MRI Developers Don't Use RubySpec and It's Hurting Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://rubini.us/2014/12/31/matz-s-ruby-developers-don-t-use-rubyspec/ <comment><USER2> Rubyspec is a great project for all the reasons Brian outlines.

However, it's also a failure - in part, due to Brian and his attitude towards contributors. See this twitter conversation: [https://twitter.com/the_zenspider/status/547527644535726080](https://twitter.com/the_zenspider/status/547527644535726080) He's been grinding on Rubyspec for years, bless him, but I think there's a reason why he was unable to rally the community behind his effort, both in terms of gathering more contributors and in making it "official" in terms of the language spec.

JRuby, currently the only non-MRI ruby implementation that you can seriously consider for production use, runs the MRI test suite against JRuby. RubySpec is far from The Only Solution, though Brian would like you to think it is.

<comment><USER3> >However, it's also a failure - in part, due to Brian and his attitude towards contributors.

Looks like he seems to be burned out - maybe he just wants something in return for his time investment e.g. a paid job or some other gratification in return for his work.

Btdt - you put _a lot_ of work into something, people/companies start benefit from it but they don't return anything important (monetary compensation is not a bad thing -it allows one to pay the bills/go on holiday/get a life).

We've seen this "pattern" a lot in the OSS world, but saying a different attitude would "fix everything" is a lie. We (as in the Ruby community) need to crowd-fund independent developers who are not paid by companies for their OSS contribution IMHO.

<comment><USER4> Brian has been paid to work on Rubinius and RubySpec full time for at least 6 years.

<comment><USER3> oh - didn't know that. Okay that makes a hughe difference IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's disappointing to hear about such problems with Ruby. I hit the same problem with the Groovy Language spec when I first came across Groovy. Its creator, James Strachan, initiated an implementation, test kit, and spec all within 6 months of each other (impl beta-1 in Dec 2003, and spec JSR-241 in May 2004). The project managers who took over from him, Graeme Rocher and Guillaume Laforge, changed direction by stopping work on the spec and refocusing the Groovy reference implementation to be the scripting language behind Grails. (Of course, _Groovy 'n' Grails_ was intended to chisel away at some of the market share of _Ruby on Rails_ but that's another story.) Strachan often wrote that the spec was to enable anyone to make their own implementation of Groovy if they want to, and right up to his very last posting ever [http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/Paris-write-up- tt395560.h...](http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/Paris-write-up- tt395560.html#a395571) on the Groovy mailing list on 5 Dec 2005, he maintained that what they were building was the reference implementation.

If Rocher and Laforge had come clean about how they turned the RI into the language itself, the backlash might have blown over quickly, but instead they led developers along for many years afterwards, not changing the spec to dormant until April 2012. Projects other than Grails who've tried to build atop Groovy have had to risk the ref impl changing in breaking ways between versions. The most spectacular incident was when Groovy++, an experimental static compiler built by Alex Tkachman that hooked via annotations into Groovy's AST, had to drop back down from Groovy 1.8 to 1.7 in 2011, and my own side project was also affected by the change. It turned out Rocher and Laforge had secretly employed a mate to extend Groovy with the exact same static type- checking and compilation functionality as Groovy++ and were obviously trying to shake us off.

Unlike Ruby, Groovy only has one other implementation, GrooScript, built by Jorge Franco, which generates JavaScript from Groovy syntax. When the developers of the most used implementation of a language want to protect their control, it certainly does hurt the ecosystem, turning it into an "echo system".

<comment><USER6> Are you sure you're not assigning to malice that which could be due to ignorance or indifference?

