that it will or won't, mind you) its future looks quite bright.

2\. Teslas driving around right now are doing what they call fleet learning for self-driving purposes.

3\. Tesla is absolutely getting ready for post ownership era of motorization, in fact the autopilot effort and announcements regarding for-profit car sharing only being available through Tesla network directly confirm that.

<comment><USER7> > Tesla is absolutely getting ready for post ownership era of motorization, in > fact the autopilot effort and announcements regarding for-profit car sharing > only being available through Tesla network directly confirm that.

This is why I chuckle when everyone says "Look how few Tesla vehicles are produced!". They don't have to replace every vehicle purchased, just the vehicle miles driven. Cars sit idle 90-95% of the time, which means if you increase utilization with the Tesla Network, they need only 20-30% of total worldwide manufacturing capacity to replace all cars.

Total cars sold in the US this year? Just shy of 18 million. How many does Tesla need to build to replace that capacity if they're self driving? 4-6 million cars/year to start, decreasing rapidly depending on rideshare uptake. Easily doable with their automated manufacturing efforts.

Gonna be a bitch when Tesla manufacturing curve hits vehicle miles demand, and existing automaker sales plummet.

<comment><USER8> The idle time will not change by much anytime soon. Everyone commutes in the same hours and at night all cars stand still. Yes, society becomes more flexible and diverse but this is a very slow process.

<comment><USER9> 5:30 PM in Seattle on a weekday is peak traffic, 1 in 5 daily use vehicles are on the road.

So in a hypothetical wherein Robotaxis have acheived full penetration, maybe we'll need 1/3 of the vehicles we use today.

There would likely be a lot less steel in those vehicles as well, since they'd largely be optimized for single commuters, and would need less of the redundancies built into current cars for safety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "As the machine that builds the machine, our factories are so important that we believe they will ultimately deserve an order of magnitude more attention in engineering than what they produce."

They shouldn't stop there. Any good software engineer knows that even more attention should be paid to the abstract factory factories.

</comment><comment><USER11> This just made my jaw literally drop. Not only is Prüm my former hometown (of roughly 5000 people), but I actually worked at Grohmann at holidays and as a part-timer during my school and student days.

This place is filled with prototypical German engineers (in the good sense) and the company was always in growth-mode. I think this might be a very good acquisition for Tesla.

<comment><USER12> That seems like an awfully small town for what Tesla wants to use it for. Won't they have trouble with recruiting?

<comment><USER13> > That seems like an awfully small town for what Tesla wants to use it for.

They're buying an existing company which is HQ'd there.

> Won't they have trouble with recruiting?

Why would they? People can easily move around.

<comment><USER12> > They're buying an existing company which is HQ'd there.

I understand that, but it sounds like they are also planning to try and add a lot of people in the future.

> Why would they? People can easily move around.

Perhaps in Germany the attitudes are different (I recently moved here so maybe I'll find out!), but in the US you'd have an extremely hard time recruiting talented engineers to a city of just 5,000 people. Most educated people in the states want the amenities of a larger city.

<comment><USER14> The difference probably is that the scales are different in Germany. The largest city in the general area is Cologne with 1 million residents. There are a lot more much smaller towns in between and it's perfectly normal to drive from one town to another for shopping and services because the towns tend to be very close to each other.

You don't generally get these vast empty stretches of land between places in Germany, especially not in the West (the most densely populated region of Germany). But you also don't get American megacities like NYC, SF or LA.

<comment><USER15> Also autobahns make a lot of distances seem very small in Germany.

<comment><USER14> Not really. An hour drive is still an hour drive. The physical distances don't really matter much though if you don't happen to own a helicopter or it's short enough that you can walk or ride a bicycle.

The autobahn is frequently overestimated by foreigners. That there is no speed limit _in principle_ doesn't mean that you can go any speed in practice. Most of the autobahn has speed limits and road works.

<comment><USER13> > Not really. An hour drive is still an hour drive.

An hour drive is an hour drive, but 60 miles is an hour drive in the US, it might be 30~45mn via the Autobahn or Schnellstraßen.

> s. That there is no speed limit in principle doesn't mean that you can go > any speed in practice. Most of the autobahn has speed limits and road works.

Sure, but speed limits tend to be much higher than they are on US interstate.

<comment><USER16> In reality, few drivers on German roads go faster than 70-80mph. Mostly due to traffic, but even with free flowing traffic the minority drives much faster. It's nice to be able to drive fast if you have to, but a lot of people (especially on the country side) are very environmentally conscious, which doesn't go well with driving 120mph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This move gives them access to much more than just Grohmann.

