Differences Between the CLR and the JVM - <AUTHOR> http://cobra-language.com/trac/cobra/wiki/DifferencesBetweenClrAndJvm <comment><USER2> This is not "differences between CLR and JVM", but more of "why I think CLR is better than JVM".

Anyway the biggest issue I have seen in my line of work (building GPU software, and people want GPU acceleration from their language of choice) is that JVM does not provide a way to handle external resources properly. Calling garbage collection does not guarantee that the out of scope objects will be finalized. This results in either code that uses up a lot of memory or code that is very un-java like.

Yes I know try with resources exist, but the problem still exists for any temporary variables you create within the block.

If anyone here has a better solution, I am all ears.

<comment><USER3> I suggest never to call the garbage collector with the expectation that anything in particular will happen--not in CLR and not in the JVM. Also, do not use finalizers for this!

JNI and P/Invoke are not really that different except that P/Invoke is a lot easier to implement. But CLR does not know how to cleanup unmanaged resources automagically.

edit: I removed my notes about "try with resource" and AutoCloseable

<comment><USER2> Well the only solution remaining is writing C like code, where users have to allocate and free memory manually which is not a solution if you ask me.

<comment><USER4> May I interest you in Rust? [https://www.rust-lang.org/](https://www.rust- lang.org/)

<comment><USER2> We already have a wrapper for rust[1] and C++, fortran, python and various other languages[2].

I was talking about people not wanting to move away from _their_ language of choice which results in us having to try and support them as well.

[1] [https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire- rust](https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust)

[2] [https://github.com/arrayfire](https://github.com/arrayfire)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a weird collection of observations about C# and CLR intermingled without apparent rhyme or reason, although the author seems to understand that they are not interchangeable...

<comment><USER5> sk5t as in email@example.com?

<comment><USER3> Yep. Do we know each other?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > C# has partial classes > C# can have multiple classes in a single file

Perhaps there are others, but these have nothing to do with the CLR. A JVM language could easily have these features if the language supported it.

<comment><USER7> Right, that's why it says "C# has", not "CLR has".

<comment><USER8> It says both - those "C# has" bullets are under a "CLR has…" header.

<comment><USER9> > It also bleeds into differences between C# and Java whose features often > include compiler-level-only features that the underlying VirtualMachine is > not cognizant of.

aka "if the list says C#, its because it applies to C# and not CLR"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Comparing the CLR and JVMs in terms of anything other than features is bizarre.

This is because the CLR/VES and JVMs are both examples of the actual important thing about general purpose computing: _Computers can simulate anything, including "better" computers_ (that's what Universal Turing Machine means).

But, when using one computer to simulate a "better" one, you're always going to be giving up some raw performance that you don't care about in order to get some features that you desperately want (after all, you are going through the enormous trouble of designing/implementing/running a simulation of another freaking general purpose computer).

Now, "better" can mean lots of things:

• The simulated computer has unbounded memory

• The simulated computer doesn't (under|over)flow on arithmetic

• There are more people on the market that know how to program the simulated computer

• The simulated computer is more widely deployed

• The simulated computer is more secure/reliable

• The simulated computer is not controlled by a single faction

• The simulated computer readily runs programs encoded in your favorite language

• The simulated computer can easily simulate a computer that runs programs encoded in your favorite language ( _the subject of the article_ )

So, simulated computer A is strictly better than simulated computer B only in the following cases:

• A has the features that you want and B does not

• A and B both have the features that you want, but the former traded away _significantly_ less raw performance than did the latter.

Since the CLR and JVMs are so similar with respect to performance, you should only compare them in terms of the features that you want. Personally, I think that MS was wise to go for more features at the expense of some performance since that's really the whole point of a VM. But, unfortunately for them (and fans of CLR/VES/C#/VB/F#) they (historically) could not compete on features that quite a few people really care about (e.g. not perceived to be controlled by a single company, runs well on Linux, marketable in the Valley, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER11> CLR also supports proper tail calls, where the JVM does not (yet).

<comment><USER12> Though it's important to note that it's only a _suggestion_ for the CLR runtime. For instance, in .NET v2 (which as an engine also covers v3) it was rare for tail call optimization to trigger in 64-bit mode. They finally fixed this in .NET v4 to make F# viable.

[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clrcodegeneration/2009/05/1...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clrcodegeneration/2009/05/11/tail- call-improvements-in-net-framework-4/)

<comment><USER13> Though note F# avoids .tail and turns recursive calls into loops when able.

<comment><USER12> I think it's the .NET JIT that turns the self-recursive calls into loops. But yes, this is all covered in the link I included.

<comment><USER13> Well since .tail is only a hint, F# must do it in some cases. Try writing a simple recursive function in tail call style and look at the IL produced by fsc.

<comment><USER12> I was basing my statement on this line from the MSDN blog I linked:

> This is such an important concept that the JIT has a special path just for > turning functions that call themselves in a tail recursive manner into > loops.

However, it looks like (in at least some cases) that fsc unrolls the recursion prior to the JIT:

        let rec fact n acc =
            match n with
            | 0 -> acc
            | _ -> fact (n-1) (acc*n)

        .method assembly static int32  fact@1(int32 n,
                                              int32 acc) cil managed
        {
          // Code size       24 (0x18)
          .maxstack  5
          IL_0000:  ldarg.0
          IL_0001:  switch     (
                                IL_0016)
          IL_000a:  ldarg.0
          IL_000b:  ldc.i4.1
          IL_000c:  sub
          IL_000d:  ldarg.1
          IL_000e:  ldarg.0
          IL_000f:  mul
          IL_0010:  starg.s    acc
          IL_0012:  starg.s    n
          IL_0014:  br.s       IL_0000
          IL_0016:  ldarg.1
          IL_0017:  ret
        } // end of method TailTest::fact@1

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> JVM doesn't really have a notion of virtual versus non-virtual methods, it's a matter of which calling opcode you use (invokevirtual versus invokespecial).

It's also sort of missing the big difference... the JVM is generally superior in performance to the CLR, having a better JIT and better GC performance.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure I'd consider performance a big difference. Their performance is generally very close, and if you're in a situation to care enough about performance to split hairs then you really shouldn't be using a managed platform in the first place.

The _real_ big difference is that Java has an enormous open source ecosystem, whereas much of what .NET has is ports or clones of successful Java projects.

That said, I think .NET's probably the better choice for a lot of line-of- business applications simply because the tooling allows for very rapid development of that sort of stuff, and not having easy access to Hadoop or Akka really isn't much of a handicap when you're mostly just banging out a mess of business rules.

<comment><USER14> The title implies that it's comparing the runtime engines, and the performance is absolutely a major selling point of any such comparison, even if the practical effect of any difference is negligible. Ultimately, the comparison claims to be between the CLR and the JVM while it's more like between C# and Java, given how it only covers fairly superficial features at the front-end level and not what can and can't be done in VM code, let alone how different VM architectures can have major impacts on code design, etc.

<comment><USER15> I think the reason for this particular list is that it's from the standpoint of a programming language implementation team, and one that's currently working on targeting a 2nd platform.

Given that, it reads as a list of what the VM can do for you and what you'll need to do yourself in the compiler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Splitting hairs, but the CLR is just one implementation of the Virtual Execution System (VES). The spec for all of this behavior is about the VES.

</comment><comment><USER17> Having recently been tinkering with the Objective-C Runtime (writing a bridge to another language), I think it'd be interesting to extend the comparison there as well. Actually, a more systemic review of what all the various various _runtime platforms_ are capable of, apart from any particular languages implemented on those platforms, would be excellent reading.

(For just one example, I'd really like to see a comparison of the availability+overhead of various concurrency primitives in the runtimes of the JVM vs. Erlang's BEAM, vs. Obj-C's libdispatch, etc. The _languages_ on each platform emphasize concurrency differently, but often at the VM level things are more similar than people think.)

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't the JVM's notion of packages and class loaders effectively the same thing as CLR namespaces?

<comment><USER3> The most analogous thing to a JVM classloader in CLR is the AppDomain.

Java packages and .NET namespaces are largely similar (the CLR supports a superset of naming concepts like explicit implementation).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In the end it seems like CLR is superior to the JVM based on these assertions.