<comment><USER5> When you see the same behavior repeated consistently over 10 years, it doesn't matter if it's done consciously (what you call "malice") or as an unconscious habit ("indifference"), the effect is what matters and the intent is the same. The Groovy 2.4 release candidate was released a few days ago and announced on the personal blog of the project manager, but not on the Groovy community mailing list, a consistent behavior which started about year ago. Also a year ago, he launched a weekly mailout newsletter he controls about Groovy separate from the Codehaus repository or the backing company Pivotal Inc, soliciting for subscribers. It all looks like a clear attempt to take over from the other developers involved in building the Groovy codebase. I listed plenty of previous examples of such behavior by these project managers going back 10 years that's harmed the ecosystem, probably irrepairably, and I hope Ruby doesn't go down the same path.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Both Charles Nutter and Matz are smart guys. They are also both great people. I say this having spent time with both of them. This whole, my implementation is better than theirs coming from Brian is crazy.

Matz and Charles have helped to set the tone for the community. While I appreciate Brian's passion, it sounds like he needs to check his ego. No matter how smart we are, we can always learn things from other people. Without the collaboration of others neither JRuby or Ruby would be what they are today which is why they are successful.

<comment><USER8> He might need to check his ego, but the state of Ruby specification is deplorable, and despite being a big fan of Ruby, it's also a big road block to development.

The small number of mature Ruby runtimes is a bad sign.

<comment><USER9> See, iirc, Matz years ago specifically said "fork Ruby". He wants lots of different versions which I feel to some extent means diverging from a formal spec, and then occasionally maybe coming back to it.

<comment><USER8> And that's even worse. I'm working on a Ruby compiler. While it is far from being at a stage where this is a real problem, currently there's no sane way of knowing whether or not I'm "close enough" to MRI other than extensive testing of every single piece of Ruby code I want to work.

"Diverging from a formal spec" is one thing. As it is, many versions of MRI has diverged from how the core team _thinks_ it works. If MRI is "the spec", then Ruby changes from revision to revision as the test coverage is nowhere good enough to prevent regressions or changes in behaviour.

Basically: Nobody knows Ruby.

Frankly, I very much hope that another Ruby implementations overtake MRI sufficiently in quality to out compete it enough to shift the initiative of definining the language to a more responsible team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The thing I find depressing and frustrating about this kind of discussion is the fatalism and non-constructiveness.

I really wish it was:

"I set up a server that runs ruby spec on ruby-head daily and automatically reports spec failures to ruby-bugs"

So many companies are making big bucks off Ruby, yet so little are willing to fork out a bit of money and time to make Ruby better.

<comment><USER11> it's unreasonable to expect the dev who has already put a ton of work into developing and maintaining rubyspec and making it work nicely with all the ruby implementations and versions he could to have to put in the additional work to do this as well. I don't blame him for getting discouraged at having to chase a moving target on top of all that - I agree with him that having the MRI devs contribute to rubyspec was a reasonable thing to expect.

<comment><USER10> Throwing away a project that is clearly working is depressing. can't Heroku/GitHub/37 signals or someone sponsor a week of dev time to automate a system that runs the suite on latest?

It's just such a better outcome, nobody needs to change workflows its just that information gets reported upstream earlier in a much more useful time.

<comment><USER12> The Ruby devs attitudes in the discussions linked FTA makes me question the longevity of Ruby as a serious Enterprise language.

<comment><USER13> When did it become a serious Enterprise™ language? Not being flippant or denigrating Ruby, but when I do work for established enterprises, it's never in Ruby. Java, .NET, PHP, and occasionally Python. Just because startups use it to get off the ground quickly, or to build the front end of their website doesn't make it enterprise.

<comment><USER14> yes I don't want to get into a flamewar either, but I am an ex-RoR dev and since switching to enterprise Java I hear almost nothing about it largely due to enormously widespread acceptance of Spring (JavaEE is even re-gaining some traction).

Long story short (and hope my facts are right! not swearing by this, was just some googling...), I had to optimize some old code for an RoR client I freelance for and wanted to add in some more advanced ORM (still fairly simple though, mapping entity results from a stored procedure query). All the solutions I saw for this involved kindof hacking the db connector to execute some raw queries. I was curious as to why such a basic feature wouldn't be natively supported, so eventually I found some forum posts asking why it isnt (it may be by now) and all the responses were in the vein of: "That is not the Rails way and therefore the core team chooses not to support those types of features".

