I built an app to fix my depression - <AUTHOR> http://blog.elifiner.com/how-i-built-an-app-to-fix-my-depression/ <comment><USER3> Read the blog post and also the other blog post in the page ( "Why discipline isn't the answer to procrastination", "How to stick to good habits without being hard on yourself", "How fear of shame causes procrastination", "How fear of success causes procrastination").

I get the feeling that the author is in a situation a lot of people in HN could relate to: A situation where Performance Anxiety, Fear of missing out (FOMO), Fear of being left behind, distraction and ADHD all gets entangled in ones work , personal life & choice of how to spend their time. It seems like if these things are left unchecked for a long time, the things can lead to depression, or other form of negative mental state.

My question is how do you solve/amend this? Reading comments from similar themed post on HN it seems like a lot of people are aware of themselves having one or more of the above. Some seems to have accepted it, others seek help from therapist. But a lot of people also seems to feel like they don't want to "lose" the feel of guilt, stress, bad self image that follow performance anxiety and fear of missing out because they take their negative emotional reaction as a virtue that pushes them to improvement in stressful times (myself being one of them).

It seems like vast majority defaults to "work harder, smarter" as a solution, and only later in life when "working harder" have a diminished (sense) of return, or when they hit a wall, change their course of action.

<comment><USER4> I think, as op also insinuates, it is all about acceptance. Accepting one's shortcomings, accepting that you can't do everything you want(ed), that you wont become what you always dreamed of. Love yourself despite of what you think of as shortcomings, think of the things you did achieve (and the things you have, like a stoic philosopher). You are a pretty incredible being with pretty incredible skills. If only you acknowledged yourself as such.

Now this "accepting" is not just something you (can) just do, it may be exactly what you need a therapist for. Because you may have to undo years of thinking and redefine your default thought patterns, this is very hard work.

For all the parents, I think this is a pretty important thing to teach your kids. Telling them: "If you work hard you can be whatever you want to be!" Is, imho, damaging, because it is not true, you are setting them up for disappointment in themselves.

In short: Happiness = Reality - <USER2>

Don't burden yourself or your kids with unrealistically large expectations.

<comment><USER3> It surely is acceptance, but how do you convince __yourself __of it? How do you convince a young college student, a just-out-of college late 20 's (me), a about-to-hit-midlife late 30's/40's person that is struggling to reach the expectation they have put?

Tell a college kid to lower his expectation and he will feel like a "unmotivated" person, tell a 30's/40's that and he will feel like a failure, all his struggle for nothing, and tell a late 20's to lower his expectation and that goes against every self-motivation influencer and (probably) what his surrounding successful peers suggest.

I think most people understand that the answer is acceptance, but how to reach that point, is so different for each person. Because _some_ people overcome it by sheer grit, while some through therapists, it's hard for a person in the grind to realize what course of action is the best, and before it's too late.

<comment><USER5> I think part of it for me is this underlying anger. Despite these kinds of discussions, there's some sort of continued societal denial about many of the issues that are floating in the background.

Many of the things that are bubbling up in society seem all too much the same. Whether it's school or employers or whatever, there's this kind of overvaluing phenomenon, where the rich and/or successful get more rich and/or successful and we attribute their [increasingly, given increasing inequities] freakish success to something about them, as opposed to being in the right fitting environment at the right point in their careers, or corruption, or something broken in the system, or what. If you're too old, too black, too caring, worked at the wrong place, the place changed, didn't go to a prestigious enough school, were too rebellious as a young adult, whatever, don't know the right people, you're screwed.

I'm not sure what my point is, except to say this acceptance-struggle tension you're referring to is even more complicated because it's not just about lowering or raising your own personal expectations or standards, it's about everything else as well, about accepting or struggling against what's broken in society (at the risk of sounding too idealistic or self-righteous).

What do you do when it's not self-hatred vs acceptance, but self-hatred vs societal anger vs acceptance?

<comment><AUTHOR> Acceptance doesn't mean we stop fighting for justice. It just means we accept the current situation as the starting point from which we begin our fight. Releasing our hold on the anger doesn't mean we stop caring. It means we can use the anger to fuel our good fight and not remain stuck fuming on the sidelines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To me it seems the strategies and tools we're able to build for ourselves often hit the mark much more often than any mainstream advice could give us. In part, this seems to be because we know our idiosyncratic nature much better, but also because we have skin in the game and are therefore willing to be way more creative in solving our own problems.

I've built apps for similar(ish) reasons solely for myself in order to deal with whatever issue I had to deal with. A good example is using TiddlyWiki and simply making a journal with a few fixed questions that simply was asking how I was doing on a few psychological/physiological measures (i.e. exercise and so on).

I've been in the situation where people sought my advice to fix their issues, whatever they were, and applied my strategies. Sometimes they hit the nail and worked, other times they catastrophically failed because they worked against the nature of the person.

While one has to pick their battles, I'd advocate for people to consider making their own tools/techniques/strategies to deal with their issues. I know this isn't always possible or a smart move to do. But I've seen that it's more often the best move in the long-term than not. Oh, and of course that doesn't exclude recruiting help along the way :)

<comment><USER7> >skin in the game

Thank you so much! I have long felt outside help as lacking in understanding but this just flipped the switch in my brain. This opens many more opportunities to explore.

<comment><USER8> If you haven't, read Nassim Taleb's _Skin in the Game_ (and heavy recommendation on his other literature too.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Holy smokes guys, I went to sleep after posting this and woke up to the tiny server running my blog dead and about a 100 comments here. I'll get my kid to school and then sort everything out.

Thanks!

<comment><USER9> Thanks, I am playing with the app, it looks great.

I got one question what other books did you read on Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)? And if you recommend any? I have been told that I am "Empath" and lately reading up on it (mostly online). Empaths and HSP seems related, based on quick research.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think these are related concepts. I read a whole host of books that are related and have been influential. Off the top of my head (on top of HSP):

The Big Leap The Sedona Method The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership Hold Me Tight The Four Tendencies

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the idea! However, I don't know much about psychology, so I'd personally be hesitant to create such a product. Certainly "releasing emotions" without a therapist could be somewhat dangerous for some people. And perhaps what actually helped him isn't using the app, but a new sense of purpose or meaning in his life due his discovery of the book and developing the app.

It'd probably be wise to consult an expert on the psychological backgrounds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your honesty. Yes, I am going out on a limb creating a product that is based on non-standard methods, and there is some risk to people using it - we all have different and complex responses to events. I've given a lot of thought to the question what would happen if someone killed themselves because of the app? It still keeps me up at night. But I won't stop looking for better answers because the current state of the art in dealing with this isn't enough.

Having a clear goal helps with depression, but leaving my job and trying to start a business around it makes it worse. I'm pretty sure using the app is what's keeping me sane these days, while building it is trying to bury me.

</comment></comment><comment> dawg- So many mental health apps these days with so little high quality evidence of their effectiveness.

And there are so many of these apps out there, why would someone build their own? Maybe OP is onto something though.

Could it be that the creative process and challenge of building an app to solve a personal problem is just as good a treatment for depression as the app itself?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's part of it, but I only built the app after realizing the method (which is based on something called The Sedona Method) really worked for me. I just found it super tedious to do on paper and over time added more features that help to get into a mental state where emotional release is possible.

I'm now building a business around the app and that path has multiple emotional pitfalls _per day_. I tried to do this a few times before and always succumbed to my fear, guilt and worthlessnes.

This time, I'm using the app on a daily basis and snap out of my funk (usually) in a matter of minutes.

So I'd say the app is helping me feel better which is allowing me to keep building it - not the other way around.

<comment><USER11> Eli, you are probably the first in the long line of Show HN's, product hunts, and indie hackers that I read every day that I read and wanted to scream "Shut up and take my money!".

Seriously, if you think you are not ready to introduce paid plans, start with donation link. Or kickstarter.

The challenging part with apps like these is that people expect quick fixes ("I will read that book, do that exercise and everything will fall in place"). No, it is a process, like coming to gym and lifting a dumbbell one time will not make you jacked. I think it is important to emphasize that.

Few items of feedback (1) Add email - not necessarily your personal email - but something like firstname.lastname@example.com, twitter is not everyone's cup of tea (2) I think you mispelled "tedious" as "tedius" in at least one place. (3) you narration is very authentic and I definitely connected to it, but most people tend to connect to the monologue with more expression and intonation in it. If you transition to a serious business with it - consider hiring a female sound actor - no sexism here - but research shows that people of both sexes have a stronger response to female voices, there is a reason that all voice assistants speak with female voice by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is the best feedback I've gotten so far, thank you thank you thank you!

I definitely am planning to make a serious business out of it. I started out with a coaching + app mix when the app was a lot more bare and didn't really work without me walking people through it.

I'll get the email, marketing site and the rest of it in order, you're right, Twitter isn't everyone's cup of tea (although I am focused on buildign an audience there because my style of writing seems to work well in short bursts).

I'm not going to hire a female actress to do the narration because I want my soul to be in the app. I might hire a speach coach though to get this to a higher level, so thanks for for pointing it out. I've actually gotten way better feedback on the narration given that I'm not a native English speaker and this is my first time recording my voice for anything.

Again, thanks so much. I'm now going to use this motivation that you granted me to go get this thing in front of many more people!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> To everyone berating this guy about 'not being very depressed':

My depression is not your depression, and your depression is not theirs. Please stop judging.

<comment><USER13> Isn't telling people to stop judging at least as bossy?