<comment><USER20> Except for the fact the JVM has far superior performance...

<comment><USER21> I understand JVM is battle tested on Linux, *BSD, where CLR would have to catch up, but are there any technical reasons say JVM perfs better than CLR on windows.

<comment><USER20> > but are there any technical reasons say JVM perfs better than CLR on windows

Considering the amount of man-hours that have gone into both, the exact reasons are probably hidden under a whole bunch of implementation details.

That being said, I've run benchmarks where the JVM (version 1.8) outperforms C++ and Fortran... The JVM seemingly optimizes everything, and the amount of fine tuning you can do is amazing.

I've never heard of the CLR coming close to Java performance on large-ish apps or tasks, all else being equal.

<comment><USER22> Why every Java app is so slow and memory hungry?!!

<comment><USER20> There's plenty of slow, memory hungry C++ apps too. Just enterprise software things...

<comment><USER22> Plenty != every. And comparing IntelliJ and Visual studio 201*, there is no chance Java is winning.

<comment><USER23> There are fast, optimised Java apps as well. IntelliJ is actually a good example - on my laptop it starts in a few seconds, the UI is snappy and responsive, it looks native. Back when I used Eclipse I thought the same as you; Java apps must just inherently suck. The difference in performance between IntelliJ and Eclipse put that idea to bed for good.

The real reason Java apps are often associated with being big and heavy is less to do with the technology and more to do with the fact that it's so often used for bespoke enterprise apps where there's no competition and so little incentive to optimise (vs add new features).

<comment><USER22> I agree that IntelliJ is OK comparing with other Java apps. It is never near performant. Visual Studio being 32 bit app is still much faster than 64 bit IntelliJ, given that IntelliJ can use much more memory. Every time, people complain about IntelliJ, they are told that they will need better hardware. The reason Enterprises chose Java, is because they don't care about performance that much.

<comment><USER23> Visual Studio being 32 bit is an embarrassment for Microsoft in this day and age. That's exactly the kind of technical hole that JetBrains avoided when they bet on Java to write their IDEs in. The transition for them from 32 bit to 64 bit was extremely smooth despite having a huge plugin ecosystem. I've read about the bizarre hacks people with big Visual Studio projects have to use to ensure they can actually load them, that's just not sustainable.

I haven't compared the speed of a recent VS vs IntelliJ as I use a Mac now (another benefit JB got from going with Java). But of my complaints about IntelliJ none are really related to speed.

BTW if it's typing responsiveness you're thinking of, I recall that JB had some inefficient drawing algorithms which they've optimised in very recent builds (or it might even be an experimental feature still). It could cause issues on slow graphics cards. That isn't a Java issue though, it was just IJ using inefficient graphics code.

<comment><USER22> I have used latest edition of IntelliJ on OsX. IntelliJ is acceptable but not smooth at all considering that I have 16g ram with 1tb Ssd. And font rendering due to the jvm swing bug is hurting eyes. It is far fetched to say the experience is any pleasant. To fix the issue of Java, jetbrain bundles their custom built jdk

<comment><USER23> I use IntelliJ on the same setup and don't see any font issues. I haven't noticed any lack of smoothness either, but perhaps we have different standards for that.

<comment><USER22> Another important performance issue is related to Java's handling about generic type erasure and auto boxing. This is one of the biggest design issue comparing with C#'s handling. So manipulating bytes is a pain. And there is even no unsigned byte. Benchmark does not represent real world use case. I don't feel Java is much faster than Python or Ruby. But there is too much boilerplate code comparing with C#. The pure Java language is clean. But with Spring framework and various Apache common, endless different logging framework, it makes the language such a hassle to deal with. Just my 2 cents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's the size of a typical CLR and JVM?

</comment><comment><USER25> There's nothing stopping you from declaring additional static classes inside a class in Java. You can definitely declare multiple classes in a single file.

<comment><USER12> That's not even close to the same thing. C# allows declaration of types within other types, but it also allows declaration of multiple top-level types within a single compilation unit. And with partial classes, it also allows declaration of a single type across multiple compilation units.

<comment><USER25> The point that was made is that multiple (static) classes cannot be declared in the same file, which is 100% false. I'm not arguing that C# is functionally equivalent to Java. There was no mention of "compilation unit" or "partial classes", which are a completely different subject.

It doesn't matter whether the additional classes defined in the file are top level or not, they're still classes that can be used independently.

<comment><USER12> You are being disingenuous. "File" is layman-speak for "compilation unit", so it is not a "completely different subject". You cannot declare multiple top- level types in a single compilation unit in Java. Yes, you can create static types within another type. However, those are not top-level types; they are scoped within the type they are declared in.

Let's just put it this way. Would a Java programmer, by way of normal operation, implement a project with a few Java files, each of which contains a type with several static types internal to it, and where those internal static types are in fact the main types of the program? If they wouldn't, then there is no equivalency, because this _is_ something you see in C# code bases _all the time_.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Blame me: Mozy scraps unlimited backups | Deep Tech - CNET News - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20030096-264.html <comment><USER2> Not cool. This is the reason I went with Mozy. How is this hard to predict? It's not rocket surgery.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Suggestions for other unlimited, Mac-friendly online back ups? Crashplan? Carbonite?</comment>


8pen + Leap Motion - <AUTHOR> http://www.8pen.com/leap

<comment><USER2> Reminds me of Palm's 'Graffiti', both in execution and scope: it's a stop-gap solution, possibly to a problem that no longer exists.

IMO, their three suggested use-cases are quite flimsy.

"...enable surgeons to take notes during an operation without removing their gloves" \- They already can, it's called dictation which is subsequently transcribed by a medical secretary whose time is far less expensive.

"check recipes while cooking without spilling flour on the keyboard" \- touchless navigation of a pre-chosen recipe, maybe. Actually stopping cooking to search for a recipe/technique that you're unsure about? I would rather quickly wash my hands and use a more traditional input method to find what I want.

"search for TV programs without leaving their couch" \- Given the range of the Leap device this really doesn't make sense - are they envisaging a wireless version you take with you to the couch/coffee table. Some sort of device that can 'remotely control' your television...

I still think Leap Motion is great technology, but still missing a decent application.

<comment><USER3> I believe the best application for this will be virtual reality headsets - such as Oculus Rift, where you can have virtual screens but having a keyboard would not be practical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems pretty lousy. No one wants to hold their arm up in the air tracing out full letters of each word like that. It will get tired.

They don't even let the demo guy keep his elbow on the table, something you should generally do for any gesture input mechanism you are writing that takes a while, even if it means they will just be using a short arc of space.

There are great uses for gesture tracking techniques. Heck, countless people love the various games out there that use motion control, and there's even more industrial use for 3D stuff and posing characters. This is not a great use.

</comment><comment><USER5> When alternative text input comes up I always feel compelled to share Dasher[1]. Dasher is designed with accessible computing in mind, and can be driven using a wide variety of input method.

The project appears to be abandoned - so no leap support - though the leap would be an excellent fit for the interface, minus the gorilla arm problem.

[1] [http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/](http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/)

<comment><USER6> I remember Dasher. It's amazing the first few times you try it. I wish I could use it on my phone.

Edit: apparently they have an Android version now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Macbook Wheel is much easier to use. [http://www.theonion.com/video/apple- introduces-revolutionary...](http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces- revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is going nowhere. It looks like there's too much overhead to get anywhere near as proficient as the guy in the video.

Leap Motion in general is awesome technology, but it's going to remain grounded without a practical application.

<comment><USER9> I use the 8pen android keyboard. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but not more than a couple of days. For short strings of text, the learning curve is fine.

<comment><USER10> I tried to like it. Used it for three months, I think. Never really sunk in the way I would have liked to and clever auto-complete works a lot faster for me these days than 8pen ever could.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 8pen is neat, but i'm still not entirely convinced it can be that fast an input method. I've started using it semi-recently (last month or so), as it seemed better than using a touchscreen keyboard (swype is an okay solution, but I prefer to avoid imprecise input when possible).

I'm getting faster, but it seems that I will need to dedicate a fair bit more time to it before it will be that practical as an input method.

I really wish companies would just continue making nice phones with hard keyboards, would make my life easier. :(

</comment><comment><USER12> I think the promotional video should show something a little more useful than air-writing. One could have typed (or spoken) the same text in a fraction of the time. How about drawing or painting?