I know people think Java is too bulky & sprawling but after 6 months with JPA, SpringData, Spring JDBC etc. I was kindof left with the feeling "Man, there is a bit of a learning curve to pick up the overarching concepts of the Java ecosystem and its design paradigms at first, but once you are over that hump you can do more, easier with _any_ ORM lib than with ActiveRecord". I know there is another Ruby ORM gaining traction (DataMapper) but it just seems that the opinionated nature of Ruby/Rails core dev teams makes it doomed & dangerous for enterprise use (and indeed maybe its not even their goal).

The Java approach is bulky and design-by-committee for sure but their userbase seems to demand that the fullest possible spectrum of features be supported, and then the library developers try to provide their recommended approach for new projects. Also the specs expand pretty quickly... had to use JPA 2.0 for some projects and found myself constantly frustrated because in the advancement to 2.1 there seemed to be a landslide of awesomeness added to support missing advanced database features.

I guess its one of those things where now it feels like a breath of fresh air thinking "I have more power in my pinky than....". It's a shame too cuz I still get calls from companies in a lurch desperate for RoR devs but philosophically I just can't bring myself to go back in that direction after seeing how unscary & mind-bogglingly powerful the enterprise langs have become. In part thanks to RoR, I'm sure! Wouldn't mind using it for front-end but all that stuff is so interchangeable, the syntax diffs are barely noticed in the development process. I think really the only front-end techs with noticeable differences in feel are the ones with advanced data- binding/component libraries.

Maybe there are some mind-blowing gems out there now though? Who knows....

<comment><USER15> You are ignoring a decade of history in declaring Rails to be "dangerous for enterprise use". The reality is that Rails apps are used in thousands of enterprises around the world, as well as in "web-scale" businesses like Github, Airbnb, and Groupon.

However, Rails (and specifically ActiveRecord) has a very specific design philosophy (see [http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2012/rails-is- omakase.htm...](http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2012/rails-is-omakase.html) ) which does not include support for stored procedures (because business logic belongs in the app, not the database).

Of course, there are ways to make stored procedures work with Rails (see [https://github.com/leopoldodonnell/uses-stored- procedures](https://github.com/leopoldodonnell/uses-stored-procedures) ) but they are likely to end in tears, since you are working against the grain of the framework.

The basic argument for Rails is not about support for or against any specific underlying technology (if you can reach Facebook-scale on PHP, then you can make anything work), it is that using a mature and well-crafted framework maximizes developer productivity.

For most startups, as well as most enterprises, that is the critical resource.

<comment><USER16> The "enterprise" I work at uses a dozen little RoR apps to put a quick and dirty UI on some DB tables so analysts/sales/support folks can interact with the data.

The main problem with Ruby in this kind of setting is that these internal tools are extremely hard to maintain because of backwards compatibility issues --which there are plenty due to lack of spec, organic language development etc. The effort to upgrade the Ruby version is much greater than doing incremental hacks to support some half-day feature, so the codebase stays pinned to the 2007 Ruby release, we can't use new gems, have to live with old bugs or missing features, etc. And with every new incremental change the project gets harder to upgrade.

The Java ecosystem has done a lot better in this regard. Scala is not very good either, we have had a couple Scala projects with version lock-in effect as well.

<comment><USER6> This is the longterm perspective thats rarely seen here, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Later that year, at RubyConf 2008, I gave a talk titled, What Does My Ruby > Do about RubySpec. Matz and several other MRI developers attended. > Immediately after my talk, contributors to Rubinius sat down with Matz and > other MRI developers to discuss their effort to create an ISO specification > for Ruby. We asked whether RubySpec could be part of the specification but > were told that it was not appropriate to include it.

This seems telling.

Does anyone have any concrete information about why Matz and the Ruby team are opposed to using RubySpec then?