People die of depression, there's good reason there would be emotion going against its perceived over-usage.

<comment><USER14> While it can be trivializing to people who are truly depressed when the term is used superficially, you have to be careful not to assume that someones depression is superficial based on your perception. Just because someone isn't late stage clinically depressed doesn't mean they're not in some stage of that process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It makes me sad when i read stories like that.

I feel depressed. Doctor - Take these pills.

I still feel sad. Doctor - Take more pills.

Medication cures symptoms of depression but cannot fix the underlying problems causing it.

Taking pill to feel happy again is a patchwork that will eventually burst catastrophically.

<comment><USER16> > Medication cures symptoms of depression but cannot fix the underlying > problems causing it.

Sometimes those underlying conditions are brain chemistry though. The pills work for a lot of people. My Bi Polar depression doesn't seem to stem from any trauma or anything. I've done therapy and it did nothing. I've tried exercise, it helps for a short period. I tried diet, seems to help a little. If also tried about 15 different medications before a found a combination that keeps my mood fairly stable.

I almost killed myself before I found the right combination of meds. Meds work for some people we shouldn't be so quick to discourage it.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a lot we don't undestand about mental illness, but I think the brain chemistry theory doesn't hold water anymore. Otherwise we would have been able to take a blood test and say - oh, your serotonin levels are out of wack.

I'm really happy you found a combination of meds that work for you, sounds like it was a long and rough road to get there. There's still things you can do to improve your condition beyond what the meds can do. I have some anecdotal evidence that the app helps people taking meds, but nothing conclusive yet.

<comment><USER17> Well, we don't know that we couldn't if we were able to easily take a blood test of the brain. I think there's two parts to the theory, the stricter interpretation that goes something like "depression is just the symptom of too little serotonin - which can be fixed by SSRIs" is quite weak. But the fact that brain chemistry affects mood, and in particular that increasing some chemicals can induce pleasant feelings is pretty robust - we have drugs like cocaine and heroin to thank for that insight. However translating that knowledge into meaningful treatments of depression is not straightforward as the body has a lot automatic control systems trying to keep things in balance.

So at one level we could claim that indeed depression is caused by "too low" serotonin/dopamine levels, as temporarily increasing them will take away the depression, but on the other hand this insight in itself doesn't provide us with a clear path for diagnosis and treatment, and it doesn't preclude that there's other things that's a root cause, such as thought patterns, neurological setup, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a very thorough exploration of the topic, thanks. There definitely seems to be a two way street between chemistry and consciousness both affecting each other allowing us to tackle the problem of depression from both ends. I'm very excited about the result coming out of psychedelic research which seem to chemically trigger and stable improvement in thought patterns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for sharing.

I'll share one reaction I had — these sorts of things are normally narrated in professional, glossy, somewhat saccharine voices, and it was a fun and surprising moment of human connection to realize, hey, this is just some dude talking into his laptop mic! While I imagine you might consider investing in professional VO at some point, there's something really nice about the way it is now.

I wonder what it's like for you to hear your own voice asking these questions of you — is there any value in that specifically?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm doing my damnest to get this out to as many people as I can and not worry about perfectionism that killed many of my projects in the past. I did use my laptop mic for the recording and I did get better gear but didn't get a chance to re-record the narration.

It's interesting to hear that the lo-finess is actually helpful. Yes, I'm just a dude (with a bit of an accent to boot!) :)

I usually use the app without my narration - I find it distracting. Most people using the app over the long term tend to turn it off to, and listen deeper to their inner guidance (which is the whole point - the app is helping you to become your own therapist, not me being yours).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> mild, flu-like symptoms. Just describes how I feel since february and I'm not sure, whether it's for a hidden Covid (business travelled to Spain, when they found their first case, around 2 weeks, before they closed down...) or the depressive mood-swings I had in the past.

<comment><USER20> That sounds not good, you should look for help. Maybe writing an App would help you drive the negative mood way ?

<comment><USER21> Or maybe see a doctor?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The app is really calming. It's what I imagine it would be like to interact with software that was designed by Alan Watts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Holy crap, being compared to Mr. Watts is spiking up my imposter syndrom :) Thank you so much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The blog seems down, but the page it linked to is still up: [https://beta.wuju.app/](https://beta.wuju.app/)

<comment><USER24> not anymore, gotta be patient :)

<comment><USER25> down again... [https://archive.is/JAd24](https://archive.is/JAd24) ... but the app is now down too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200911062548/http://blog.elifi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200911062548/http://blog.elifiner.com/how- i-built-an-app-to-fix-my-depression/)

<comment><USER27> working [https://archive.is/JAd24](https://archive.is/JAd24)

working [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.elifiner.com/how- i-built-an-app-to-fix-my-depression/)

no archive found [https://megalodon.jp/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.elifiner.com%2Fh...](https://megalodon.jp/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.elifiner.com%2Fhow- i-built-an-app-to-fix-my-depression%2F)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > I went to the doctor, told him I was feeling mild flu symptoms for a couple > of months, he asked me a few questions, determined that I had depression > [...]

Wait, what?

<comment><USER12> Yes. Depression can result in a feeling of physical lethargy and general 'unwell feelings' such as headaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wow this app is quite neat. Basically it's like a catalogue of different emotions and mental states and it's got prompts that take you through them and help you to identify and focus on them and help you work through them in a very low-pressure way. Very nice!

</comment><comment><USER30> The best thing I did for my mental health this last year was get the audio book of "The Untethered Soul." Interestingly enough, I found out about this book on HN last year. This is a fantastic book about spirituality that is really practical. I've listened to this book about 5 times all the way through and it never gets old.

The guy who wrote it is the real deal, not some random guru. The Surrender Experiment, his other book, is also good because it shows how he applied it all in his life to make him self a self-made tech multi-millionaire and to go through some pretty hard struggles and build a large spiritual community along the way.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very nice. I did run into a lot of useless scrollbars though (on Firefox desktop), this was discussed earlier here on HN: [0]. I guess you are an Apple Safari user ;)

Oh and I may be dumb but it took me I while before I realized I had to check all the boxes, because I though: Yeah I'm in a quiet space, so I don't need my headphones.

Other than that, very nice job, worked for me, impressive. Will bookmark.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24293421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24293421)

</comment><comment><USER31> I just spent 5 minutes with the app, and had a revelation about my fear of failure and how it relates to my parents that I've never had before. Thanks for sharing this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Warms my heart to hear that, I'm so happy it helped you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200911062548/http://blog.elifi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200911062548/http://blog.elifiner.com/how- i-built-an-app-to-fix-my-depression/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I think I got the server sorted out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've been meditating almost daily for several years, and I've read numerous books and tried many different methods. I found this app very helpful, and I'll probably incorporate it into my routine. The technique relates closely to the root of most, or maybe all, mindfulness practices, which revolve around feeling your emotions and their sensations in your body. At the same time, it is a very simple practice, not heavy on theory, that anyone can try immediately. Really, really excellent work--thank you for building and freely sharing this.

</comment><comment><USER34> This isn't how he built it; it's why he built it. It doesn't describe what the app does at all, just its goal ("help you deal with emotions").

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't want to disparage anyone, and I will take a look at the app when it's back up, but I'm not even sure what depression is anymore. Mild flu symptoms is not a phrase I'd used.

It's great that more people are talking about their mental health, and that it's becoming more acceptable to seek help. But the word "depression" has become so murky to me, I rarely know what people mean when they use it.

Maybe I just don't understand the word...

<comment><USER36> Mental health is very complex, but I think it's a spectrum, with low-grade symptoms at one end, and manic episodes at the extreme other end.

I'm sure it varies a lot from person-to-person, but for me, I have a constant and profound feeling of sadness and futility, I often feel like crying, and occasionally consider ending my life (I almost _fantacise_ about it, because I wouldn't have to feel this way any more).

One of my parents has manic depression, and a sibling also has clinical depression - I presume there is a genetic factor at play; I was brought up in a middle-class household with parents that loved me, and I seldom wanted for anything. Now, I'm a successful software architect with a wife, kids and side- business. I own my own home, I have 2 nice cars, and I have a high income. Yet I still feel that sadness, and often just don't see the _point_ of living, or life at all, really.

Except for randoms on the internet, I've never told anyone about this. I've come close many times, but I guess the longer you keep a secret, the harder it is to let it out.

If anyone else is reading this, I'd enourage them not to be me, and to seek medical help. If you don't think you can speak to a doctor, I'd also recommend trying 5-HTP - I started 200mg 2x a day a few years back, and the change was incredible. It may have saved my life.

<comment><USER37> Anyone reading this should before they take 5-htp try and determine if they have low levels of dopamine as 5-htp helps elevate serotonin which you don't necessarily want to do if you have low dopamine. However, if someone responds well to 5-HTP it might make sense to seek out an SSRI medication

<comment><USER36> > determine if they have low levels of dopamine

How would you actually do that? Is there some kind of home test available?

<comment><USER38> Talk to a doctor - self-medication is a risky endeavour, especially where mental health is concerned.

<comment><USER36> In an ideal world, sure. But not everyone is willing to talk to a doctor, or indeed _anyone_.

<comment><USER39> Then they have worse problems that their medication...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Website seems down. Have you ever heard of Quirk or Daylio? I use Daylio to track my daily moods and that also helps a lot...