\- The infrastructure available in Europe and Germany is tailored towards automobile manufacturing [1] -They have moved to the home turf of few of biggest automobile manufacturers . -The amount of talent available to poach would increase too.

I wonder how all the other German Automobile manufacturers look at this move.

[1]:[https://www.ixpos.de/IXPOS/Content/EN/Your-business-in- germa...](https://www.ixpos.de/IXPOS/Content/EN/Your-business-in- germany/_SharedDocs/Downloads/automotive-industry-in-germany.pdf?v=6)

<comment><USER18> > I wonder how all the other German Automobile manufacturers look at this > move.

Tesla is buying a relatively small company with just 700 people.

That's a drop in the ocean of automotive/manufacturing employees in Germany. The car companies have >750k employees and the suppliers another 300k employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am not very surprised by this news: german companies are very, very strong in this field.

I worked a few years in a german research facility for production technology and automation a few years ago and the stuff we were working on was impressive ... to say the least.

Very smart people and a lot a discipline => it's obviously paying off.

<comment><USER20> Then again, there's a general sentiment [here] that German carmakers will go under facing the Tesla threat. The RDF is strong with Tesla. That's from someone who's considering buying a Model 3 next year.

<comment><USER21> General sentiment they'll go under? Come again?

<comment><USER20> I forgot to refer to what a lot of people in this thread are writing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Let the poaching begin. BMW, Porsche and friends will better come up with solid retainers, lest lose their top talent.

<comment><USER23> They already have problems getting and retaining talent.

<comment><USER24> don't forget that there are strong cooperations and they know their talents better than outsiders. They know who is how much worth.

<comment><USER25> Not really. In the german automotive industry there are no real exceptional salaries for engineers, it's pretty much regulated through IG Metall and everybody is earning the same in a +-15% range. That means these companies typically don't offer engineers awesome salaries in order to retain them, doesn't matter how good they are at their stuff. The only exception is (non- technical) management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> For those curious about Grohmann the company:

> Grohmann Engineering GmbH develops, supplies, and services production > systems. Its products include assembly systems, placement machines, > singulation machines, laser and bonding systems, test and thermal systems, > liquid dispensing systems, product handling and tape application systems, > flexfoil process equipment, fiber laying and coating systems, automated > fiber-end finishing systems, terminal assembly systems, bonding and micro- > molding systems, in-line assembly and molding systems, sealers, and machine > platforms. The company serves automotive, telecommunications, consumer > electronics, and biotechnical industries. Grohmann Engineering GmbH is based > in Prüm, Germany. It has service and support centers in the Northern United > States, Canada, China, Costa Rica, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, the > United Kingdom/Ireland, South America, Australia, Scandinavia, Malaysia, and > South Africa.

from [http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.as...](http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=25937502)

The company website is [http://www.grohmann- engineering.de/](http://www.grohmann-engineering.de/)

</comment><comment><USER27> This is great news. Never ever before was I so interested in manufacturing operations and logistics.

<comment><USER28> Same as me, transportation and energy are really big problems today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Grohmann makes plants for automated manufacturing and had FY15 revenues of 115M EUR.

Am I insufficiently caffeinated to see this as a big deal?

<comment><USER30> Can you share link to their revenues?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Here's an analysis on the impacts that reduced car ownership and increased EV market share will have on the transportation and energy industries. If this comes true, Tesla, Uber, ReachNow, and company may do for those industries what Amazon did (and is doing) for publishing and retail.

[http://markmancapital.net/blog/2016/10/27/auto-industry- face...](http://markmancapital.net/blog/2016/10/27/auto-industry-faces- existential-challenge)

"Morgan Stanley analysts think autonomy is the tipping point. "We believe shared and autonomous cars can deflate the cost per mile to as little as 20 cents, triggering a doubling of global miles travelled by 2030," Jonas says.

At that cost, it no longer makes sense for consumers to buy vehicles. So, auto dealerships no longer make economic sense. The business-to-consumer auto insurance model collapses, given diminished risk. Ride-hailing, especially for groups, becomes cost competitive with short, regional air travel. Skippingthe TSA lines is an added bonus. Public parking spaces become mostly obsolete, yielding huge swaths of valuable urban real estate. And the economics of electric vehicles for fleets hastens the migration away from fossil fuels, leading to an energy glut and more heavily taxed electricity infrastructure."