Has there been any progress on creating an ISO spec?

EDIT: It seems Ruby has a published ISO spec since April 2012 - [http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_...](http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=59579)

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't want to get in the middle of drama, but if you take anything away from this, read the actual code.

Just read the actual code of the MRI tests.

</comment><comment><USER19> Matz is the creator of Ruby. If this guy really wanted to play ball, why didn't he just submit PRs for improving the real Ruby's test suite? Instead he just made his own thing, well duh it didn't end up a part of the real Ruby. OK, a hosting provider wanted their own Ruby implementation to fix concurrency issues, but that doesn't suddenly make the creator of the language have to do things their way. If you fork or reimplement a project and do whatever you want, well you took control so you gained something, but the creator has no obligation to change to your fork/reimplementation.

<comment><USER20> That glosses over all of the arguments the OP made about making a test suite that can work with all implementations of Ruby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Regardless of other warts with the language, I really love how the Java Language Specification lays down the law.

<comment><USER22> I find Java's approach to specs to be one of the worst parts of the ecosystem. I've come across numerous obvious bugs with various Java specced libraries that have been marked `won't fix` because the bug is actually either a bug in the spec or just got left out in order to rush the spec out the door (rush being a loose term here given how often Java actually updates it's various specs).

<comment><USER23> At least the bugs are documented. Ruby bugs just are, theres nothing confirming them.

Java bugs need to stay there because if they were fixed then it would be a backward incompatible change.

<comment><USER22> That attitude is exactly why I have no interest in working with Java.

<comment><USER24> Wait, you're saying you'd prefer undocumented bugs and a constant stream of breaking changes to the runtime that force you to constantly port and report existing, working code?

I don't get it... the Java way seems pretty right to me. That said, I will allow that they might have been a little bit _too_ rigid about not allowing breaking changes. At the very least this policy has resulted in Java evolving more slowly than it might have otherwise. But I don't necessarily find that to be unacceptable, all things told.

<comment><USER22> I prefer that bugs get fixed when found.

In my experience the Java way is 'oh, a bug, well, that's a bug defined in the spec so we can't fix it now, we'll make a note for the next version'...5 years pass.

The 'I don't want to touch working code' argument is another strange Javaism. If you expect your code to not rot your going to have to constantly maintain it anyway.

<comment><USER25> And sadly, it seems the same with JS. Year 2015:

      x = null;
      typeof x; //object
      x.a = 1;  //TypeError: x is null

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Has Matz stated the reasons they are not using RubySpec? Knowing him, I can't really believe he has chosen to ignore RubySpec without good reasons.

<comment><USER27> [https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7549#note-2](https://bugs.ruby- lang.org/issues/7549#note-2)

Apparently, he and some of the key devs don't like design by committee or much in the way of bureaucracy.

<comment><USER28> The problem with reading too much into that comment is that the issue being commented on involves setting up an entire "design process" for ruby, including councils and voting and this and that.

It's troublesome to conflate the bulk of that proposal with the reception of RubySpec itself. It may be that some of the Ruby folks would've been receptive to a more limited proposal like "all released versions of Ruby should pass RubySpec", but we don't live in the universe where that happened.

Even then, telling a group of language developers that they should commit tests into what is effectively your "pet project" is a big ask.

<comment><USER29> Could also have submitted bug reports during the RC pointing to a failing ruby spec test especially the segfault...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I almost didn't catch the epilogue - he's shutting down the RubySpec project entirely, because it hasn't accomplished what he hoped.

<comment><USER4> I believe he's shutting it down as a political move. They're still going to use it to maintain Ruby compatibility and they'll still need to run it against MRI. It just isn't a standalone project now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> @senthilnayagam: . @yukihiro_matz can you respond [http://t.co/qeeVAluOhJ](http://t.co/qeeVAluOhJ)

@yukihiro_matz: @senthilnayagam I am not in charge of testing. But as far as I understand it has been communication problems. Blaming no use.