<comment><USER13> It's a promotion for the text input technology (8pen), not the LeapMotion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It may very well have its applications but voice would be a better interaction than swinging the finger in the air to get the word.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why is the guy in the video writing stuff by waving his finger around to make cryptic symbols when there is a perfectly good keyboard only inches away!

Seriously though, I agree there are practical uses for this - such as TV input or some sort of touchless kiosk (in a hospital maybe?). The video just did a poor job of showing what's what.

<comment><USER16> Or in game consoles [http://8pen.com/joysticks#video](http://8pen.com/joysticks#video)

<comment><USER17> Your link works, but you can't play the video. Go to [http://8pen.com/joysticks](http://8pen.com/joysticks) and press the button instead :) Pretty bad implementation on their web developers part

<comment><USER16> It works for me:)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks significantly slower and RSI must be terrible. I would prefer to draw shapes on flat surface with my wrists resting.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can write on keyboard , why should I wave my fingers? Need more practical application. It's really fast .

</comment><comment><USER20> What if we embraced ASL? (random thought)

<comment><USER21> Aside from a lack of range, I doubt the Leap can handle it. From my experience it routinely treats fingers held together as a single "pointable" instance. There will be a good number of ASL conditions it won't recognize.

<comment><USER5> It also cannot deal with occluded fingers, which also makes things tricky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This would be a neat way to search for television programs from the couch, or to write notes during surgery without having to remove gloves, or to search for recipes with the hands full of flour :)

There are definitely many applications for that technology!

</comment><comment><USER22> How is writing 10 wpm by waving your finger in the air a good thing?

<comment><USER23> I type much slower on my phone than on a keyboard, but it's clearly still useful.

I have a music recording studio set up at home. I can imagine some scenarios where it might be easier for me to wave my hand for some brief computer interaction than to reposition myself for regular keyboard-typing and mouse- moving.

But, _shrug_ , in any event, I think it's neat to see LeapMotion technology being brought to more applications. Maybe some of them will prove silly, but at least people are trying to figure out how to use it, which is more than I can say for myself thus far...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting idea, but not impressed that even in the teaser video there is a visible typo made ("Thouchless") in the single sentence.

</comment><comment><USER25> My wrist is throbbing after watching this video.

"Write slower than ever and guarantee RSI. All for 3 easy payments of $19.95!"

</comment><comment><USER26> I love cool tech as much as the next guy but that looks stupid. It takes way too long to write anything and it looks like a lot of work.

</comment><comment><USER27> Pure awesomeness!

</comment><comment><USER28> "This video is private."</comment>


Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/silicon-valley-has-an-empathy-vacuum?intcid=mod-latest <comment><USER3> People had voted for Trump not because of lack of empathy, but because they were fed up with being patronized, negged, treated like children, observed, modeled and disempowered, belittled and generally discounted.

And this article is not helping it.

<comment><USER4> And why were they patronized and treated like children again?

Oh, perhaps it was because they claimed Obama wasn't born in the US. Or because they denied global warming. Or because they hate Mexicans and Muslims.

In short, because they bought in to the steaming pile of bullshit that is the right wing media echo chamber.

When they think like children, talk like children, and act like children, they shouldn't be surprised that they're treated like children.

<comment><USER5> What you fail to comprehend is that your contemptuous attitude is the _very_ thing that isn't working anymore. In fact, the more you crank up the rhetoric, the more you will be ignored.

If this election has taught us anything, it is that if we continually scream at and belittle adults, they will eventually ignore us. Every epithet, every word of shame-speak will then fall on deaf ears. We will find ourselves in the very position we placed them in: powerless and irrelevant.

You should be asking yourself: _Why_ was the birther and the racial element so prominent during the Obama years? These things do not happen in a vacuum. They have a root cause, and it is not, as you might conclude, because every Trump voter is a racist, a bigot, or stupid. Think more deeply.

I might also add that by pigeon-holing the entire body who elected Trump into the category of ignorant racist bigots, you are committing the very act of stereo-typing you are decrying. You are discrediting yourself by accusing people of things they know they are not guilty of, and reinforcing your own irrelevance. If empathy is your concern, perhaps you should start with your own.

<comment><USER4> _" What you fail to comprehend is that your contemptuous attitude is the very thing that isn't working anymore."_

You must be kidding me. What do you think Trump himself was doing? He is the epitome of an obnoxious screaming asshole, and he won! His approach clearly works.

It's a pity that the Democrats didn't have an anti-Trump on their side. Maybe he could have been the kryptonite that cost Trump the election. As it was, the old polite, wet rag politics that Clinton represented was defeated. (That's not to say that I'd want an anti-Trump as President either, or that I like screaming assholess, as long as they're on the left, but a more confrontational, "tell it like it is" style is clearly what gets media attention and is attractive to a lot of voters.)

In the future, the left needs to be more outspoken and confrontational towards the right, not more compromising and conciliatory as Obama has been, because the latter only leads towards moving the party further to the right.

Instead, the Democrats need to further differentiate themselves from the Republicans, and move further to the left. Otherwise they're going to keep being seen as Republican-lite, and few are going to get excited enough to vote for them (rather merely than voting against an even worse Republican option).

Sadly, given how the Democrats have behaved in the past, it's more likely that as a response to losing to Trump, the Democrats are just going to move even further to the right, in an effort to capture the "independent" vote (who were right-wing enough to vote for Trump this time around) instead of trying to win over the many more people who didn't even bother to vote because they were disillusioned with both the Republicans and Democrats.

<comment><USER5> You are making an essential error: that of false association. You are equating the behavior of a candidate, and of the candidate's most vocal supporters, with the general demeanor of the people who voted for him. If it were only the vocal or even ardent Trump supporters who voted, he would have lost. He didn't lose because the majority who voted for him were silent, in most cases brow- beaten into silence.

You are also neglecting the fact that Trump won with only 1% more of the white vote than Romney. This was not nearly enough to win. Trump won because of the minority vote. Compared to Romney he won 8% more Latino votes, 7% more black votes, 11% more Asian votes, and 1% other minorities. This statistic does much to counteract the hysterical white resurgence rhetoric. (Source: NYT Exit Polls).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This Neo-Luddism feels really misplaced. Do you know why some people are getting the short end of the stick? It's because the educational system has failed them by wasting their youth and giving nothing in return. But I can't blame a guy who founded a SV-centric blog to see all problems through a SV- centric lens.

<comment> noir-york > It's because the educational system has failed them by wasting their youth > and giving nothing in return

Ah, the deserving poor!

Some never consider getting an education because it was not something to aspire to, let alone spending enough time in the system to fail them.

Maybe these people are getting the short end of the stick not because they were idle, but because their family were too busy working three jobs trying to make ends meet, maybe because their mother wanted to read to her children but was working some late to pay off medical bills, etc.

A strong welfare state and job security can break the cycle, but who is willing to pay - in taxes - for that?

<comment><USER6> > A strong welfare state and job security can break the cycle, but who is > willing to pay - in taxes - for that?

Don't get me wrong, I fully agree. But I think that if I were to pick a single element of a welfare state that can bootstrap the whole thing, I'd pick education. It seems like a lot of the largest country growths were bootstrapped by betting on the educational system (Finland, Singapore and South Korea come to mind).

<comment><USER7> I really really disagree with this.

I think the evidence is against you. The economics research shows that the 'best returns' come from early education, with diminishing returns the further progress is made.

It is counter intuitive I know, but mass education is similar to macro economics. Helping everybody can help nobody.

South Korea and Japan put a lot of focus on education, work insane hours for comparatively low pay, pay stupid rents and are also in a wage stagnation.

Put it like this:

You get to a middle income economy by doing 1 thing. You get to a high income economy by doing another thing. It is unlikely getting to a very high income economy is accomplished by replicating the former process that took you up a step originally.

<comment><USER6> > I think the evidence is against you. The economics research shows that the > 'best returns' come from early education, with diminishing returns the > further progress is made.

There isn't a single country where majority of the population does some sort of research. And guess what, that's what people in the future will have to be doing for their jobs.

> It is counter intuitive I know, but mass education is similar to macro > economics. Helping everybody can help nobody.