<comment><USER37> I've used Daylio. For me, the problem with using it long-term is that the different moods are contextual to the overall stat you are in. Meaning, I could have a "rad" day when in a depressive state which simply meant I wasn't overburdened with depression. Meanwhile, when not in a depressed place an "okay" day might still be leaps and bounds better than any days that were lived through duringthe depression(s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm glad I found this. I will come back to your blog and to the app. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER42> FYI please spell check!

Poor spelling makes things look less credible ("tedius", etc.)

</comment><comment><USER43> Hey! I've spent a half hour using your app and it's great! I was feeling a bit tense, confused and unmotivated this morning and going through the technique with your app really made a difference. Thanks!

For those not in the know, this is based on what's sometimes called the Sedona Method. There's a popular book about it by Hale Dwoskin [0] and the questions (and phrasing) in this app are almost exactly the same (the self-questions are an important part of the technique).

I've been geeking out about psychological self-help for a long time and this is by far the simplest and most effective (especially in terms of the ratio between accessibility and effectiveness) method I've come around. The idea, to summarize it crudely, is that you can just let go of feelings. You're a layer cake of stuff and the more you take off the better things get. At first it sometimes feels like "ok, I've let go of this basic thing, but I'm no better off" (it's a bit like the situation you'd find yourself in if you started shoveling a landfill). The technique, apart from the basic insight that you can let go, provides troubleshooting and guidance that let's you get a lot of results from something that is so simple. One of the things that originally attracted me to it was the feeling I had that, whatever the mechanism behind my hangups is, it's simple, but with emergent behaviour, and this really satisfied that part of me, and has been otherwise very rewarding as well.

My favorite book on the topic is Letting Go by David R. Hawkins [1], which is also one of my favorite books of all time. I could sing praises for it for a long time; it's been a big deal for me. If I need a spiritual pick-me-up, that's the book. It's a really good instruction manual for your mind, feelings, emotions. If you think you might lack emotional intelligence, this book is a good place to start too.

If you feel like this method is working for you and you want to learn more, I recommend going back and forth between the two books. They have very different approaches on the same thing. I found that at different times I needed more of the one or the other.

In the app, I noticed that the voice-over "letting go might be new for you" kicks in every time you're going through a new emotion. Might be better if it was there only for the first time.

I think I'll be coming back to this app a lot. Thanks again! Are you considering open sourcing it?

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Sedona-Method-Happiness-Emotional- Wel...](https://www.amazon.com/Sedona-Method-Happiness-Emotional-Well- Being/dp/0971933413) [1] [https://www.amazon.com/Letting-Go-M-D-David- Hawkins/dp/14019...](https://www.amazon.com/Letting-Go-M-D-David- Hawkins/dp/1401945015)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right (and I say so in the About section), it is based on the Sedona Method. I found the method to be quite tedious to do on paper and I couldn't focus long enough to do it in my head, which was the original reason I built the app.

However, the app works for people who don't know the method, haven't read the book, didn't watch the full DVD from 1992 and didn't attend the weeklong seminar. I think it could bring this to a much wider audience.

Thanks for the bug report, yes, there's a lot more I need to fix in it before hitting the big leagues.

I haven't considered open sourcing it because I want to make a living off it. But I will think about it. There's a more limited version, without narration or the deeper content, that I use for myself and I think I might open source that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm kind of confused. As a highly empathetic person you're offering a "solution"? I'd assume others have experiences other than your own and that might not be particularly applicable in their individual situations?

I apologize if I'm not getting this.

<comment><USER45> Well the site is down so we can't know for sure right now. However, I think the keyword is "my". There's nothing in the title claiming a cure for depression in general. And that's an impossible feat anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Love the blog website. Clean, legible text. No fluff.

</comment><comment><USER46> This app is based on 'The Sedona Method' which has helped me in the past, but treats symptoms. For more permanent change I would suggest REBT, which has helped me even more.

</comment><comment><USER47> no https, doesn't render without js

seems like it's a gathering scheme...

</comment><comment><USER48> The title reads like a satire, but the content is actually fully dystopic, as always.

</comment><comment><USER49> Acceptance

</comment><comment><USER50> Nice!

</comment><comment><USER51> Your depression couldn't have been that bad if you could create an app against it. Regular therapy would probably have been more effective and less dangerous for others.

<comment><USER52> " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> If you managed to finish the app, you weren't very depressed.

Depression acts primarily on willpower. The bad feelings come as a consequence of not being able to get anything done.

<comment><USER54> > If you managed to finish the app, you weren't very depressed.

I disagree, as someone with experience in the matter. I think is fine to question whether OP's depression was a real major depressive episode or to what extent they were really depressed. However, the succinctness of your comment leads me to believe that it's more simplistic than anything and thus counterproductive while discussing depression. It's not always a matter of "but was it real depression, though?"

> Depression acts primarily on willpower.

Depression acts on _everything_ and shouldn't be characterized so easily. That's exactly what happens in real life, where a statement like yours can instantly nullify the efforts of someone trying to tell you that, yes, they look normal, but something is wrong. To that, you'd likely reply, "but Jane, you don't look _that_ depressed!"

Some people are able to keep operating on _certain_ realms, which IMHO is the key to getting out of the rut; grasping whatever still motivates you, even if just a bit, to operate at 1% of your normal capacity and "power" on.

> The bad feelings come as a consequence of not being able to get anything > done.

I repeat, not always and not for everyone as the causes for circumstantial and clinical depression are too many to count and so are the symptoms and the way they are externalized.

<comment><USER36> > Depression acts on everything and shouldn't be characterized so easily

^^ This. I've battled with depression since I was something like 7-10 years old, and it's just not as simple as the GP implies.

Depression affects different people to different degrees, and has different impacts - human beings are afterall very complex beasts.

Being depressed also doesn't necessarily mean that you feel that low _all_ the time - or at least that those feelings aren't in the foreground. Some days, weeks or months are worse that others. It's absolutely always _there_ , but sometimes I can have a streak of weeks where I feel like I'm winning, and it's only in the background.

I'd also add that people with depression cn be very good at hiding it, to the point where they can even be hiding it from _themselves_. Barring occasional random on the internet, like now, I haven't told a single real person about it for the 30-year (and counting term) of my depression. Despite growing up with a parent with manic depression, somehow I didn't even recognise the way I felt as depression until I was in my 20's.

<comment><USER3> Just curious, how did you find out that you were hiding your depression from yourself? (I assume you wrote from personal experience) Especially when other people tell you that they think you have depression?

<comment><USER36> Yes, I'm writing from personal experience. I'm pushing 40, and I've felt this way since I was a young kid. I think because it started so early, it was just the way things had always been. Probably as a kid I didn't have the emotional maturity to recognise what was happening either.

Nobody has ever told me they think I have depression - I'm _very_ good at hiding it. My main coping mechanism, if you can call it that, was to bury my head in the sand and pretend everything was fine.

As for how I found out, it was very slowly, over a period of a few years, as I matured into an adult. Looking back I can see that my mental state deteriorated, likely due to stress caused by various life events and (physical) health issues, and everything kind of came to a head. At some point I couldn't bury my head in the sand and ignore it anymore and think "it's just me, I'm weird".

But even once deep down I recognised it as "depression", it was a long time before I'd even say in my head "I have depression". This was 15-20 years ago, and there was even more stigma around mental health then than there is now, and my shame was probably tempered by how one of my parents (with manic depression) had been viewed while I grew up. I also felt guilty - I had a wife, house, job, plenty of disposable income etc; how could I still feel like this when my life seemed so superficially perfect?

Even though I admit it to myself now, I doubt I'll ever tell anyone else, even my wife. Would anyone even believe me, believe that it was possible to hide such a thing my entire life? But now I'm rambling, I'll end it there :)

<comment><USER3> No thank you for your rambling, it is for me (in my late 20's) an anecdote most valuable.

I asked because I don't consider myself remotely close to it, having good job (well until today my last day) and a good safety net. But in the past few days, my SO & a friend have told me that I should maybe seek therapy. My first instinct is to dismiss is and focus my time on betterment of myself through other means, but your anecdote made me think of the possibility that I might just be oblivious about it.

Unfortunately I live in a country where mental health is still a stigma and my insurance is gone with the work, but your experience at least nudge me towards trying to seek out professionals for it. (when I one day return to my homecountry where it isn't a stigma)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Comcast confirms plan to buy 21st Century Fox and control of Hulu - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/05/comcast-confirms-plan-to-buy-21st-century-fox-and-control-of-hulu/ <comment><USER2> Choice between two turd sandwiches here.

60 billion dollars should make any regulator's eyes pop, and neither deal is good for end consumers.

Disney is out of control though, and has almost a near monopoly on pop-culture entertainment people care about. I personally would rather Fox go to Comcast, just so Disney doesn't wrap another tendril around modern film and entertainment.

<comment><USER3> My fantasy would be for Apple or Google to acquire Fox. Then we'd have a strong chance of finally bringing networks onto modern devices like Apple TV or Chromecast.

Some of the channels have apps, but they're highly inconsistent in their content offerings. I want every episode of every show with no time restrictions, and I want new content posted immediately as it airs. HBO Go gets this right, but most other apps don't get it.

TV set top boxes are an abomination and they need to die immediately.

<comment><USER4> Netflix has been increasing their spend on "Original" content, which I think gets us closer to this goal. (If you pay for it, you get more rights in exchange.)

You might also want to try YouTube TV ($40/month). (Disclaimer: I work at YouTube.)