@senthilnayagam: . @yukihiro_matz when merb could merge with rails, rubyspec shpuld merge with MRI & become official reference for all Ruby implementations

</comment><comment><USER32> Why don't MRI developers use RubySpec?

<comment><USER2> As linked in another comment, basically:

[https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7549#note-2](https://bugs.ruby- lang.org/issues/7549#note-2)

1\. Matz is, and always will be BDFL. 2\. The core Ruby team wants to talk in terms of C and MRI being the Ruby spec, not a third party/written RubySpec

<comment><USER8> That's an absolutely terrifying attitude from a language developer....

<comment><USER2> Is it? Python is _exactly the same_. It has no language spec (defined by its implementatation), and it has a BDFL who hasn't pushed for one.

<comment><USER33> It would be good for Python to have more rigor in its definition. But the situation here doesn't have an analog in the Python world: there is no "PythonSpec" third-party test suite that is a) more complete than the official suite, b) exposing segfaults in previously working code, and c) going unused by the core developers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What of the ISO standard that mRuby is based on?

[http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_...](http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=59579)

Aw crap, I have to buy this doc to see it?

<comment><USER35> The final draft is available: [https://www.ipa.go.jp/osc/english/ruby/](https://www.ipa.go.jp/osc/english/ruby/)

But the ISO document is mostly irrelevant, if we talk about Ruby implementations like CRuby, JRuby, or Rubinius.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Some of the discussions he links to in the article are disturbing. Many posts refusing to implement process because they don't want any process at all. Doesn't seem like a healthy approach.

<comment><USER4> Be wary of this cultivated list of links. There are others out there that would make it very clear why the proposed design process was a misfit given the projects and people involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> THIS Brian again, nobody uses rubinius and it doesn't hurt anyone. This guy has a long history of promoting rubinius by attacking MRI, first time I saw him was on Baruco 2013, if you watch the video, his attitude is so annoying. Evan Phoenix's Ruby implementation was an interesting project, but now totally ruined by this childish guy. Brian, my advise is to stop bitching about MRI and seriously improve the documentation of rubinius, the are many interesting topics on rubini.us, but most of them are WIP since forever.

</comment><comment><USER38> Jeez, what a mess.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why _should_ they have been using RubySpec?

<comment><USER32> Did you read the article? It contains 10 reasons why the MRI tests aren't sufficient.

<comment><USER39> The Ruby devs also doesn't use any libraries I wrote, and that's okay.

Why is _RubySpec_ the special sauce that is so special that the devs not using it is horrible?

<comment><USER40> Honestly, just the fact that rubyspec exposes a segfault in a new release is more than reason enough that they should be using it. It is de facto a more complete test suite than the ad hoc one they've been making.

Given that, the onus is on the MRI developers to demonstrate why they are actively avoiding the use of a tool that could improve the stability of their language and environment.

<comment><USER4> They have used and contributed to RubySpec in the past, but many (like me) were turned off by the maintainers' attitudes toward contributors and lack of respect. For example, see the zenspider link elsewhere in this thread.

Nobody questions RubySpec as a project. But there are many nontechnical reasons why it was never adopted wholeheartedly by ruby-core.

<comment><USER32> Now that the main maintainer quit, can those nontechnical reasons be resolved?

<comment><USER41> Hopefully. I would be willing to take a crack at it.

<comment><USER8> If you (or anyone else) do, I'd be ready to help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> MRI unit tests are the spec.

[https://github.com/ruby/ruby/tree/trunk/test/ruby](https://github.com/ruby/ruby/tree/trunk/test/ruby)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I mistakenly cut off the full title of the post: "Matz's Ruby Developers Don't Use RubySpec and It's Hurting Ruby"

</comment><comment><USER43> Fuck, this idiot is now being pendatic in #ruby as well.