You need a new system though. Fundamentally I think that one of the issues of the system is a lack of exploration. Like there are so many areas where you can go to extreme detail but people don't explore them because the educational system limits your worldview by limiting your choices. I guess it does get slightly better in college but not by much.

> South Korea and Japan put a lot of focus on education, work insane hours for > comparatively low pay, pay stupid rents and are also in a wage stagnation.

I think that some of these issues are somewhat cultural though. To me it feels like both SK and Japan still cling to old social structures to a detriment of the society. The recent president Park scandal highlights quite a few of these issues.

<comment><USER7> > that's what people in the future will have to be doing for their jobs.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Most post-2008 grads today are living hand to mouth in the cities. They are the new working poor. This isn't going to change. The market is saturated.

It is just that nobody wants to believe this. Not the teachers, not the parents, not the students.

> Fundamentally I think that one of the issues of the system is a lack of > exploration. Like there are so many areas where you can go to extreme detail > but people don't explore them because the educational system limits your > worldview by limiting your choices.

We certainly agree on that.

Interdisciplinary pollination is all but forgotten. There's a cheap source of growth right there and few are picking up those dollar bills on the street.

If we lived in a world of economic growth (I'm convinced we're not, you see. I think ex-computation there is no real growth in the developed world for a long time) then we should see a flowering of new fields, new explorations, new businesses. What the GDP statistics say is only tangentially connected to reality.

The solution I would throw out is the use of AI, particularly agent based AI capable of nudging researchers and regular people along interesting lines of inquiry. I know that sounds vague but unless you think radical government reform is possible (you know: the other half of the workforce that has never seen genuine automation)... Almost any reform would probably spark a civil war.

What solution would you put forward?

> I think that some of these issues are somewhat cultural though. To me it > feels like both SK and Japan still cling to old social structures to a > detriment of the society.

Maybe. Maybe they're caught in the same trap we are.

I think 'Japan' is our future unless we solve for X here. They've been caught in a stagnation for decades. They don't have much social unrest, I doubt the United States would be so lucky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> noir-york On one hand you have increasing immigration increasing the supply of labour. On the other hand, you have increasing automation reducing the demand for labour. And in the pinched middle you have falling wages. This cannot end well.

I don't know which is the most dangerous scenario: the working classes taking it out on immigrants, or the working classes making common cause with immigrant labour against a Victorian economy of squalor, ill-health and poverty (which is good, but dangerous it had to get to this point) and turning revolutionary. The latter is a failure of politics.

<comment><USER8> Yeah I agree.

At the moment the anger felt by people who fear for their jobs seems to be focused on immigration and free trade deals.

Immigration because people fear that somebody will come from another country and take their job, for less money, free trade deals because people fear their job will be outsourced to somebody cheaper in another country.

I believe this was a primary driver behind Brexit/Trump.

At some point these people will start to understand that it isn't just the immigrants threatening their jobs, it is also the programmers at home who automate them.

<comment> noir-york > believe this was a primary driver behind Brexit/Trump.

Yep. The feeling of being forgotten, of not being in control of one's life.

> At some point these people will start to understand that it isn't just the > immigrants threatening their jobs, it is also the programmers at home who > automate them.

Exactly. And once that anger turns inward, it can tear society apart.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's not a private company's job to have empathy for the people affected by progress. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of empathy. But petitioning private companies to change their ways will get you exactly nowhere unless it comes with a corresponding profit motive.

It's the government's job to redistribute wealth and income to the needy, and provide safety nets and retraining opportunities for people whose industries have been disrupted. Not Silicon Valley businesses.

<comment><USER10> Right on. Silicon Valley may have an empathy vacuum/problem, but let's place the blame for this problem where it really lies: government policy makers. They are the ones that have watched globalization gut the middle class, while sitting back and collecting their fat stock grants and salaries for sitting on the board of the companies that are the beneficiaries of these policies.

We need universal basic income to soften the impact of the rise of automation in the workforce. The problem is that the same people influencing government to write policies that are clearly against the middle class also control the media, and they seem to have just convinced a majority of US voters to vote for a government that will create more income inequality by cutting taxes for the wealthy.

In a masterful stroke, now the policy makers pulling the strings are using the media to blame silicon valley for creating these problems. As if Facebook's news feed is the sole cause of the decimation of the middle class that has been happening for about 40 years now...

<comment><USER11> > We need universal basic income to soften the impact of the rise of > automation in the workforce.

People need to feel useful. Universal basic income doesn't give that to people by itself.

<comment><USER12> True, but neither does a job.

<comment><USER11> With a job, at least you've an outside chance of feeling useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > However, when you are a data-driven oligarchy like Facebook, Google, Amazon, > or Uber, you can't really wash your hands of the impact of your algorithms > and your ability to shape popular sentiment in our society. We are not just > talking about the ability to influence voters with fake news. If you are > Amazon, you have to acknowledge that you are slowly corroding the retail > sector, which employs many people in this country. If you are Airbnb, no > matter how well-meaning your focus on delighting travellers, you are also > going to affect hotel-industry employment.

Yes, it is not fair if a small part of the population reaps all the benefits of hundreds of years of progress, while the majority has to fear for losing their jobs.

A lack of fairness means a lack of empathy.

<comment> hash-set Is Amazon really corroding the retail sector or is brick and mortar largely just obsolete?

<comment><USER14> Both. Amazon corrodes the power of brick and mortar by obsoleting it. Why go to a store limited by shelf space when you can shop at one with essentially infinite inventory?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Silicon Valley threatens the majority of blue collar workers last. This is Moravec's Paradox. The kinds of jobs blue collar labour does flexibly and in situ are extremely difficult for robots and AI to accomplish. The jobs that are rote and can be performed in a centralized production _have already been automated or outsourced to China!_

That is why blue collar workers are more worried about migration and globalization than computing technology. The 'robots' that threaten their jobs are other people.

It is the white collar jobs Silicon Valley is destroying. Journalists, Accountants, Lawyers and many more to come.

Solution definitely isn't education, or at least not education as it is classically understood.

Korea and Japan have already tried the education route and they have met diminishing returns. Go there if you want insane working hours for low pay and pointless competitions.

Here's a crazy idea.

Maybe young people should leave the universities and exit the cities altogether. They could live in small communities in the countryside and be ramen profitable. Integrating into the broader economy could be accomplished by traveling to like-minded communities to avail of services there e.g. an artist's colony, a computer person colony, etc

I think this is happening already but it's flying under the radar of journalists as some kind of Timothy Leary move.

</comment><comment><USER15> There's a lot of clear failures of technology, especially coming out of Silicon Valley, to mesh well with society which highlights how difficult these companies have grasping real people and their emotions.

Security vs. privacy is the big one for me. Companies like Google try to treat "privacy" like it's an ACL: You either make something private or public, and if it's public, we can disseminate it. In reality, people do lots of things publicly within a narrow scope of attention. I post stuff on roleplaying websites which are publicly available to the Internet, but I wouldn't point them out to the people I work with, and they'd never see them, normally. I don't want Facebook or anyone else recommending them to my coworkers just because I may have people from both of my social circles friended on Facebook.

With Silicon Valley companies hiring for "culture fit" over other qualifications, they surround themselves with long hours with only people who think like they do. Since a lot of people move to work in Silicon Valley, they're likely more distant from siblings and parents than the average worker as well. It's unsurprising folks have a difficult time understanding everyone else's problems, because they experience them so little. I've long wished a few Google designers would be forced to help some senior citizens figure out how to use Gmail.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Productivity is at record levels, innovation has never been faster, and yet at the same time, we have a falling median income and we have fewer jobs. People are falling behind because technology is advancing so fast and our skills and organizations aren't keeping up." It is, he said, "the great paradox of our era."

While I believe this is true, and understand why it is a problem, I do not think there is anything that can be done about it. Now that billions of people are online, Moore's law has made hardware cheap and fast, and anyone can build a piece of software with a chance of viral growth (if lucky), we have to establish that we are in a winner-take-all environment. This is simply the power law at work.

I would also say that we are without a doubt, in the early phases of this period - going forward, any job that can be automated will be, eventually. If my company can front the capital expenditures to build/buy a robot that can do my job for $4/hour (with out lunch and coffee breaks) instead of $35/hour w/ benefits, my new salary should be $4/hour per basic economics of supply and demand.