<comment><USER5> $40/month? That's more than I pay for all my other services combined! That's Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu.

No, thanks!

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the $40/month offering is supposed to be comparable to a Cable TV bill.

There's also the $12/month YouTube Premium (separate product, and you can subscribe to both at the same time) which combines music and original content.

<comment><USER6> DirecTV Now is the nuts in this space. Their lowest tier $35 offering has everything I could ever need or watch, plus HBO for $5 month extra. Their apps have come a long way, and you can watch from anywhere. They've also been adding a ton of local networks, so most markets have all the locals. They also just rolled out Cloud DVR (20 hrs). And they support almost every TV Everywhere network app that you subscribe too with your DirecTV Now creds, including HBO Go. I have no affiliation, it's just been a great value for us, and really no complaints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. Where is the government oversight here?

<comment><USER8> This is just Comcast saying they would like to buy it. No need for government involvement yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd make a law so that ISPs can't be content/media providers at the same time.

Got to end this insanity.</comment>


Apple: Chinese firm to operate China iCloud accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42631386 <comment><USER2> This just reminds me of that subthread in yesterday's Facebook home device post where people were ranking tech companies. A lot of people put Apple first on respect for privacy.

It's good to have a reminder of the nature of corporations so soon after that. Tools for users to take privacy and security into their own hands need to be made accessible enough to make it truly matter.

Its like herd immunity with vaccinations: it doesn't matter that you use encryption and block trackers if all the people around you provide enough data to make inferences about the private few.

<comment><USER3> A counterpoint here: Consider American subpoenas, court order, FISA warrants and the like. Remember that FISA warrants are secret! Having the data managed by a US company has these consequences. Perhaps you trust the US government more than you trust the Chinese government... that is very reasonable, to be sure. But it makes so much more sense that your data is subject to the law in the country you reside in, rather than the laws of a foreign power.

This is not even remotely hypothetical. Making everyone's data accessible to organizations and people subject to US court orders is bad for privacy.

This kind of thing will be happening more and more, and not just China and Russia, but also the EU. So it won't just be that Chinese users can be spied upon by the Chinese government. It will also be true that it will be more difficult for the US to spy on citizens of other countries.

<comment><USER4> In some respects I'd rather have my data managed by a Chinese company than a British one.

It's exponentially more difficult for the Chinese government to wield data against me than it is for the British government, as I do not live somewhere where the Chinese government has any power over me.

<comment><USER5> _It 's exponentially more difficult for the Chinese government to wield data against me than it is for the British government, as I do not live somewhere where the Chinese government has any power over me._

It depends mostly on the nature of the data, and how much interest they have in you. If the data is damning enough, and they would find value in using it against you, then the Chinese government is perfectly able to hire someone to do so.

Anyone in China who is significantly wealthy is effectively involved in politics, with potentially life and death consequences. To stay under the radar, you have to stay at the level of inconsequential small fry.

<comment><USER4> Right, but if you're not in China at all, the Chinese government don't care about you.

So it's (in some respects) safer to have your data managed in a foreign country than in the country you live in, as a counterpoint to the claim that "it makes so much more sense that your data is subject to the law in the country you reside in".

<comment><USER5> _Right, but if you 're not in China at all, the Chinese government don't care about you._

In the vast majority of cases, yes. In an absolute sense, no.

 _So it 's (in some respects) safer to have your data managed in a foreign country than in the country you live in, as a counterpoint to the claim that "it makes so much more sense that your data is subject to the law in the country you reside in"._

There is a point to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMHO this is sending a strong signal to people like myself who mainly use an iPhone for privacy reasons. Regardless of whether or not the data is only stored encrypted at the 3rd party, their willingness to compromise in this regard is a strong indicator for their future actions and their commitment to privacy and security.

<comment><USER7> What course of action would you prefer: Willingly shut down iCloud in China or have iCloud forcefully shut down in China?

<comment><USER8> I'd prefer that China allow its citizens to freely access the global internet.

<comment><USER9> I think(I hope) as more people in China come online they will realize that they are missing out.

<comment><USER10> Sadly the opposite might occur. Fake news is very useful. For corporations, it acts like PR/marketing channel. For nation-states it's a great propaganda channel.

What if the Communist Party of China was actually visionaries what the Internet could do for oppressive nation-states, if properly harnessed for the good of the party?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Money trumps principles plain and simple. My guess is this will continue until the day Apple sales in China decline below a certain level, then they'll be a 'brave, principled' decision announced that they are shutting down iCloud in China or withdrawing from the market altogether.

<comment><USER8> In Apple's case, as the Apple manufacturing base is largely Chinese, the government has considerable leverage regarding corporate decisions.

<comment><USER11> If I was Apple then, I'd start investing some of that $200 billion they have in the bank in some advanced nonchinese manufacturing. Get some balls like Elon Musk and take some risks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Apple to FBI: No you can't get into iPhones, our users want security.

Apple to China: Here are the keys

<comment><USER13> Wow,I didn't think of that example. It's a pretty huge hypocrisy.

<comment><USER14> In both cases they're complying with the laws.

The data may be stored with a Chinese company but it's still encrypted isn't it? They can't read it can they?

<comment><USER15> Third sentence from the artice: "They include a clause that both Apple and the Chinese firm will have access to all data stored on iCloud.".

If the Chinese firm couldn't read the data access would be pretty pointless me thinks.

<comment><USER14> I'd agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not true. I could see Apple trying to keep certain data encrypted in private in exchange for other less important data being "open".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I absolutely believe Apple's foray into China is a huge misstep for the Apple brand.

Imagine when all the censorship and surveillance and the actions taking with personal data start surfacing, they're going to very quickly try to get out. Apple pulling VPN apps off the App Store is just the beginning.

It may be a big market, but I think Apple shouldn't be there under the Apple name, because stuff like this shows me that it's literally a different company.

It's simply not worth the business.

<comment><USER17> Why do people in USA care about what the Chinese government does? It's not like you are willing to take care of it's citizens, but the Chinese government has a responsibility and they seem to be trading off fairness so fewer people are impoverished.

<comment><USER18> Today you, tomorrow me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right."[1]

Unless you live in China in which case your fundamental human rights take a back seat.

I did a Google translate on their Chinese web page:

"At Apple, we treat privacy as the fundamental right of everyone."[2]

Perhaps Google translate messed up and missed the "human rights" part from the Chinese translation, but I'm guessing it didn't.

[1][https://www.apple.com/privacy/](https://www.apple.com/privacy/)

[2][https://www.apple.com/cn/privacy/](https://www.apple.com/cn/privacy/)

</comment><comment><USER20> That might be a mistake. Once Apple makes a deal with China, Russia will ask for the same deal. Russian government want to keep the data in their country too.

<comment><USER21> If the choice is either to comply with those governments, or loose an enourmous market, Apple will comply in both cases.

<comment><USER22> Russian market is way smaller, and the good PR they will undoubtedly get for abandoning it will offset the losses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Apple's compliance with Beijing is morally weak but financially strong, not just for them but for Apple Developers.

A month ago, Apple noted that it has 1.8 million _developers_ in China (and/or developers publishing _to_ China -- not clear to me). At any rate, the Apple platform has made those developers $17 _billion_ dollars.[1]

So China is big business for Apple developers and I assume many of those developers are US/CA/EU/AU/etc. who benefit from the platform being available in China.

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/03/apples-tim-cook-says- develop...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/03/apples-tim-cook-says-developers- have-earned-17-billion-from-china-app-store.html)

<comment><USER17> When you say "moral" are they your morals or the developer's and China's morals? Does your morals accommodate theirs or is it too restrictive?

<comment><USER23> Yes, those are my own assessments.

It's possible that someone could view Apple's decision to compromise its customers privacy to remain in the Chinese market as "morally strong". I would like to hear a defense of that position if someone held it.

Apple's decision appears to be _legally compliant_ but morality must transcend legality in my worldview. i.e. the "good men" argument per Emerson or others

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They aren't the first. Microsoft/Skype had to outsource PRC Skype account's to TomTom, Azure has to outsource its PRC cloud operation to a Shanghai utility company, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you ever needed a sign that Apple cares more about making money than their user's privacy than this is it. If Apple really respected their user's privacy than they should take a stand and lets the chips fall where they may. If this is the cost of doing business in China then perhaps Apple should rethink its strategy.

</comment><comment> tj-teej They're "good faith" is asking customers to read the Apple Terms and Conditions...

I hate to reference Orwell, but the fact that Apple convinced us all to lie by saying we'd read the T&C and now are telling us that there's "important" information in this unreadable document seems like classic Orwell.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is probably the way it should be. Multinational corporation have subdivisions that handle local laws and customs.

ex. Facebook Germany should handle all its specific speech laws rather than trying blanket global speech to Germany or EU specific laws.

Though at that point you start losing advantages at scaling depending on implementation.

</comment><comment><USER25> > iCloud accounts registered outside of China are not affected.

What exactly does this mean? What makes an online account registered in a geographic location? Is it determined by where the iphone is bought, the IP addresses when the registration is made, the email account used for the registration or something else?

<comment><USER18> It goes by billing address of payment method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As of early 2018, national boundaries combined with linguistic barriers are still more powerful than the internet. Could this change with low Earth orbit satellite internet? (Given the precedents to date, I'd expect the Chinese government to jam the signals or otherwise intervene.)