2015-01-02 14:45:30 brixen raise your hand if you have implemented Ruby and used MRI's tests

Glad he didn't get things to go his way. He cries too much. If you don't like some projects go write your fucking own.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ruby is about to die permanently. A language that copied emacs-lisp but with syntax? Lol that gives it features to impress the ignoramus majority but real Haskell or Lisp programmers know better.</comment>


Elevating original reporting in Search - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/products/search/original-reporting/ <comment><USER3> I found the rater guidelines document linked in this blog post quite insightful. Sections like how to assess the "E-A-T" rating (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) will be useful to me when writing content.

[https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I don't think anybody calling it "content" should ever be considered trustworthy. The word reeks of hastily rephrased Wikipedia solely intended for search engines.

<comment><USER5> It's a standard term of art, hence terms like "digital content creation" tools, "separating content from presentation", and so on.

I think any other connotations you're associating with the word are probably down to you, not the word.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's a standard term of art within the hastily-rephrasing-wikipedia-for- SEO community.

<comment><USER6> No, this is patently false. Here are some examples which illustrate Silhouette's point:

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

[https://www.loc.gov/standards/mdc/](https://www.loc.gov/standards/mdc/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Featured_content](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Featured_content)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Authoritative seeming sources are not always a good thing. Anytime you search for a game guide/faq/hint you get drivel from the big name sites that are super short on content and have bad advice. Almost in all cases the content I'm looking for is in some tiny blog that barely ranks but matches all the search words.

<comment><USER8> _> Authoritative seeming sources are not always a good thing._

Yeah, but what if stupid people search for the wrong thing, find the wrong website and get infected with Wrongthink? Have you thought about that? Crushing amateur content creators and betraying all the ideals of the early Web is small price to pay for preventing that intolerable scenario.

<comment><USER9> Who or what define "Wrongthink" ?

<comment><USER10> Whoever gets to define what the "right" or "authoritative" answers are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If this change is executed well, it will be a relief for original content creators such as myself. I am involved in researching and writing original content, and in recent years our articles keep getting buried by low-effort regurgitators who slightly rewrite our work, then rank above us because their version is newer. I've even bellyached about this on HN before:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19766276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19766276)

So, here's hoping Google succeeds in setting thing slightly straighter.

</comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one who thinks it's a bad idea for a tech company with no experience or education in the field to have so much influence over what people perceive to be good journalism?

<comment><USER13> Isn't the original PageRank, and every iteration since, defined by what Google engineers believe to be a relevant and informative webpage? They have a 160+ page guide that tells their ratings team how to identify high-quality content:

[https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf)

<comment><USER14> _> Isn't the original PageRank (...) defined by what Google engineers believe to be a relevant and informative webpage?_

No, quite the opposite.

The original PageRank was defined by what _other_ internet publishers considered to be a relevant and informative webpage. Specifically, the original PageRank was weighting content by the links (and content around the links) it was getting. The trust was placed on the internet publishers linking to it. The trust was distributed and also transitive to a degree.

Which, if you think about it, is pretty close to what journalists do - <USER2> prop up the good ones in various ways. And also reasonably close to the peer review process popular in sciences - equal peers judging relevant materials and marking / linking the ones they approve.

All in all, the original algorithm was effectively a "wall" between Google engineering and the actual content, as ranked & searched. It was clear delineation that "we don't editorialize search results".

Granted, the later incarnations of Google Search take into account much more than just the original PageRank, and thus stray away from the idealized original formulation - and also get much closer to editorial decisions.