Is this a huge problem, absolutely. Is it going away - not a chance. The writing is on the wall for a lot of repetitive tasks - the best thing everyone can do is vote for people who want to improve education, starting and elementary level in the US and push more kids in the STEM careers. If you want to contribute on an individual level, consider tutoring / mentoring younger kids in your free time. Show them that instead of pissing their entire youthful lives away scrolling through the useless feeds that are facebook, instagram and/or snapchat, they could actually build their own facebook/snapchat.

<comment><USER17> One of the things I think we forget about here, where most of us are smarter than the average bear, is that there are a lot of people that aren't so smart. If you have an 80 IQ, you might be able to learn how to code, but it's going to be really hard and you're never going to be as good as somebody with more mental resources to start with. My mother works as a special ed teacher - <USER2> main concern is trying to get her kids reading and doing math within one or two grade-levels of where they ought to be, and with a lot of effort and one- on-one work, she sometimes succeeds. Some years, 25% of the entire grade will be on her case-load.

A hundred years ago, these people could do pretty alright working on the farm. Fifty years ago, they could do real well working in the mills. Today, they struggle to subsist on WalMart and McDonald's wages. Already, we're automating those jobs away.

<comment><USER16> I agree in spirit, but I think most people are capable of obtaining an STEM degree (you're being too pessimistic). You just have to work a bit harder than say you work for an art history degree (and you certainly come out of college less well-rounded, which is also a huge problem).

There are always going to be good jobs that don't require college degrees. Plumbers can make $100K a year if they're good and work hard. I'd rather be a plumber making $100K any day then working for $25/bucks per hour trying to pay off my $180K in student loans from a B+ list law school. (a lot of people are in this position)

If you can get through law school, you can certainly get through any STEM degree.

<comment><USER18> You're very optimistic. I suspect there are _tons_ of people who can not get through law school _or_ get an art history degree!

I've spent quite a chunk of my life around people who are somewhere on the lower half of the intelligence curve. I grew up in poor neighborhoods, and attended a pentecostal church for much of my life (which at least over here contains the full spectrum of 'classes', but skews working class).

Lots of these people just cannot handle the level of abstraction (or whatever the thing is they need) to obtain even the easiest of college degrees.

On the other hand, I also learned that 'smart' is a very multi-dimensional thing and from their perspective 'academic me' is a complete idiot in so many ways. I'm just saying that the particular skills needed for (most of?) college are skills that a lot of people don't have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> ...as you see by the rank of such articles here on HN.

For real, I'm not saying SV is doing enough but taking SV as the prime example of everything bad in capitalism has a weird touch as well..

<comment><USER20> I realized we were doing another one of _those_ articles when I hit "Others have decided that the real villains are Silicon Valley giants, especially Twitter, Facebook, and Google, for spreading fake news stories that vilified Clinton and helped elect an unpopular President."

That's not a Valley opinion, it's a traditional-media opinion. In my experience, Facebook and SV types more generally are acutely aware of how unhelpful and oversimplified the 'fake news' panic is. Facebook's "news" sidebar sucks, sure, but they can't actually stop people from sharing crappy, dishonest information back and forth. And the lines between fake and misleading and simply uninformed are blurry - anything that stops fake news will have people screaming censorship in a heartbeat.

This feels an awful lot like the usual gimmick of "SV is powerful, therefore all societal problems should be solved by SV - even the ones we blame it for!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think it runs a bit deeper than "Silicon Valley" which makes for a nice headline and is the new scape goat. My opinion:

1\. computer science has an ethics problem due to the lack of modernization of and membership in professional societies like the ACM.

2\. Technology moves so fast that the ethical dilemmas created by it aren't explored and debated quickly enough, nor are the long term impacts able to be understood in time.

3\. We fail to learn from our history and our own writings. Seriously, science fiction writers of the 60s and 70s have explored so many issues we grapple with today in such incredible detail yet we haven't synthesized this beyond Asimov's laws.

</comment><comment><USER22> > If you are Amazon, you have to acknowledge that you are slowly corroding the > retail sector, which employs many people in this country. If you are Airbnb, > no matter how well-meaning your focus on delighting travellers, you are also > going to affect hotel-industry employment.

> Otto, a Bay Area startup that was recently acquired by Uber, wants to > automate trucking—and recently wrapped up a hundred-and-twenty-mile > driverless delivery of fifty thousand cans of beer between Fort Collins and > Colorado Springs. From a technological standpoint it was a jaw-dropping > achievement, accompanied by predictions of improved highway safety. From the > point of view of a truck driver with a mortgage and a kid in college, it was > a devastating "oh, shit" moment. That one technical breakthrough puts nearly > two million long-haul trucking jobs at risk.

Ok, and? What exactly do you expect these companies to do? Is it Otto's responsibility to provide new jobs to all the displaced truck drivers? Or should they just shut themselves down, letting all the benefits of self- driving trucks come to naught?

> we need to learn about those who are threatened by it.

I don't see what the author expects to happen here. To the extent that people get screwed over by the free market and we, as a society, want to do something about that, that's clearly the government's job.

And if people vote for representatives that oppose stronger social safety nets, as people literally just did a couple weeks ago(1), then apparently our country -- not Silicon Valley, but the whole voting populace -- is not interested in providing additional assistance to those hurt by technological advancement.

1 - with the obvious caveat about the popular vote

<comment><USER23> Exactly. These are the same truck drivers who have overwhelmingly conservative political views.

If they don't want to help themselves then I'll take the tax breaks and avoid being affected by their self inflicted pain.

<comment><USER24> Maybe they view that "helping themselves" is stealing from their children's future with unsustainable debt and taxes?

<comment><USER22> Helping people back on their feet, if anything, should result in a stronger fiscal future, not a weaker one. Just letting people languish in unemployment tends to result in people acquiring physical health problems, mental health problems, even drug dependency. And then those people get stuck on the disability rolls, draining taxes rather than contributing them.

Just look at all the stories around opioid abuse throughout rural white areas/the rust belt; you think those places are setting us up for a stronger fiscal situation in the future?

<comment><USER24> I would have to say I haven't seen anything from either party that would address any of that, directly or indirectly. The problems you describe have been ignored for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't see how the things he discusses have to do with empathy in Silicon Valley. Driverless trucks, for instance, have nothing to do with empathy and a lot to do with simple economics. Someone is going to build them if they can make a buck doing it, and empathy isn't going to somehow stop that.

On the other hand, I do think companies like Facebook and Google and the news sites (or whoever makes their comment systems) can do a lot about "the impact of their algorithms and their ability to shape popular sentiment in our society," as he alludes to in the article but fails to explore in any depth.

What if there were simply richer tools for users to rate things? For instance, to tag a post as "+1 nuanced" or "-3 overly divisive" or "-2 unsupported by evidence" or "-3 inappropriately political" or "-5 bigoted", and then have algorithms (and user interfaces) that deal with this additional information in ways that actually are effective while also being careful not to discourage those who don't like getting downvoted? (e.g. only show downvotes to users a month after they appear so the user is less likely to emotionally respond, but still gets feedback as to why their microphone is getting the volume turned down)

Then of course give users tools to control what they see....e.g. hide (or suppress) divisive political content, etc.

There are any number of things that can be done to tone down the hateful divisive rhetoric that pervades online social spaces, and lets the insightful, nuanced content float to the top. Is anyone doing this? Are they even experimenting with it? Are they so scared that users will run away if there are too many options? (you know, you can always put them behind a "show all ratings options" setting that by default is off)

This isn't censorship, this is just putting into place things that have in place in the real world for millennia, but that disappear in naive approaches to bringing conversations online. It won't be perfect initially, but it can at least be a lot better.

<comment><USER11> > I don't see how the things he discusses have to do with empathy in Silicon > Valley. Driverless trucks, for instance, have nothing to do with empathy and > a lot to do with simple economics. Someone is going to build them if they > can make a buck doing it, and empathy isn't going to somehow stop that.

But whether or not you consider what happens to the people who used to drive those trucks and what they, their families, and their communities are going to do when they no longer have work has everything to do with empathy.

<comment><USER25> Ok, tell me what good it is going to do to consider those things. Are you suggesting that if we all collectively decide that building such things hurts people, no one will build them? And that such an idea is remotely realistic?