<comment><USER18> Not as long as payments go through the current financial system. If you're using a US credit card, with a US billing address, to transact with a company, then you are "US registered" regardless of where your packets are routed. Until it's possible/mainstream to decouple identity from payment, your payment method will always be the weakest link.

<comment><USER5> Are you presuming that most of the internet will be paywalled by then?

<comment><USER18> To be fair I was speaking more about iCloud and the App Store (which _is_ "the Internet" to many people) than I was the wider internet.

To answer your question... I hope not. But perhaps we are already there. Boiling frog etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am very concerned that now Apple will make exactly same thing with Russian accounts.

This link might come handy: [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT201389](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389)

All you need is a foreign credit/debit card.

</comment><comment><USER27> This just shows to what extent Apple is willing to bend its rules for China. They're just too dependent on China. China has upper hand here. I've a feeling that one day China might ditch Apple.

</comment><comment><USER28> Just cleared some of my iCloud photos with faces.

Resistance is useless. WeChat, QQ, AliPay and other complied third-party online services are more than enough. As long as you are connected in the Matrix, it has you.

</comment><comment><USER29> A correct title would be:

        Apple sold out all China iCloud accounts

I guess I understand. It is either the market or the privacy and security of their Chinese user. They chose the market so all of our retirement funds still hold their face values.

</comment><comment><USER30> Another chance for Apple to stand up and do the right thing, and it flinched because it would rather have money than morals.

And don't give me the standard amoral shareholders whine. Apple is already on record as saying it would rather do the right thing than make money, and if investors don't like it they can go pound sand.

Now Apple's sold out a billion people.

How long until the Chinese government requires access to the Secure Enclave chips in iDevices?

<comment><USER29> Actually, once you have the iCloud accounts, you can bypass the Secure Enclave chips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> "Cloud Big Data Industrial Development Co"? Doesn't sound sketchy at all.

</comment><comment><USER32> In Europe we need to do like in China. Or our tech industry is doomed to stay small...

<comment><USER11> Protectionism isn't going to make your tech industry globally competitive.

<comment><USER32> No, but who cares? Tencent, Baido, etc are _not_ globally competitive, but they are very fine.

You know what else is not going to make European tech industry globally competitive? The chronic lack of money, because it's all siphoned away by google, amazon, apple, and such. Do we need a global competition? Why?

An internal competition in a huge market is good enough. China encouraged the development of a strong internal market: and they are innovating like crazy. Europe is big enough to do the same.

<comment><USER11> China has a population of 1+ billion who are firewalled both by network access and by language.

European citizens have better English proficiency and no great firewall, hence the transaction barriers to consuming global services are easier.

I'm afraid you have to be globally competitive unless the EU wants a Great Firewall.

<comment><USER32> > hence the transaction barriers to consuming global services are easier.

It's just a political choice. It's not a fact of life. Better regulation and better taxation of capitals would "firewall" Europe as well.

As I said below, language has never been an issue. Nobody is using google _because_ is in English. Google is well translated everywhere.

<comment><USER11> The regulation and taxes are more likely to disadvantage smaller players.

Europe's problem with tech investment isn't because of existing big tech players.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Musicmap - <AUTHOR> http://musicmap.info/# <comment><USER2> Pretty in depth to my knowledge. I follow lots of odd genres and was surprised to see many of them on there. With that being said, I do feel like the Rap section is not that detailed. It looks like detail is a goal here so I'll give my 2 cents.

1\. Miami Bass & Bounce

All the songs in this playlist are Miami bass songs. There are no bounce songs. At least add The Showboys - Drag Rap on there.

2\. Southern Rap & Crunk

You can't roll this up all into 1 section IMO. To make this point, there is not a single Cash Money Records/No Limit Records song in the playlist. If you don't think they deserve their own tree, look at their record sales. I would argue that the descendent tree (Trap), is more influenced Cash Money and No Limit than crunk.

N.E.R.D. - Lapdance is in the playlist. I think this is a big stretch. Yes, I know Virginia is technically in the South but their sound is nothing close to it.

3\. Grime (listed with Breakbeat Garage)

This deserves its own tree. Grime has been starting to gain major traction outside of the UK as of late. Also, current day Grime is heavily influenced by trap/drill.

and 1 minor nitpick not rap related - Juke(ghetto house, ghetto tech) is influenced by Jungle. You'll hear sped up breaks in quite a few of DJ Rashad's songs.

<comment><USER3> I also expected to see Grime on its own tree, or perhaps I expected to find it somewhere under Rap genres or Jamaican.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was a bit surprised to find musicmap here before I actually posted it. (I was going to post it today). Just a few clarifications:

\- the site is not optimal for smartphones, web responsiveness is great for ipad and beyond (preferably chrome/firefox) \- more updates will follow, like spotify playlists and hyperlinks in the text (+ small user friendly improvements) \- take note that this is a starting platform, and an approximation of the overwhelming reality of music genres. Please read the first three (general) pages for more information. All feedback is appreciated at firstname.lastname@example.com

Thank you sincerely for posting this here before I did :-)

My regards,

Kwinten

musicmap.info

<comment><USER5> It took me a second to realize I could use the scroll wheel to zoom in but very nice and, as others have mentioned, surprisingly in-depth with a huge selection of lesser-known genres.

While I think dividing music in genres will always have an element of personal opinion in it, I will have to say that Ishkur's Guide To Electronic Music¹) disagrees with you quite a bit on some of the timelines and relationships in the Electronic Music/EDM corner.

And in the very least, his take on where Chemical Breaks/Big Beat came from²) seems a lot more plausible to me.

¹) Contains Flash: [http://techno.org/electronic-music- guide/](http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/)

²) Hip Hop via Funky Breaks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome stuff - and silky smooth! Minor crit - took me a bit to pick up that I could zoom (didnt notice the +/\- in the bottom right - I thought the entirety of the interaction was clicking on the large shapes and getting the information overlay).

</comment><comment><USER7> Love it. I built a way simpler thing years ago that would let users tag an artist/album/song and then weight the tag {-x, x}. Then you can try to figure out how close two nodes are to give recommendations.

The metal subgenres are from Wikipedia, and depending on your perspective, some of those aren't real genres. 'Classic metal' and 'Symphonic & Gothic Metal'... Symphonic is a descriptor that can be applied to any genre. For example, there's symphonic power metal and symphonic black metal. Same goes with Viking metal. Progressive, however, is both a genre and a descriptor. Dream Theater and Haken are 'progressive metal' bands, but you can also have a band like Atheist, which is a progressive death metal band.

Taxonomy, especially of music, is a really difficult thing to do. You have orthodox, revisionist, and post-revisionist ways of classifying things. I personally think it's most convenient to use post-revisionist buckets and give orthodox classification through history blurbs/slugs on an artist/album/song. An example - Slayer is a thrash metal band. But at the time, a lot of people would have called them a black metal band. That's because when Show No Mercy was released, black metal was an aesthetic and subject matter, not a sound. So in this map I'd place them under thrash and clarify the dispute.

My top-down perspective is: black metal, death metal, thrash metal, power metal, doom metal, heavy metal. 'Glam metal and hair metal' belong under rock genres. Those 60s/70s hard rock bands (e.g. Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer) that Wikipedia calls 'classic metal', are just hard rock. Metalcore, deathcore, crossover, crust, grindcore, are interesting cases as well. Metalcore is, arguably, death metal -> melodic death metal + []hardcore. Hardcore being under punk. If you place it under metal overall, people will complain that it's really punk-based. If you place it under punk, you'll get the complaint that it's so influenced by metal that it shouldn't be. Similar problems in taxonomy arise in a lot of modern black metal bands because post- rock has influenced many greatly.

Anyway, very cool site, one day I'll be a librarian.

<comment><USER8> In regards to hardcore, I think it should be placed on the border between metal and punk, much like crossover.

Also Black Metal's strongest ancestor is arguably crust & d-beat, which is not shown (And crust/d-beat falls on the line along with hardcore)

But go to a hardcore show and it will be pretty clear who the metal kids are and who the crusties are!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I visited a similar thing a while ago [http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html](http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html)

These music guides are really fun to dive into

<comment><USER10> This is even better. Too bad it doesn't open music on YouTube because Spotify doesn't work everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised Chiptune falls into the "Downtempo" category. Chiptune music tends to be upbeat.

<comment><USER12> Very true. The best unifying characteristic of that group is "music which critics have traditionally sneered at". Many of the genre labels in it are labels which were critic/industry-imposed, and were disliked or rejected by almost all the artists it was applied to - "New age" and "easy listening" in particular.

The author(s) of this page doesn't quite subscribe to those condescending attitudes it seems, but they inherit the framework from those who did.

Overall, in all the genres, the project reveals its biases by having extremely variable resolution. It's not a bad project as such, it's probably as fair as any such project can hope to be - but that's why we rather need quantitative approaches. Echonest's "Every noise at once", everynoise.com is a good example of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, this is incredible. Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music completely blew my mind back in the day, and it keeps doing the same when I revisit it every couple of years.

Some feedback which you are free to ignore:

When zoomed in, the map tends to look kind of cluttered, a mess of graph edges. Some genres such as jazz are okay, but the rock/metal and electronic music area is almost comical. It's much better when hovering over a single sub-genre; I'd keep the highlighting in place after clicking on it. For the non-highlighted view, I don't know.

The time reference adds even more horizontal lines, even though the corresponding decade labels almost never visible; I'd drop the lines and make the decade label stick to the edge of the screen. BTW, I love that the user can chose which layers to display.