</comment><comment><USER32> Worried that the EU is going to use regulatory measures to advantage their home grown producers? Just make sure you provide some jobs and move part of your business there. Or perhaps I'm just too cynical.

<comment><USER33> There is some evidence for this, but honestly the US does the same, usually worse. Better not speak of China, where this is official policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> If only programmers would invest as much in their own productivity... :/

<comment><USER35> As to... buy a German engineering company?

<comment><USER34> Mainstream programming languages and developer tools are a joke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I suspect there will be some amount of culture clashing over such acquisitions

(Not as bad as the Japanese company that bought a French robot company I'm sure)

<comment><USER14> If what I hear about working with American customers from people working in manufacturing is any indicator, you might be right. But it shouldn't be much of a problem for the product.

For context: anecdotally American customers tend to overspecify their requirements with unrealistic and irrelevant details and then fail to follow the same requirements on their end. Not much of a problem for German manufacturers but certainly a bit of a culture clash initially. I bet Americans have similar stories faulting the Germans in turn though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Tesla and the coming EV wave will be a Tsunami for Europe. I don't see how the European car industry will be able to manage this change. There are too many investments and interests bound into combustion engines.

<comment><USER38> The same argument could apply to the US, even more so... the tsunami seems to be more of a squall. The big manufacturers are adapting just fine at, seemingly, their own pace.

<comment><USER37> > The same argument could apply to the US

No, the turnover generated by the automotive sector represents 6.5% of EU GDP, in Germany it is 20%. In the US it is about 3%.

> The big manufacturers are adapting just fine

Any examples for that?

<comment><USER18> The German car manufacturers have a GDP share of 400 billion, out of a German GDP of 3 trillion Euros.

<comment><USER37> automotive sector > car manufacturers

<comment><USER18> car manufacturers are also doing more than manufacturing cars.

Since we don't know what the numbers mentioned above mean and if they are about comparable things, I tried to give a precise number for a sector.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> "Real men own fabs."

<comment><USER33> Context: Said by some AMD exec a year before they sold their fabs to GloFo.

<comment><USER39> GloFo was a spinout though, right?

<comment><USER33> True.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Security Bulletin VLC 3.0.11 - <AUTHOR> https://www.videolan.org/security/sb-vlc3011.html <comment><USER2> Media decoders are the biggest, richest, unexploited, practical and valuable target for developing end user malware and government surveillance. If I wanted to surveil a dissident using Tor for example I would deliver the payload in a protest video they download or whatever.

People open video and images files all the time. The amount of breath I see burned here on obscure or niche security concerns is ridiculous. The implementations aren't buggy, they are just written by like one person, the sole maintainer you cannot under any circumstances discourage from doing this work, with a criticism-proof godlike level of knowledge, in vast amounts of uncommented code that makes huge numbers of unenforceable assumptions in the pursuit of better performance, targeting vast hardware with closed source binary blobs also seeking performance, on every popular platform. It's a minefield.

<comment><USER3> Can't agree more. Every codec implementation or video-related software package is just a giant pile of pointer-heavy C/C++ code. It's not a bad thing because it's fast and practically still the only way to do it. But looking at cosebases like VLC and especially ffmpeg makes me a little nervous. How many bugs like this are hidden in these libraries that we don't know about?

<comment><USER4> IIRC, there was a project within the VLC team to port a codec to rust (it was shown off at a con talk IIRC). I'm curious what happened to that project.

Also, it looks like the VLC Summer of Code ("SoC") 2020[1] mentions a potential project for fuzzing.

[1] [https://wiki.videolan.org/SoC_2020/](https://wiki.videolan.org/SoC_2020/)

<comment><USER5> Kostya (long time ffmpeg contributor from e.g. RV40 reverse engineering) moved on to writing a greenfield ffmpeg alternative purely in Rust, with all new codecs, named NihAV.

Follow the blog: [https://codecs.multimedia.cx/](https://codecs.multimedia.cx/) but there's no source code release yet AFAIK.

<comment><USER6> > Follow the blog: > [https://codecs.multimedia.cx/](https://codecs.multimedia.cx/) but there's > no source code release yet AFAIK.

Nice; though the documentation/blog is quite hard to follow :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Currently, this code is only reachable in the case of a hardware decoder, on macOS, using VideoToolbox library, when it needs annexB conversion.

But as there are other issues on other dependencies, we preferred to bump it everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER8> Clarifications that are not clear from the title:

\- 3.0.11 is the fixed version, the bulletin isn't about a vuln in that version.