<comment><USER18> Another option would be to commit to setting aside some of the profits for a fund of some kind to address the externalities in whichever way seems most effective at reducing the negative effects. I'm not saying I expect a company to do this, but why can it not be considered an option?

<comment><USER26> Because in a competitive marketplace the company that doesn't do that has an edge over one that does.

I don't think it's Silicon Valley that lacks empathy, I think it's the system that rewards profits and growth over anything else...

<comment><USER18> We're still humans within this system, and there are a number of examples of companies that do things differently and stay in business.

To be clear, I agree with what you're saying as an _observation_ of how things work much of the time. I also don't think Silicon Valley is any better or worse than the rest of the 'system' (honestly I don't know).

But generally speaking I'm inclined to believe that 'this is just how things are' is one of the main reason why things don't change. Things don't have to be the way they are and it takes individuals working within (as well as outside) the systems that are in place to change this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you are Edison ELC, you have to acknowledge that you are slowly corroding the candle-making sector, which employs many people in this country.

</comment><comment><USER28> > The streets of San Francisco—spiritually part of the Valley—feel less > crowded. Coffee-shop conversations are hushed. Everything feels a little > muted, an eerie quiet broken by chants of protesters. It even seems as if > there are more parking spots.

Or maybe it was just Thanksgiving week?

</comment><comment><USER29> This article is the embodiment of the South Park, San Francisco stereotype of the guy enjoying the smell of his own farts.

The idea that they might be living in a bubble that is totally out of sync with 95% of America (geographically speaking) is unfathomable to an elitist.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wow, I read this, and thought "hey, maybe there is an opportunity here... another problem to solve, to make society better".

I'm a bit surprised by the amount of denial and "not my problem" comments (or perhaps "what problem?" comments).

Yes, it's a very difficult problem -- maybe more on par with a Mars mission than the next chat app. Was hoping to see more interest and ideas. I don't think it's a sign of weakness to show empathy, or to advocate for the greater good vs. greater efficiency. Or try for both.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm just going to cut right through this from the start.

Unlike most of my tech friends, I actually have tried to reconnect outside our privileged circles (and if you don't think that's what they are, you're kidding yourself). And you know what I found? A lot of echoes of the personal past.

Lets face it. A lot of techies — engineers specifically — are who they are because they were socially rejected in younger years. And you know what? When you try to reconnect with normal people, you will find that the whole popularity complex never really ended. The difference now is that you are economically on-top with all the abuses that that tempts.

Are you prepared to be othered and ostracized again? Because that's what's going to likely to happen. But I think you will find that the ordinary people have dignity too, and that there is validity to many other paths that don't go through the worldview of science and technology. And yes, it will lend credence to those "feels" things, like the Facebook timeline disaster mentioned in the article.

Just don't expect any fairness or warm, loving reconciliation is all I'm saying. This isn't some feel-good Hollywood movie. Don't expect as the hippies say that we are all one people, veda-this, spirituality that, blah blah blah, because we are quite frankly not.

But that doesn't diminish the importance of bridging the empathy gap, especially if you want to design and build things for other people, including yourselves.

<comment> noir-york I was the first in my (working class) family to go to university, followed by my younger siblings. We may not now move in the same circles as the other children of the neighbours on our street, but we sure don't patronize them, think them any less, or dismiss their and so many other people's genuine concerns be it immigration, or crime, or job security. Unlike certain media and others who claim to be left-wing in the outlook, but may as well be from a different planet.

No one is asking anyone to hang out or connect with "normal" people, but we can surely start with the generally valid assumption that most people act in good faith and not dismissing anyone as being "deplorable" or any of the -isms.

<comment><USER32> > we sure don't patronize them, think them any less, or dismiss their and so > many other people's genuine concerns be it immigration, or crime, or job > security

great! perhaps you have been raised well and have managed to recover from emotional trauma you may have experienced in life so far. some people unfortunately have not been so lucky.

<comment> noir-york Yes, we were lucky and raised well.

> have managed to recover from emotional trauma

????

<comment><USER32> > you _may have_ experienced

no amount of good parenting can protect us from real badness

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > There will be a recognition that if we don't have control of the nation > state, we should reduce the nation state's power over us

Does this mean he's defending separatism?

Am I reading this wrong?

</comment><comment><USER34> It is disgusting that this newyorker article is flagged. HN has really jumped the shark, if this isnt on topic nothing is.

<comment><USER35> There's been a lot of that going around the past couple of months. You feel pretty strongly about it. What makes this submission particularly on topic? Note that even though it was flagged (but not killed), it's garnered 129 comments so far. Reviewing the discussion, what in particular do you find substantive and civil about it? Why do you think users flagged this submission?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Not sure why the post title is different, article title is "SILICON VALLEY HAS AN EMPATHY VACUUM"

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies, that was a mistake on my part when I submitted.</comment></comment>


Racial Fault Lines in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://blog.devcolor.org/racial-fault-lines-in-silicon-valley-390cd0e4a6dc#.m5yeca7q8 <comment><USER2> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11772294](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11772294)

<comment><AUTHOR> Whats up with HN's link deduper? It seems to randomly not work.</comment></comment>


Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied On Porn Habits To Discredit 'Radicalizers' - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/nsa-porn-muslims_n_4346128.html <comment><USER2> This reminds me of a link I found while browsing Woz's tweets several months ago. [https://twitter.com/stevewoz/status/364464427736633344](https://twitter.com/stevewoz/status/364464427736633344)

It was a video about a possible attempted 'setup' of someone named Luke Rudkowski who runs an investigative/dissenter/truthseeker blog.

Someone claiming to be a whistleblower had emailed Rudkowski's personal account from an anonymous Tor address supposedly having information that might interest him but attached were graphic images of CP. He was overseas at the time so if he had happened to get detained in customs while reentering the US and had his browser cache searched he'd be in some serious shit. Apparently he'd been detained in the past and had his computer searched.

A nefarious organization could use this method and tip off customs or local law enforcement to discredit a 'radicalizer.' Very scary stuff.

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of the German, so called "State Trojan", a Trojan used by the German domestic state police to search targets computers, that has the capabilities to alter the and upload to the targets computer in a way, that the messing with this computer cannot (in reasonable time) be found in court.

So the police could plant evidence, it then uses. This was the reason our supreme court forbid the usage of these tools, as contra to our constitution.

Non the less, the police and right-wing politicians lobby very hard for the use of these tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Remember the unfortunately named us congressman Anthony Weiner?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Weiner_sexting_scandal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Weiner_sexting_scandals)

Ever wonder if maybe _he_ didn't accidentally post that dick pic to his political twitter feed? That maybe someone else who knew he had another private twitter account which he used to perv out with women online was responsible for putting that pic out on the public twitter feed?

Weiner lost his congressional seat in the fallout and his replacement, Robert Turner, is a republican. The first republican to hold that seat in roughly 80 years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_9th_congressional...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_9th_congressional_district#List_of_representatives)

<comment><USER5> Yeah I'm afraid that doesn't make any sense. Why would he admit to it? And then admit to it again.... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Weiner_sexting_scandal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Weiner_sexting_scandals#2013_mayoral_race_and_second_scandal)

<comment><USER6> Because oftentimes denying it just makes people think you did the act all the more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Everyone should remember how the FBI tried to blackmail Martin Luther King.

[http://studentactivism.net/2012/01/15/the-fbis-attempt-to- bl...](http://studentactivism.net/2012/01/15/the-fbis-attempt-to-blackmail- martin-luther-king-into-suicide/)

<comment><USER7> And that's what they do. They are supposed to be guarding us against threats but then they start to preceive everything as a threat, including lawful political activitism.

<comment><USER8> I think it's even more mundane and evil than perceiving us as threats.

They perceive us as a resource of arrests and prosecutions, for good job performance evaluations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Let's examine who they're targeting:

One that stands out has the cause of targeting as "The U.S. brought the 9/11 attacks upon itself", a view Ron Paul holds - I'd hardly call this appropriate targeting of terrorists.

The second one that is perhaps more inappropriate than the first: "The US perpetrated the 9/11 attacks." Who said this? A "well-known media celebrity". There are many far right-wing media celebrities who espouse this view. While it's an absurd view, I'd hardly call labeling them as terrorists and targeting them (with intent to discredit) an appropriate reaction.