The left and right side panels cover up two thirds of the map. By default, they both open as you navigate to an item; it felt kind of claustrophobic to me. Maybe the Genre information can be an additional "row" in the right hand panel? I think that could work well. Other ideas: less whitespaces, less opacity?

I closed the left hand panel, and then it took me a long time to figure out how to get it back; I assumed there was a bug because it didn't have the expand button the right side does.

When I dig into an individual genre, I like to read the sub-genre descriptions while listening to the various music samples. Having to switch between description and playlist mode (one replaces the other with a long-ish animation) gets really old.

Maybe clicking on genres/sub-genres should move the map viewport? I just noticed that clicking on the year in the sub-genre description move the viewport to the sub-genre (not the year, per se). So that's good, if non- obvious.

All that said, I'm looking forward to digging into the content; exploring music in this way is such a fun way to broaden your horizon. And I'm really looking forward to what you'll be doing with the Spotify integration! Spotify should pay you a shit-ton of money to integrate this into their apps.

</comment><comment><USER14> Anybody interested in this would also be interested in the amazing work of Glenn Mcdonald:

[http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html](http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html)

<comment><USER15> There's a lot of promising work ongoing exploring emergent music genres. Just recently, two scholarly articles came out in the same week: "Genre Complexes in Popular Music" in _PLoS ONE_ , looking at MySpace ([http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155471](http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155471)), and "Follow the Algorithm: An Exploratory Investigation of Music on YouTube" in _Poetics_ ([https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2016.05.001](https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2016.05.001))

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you like this, you should certainly pick up a copy of Pete Frame's hand drawn Complete Rock Family Trees:

[https://familyofrock.net/](https://familyofrock.net/)

<comment><USER17> Pete Frame's book are very fun to read. Good luck finding them. My first introduction to Pete's work was from a poster that was included in a Paul McCartney Box set for Flowers In The Dirt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a glossary of pop music, not 'music'. I don't mean that as snidy. But there isn't 'formal music' and 'classical' is only an unclickable bubble...

<comment><USER19> Western, English-language pop-music at that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My mind is blown! Thanks for completing what must have been an exhausting amount of research and analysis (and UX design). I wanted this to exist bad enough that I was going to try and create it - but amazing to know that it took 7 years to achieve! Now I'm kind of glad I didn't start down that path :D Will always be cherished, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great work!

I love this sort of stuff - Reminds me of the chart in that Jack Black film (School of Rock) that sub divides all the bands into genres and sub-genres.

Minor bug - I tried to search for Hüsker Dü and Husker Du and neither showed up - but they appear in the Post-Hardcore Playlist.

</comment><comment><USER22> How is a UI like this put together? It seems so far beyond my skills but it must be able to be broken down into components / steps.

<comment><USER21> Looks like D3.js is used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Certainly not in the same league as this, and restricted to only recent electronic music, there is Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music: [http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/](http://techno.org/electronic- music-guide/)

<comment><USER24> Also there is the Map of Metal, restricted to metal: [http://mapofmetal.com/#/home](http://mapofmetal.com/#/home)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Very attractive interface and in my opinion does well to set up the content. Easy click through. And, on the matter of content, this is really a nice tool. Hoping it can continue to grow and have its own editorial voice. Nothin' wrong with that!

</comment><comment><USER26> This is out of control awesome on so many levels. Data and relationships presented in a way that I want to explore, explore, explore. Way beyond "Oh, that's cute" and moving on.

 _mind blown_.

</comment><comment><USER27> i always enjoyed ishkurs guide to electronic music which seems a lot more detailed in some corners (see [http://techno.org/electronic-music- guide/](http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/))

</comment><comment><USER10> This kind of visualization could be a good addition to YouTube. I am sure Google could do it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Great site, but on iPhone 6's Safari it looks a little broken and works _quite_ slow.

</comment><comment><USER29> Missing the music samples.

Also, it seems this map is lacking in the world+classical departments.

<comment><USER30> > Missing the music samples.

Are you looking for something other than the playlists that each (sub)genre has?

<comment><USER29> Sorry, found them :)

By the way, also missing: afro house, soca

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How feasible is it (maybe it's been done) to provide an objective musical analysis of this overwhelming (to me) array of musical styles? By this I mean - descriptive of the harmonic progressions and rhythmic patterns employed as one would analyze (for instance) a classical symphony?

<comment><USER12> everynoise.com does something like that.

They don't describe their methodology in detail, but they use some sort of feature extractors to assign positions to genres (as some people have define them through song inclusion/exclusion) in a multidimensional space.

I believe they use some form of PCA, so the axes aren't so easy to put names on, but it does give some indication of actual variation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It didn't find Mahler.

</comment><comment><USER33> Nice work, seems to be lots of good info from what I can see and judge.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't quite get it. Music is an amalgam of features, not in boxes. The real solution is tags, not genres even really. Any given piece could get a whole bunch of tags. Why attempts to put everything in one place on a map?</comment>


Show HN: Lite – A lightweight text editor written in Lua - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rxi/lite <comment><USER2> Looks really nice! :D

I wish it supported arm64 on Windows or at least win32 32-bits so that I could run it on a Surface Pro X.

<comment><AUTHOR> There shouldn't be any reason it wouldn't work on those platforms, the `build.config.py` script would just have to be modified to add those targets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> i have bookmarked a couple of your github repositories in the past. microui is one of them. i really love it and all the immediate guis out there.

i hope you will write more blog posts and tutorials about microui.</comment>


How Rippling Raised a $45M Series A – Without a Pitch Deck - <AUTHOR> https://www.rippling.com/blog/company-news/rippling-series-a-pitch-deck-and-memo/ <comment><USER3> Because of Parker Conrad

Saved you a click.

<comment><USER4> And a rich kid from the Upper West Side.

Startups are much easier when your born wealthy and your parents have wealthy/connected friends.

I'd be a rockstar if I was blessed with such a path.

Not jaded this is just the reality for many successful startup founders.

<comment><USER5> He went to Harvard. He described his own high school efforts as "mediocre grades". Clearly smart and driven, but taking lessons from his experience is probably unwise. OT: at some point the Ivy's reputations have to get a little tarnished when it becomes obvious they admit mostly legacies and donors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They don't have a Pitch Deck.

But they do have an Investor Memo + Metrics Deck.

Must be a really slow SEO day over at Rippling.

<comment><USER7> Basically an advertisement.

<comment><USER8> Yah. And when you do click it's a lead gen capture form for email. AKA all marketing spam. I actually think it's a nice service. Just being a little dishonest with this statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 2005 - Hey guys I innovated and made a better business plan for potential investors it's called a pitch deck

Us - <USER2>

2019 - hey guys I innovated and made a a better pitch deck it's called "an investor memo"

Us - wait isn't that just the business plan we used to make

2019 - disappears quietly

</comment><comment><USER10> Downvote me if you must but to me this totally falls into the "startup porn" category of news. Im genuinely excited more companies are working on these problems, but this isnt a pattern you can necessarily repeat.

</comment><comment><USER11> Love this and I have tried to use memos a few times myself in place of slides decks.

Isn't this an old idea though, it's basically a prospectus?

</comment><comment><USER12> This is what you should be distributing anyways. The first is the investor memo, and it should go out _before_ the pitch. Then you take your deck and go in person for the pitch. Then people will have Q&A time, get to know the company at a more personal level, and not spend their time there reading.

</comment><comment><USER13> So.. this is just an overly wordy powerpoint?

</comment><comment><USER14> lol. so innovative. literally a brochure...

</comment><comment><USER15> Is rippling copying Uber's design ?

</comment><comment><USER16> TLDR;

Basically with a pitch deck that we are calling a memo.</comment>


Unusual and amusing English words - <AUTHOR> http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/unuwords.htm <comment><USER2> Alas these are mostly neologisms created by combining roots from classical languages. That's a recipe for creating new "obscure" words pretty much on demand. The best sort of obscure words are ones that are obscure because they're old or highly specialized, not because someone made them up and they never really became part of the spoken language.

<comment><USER3> Extraordinarily, the Slavic languages are chock full of calques that originated in just this way. Educated Slavs in the 17th-18th centuries deliberately modernized their own languages by taking Western words, translating the morphemes individually, and grafting them back together. Modern Czech in particular, if I remember correctly, was largely constructed in this way. The classic example is German _Zeitschrift_ (magazine) being translated _zeit_ → _čas_ (time) and _schrift_ → _pis_ (writing) to produce _časopis_ , "timewriting". Russian has tons of words like this from French ( _traduire_ , to translate, went _tra_ → _пере_ (across) and _duire_ → _водить_ (lead) to become _переводить_ , "to crosslead").

Normally such concocted species (like the neologisms in the OP) fail to take root and soon wither. The difference here is that these words were badly needed in daily life.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's another cool list, very similar; the standard on this list is, "words so interesting that David Foster Wallace circled them in his dictionary":

<http://www.slate.com/id/2250784>

(Teaser: conchoidal, corvee, demulcent, exergue, gramnvirous, etc etc etc).

<comment><USER5> That's actually a much more interesting list! Thanks.

<comment><USER4> This list is a clear illustration of why it's better to read Infinite Jest on the iPad book reader, where dictionary definitions are a tap away, than in dead-tree format. Because I'm only 2/3 through and I can't guarantee that he hasn't found a way to use the word "exergue" in a non-coin-related sentence. Probably in a footnote. Which, by the way, is hyperlinked in the iBooks version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Beware, some definitions here are incorrect.