\- It only affects iOS/macOS

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe this is an opportunity to try another open source video player. Smplayer also works on windows mac and linux.

\- Preferences menu isn't broken into normal and space shuttle control panel.

\- Playlist works in fullscreen mode which isn't the case with VLC.

\- Saves place in videos by default, mpv the simpler interface is actually smarter and remembers the position in a group of files if you pass it the same files. I think VLC can do this but its somewhere in the space shuttle preferences interface.

\- Adding a folder doesn't add non video files to a playlist

\- Audio syncing doesn't appear to be an issue over the network

\- It understands any network stream that youtube-dl supports which seems to be much better than vlc

<comment><USER10> As far as I know, SMplayer is based off of mplayer which uses ffmpeg under the hood, just like VLC. The most serious vulnerabilities would be present on both (although I think this exploit is VLC specific).

<comment><USER9> Smplayer can use mplayer or mpv which in turn can use ffmpeg or in theory its fork libav. There is a big intersection under the hood and indeed there is a possibility for a defect to effect both VLC although this issue is vlc and mac specific.

I don't think Smplayer is more secure I just think its a better tool than VLC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am always suspecting porn sites to be a huge honeypot for any sort of malware. I am still betting most browsers still have their share of 0-days.

</comment><comment><USER12> 3.0.10 was such a buggy release for mac0S. Astonished they let something so awful out and that it took months to release a fix.

<comment><USER7> Sorry about that.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for releasing a fix. Not trying to butter your butt but I really enjoy VLC.</comment></comment></comment>


A Redditor's insightful message for discouraged students - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/o37te/smart_but_unmotivated_in_school_thoughtful_post/ <comment><USER2> Slightly off topic, but I'm sick of post titles that start with "A Redditor's ...". A title like that is just going to encourage comments and culture from reddit which is usually inappropriate here. "Redditors" are mostly normal people, "An insightful message for discouraged students" would have been a perfectly good title to this.

<comment><USER3> Also, don't post a link to a post containing the link.

<comment><USER4> In this case, I disagree. Posting to that location lets us easily see the comments made on that posting (instead of just the replies to the comment being linked to)

<comment><USER5> The comments on /r/bestof links are usually about the fact that it was posted in /r/bestof, rather than about the subject itself. And if they are about the comment itself, it's really just because the comment itself already had too many replies for a new comment to be noticed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's research behind this too. The book NurtureShock has a chapter on telling kids "you're smart" vs. "you worked hard." There was even some HN discussion on it. Basically, when you attribute your kids accomplishments to their being smart, they kind of freeze up when they get a problem they can't handle. But when you attribute it to hard work, they work harder to figure it out. There are a series of fascinating experiments that bare this out.

For people into parenting books, I highly recommend NurtureShock. It's about the only parenting book I've found based on actual scientific research, as opposed to being somebody's opinion.

<comment><USER7> Do you have a link/paper ont his? Legitimately curious.

<comment><USER6> Apparently, the chapter of the book also appeared in New York magazine, although I can't find the reference so I don't know which issue.

You can always read some excerpts on Google Books or Amazon, it's chapter 1 of NurtureShock.

<comment><USER8> You can find the article here: <http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I should rather have linked directly to the post: [http://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/nxdzz/im_not_as_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/nxdzz/im_not_as_smart_as_i_thought_i_was/c3d91jl)

Anyway, I want to emphasize that while his response was specifically to some guy in MIT feeling down, his words are applicable for any of us.

<comment><USER9> Indeed, I really liked this post. Everyone hears how hard MIT is, but then everyone sees how 97% pass, so you think these must be some geniuses that get in who transcend "normal" folk like us. They're just normal people who might not have been the smartest at school, but know when they're not motivated and how to look for help and get motivated. It's a good message for any student.

<comment><USER4> This. My brother goes to MIT and he is precisely life-sized. He just works very hard. Let me also comment that the difference on starting salary at MIT is not so different from that of top five schools. Coming from one of those schools and knowing the students there, I believe that your degree of success is more strongly linked to your work effort and the experiences you seek, compared to the school you went to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have another message for struggling students: Go outside and get some fresh air; exercise; smile. It's only a grade.

I have experienced first-hand the shock of discovering just how hard university is, but pushing yourself harder and harder until you break is _not_ the answer. You need to be smarter about how you work, you need to develop proper study habits, and you need to get over your fear of asking for help. But at the end of the day, grades are just grades. Once you finish university and get your first job, none of this will matter anymore.