Pretty disgusting behaviour from the NSA.

<comment><USER10> It shows that, like its British equivalents, the NSA is not an intelligence service who purpose is to protect American people, its a propaganda tool of the sitting government used against its people.

Never forget, the one single thing governments are afraid of is the electorate. No terrorist group has toppled a western government as far as I know, but voters do it all the time.

<comment><USER11> > Never forget, the one single thing governments are afraid of is the > electorate. No terrorist group has toppled a western government as far as I > know, but voters do it all the time.

For a certain definition of "government", sure. The elected _leadership_ may change, but think of the (hundreds of) thousands of civil servants who survive in their jobs in the executives and legislatures over the lifetime of many governments...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If someone would've said this before, they would've definitely been seen as paranoid/conspiracy type people. I mean it's ridiculous to even think that a government agency would concern itself with stuff like this - and here we are. It's like you can think of the _worst_ stuff NSA could do to blackmail/discredit someone - and now you can bet they are already doing it.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can see why this is a useful tool but this has such potential to be part of the slippery slope. After reading this I thought I would Google the NSA wiki page. I was surprised that illegal domestic wiretapping issue is not new but going back to the 60's.

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

<comment><USER8> Back in the 20's, and probably earlier: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Chamber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Chamber)

The American Cipher Bureau was just another government agency doing then what the NSA does today.

Note that the page describes the Bureau as spying on negotiating partners: "Its most notable known success was during the Washington Naval Conference during which it aided American negotiators considerably by providing them with the decrypted traffic of many of the Conference delegations, most notably the Japanese."

Sound familiar? I see no reason to think that they weren't doing everything else that today's NSA has been caught doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, this made the first page even with the word 'NSA' in it. Let's see what happens when it reaches 40 comments.

<comment><USER10> Well, it didnt take too long.

Interesting that now "controversial" means "popular".

<comment><USER15> I find it funny that the comment police seems to think the NSA scandal is over, when it is in fact very much alive and kicking over here in Europe.

Mainstream press is reporting and new things come to light every day. On top of that, the scandal is completely devouring any trust people had in US cloud companies.

<comment><USER16> I suspect that the comment was more a critique on hn ranking algorithm. NSA seems one of the headline trigger words that makes a story decay a lot faster than other stories.

<comment><USER14> Correct, this was the first story to pop up after the hn ranking algorithm article yesterday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My first thoughts on reading this:

1) Looks like (perhaps) one step short of where we all said it was going - "collect what we can now, never knowing when & how we might need to use it against someone later"

2) Wouldn't it be easier/cheaper/better/whatever to simply fake the data & frame someone?

<comment><USER18> As far as #2, they are still people, no matter how authoritarian/establishmentarian, so they still need to convince themselves (and each-other) that what they're doing is right (even though, seemingly, the bar for achieving that may be lower than for a typical person).

<comment><USER8> At the risk of violating some internet law, the people (they were still people) of Nazi Germany convinced themselves and each other to commit mass evil, or at least to go with the flow and not rise up against it.

The people of Nazi Germany were not special, they were no different than any other group of people.

We are all our own worst danger. When we restrain our government through laws and constitutions, it's not to protect ourselves from some "other," it's to protect ourselves from ourselves.

<comment><USER6> You could always not bring up Nazi and just use the Milgram experiment: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment)

<comment><USER19> Besides the Milgram experiment, Soloman Asch's conformity experiments, Zombardo's Stanford Prison study, the innocent bystander and the fundamental attribution error should all be required for politicians writing laws, police enforcing them, prosecutors bringing charges against people using them and judges meting out the final judgement. Possibly even jurors should be required to learn about those basic psychological principles before sitting in on a trial. You could cover all of them for the jurors in 2 days I reckon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I read this story and I couldn't help but think about the actual extent of the pressure that was brought to bear on Aaron Swartz and whether or not there's a lot more to that story than we've been made aware of.

<comment><USER19> TBH, even though these details aren't used to prosecute, I wouldn't be surprised if they are used to intimidate during an interrogation in an effect to force cooperation via a plea bargain. I reckon its very valuable info when trying to get people to rat each other out (or fabricate information about each other).

The entire interrogation process AFAICT is infected by detectives and other LEOs committing the fundamental attribution error [0].

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Okay, so you're someone that doesn't want them tracking your every move. How much would a VPN, scripts like Ghostly/NoScript and encripted mail help?

<comment><USER21> If they have identified you as a target, and they really want to get you, have time and the resources - probably not much, e.g. they could break into your house, and install a hardware keylogger in your machine - a VPN wouldn't help much!

<comment><USER14> But isn't their method of operation: Collect Everything and see if we've got something on someone later if they're going 'rogue'? (E.g. against the establishment)

<comment><USER8> Yes, but that would be worthless without the next step of targeting an individual identified by the dragnet. I imagine all you need to be a person of interest is to have communicated with someone who is a small number of hops away from some other person of interest. Or later, when they really get going on their data mining, all you'll need to have done is to have said something particularly interesting and negative about the NSA or the government; they'll have to start doing that, because they'll run out of actual terrorists and they'll have to find a way to keep racking up "successes."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wasn't there a story that they 'found' smut in OBL's hideout?

<comment><USER4> That is indeed what anonymous US officials have claimed.

[http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/porn-found-osama-bin-laden- evi...](http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/porn-found-osama-bin-laden-evidence- trove/story?id=13599025)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Finally, something about NSA that I can hear without disgust and horror. This is actually the kind of job I was expecting them to do. Unlike dragnet surveillance, breaking internet protocols, etc.

Although the problem remains: the same methods can be used to silence dissidents...

<comment><USER24> Do you think that jihadis will trust a press release from NSA? "Oh, The Great Devil (US) says you're browsing kinky pictures, so we're not gonna trust you anymore and we're gonna take whoever The Great Devil recommends us instead"

<comment><USER4> Obviously it wouldn't work that way. They would arrange to have the incriminating information show up in a way that wasn't obviously linked to the great satan. Then they would have a double-agent positioned to take control once the main guy was discredited. It isn't like the great satan would be publicly endorsing the double-agent.

<comment><USER24> Cool. So how can the double-agent prove that the guy is browsing porn?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We are all doomed.</comment>


Ask Career HN: Go back to employer or start fresh? - <AUTHOR>

Dear Hackernews, I need some career advice from people that would know: After High School I interned at a small startup, at that time it was just me and the three founders. About a year later I went to College, but continued to do work for them, mostly dumb copy&paste HTML stuff, rarely more complex and time sensitive design work.
Fast forward six years: I am about to finish my M.Sc., I am still with the company (doing the same work at the same low rate, gotta pay the rent), the company now has more than 20 employees and was bought for a considerable amount by one of the largest media companies of the country/world. The founders are leaving the company (and while the company will stay independent, suits will be taking over) and approached me about a "frontend and usability" position at the company on pretty short notice: They liked how versatile and loyal I was, how I know the company, know the processes, etc
I was flattered, but also alarm bells went off: It's great to be offered a job without even applying for one, however, I am afraid that if I go back, I will continue doing the same stupid work I have done before, even though I now have Masters Degree and shifted my focus considerably (from design to development, which was advice from one of the founders, and I am really thankful for that).  The company will definitely undergo some restructuring with interesting opportunities (and I think it will be interesting to experience a company transitioning from a small startup to something bigger), however there are enough people at the company that know I was the "HTML guy".
I was always quite busy with school so in terms of internships, my CV is lacking (just a couple of side-projects and freelance jobs). On the one hand, it has always been a dream of mine to go startup hopping and learn from many different experiences, but I am afraid that I won't even be considered for something remotely interesting and will become and stay unemployed. On the other hand is my current employer (with a very large parent company) offering a position that has the potential to open many doors (maybe some I would never get to otherwise) and would be a big name on my CV, potentially making getting internships later easier.
I am wondering what to do: Should I ask for an rather high salary to see if they really consider me an asset to the company? How can I make sure I will not be treated as an intern anymore? What looks better on a CV, many Startups or one large corporation? What would you do if you were 26 and broke? Any advice is truly appreciated. Thanks. <comment><USER2> I would suggest asking for a market rate salary worthy of the position and degree that you recently received. If they agree, then fine. If they don't then move on. In 2006 I had a mechanical engineering intern that worked for my company (manufacturing) about 10 hours a week. Once he graduated, he came to me for advice about which jobs he should apply for. At that point I had to choose between paying market rate or losing a guy that had the right talents and experience, who was already up-to-speed with our company processes.