For example, Witzelsucht, which is correctly defined at Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witzelsucht>

For people interested, Phonistry maintains some much nicer (longer, etc.) lists. <http://phrontistery.info/w.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> Unrelated: What is the point in publishing an interesting list such as this and then restricting my ability to highlight so I can copy and paste? (Chrome 4.1 on Windows)

<comment><USER8> What's the point in choosing a tool which doesn't give you the power to do what you want, then coming on the internet bitching about it?

Your browser is doing the restricting. If you can't override that then it's not working in your interest, it's working against you on the web publisher's behalf. Dump it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me of that board game (I forget the name) in which some silly definition is read and the players have to make up words and convince their opponents (who are guessing which word matches the definition) that their word is correct. With some of these words, I feel like I'm playing that game and someone is trying to trick me. I mean, zenzizenzizenzic is a number raised to the eighth power? Seriously? But it exists! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenzizenzizenzic>

<comment><USER10> Balderdash

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Next time I need a put-down for someone's argument, I think I might call it "jumentous," which according to this page means "[s]melling like horse urine."

</comment><comment><USER12> My favorite: callipygean

<comment><USER13> >callipygean

It's spelled wrong here.

<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/callipygian>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminded me of Douglas Adams and John Lloyd (creator of QI)'s _The Meaning of Liff_ :

<http://folk.uio.no/alied/TMoL.html>

</comment><comment><USER15> "Let's get capernoited" is the new "Let's get wasted"

Yeah, that was a witzelsucht

</comment><comment><USER16> I didn't find my favourite in this list: wayzgoose.

</comment><comment><USER17> No schadenfreude?

</comment><comment><USER18> They missed "discombobulate"</comment>


Startup Age Of Success Stats For People in Founders At Work - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I did some seriously unscientific and extremely dirty stats on the "age of success" for people in Founder's At Work. In a couple cases I guessed DOBs based on university graduation. I freely admit this is a very lazy attempt and it's flawed, but I didn't see anything like it. Anyone know of a good list?

#################### (Blake Ross/20)

########################## (David Heinemeier Hansson/26)

########################### (Mena Trott/27)

########################### (Max Levchin/27)

############################ (Sabeer Bhatia/28)

############################ (Joe Kraus/28)

############################# (Steve Wozniak/29)

############################## (Dan Bricklin/30)

############################### (Evan Williams/31)

############################### (Joshua Schachter/31)

################################## (Paul Graham/34)

################################### (Mitch Kapor/35)

#################################### (Philip Greenspun/36)

#################################### (Caterina Fake/36)

##################################### (Joel Spolsky/37)

###################################### (Mike Lazaridis/38)

####################################### (Ray Ozzie/39)

########################################### (Charles Geschke/43)

################################################## (Craig Newmark/50)

Average: 32 Min: 20 Max: 50

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's the data I used. Mostly based on making up a "date of success" around when they got rich/famous (not when they created what got them there). The DOBs are mostly from Wikipedia or other bio.

David Heinemeier Hansson|Partner, 37signals and creator of Ruby on Rails|1979|2005

Charles Geschke|Founder of Adobe|1939|1982

Ron Gruner|Founder of Alliant Computer and Shareholder.com|?|?

Steve Wozniak|Founder of Apple|1950|1979

Philip Greenspun|Founder of ArsDigita|1963|1999

Evan Williams|Founder of Blogger.com and Odeo|1972|2003

Craig Newmark|Founder of Craigslist|1952|2002

Joshua Schachter|Founder of Del.icio.us|1974|2005

Joe Kraus|Founder of Excite and JotSpot|1971|1999

Blake Ross|Creator of Firefox|1985|2005

Caterina Fake|Founder of Flickr|1969|2005

Joel Spolsky|Founder of Fog Creek Software|1965|2002

Paul Buchheit|Creator of Gmail|?|?

Ray Ozzie|Founder of Groove Networks and Iris Associates|1955|1994

Sabeer Bhatia|Founder of Hotmail|1969|1997

James Hong|Founder of HotorNot|?|2000

Mitch Kapor|Founder of Lotus|1950|1985

Bob Davis|Founder of Lycos|?|1999

Arthur van Hoff|Founder of Marimba|?|?

Mark Fletcher|Founder of ONElist and Bloglines|?|2000

Ann Winblad|Founder of Open Systems and Hummer Winblad|?|?

Max Levchin|Founder of PayPal|1975|2002

Mike Lazaridis|Founder of Research in Motion|1961|1999

Mena Trott|Founder of Six Apart|1977|2004

Dan Bricklin|Founder of Software Arts and creator of VisiCalc|1951|1981

James Currier|Founder of Tickle|?|?

Mike Ramsay|Founder of TiVo|?|?

Steve Kaufer|Founder of TripAdvisor|?|?

Paul Graham|Founder of Viaweb and Y Combinator|1964|1998

Brewster Kahle|Founder of WAIS, Internet Archive and Alexa Internet|?|?

Steve Perlman|Founder of WebTV|?|?

Tim Brady|First employee at Yahoo!|?|?

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice work. I tried to get some stats on a previous thread (<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=2260)> that considered YC applicants. I think the average there was around 28.

<comment><USER3> So what does this prove? The ages are so evenly spread-out, I think the only conclusion is that age has no relevance at all.

<comment><USER4> I'm calling my grandpa to see if he wants to partner up for a startup :)</comment></comment></comment>


Let Math Save Our Democracy - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/opinion/sunday/let-math-save-our-democracy.html?referer= <comment><USER2> It seems that this analysis disregards important aspects of the electoral system in favor of simplified red vs blue partisan thinking.

This article is based on the unspoken assumption that allocating the right number of seats to Democrats, and the right number to Republicans is the goal of the voting system. If this is the objective of congressional voting, it should be a party popularity contest at the state level for congressmen and senators, with a national popularity contest for the presidency; and all of these should be run through telephone, mail, or internet polls (which are cheaper and sufficiently accurate) to save money and voters' time.

I do not agree with this premise, as it assumes that the two-party dynamic is either unavoidable or desirable, and that the only thing that matters about elected representatives is their party affiliation. The proposed measures could greatly damage the importance of third party candidates (because they are not taken into account), greatly impact the importance and dynamics of primaries (because they are not regarded with the respect which is given to elections), and impact non-partisan issues which the representatives often act on.

<comment><USER3> The US has a strange concept of democracy sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The US would do a lot better with mixed-member proportional representation: It would solve gerrymandering outright; money in politics would be less than an issue, because money would have to be spent everywhere and not just on swing states/districts; and soon there would be more than two parties.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed- member_proportional_repr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed- member_proportional_representation)

<comment><USER5> I still think the cap on the number of representatives is the problem. The current number of 535 should be more like 10,000+ considering the current population size. This would also solve gerrymandering and help with the money problem.

<comment><USER6> Yeahbut, the building won't hold 10,000 members.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like a good opportunity to create some jobs and score points with the electorate. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a PhD student studying gerrymandering, and I think it's cool this is getting written about in the NYT. But, there are very good models of gerrymandering built off of well-informed counterfactual analysis of generalized linear modelling that can provide both easy to understand indicators of gerrymandering and bias, as well as provide an indication of the uncertainty in those measures.

One thing that's been getting on my nerves in the road to the big D(issertation) is the complete lack of value some in the domain place on that uncertainty.

Elections in single member district systems, at the geography where gerrymandering study becomes meaningful, has to be modelled as a Stochastic system. These kinds of "accounting methods" can vary wildly in their estimates from election to election, and almost always fail to really express how uncertain the indicator is.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's a funny contradiction in the setup of this piece. It starts off like this:

> PARTISAN gerrymandering is an offense to democracy. It creates districts > that are skewed and uncompetitive, denying voters the ability to elect > representatives who fairly reflect their views.

But the _issue_ they're talking about is actually the opposite of this! Further down:

> Partisan redistricters stuff voters of the opposing party into a smaller > number of districts, while spreading their own voters over a larger number > of districts to eke out as many bare wins as possible. It is possible for a > party to win more than half of the popular vote in a state, yet control > fewer than one-third of the legislative seats. This is not a theoretical > problem: Precisely such a thing happened in 2012 with the congressional > delegations of Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

The charge here is that the party controlling districting wants to make it _as easy as possible_ for voters in the enemy party to elect the representative of their choice, by taking away all of their opposition. At the same time, the controlling party is trying to make the districts it wins _as competitive as possible_ (while staying above 50%). Any votes you earn above the 50% threshold would be put to better use in some other district.

Now, the strategical analysis is perfectly sound and this is a reasonable complaint to make. I just think it's funny that the rhetoric of the piece is actually opposed to the policy complaints.

<comment><USER10> I think I understand your point but actually the two statements are consistent.

Your phrase "competitive as possible" is wrong or at best very misleading. If a district intended to be a "bare win" actually turns out to be competitive then the restricting process has gone wrong from the point of view of the controlling party.

The goal of gerrymandering, often achieved in practice, is to disenfranchise as many voters of the other parties as possible -- to ensure that their vote has no effect on the outcome of the election. So the first statement you quote is accurate.

The second statement you quote just explains how this can be done.

<comment><USER9> > The goal of gerrymandering, often achieved in practice, is to disenfranchise > as many voters of the other parties as possible -- to ensure that their vote > has no effect on the outcome of the election. So the first statement you > quote is accurate.