University is far harder than programming jobs, so don't judge yourself too harshly for struggling. Many things are more important in life. Remember to enjoy the most intense learning experience you will ever experience, and don't forget to look after your own health.

</comment><comment><USER11> I agree with him when he says that it is mostly how hard you work, dedication, and ambition. But wouldn't we just be fooling ourselves when we say it's not genetic? Maybe I'm wrong but, there are such things as kids that knowledge comes easier to, and kids that they simply can't understand something.

Also, for example, a kid with ADHD is woefully behind on the "being able to sit and work" ability. I think it's nice that we say "everyone is equal and let's hold hands" But I personally don't understand that.

<comment><USER12> That's one of those facts that is probably true, but not useful (at least to an individual plotting their own course.) If you feel stupid, what's the more likely thing? That you are up against a fundamental barrier, or that you haven't worked hard enough? What's the better outcome, that you knuckle down or give up?

Knowing the genetic basis for intelligence is kinda like knowing about obscure diseases. When you have the sniffles, it's probably just a cold, not lupus. When you're finding something beyond your grasp, you're probably not working hard enough, or working smart enough.

Sure, if you're a policy maker allocating budgets and looking at the population in aggregate, it makes sense to have a deep understanding of all the problems that may not be fixable. But if you're deciding what to do with yourself, why give yourself the excuse?

<comment><USER13> Don't you like logic & understanding? I am not sure why anyone here would promote an ignorance is bliss kind of attitude when it comes to mental or learning disorders. This reeks of the military's inability to accept PTSD as a real condition, ostracizing those who claim they have it as being weak or lazy. Does the hacker/geek crowd have the same trouble accepting learning disabilities as a valid form of mental illness?

<comment><USER14> Appeals to genetics are usually made by the successful to convince the unsuccessful that their success was inevitable.By doing that they help ward off potential competitors.

<comment><USER13> I really haven't heard any successful startup founder say "My genetic make-up made my project successful".

The truth is genetics do matter if for no other reason than the fact that who your parents are will greatly determine your opportunities later in life by the fact that they control the country you're born in. Not to mention that your family's mental or physical health history can have a great impact on you as well. If your family has a history of depression, anxiety, attention deficit, dyslexia or substance abuse you are indeed at higher risk of developing those same issues later in life. Also families with those issues can have a greater struggle creating a nurturing environment to break free from the cycle of dysfunction.

I feel that people ignoring the genetic or parental factor are ignoring science & using that ignorance as an excuse to call people lazy so that they feel more in control of their situation despite a considerable amount of their success having nothing to do with their own effort or ingenuity.

My appeal isn't to give people a reason to be lazy, but to admit that we don't know how the brain learns or re-learns things. A person's life my be an eternal struggle until they find help that allows them to escape whatever disease they are dealing with. Ignoring those diseases does not help the person & merely casting them off as lazy or needing to try harder is not a valid remedy.

<comment><USER14> "My appeal isn't to give people a reason to be lazy, but to admit that we don't know how the brain learns or re-learns things." If we dont know how the brain learns why should we hurriedly conclude that it is genetic and fixed.Why cant we adopt an attitude that will make us better and work our butts off?

<comment><USER13> _Why cant we adopt an attitude that will make us better and work our butts off?_

Because the point of a learning disability is that the person is working their butt off already but still struggling.

It's like having two people try to catch a pig, but one of those pigs is greased. If you tell both participants to use exactly the same effort to catch the pig, the person who has to get the greased pig will probably fail. The person with the greased pig may even try harder than the other person yet still fail to catch the pig.

There isn't an easy solution to mental illness or learning disorders. Again, I am not saying that we should tell people to not try hard, I am just saying that people shouldn't go around saying learning disabilities are an excuse for the lazy or those who don't like to work their butts off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That advice was great, not only for younger students, but for those who have completed university (read: older) as well. Hands down, my favorite part of the piece was:

 _"smart" is really just a way of saying "has invested so much time and sweat that you make it look effortless."_

All of the people that I truly admire (who subsequently I consider to be "smart") fall directly under this guise. They took the time and effort to learn how to be who they are. It's a simple idea, sure, but when it's really taken to heart it can change your entire outlook on things.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wanted to cry, somebody replied: "if you could share us some of those skills."

If it was possible we would and we could all just sit back and crib each other's notes on life. But this has to come from within you. You cannot share willpower, dedication and ambition.