I decided to keep him, and doubled his pay to do it. He wasn't twice as good as he was the day before, but we were at the point where company growth demanded a full-time engineering presence and he was the best choice for the job. My other alternatives would have been to spend a lot of time recruiting to find another engineer that would need to be integrated into the company and paid market rate anyway. Perhaps I was underpaying him as an intern, but the workload he was given was not demanding and we were exceptionally flexible with his hours and schedule. We also financially supported his Formula SAE team at the University. He ended up staying for three years and then going back to school to get a PhD.

As for your concern about being treated as an intern, don't worry. If they increase your pay they will certainly increase your workload and responsibility. After all, they are now paying for it. With founders leaving the company you could end up one of the most senior people in that division.

</comment><comment><USER3> It sounds like you're making decisions without data. You don't seem to have a solid job description, reporting chain or salary ballpark. Were it me, I would ask for those things so you could get a clear picture of what you're actually deciding on and the parameters of the position.

Having said that, there's the old sawhorse where employed people are always more desirable candidates, so the option to take the job to pay the bills while looking for other work may be a good one for you.

</comment><comment><USER4> Look at it this way: what are you learning at this job? Chances are, having a six year history of being an intern there (which is, btw, an extremely long time to be an intern in my opinion), just getting a different title will not make people treat you any different than they have up to now. Did they offer you a single raise in six years? If not, they don't see any value in you that is specific to you, rather, you are easily replaceable. We've had interns at companies I worked for before, and they all either moved on after six months to a year, or got hired full time. Not a single one has stayed an intern for six years.

I'd strongly suggest looking for new positions for multiple reasons.

1\. You will have a clean slate and can grow as fast as you want, without the history of being the eternal intern.

2\. You will get experience interviewing and talking to different kinds of companies and teams.

3\. You will almost certainly get paid considerably more than you are now.

4\. You will almost certainly find a position doing work that is more interesting/rewarding than dumb copy and paste grunt work.

That being said, if you like the company, like the team, and/or like the work, definitely talk to them first. Ask for a competitive salary (do some research of what the position you are being hired for normally pays). Ask what kind of benefits they offer. If they really want you to stay on, they should have no problem offering you a decent rate.

I wouldn't worry about staying unemployed. Engineers tend to take their skills for granted and not realize how valuable they actually are. You can always find freelance work if you work on it, and despite the economy, the hiring in IT sector is not slowing down as far as I can see. If you are bright and good at what you do, many companies will even pay for relocation if you are not local.

You are young and just finishing college, this is the best time to take these kinds of risks. You'll have a much harder time deciding to join a startup or quitting an unsatisfying job if you have a family to support.

Companies that truly value you, will want you to be engaged and fascinated by the work you're doing - that is how you get the best work from the engineers and they know it. Companies that don't understand that, end up with teams of unhappy engineers. In some companies, you can transfer to a different team, work on new projects, and find new interests - other companies have a set hole for you to fill, and if you are not happy being a cog, you are stuck.

In the end, ask yourself whether you feel like you are growing and learning anything from the work you are doing and the team you are working with. If you are stagnating, it's time to either change your position in the company if they are simply not utilizing your potential, or look for a different company if they have no work for you that challenges you.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _"I was flattered, but also alarm bells went off: It's great to be offered a > job without even applying for one, however, I am afraid that if I go back, I > will continue doing the same stupid work I have done before, even though I > now have Masters Degree and shifted my focus considerably"_

> _"The founders are leaving the company"_

Given the founders exit, it is much less likely that your growth will go unrecognized.

Good candidates are offered jobs without applying everyday.

Talking with the suits about a new role would be the place to start.

</comment><comment><USER6> You don't mention any concrete alternatives in your post (i.e. other job offers or project ideas). Assuming that you don't have anything else lined up then I would take the job - you can always quit if the work pans out to not be what you wanted or if they treat you like an intern. Worst case just use it as a stop-gap to earn some cash and buy some time.

Quitting a job too soon after taking it can look bad on your CV, but not always. In your case you've kind of been employed by them for a while, so I don't think you need to worry about CV damage there.

What looks good on your CV really depends on who is looking at your CV. I don't think corporation vs start up makes much difference. A broad range of experience looks good, loyalty looks good. You can give the appearance of both whichever way you go.

As for asking for a higher salary... decide what you think you're worth, decide how much you want the job, guess what you think they'll pay, then adjust your request accordingly. If you really want the job then be a bit conservative, if you're not that bothered either way, and it sounds like you're not, then aim high.

</comment><comment><USER7> Go somewhere else. You need to challenge yourself. It sounds like you know this and have already decided, but you just want social verification. Here it is.

</comment><comment><USER8> I worked for a summer at a pool plastering company in Los Angeles. While the work was mindless and painful (LA can be hot!), there were actually a few important things I learned.

We often finished pools in Beverly Hills. One job we did was a "grout demo". The deck of their pool was tiled rock and they just didn't like the grout. It "wasn't sparkly enough" apparently. We didn't want to do such a pointless job that would take so much time. So the owner of the company bid on the job. He gave them a figure that was so ridiculously high that he wouldn't mind doing something that pointless. They agreed (crazy people live in Beverly Hills).

Moral of the Story: Find your price. Figure out how much they would have to pay you to get you to do the same thing you've always done, regardless of how much value you feel that adds to the company. If they balk at that price, fine. You wouldn't want to work for less than that anyway. If they take it... good, you are valued.

</comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Finding a job in this economy is difficult. If you're on the verge of graduating, find something to back up before you up and walk even if that was a consideration.

2\. Always negotiate. Explain that when you started, you just finished high school. Now, years later with a lot more experience and a better understanding and nearly with a degree under your belt, you'd like to negotiate for pay. It isn't unreasonable to ask. Base on their response, you can decide what to do from there.

3\. I think in the long run, depending on how the above two scenario plays out, you should be bright enough to play with the options you're given. But as you've said, you're broke, out of school soon, will probably go into repayment for student loans if you took any, and unless you got something else lined up, I wouldn't purposely fudge this and think of it as either or. Negotiate and talk to them. Figure out your choice after you've figured out what your options are.

<comment><USER10> Just because there is high unemployment nationwide, don't assume that getting a software development job will be historically difficult. After long hiring freezes, tech companies - more specifically, the team leaders who end up interviewing you - are dying to hire new employees to fulfill pent up demand in their own teams. The preference is for experienced candidates, but smart new grads are also welcome. This is from my experience in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I'll second the previous recommendations to go out and interview with other companies. You didn't include many specifics, but I'll assume your master's degree is in Computer Science and that you are smart. If you don't interview well, treat each real interview as practice.

Your relatives may warn you about the economy and send you newspaper clippings showing all the unemployment. I have a hard time convincing my own family, but software development jobs _are_ different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bottom line is how you can help them and they can help you. Figure out what projects you can work on that will be meaningful to the company. Then figure out what you think a fair salary is. As an aside, I think it is usually better to be a little underpaid than overpaid because it gives you better leverage and flexibility in choosing your work. Anyway, if you can come to agreement go for it. Control your expenses (don't buy a new car!) and in a year if it's not working out you can move on graciously with cash in the bank.

</comment><comment><USER12> So you worked at a growing company for 6 years and never asked for or was given greater responsibility or significant pay raises? It sounds to me like the core of the problem here is you don't know how to stand up for yourself.

Intern or not, you blew a great opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER13> eh, ask for the higher salary, and take it, unless you have a better offer. If the job ends up sucking, well, just look for a new one. Finding a job is vastly easier when you have a job.

</comment><comment><USER14> 26 and with a PhD, I asked for a competitive salary at a startup and got it. You should do the same.

</comment><comment><USER15> I would at least diplomatically present your concerns about the offer as it may be they see it as 'stepping stone' to the actual position they see you at in the future within the company and that you want, namely development.</comment>