Packing all the democrats into a single district could be described this way; most of the votes in such a district will be wasted democratic votes. But that opening statement was

> [Gerrymandering] creates districts that are skewed and uncompetitive, > _denying voters the ability to elect representatives who fairly reflect > their views_.

(my emphasis)

This can't describe the phenomenon the article is actually about. It's about segregating people such that they can easily elect a representative who caters to them. And in fact this kind of redistricting is often legally mandated, specifically so as to give minority voters an uncontested district from which they can elect a minority congressman.

Enemy party concentration can give the boundary-drawing party extra representatives counted at the state level compared to expectation. But it obviously _reduces_ the number of enemy-party _voters_ who suffer from being unable to elect their own representative. The skewed districts created by gerrymandering make it _easy_ for voters to elect a representative who reflects their views; the close districts make it more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra Geograpical district should be on their way out. Why think I share terribly much with people that live around me? This may be a bit true in some cases (historic city centers, good suburbia) and wrong in other cases (outskirts of large cities where everybody is a stranger).

Let people create districts themself, vote in those. Occupation-defined, lifestyle-defined, not just geography-defined. Let everybody vote in, say, three districts.

This way I'll be voting in software developers' "district" and choose between five awesome candidates, not between girl I loathe and guy I merely find acceptable. Also will vote in independent music "district" and finally my city district.

<comment><USER10> I like this. But how would it work in practice? You need a mechanism for keeping these virtual districts balanced.

Also these districts could use ranked voting (single transferable vote) so could avoid most of the negative aspects of the current system.

One way to start with this would be to create "fantasy legislatures" based on this kind of districting / voting. Initially these would be just a hobby but if the process worked it would draw people in and become a way for under- represented groups to get a voice. Maybe it could become a stepping stone to electoral politics and possible even influence reforms to the system.

I'd be happy to work on this if others want to as well. Or possibly it is already underway, if so provide a pointer.

<comment> guard-of-terra What do you mean by unbalanced districts? If district undersubscribes, it doesn't elect anybody; if it oversubscribes, maybe two people are elected from it instead of just one?

I would be happy to work on this too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> andrew-lucker This article seems to assume that our current system is an imperfect attempt at populist democracy and that somehow we just got the numbers wrong. The history and current opposition is still that populist democracy is not good for rural politics. The argument is simple, most people live in dense cities, and if you counted votes evenly then nobody would ever care what country-folk care about at any level of government.

If the article is meant to be a persuasive essay then it may be good to at least acknowledge that dissent exists, particularly when that dissenting opinion designed or heavily influenced the current system.

"the commission says that its main objective was to give Latinos and Native Americans the ability to elect representatives of their choice"

even the article acknowledges the partisan nature of districting, but instead of recognizing that openly the author chooses to begin with the thesis "PARTISAN gerrymandering is an offense to democracy." Partisan gerrymandering was a founding principle of our democracy. By definition, as long as districts exist in elections, they will be partisan.

</comment><comment><USER11> If the US has proportional representation, there might be more than two opinions on every issue.

<comment><USER12> The US Congress has, by standards of other Parliamentary bodies, weak party discipline. The parties in the Australia's Parliament exercise almost totally complete voting discipline (formally or informally). The UK somewhere in- between with the concept of the three-line whip.

In that sense the USA already has a coalition party structure: various voting blocs form within the two parties and occasionally defect against the rest. In Australia we call them "factions", but their role is to seize control of the party and then enjoy the fruits of party in discipline. In the USA they can instead directly exercise their votes on the floor of Congress.

This is partly a consequence of the ability to mix appropriations with other bills and for amendments to happen in committee. In Australia neither of these is possible: appropriations bills can _only_ deal with appropriations or they become totally invalidated, and amendments have to be moved in the open. Party discipline becomes necessary under such conditions, but the _Parliament_ as an institution is arguably more functional.

Another cause is the primaries system. Members of Congress are answerable firstly to a constituency that represents outliers of outliers, not to the general electorate. They are motivated to occasionally defect.

In any case, even if you introduce multi-member electorates, gerrymandering doesn't vanish. And the USA needs a number of other electoral reforms, too: independent electoral commissioners, replacing first-past-the-post with another counting method and so on.

<comment><USER13> > the Parliament as an institution is arguably more functional

This is a very interesting point. I had thought the greater freedom of Congressmen in the US to vote as they wished, even if it was against party lines, was strictly more democratic and therefore better, but I'm not sure that's necessarily the case.

For a given issue raised, there are generally several distinct solutions proposed. These proposals have advantages and disadvantages, individually each is probably aligned with the ideology of one of the major parties, but let's say it is not necessarily obvious that one proposal is strictly better than the other. There should be discussion and deliberation, but in the end a well- functioning government should pick one of these proposals and stick with it.

Without strict party discipline a party will have to lobby it's own members and, since it's generally trying to push through multiple proposals at once, choose its battles and compromise. As a consequence, rather than one of the well-thought out original proposals, a compromise combining elements from several is what will eventually be passed. While either proposal individually would work well, such a mixture can easily become an incoherent mess, and strictly worse than either individual original proposal.

With strict party discipline, the party decides in the party room what proposal to advocate, and then it expects party unity in pushing it through parliament.

It's somewhat counter-intuitive, but I think that in many situations it's more important that a coherent and well-considered decision is made than it is that all viewpoints and positions are accomodated.

<comment><USER14> The problem is that most of the 'compromises' involve agreeing to spend some money in the Congressional district.

<comment><USER12> Australia's constitution (S54 and S55) requires all appropriations bills to be _only_ about appropriations ("supply", as we call it). Anything else in a money bill causes the entire bill to become invalid.

That and party discipline means that US-style horse-trading is much harder. There's still pork-barrelling, but it's driven by the party's assessment of which seats need to be shored up, rather than every single electorate getting bacon grease, squeaky or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The US is not a Democracy, was never meant to be a Democracy, and the founders went to great lengths to ensure the citizens of the US were protected from a Democracy by the framework of the Constitution.

Maybe some day the average citizen of this nation will be informed and intelligent enough to participate in a functioning Democracy. Until then politicians will continue to manipulate the misinformed masses and throw around the word Democracy to make the plebs feel as though they matter.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've come to expect this kind of painfully unhelpful commentary from the rag that is the NYT. On par with their myopic mainstream-ism, this article's purpose is to confuse and pacify readers with a narrative that states we can continue on our current government's course, if only we were to allow for a minor change of our political system's vote-counting partitions. We cannot save or rekindle democracy with such pathetic incremental changes, nor are "we" as citizens empowered to make such changes anyway-- purge this article's idiotic train of thought. To be explicit: changing who gets elected via more neutral partitioning won't change a single thing, because the titanic problems of American "democracy" (in realistic terms, oligarchy or perhaps autocracy) occur post-election outcome, and occur regardless of whether it is Democrats or Republicans who win.

Redistricting won't save democracy; at best, algorithmic or "mathematical" (a fool's term for neutral and objective) redistricting will allow for the voters to pick candidates that are proportionally and geographically anchored to their districts. Geographical picking of representatives isn't broken beyond repair within the political system, nor is the physical counting of votes to determine which representatives win, though the electronic voting systems leave the latter terrifyingly unverifiable and unquestionably anti-democratic.

The slaughter of democracy in our time is an intentionally engineered result of post-election corruption as effected by bribes of lobbyists, raping the power of the vote in the name of capital flow to those that are already morbidly obese with riches. You cannot have democracy when money is allowed to have a coercive power that eclipses any feasible democratic comeuppance.

Let the banishment of money from the election component of political activity exist as an iron law in any new democracy which is established. That would be the start of having a fighting chance for democracy, which America has long since discarded.

<comment><USER17> "Let the banishment of money from the election component of political activity exist as an iron law in any new democracy which is established."

I think this is incredibly short sighted. Money is a means to access a political voice for the dispossessed as much as the wealthy. What will happen without money is that policy will be crafted by and for solely the politically privileged. Backroom deals and dark access will be even more important than otherwise. A tighter, more difficult to disrupt oligarchy will emerge. I doubt this is what you would want.

<comment><USER16> Currently, money equals political voice, and the rich are the ones running the show because they have an overwhelming amount of money. Money is not rallied in sufficient quantities (millions to billions) by anyone other than the rich. Political privilege means access to cash flow from the people who tell you how to vote if you want re-election support. Ripping this system out by the root and replacing it with public election funding and no ability to receive bribes is precisely what I want.

<comment><USER18> By "rich" I assume you mean the teachers unions. [1]

So long as the state appropriates and controls a vast share of resources all the people will vie for a share of it. They will find innumerable innovations. Those who have the means (money and influence) on their own always find a way in. So many of those of lesser means find ways to band to together to push themselves up to the trough. This leaky boat cannot be made seaworthy. [2]

"Public election funding" is another way to say, "Let's give the current incumbents monopoly control of the financing of elections." You can bet that whatever initial formulas they devise for distributing this cash (which confers the power to decide elections) while everyone is watching will be creatively "improved" soon after the public has shifted is gaze. Even when the initial formulas are evenhanded, we see unintended consequences. [3]

[1] [http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php](http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php)

[2] [https://mises.org/library/politics-cannot-be- fixed](https://mises.org/library/politics-cannot-be-fixed)

[3] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey- cage/wp/2015/01/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey- cage/wp/2015/01/15/how-public-funding-of-elections-makes-politics-even-more- polarized/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>