There's nothing else to it: it's not as if the knowledge isn't on the internet or in books for cheap...

You can mould yourself a more conscientious personality through your own ambition and the willpower you had to start with.

<comment><USER17> But it did not come from within Inri; it seems rather clear that the author would have flunked out without R.'s coaching.

<comment><USER18> Nearly every epiphany comes with the help of other people -- either by direct instruction or observation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This line of thought very much touches on how students are badly taught, I doubt MIT are as bad as where I studied which had the scribe lecturing approach.

Eric Mazur advocates the peer instruction method of lecturing (<http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=8>)

Students should always be at the lecture with the content in advance to discuss in some form such as peer instruction. My University didn't even release a reading list of Mathematical or Computer Science material prior to the course beginning.

</comment><comment><USER20> For anybody looking for solid tips on how to apply this attitude to their academics, I've found Cal Newport's blog* an invaluable resource. It's been linked to here before, mainly for its recent posts on 'deliberate practice' versus 'flow', but he also describes many strategies and tactics that high- scoring students at Ivy League-level universities use. They've helped me invaluably, and I find it a real pity that more students don't know about this writing.

[*] <http://calnewport.com/blog/>

<comment><USER21> I'm also a huge fan of that blog. This post is a favorite:

[http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/25/case-study-how-i- got-t...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/25/case-study-how-i-got-the- highest-grade-in-my-discrete-math-class/)

It redefined for me what it means to understand math.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed reading how clearly and precisely he showed a way to master a difficult subject.

The white printer paper reminded me of that "end artificial scarcity" article.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3396669>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Quite literally this is why I love climbing mountains alone, particularly 14ers. Every time I climb one I go through a range of emotions over the 5-7 hours it takes to reach the summit and back.

When I start there is excitement as I see the peak in the distance. Then as I tire comes doubt and the fight with myself about turning around because no one would know, except me of course. The key is to never stop pushing forward. There often comes a point, especially on a new challenging mountain, where all I want to do is turn around. Instead I just focus on the next step in front of me. Step, breath, step, breath,... Then when I finally reach the top, the view is of course beautiful, but the real reward is looking back at the trail I followed and thinking that's impossible yet here I am.

</comment><comment><USER24> Great post, this happened to me in high school I got into a specialized school after being just above mediocre at a normal school. This was math/physics school in Ukraine that was basically one of 2-3 top schools in the country (whatever that means). First semester my usual mark in my math was 0/12. They only kept me because I was one of the best in programming and physics courses. Took me 5 month till I could solve one of 2 problems that they used for tests (3 hours 2 problems).

In a way it was maybe too early, in university everything was too easy (I did not go to a top school because I had trouble getting a high enough TOEFL score and wanted to start as early as I could). It took failure in graduate school, then few years of wasted 9-5 code monkey work to get me to see the light again.

</comment><comment><USER25> For me, this read like a manifesto for making your hamster wheel spin as fast as the other hamsters. The OP's core message (i.e., that intelligence is not in-born, but is earned by self-discipline and hard work) seemed very myopic to me, and bound up in the self-congratulatory world of academia. It starts from a position that rests on conclusions about the value of formal education that are no longer dogma for me.

At first, I felt depressed after reading it and all the fawning responses to it. Then, I remembered this parable about how knowledge comes from people, not places:

> "At a gathering of divines, the Mullah was seated right at the end of the > room, farthest from the place of honor. He began to tell jokes, and soon > people were crowded around him, laughing and listening. Nobody was taking > any notice of the greybeard who was giving a learned discourse. When he > could no longer hear himself speak, the president of the assembly roared > out: 'You must be silent! Nobody may talk unless he sits where the Chief > sits." "I don't know how you see it," said the Mullah, "but it seems to me > that where I sit is where the Chief sits."

After recalling this parable, I realized that I had initially misunderstood the OP's insight. His message was really the same as the Mullah's in many ways.

<comment><USER26> I'm not following your train of thought here. It seems like you have serious issues with academia, which is fine. But what does the assertion that intelligence and ability is honed by hard work and practice vs innate talent have to do with academic dogma? This is equally applicable to all human endeavor.

<comment><USER25> The debate about intelligence being a trait of nature vs. nurture is an academic debate, and not the takeaway here.

What I took away from OP's story is that his friend "R" was a more useful source of lasting wisdom than his MIT instructors. Why? Because "R" had cultivated an air of confidence, charisma, and credibility. How "R" achieved this wisdom himself is a red herring.

P.S. This also isn't about my gripes with academia. I have no problem with people squandering their time and money and lives on any variety of "rat race", including the various diversions that people consider to be an education. As I said, you have to "taste" for yourself to truly understand. I have no agenda to change anyone's mind with words. I was just sharing my own revelation about the OP's message.

Allow me to further muddy the waters with another Nasrudin parable:

An opinionated and small-minded cleric was lecturing the people in the teahouse where Nasrudin spent so much of his time.

As the hours went by, Nasrudin realized how this man's thoughts were running in patterns, how he was a victim of vanity and pride, how minor points of unrealistic intellectualism for its own sake were magnified by him and applied to every situation.

Subject after subject was discussed, and every time the intellectual cited books and precedents, false analogies and extraordinary presumptions without intuitive reality.

At length he produced a book which he had written, and Nasrudin stretched his hand forth to see it, because he was the only literate man present.

Holding it in front of his eyes, Nasrudin turned page after page, while the assembly looked on. After several minutes the itinerant cleric began to fidget. Then he could not contain himself any longer. 'You are holding my book upside down!' he screamed.

'I know,' said Nasrudin, 'Since it is one of the archetypes which seems to have produced you, it seems to be the only sensible thing to do, if one is to learn from it.'

(With credit to Idries Shah, Octagon Press)

<comment><USER26> I'm intrigued by your ideas, but you're speaking in riddles.

A con man also cultivates confidence, charisma and credibility. That doesn't make him a source of lasting wisdom.

In any case, if you admire someone as a mentor, why would their path to success be a red herring? Wouldn't you naturally be curious about how they got where they are?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder how this relates to the "entrepreneurial selection process".

According to PG [1]:

\- hard work is necessary but insufficient

\- entrepreneurs either have a very high probability of success or "epsilon".

\- it is easy to know (or find out) what group you are in.

PG makes a strong argument...but then, so does this guy from MIT. Maybe they are talking about different things? Is intelligence more important for a startup founder then it is for a kid at MIT?

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3392049>

<comment><USER28> The exact "work you need to do" is pretty much given to you when you do a degree. If you work hard on it and complete it all then it is hard not to succeed.

When doing a start-up or in the "real world" you can easily fill up time with work which is not actually directing you towards your ultimate goal(s).

<comment><USER29> When you're in school, it often doesn't _seem_ like the work is given to you. I remember knowing this, and I remember when it switched over for me in different subjects or different contexts. I'm not sure that start up world or "real world" is any different, there are just new (more difficult) contexts which can start out seeming mysterious but can become routine (often in retrospect).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This post is an eye opener, true and engaging. You can co-relate to the maths example with anything hard. You have give it time. I had a math book in school where it said, "If you love mathematics it will love you back." Actually if you look at it, for competency in any topic you have to work with it. You will eventually get it, if you are ready to work hard.

It may take some time but what the hell if you really want to understand something you got a give everything to it.

</comment><comment><USER31> That post is very good, but it could delve more on how to motivate oneself. I am therefor cross-posting my own post here, trying to add some more value to this thread. First, a disclaimer, this will probably sound too abstract and not a guide on motivating yourself to study, well, it's true, this is a comment on how to motivate yourself through your entire life, and studying is usually a big part of it.

I've met very motivated people in my life, many of which are creating amazing things and companies. The first characteristic you can see in all these people is that they all have a well defined end goal. That's the first thing everyone should look for when motivating themselves, finding an end goal. This is essentially a long term goal, not short term ones. It must be a single goal, not a set of goals, else you will loose focus. I can hear you thinking already, "but I want to do so much", but that's the beauty of this end goal, it can be broad enough to cover all your dreams. This is the hardest question to answer ("what's my purpose in this life?"), took me 15 years (from the day I started to think about this, when I was a kid) to decide on what I wanted to do with my life, but the more life experience you have, the easier it is to decide upon it. When deciding on this, make sure you don't confuse the end with the means to reach it, so don't choose a specific goal such as become a doctor, or become the president of your country. Do you want to be a doctor, or do you want to actually save lives? Do you want to be the president, or do you want to build a better country/world? A tip that can help you with not confusing the end with the means is: state your end goal in 3 words or less. I can state mine in 2.

The second characteristic motivated people have is confidence. They are usually pretty confident they can reach their end goal. This is one of the reasons people have very different goals. Many would say that making the world better is a good goal, but how many would say they got the confidence to do it? If you don't have the confidence, build it. A little example from my own experience: when a kid I was scared of skating down a big half-pipe from a park we used to go to. At that time, my goal was quite simple, have fun and skate better than my friends, but I didn't really have the confidence to accept the challenge of skating down that huge half-pipe. I built up my confidence by going down smaller ones (even broke an arm when doing that, but it didn't stop me, I learned from my mistake and started using gloves) until one day I was confident enough to try going down the large one, and so I did. That's how you build confidence.

Lastly, after choosing your goals and building the confidence to do it, you need to decide on what way to take. For any goal, there are a wide choice of ways you can take to move towards them. Some ways are easier than others, some are more interesting, some are very challenging. This is what will define your short and mid term goals. Think of them as stepping stones so you can reach the end goal. Let's go back to one of our examples, you want to save lives. You can be a doctor and save lives, you can be a scientist, finding cures to diseases in a lab and save lives, you can be a fireman and save lives or even be an investor in nanotechnology labs and save lives. Which way is more appealing to you? Let's continue, you decided that by being a doctor you will save lives. First of all, what kind of doctor do you want to be? A cardiologist? A neurosurgeon? An E.R. doctor? Well, do you need to make that decision now? Not really, you can choose it while you are at college, so let's move on. Oh, right, you must enter college and graduate before becoming a doctor. Uhm, do you want to enter the best college you can? Damn, we need to study for the SAT then (I ain't American, not really sure how college admissions really work). Anyway, this is how you decide on the way. You state your end goal and work backwards from the longest term goal to the shortest one. That's how you decide on what means you will use to reach your end goal.

Anyway, after deciding on all that, that's how you will be motivated to study for that algebra exam, or to pay attention at that physics class from that boring teacher at 6pm on a Friday. A couple important notes, I highly suggest you to never share your end goal with your peers. This usually undermines your confidence, and therefor, your motivation. Secondly, your goal, once defined shouldn't change. If it changes, it just mean you haven't found yours yet. What can change, and should change (due to changes in environment) are the means you choose to take. The means can always change, but they should always be moving you towards the end. An example, your country enters in war. This is highly disruptive to everyone's lives and this will very likely affect on the means you will choose to reach your goal, but shouldn't change your end goal.

</comment><comment><USER32> _The more I learned the more I realized that the bulk of his intelligence and his performance just came from study and practice_

Bullshit. When a 3rd grader masters differential calculus it is almost entirely hard-core innate intelligence combined with an innate ability to concentrate. No normal 3rd grade has the ability to study at that level. People who succeed often want to think it was entirely their hard work, and that lucky genes had no real influence.

Think about it.

If you take someone of average intelligence, he could spend his entire life, sweating and studying like crazy every day, and not get through MIT. Even Bill Gates went from Theory to Applied math at Harvard when he realized how difficult it was. If you think he isn't a determined, hard-working person, well... The truth is, he just didn't have the freakish IQ required for the work.

<comment><USER33> I strongly doubt that the writer meant it to be taken literally that R.R. had mastered DiffEQs in 3rd grade.

<comment><USER32> There are kids at that level at that age: No exaggeration. They are incredibly rare on earth, but when you get to MIT, they become much less rare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What are some takeaways that us people in the industry can have from this? Should we be working harder? Should we be working smarter?

<comment><USER35> Work as hard as you can, learn your own strengths and limitations, learn to enjoy your successes without getting lazy, and struggle to understand something just enough so you can ask questions about does and doesn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration : Thomas Edison

</comment><comment><USER37> What are good ways to learn how to study, though?

</comment><comment><USER38> nice post. Can anyone share the tools/hacks that he is talking about? what worked for you, and what didn't?

<comment><USER39> We are three levels removed from the original post. This all seems very meta. ;-)

Anyhow, I don't have much for tips. I was like the OP, too confident from my own good and was almost crushed by a college engineering program.

I think my main problem is I often accomplish things by with intense fits of work. It's easy to underestimate the effectiveness of the slow-and-steady approach. I'm still working on improving with that.

Regarding college, my advice is go to class, do the reading, do the assignments. If you can find a group to study and do homework with, that helps. I'd also recommend reading "Getting Things Done". The power of identifying the next task for a project is truly amazing and the "get it out of your head" ready does reduce stress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Gosh, so true! I am the 3% :)

</comment><comment><USER41> >Reddit is down.

Perfect, maybe they'll actually get studying done.</comment>