<comment><USER13> Right, I understand your point, and maybe I'm being too reductive here, but the idea heuristic that _what people link to is authoritative_ is an opinionated decision that ended up being satisfactorily accurate (and efficient to implement). And evaluating the heuristic's accuracy ultimately boils down to human judgment; from their early Google proposal (though not the original Pagerank paper):

[http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html](http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html)

> _The biggest problem facing users of web search engines today is the quality > of the results they get back. While the results are often amusing and expand > users ' horizons, they are often frustrating and consume precious time. For > example, the top result for a search for "Bill Clinton" on one of the most > popular commercial search engines was the Bill Clinton Joke of the Day: > April 14, 1997. Google is designed to provide higher quality search so as > the Web continues to grow rapidly, information can be found easily._

(Yes, the opinion that a "bill clinton" query should probably return official/biographical pages before "Joke of the Day" is a pretty obvious and uncontroversial one)

<comment><USER14> _> but the idea heuristic that what people link to is authoritative is an opinionated decision_

There are two decision spaces here. One is the selection of search ranking algorithm (whether to use PageRank or any other), and that decision was taken by Google[1].

The second decision space is the decision whether to link (or not) to any given document, and what content to put around it. That is a long lasting iterative process rather than any singular decision. Arguably it's geared towards approximating the distributed consensus - which is a global mutable state; expressed with edges the graph rather than any singular node.

Can the process be gamed, perverted, or corrupted randomly or maliciously? Sure. Do we know any better one? Not yet, at least not in the public.

\--

[1] practically speaking we all selected PageRank, by preferring Google's over multiple competing engines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For everyone who complains about Google having worse results, have you blocked or disabled Google's tracking? I haven't and haven't had any trouble finding things with Google and I wonder if the two are related in some way.

<comment><USER16> In some ways that might be true. But I also wonder if google is using tracking/profiling as kind of a crutch.

A while ago, I had google forget about all the things I had searched for. I then wanted to look up some features of C++17, but google kept coming up with info about the C-17 Globemaster instead. Rather than just searching for my terms explicitly, it tried to interpret what I wanted, and failed miserably without knowing I had previously been interested in programming.

This doesn't explain Google groups searches, though, where zero results come up even though you copied/pasted the title from an old post.

<comment><USER17> > I then wanted to look up some features of C++17, but google kept coming up > with info about the C-17 Globemaster instead

I did the search just now and every single result on the first page was about C++17. (I am logged-out with Noscript, Ghostery, adblock enabled). They might have fixed it?

<comment><USER18> how do you know what the search was?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Has anyone found that recently Google search is becoming more and more useless?

Google tends to ignore what I actually type in, and tries to search according to some weird NLP machine learning inference on what it thinks I'm actually trying to ask.

Top results will include maybe 50-75% of the words I actually typed in, and it will treat the rest as mere hints or related words.

My queries end up looking like this after several tries and fails:

"something" "another phrase" "also" "this"

If I type the whole phrase without quotes I just get a bunch of ads, blog spam, and irrelevant stuff that is pretending to be useful.

Hell, most dev-related queries will return shallow medium-style blog articles instead of SO / Github.

<comment><USER20> Almost every thread that's somehow related to Google Search has this same question (which often goes to the top) and the same answers.

It's difficult to imagine that most of the people haven't seen this a bunch of times as well.

And while I agree with this, I'd love to know why people keep asking and/or upvoting this same question over and over. Is it for the sole purpose of bashing Google or what is it? Honest question.

<comment><USER21> Yes, people have been switching to DDG for years now, yet still google is utterly dominant.

Candidly, I'm mystified by the complaints. Google's search works great, and has for years for myself and everyone I know IRL.

Any post about any product that isn't brand new on HN is going to get comments along the line of "Company X? Their product is garbage, it used to be great! I've been using <alternative that requires a ton of extra effort to setup> and once I got it going it was amazing!"

<comment><USER22> I won't argue about your experience, but DDG isn't any harder to use than Google aside from the fact that you need to change your default search engine. That's not a "ton of extra effort to setup".

<comment><USER23> When trying DDG again for a while, my use of g! gradually increases as a necessary tactic to surface what I'm looking for. When it gets to over about 80% I go back to using Google again with a sigh.

<comment><USER24> Can you give some examples?

I think a few years ago this was somewhat reasonable but in my opinion DDG has not only matched but surpassed Google for most searches. As an example (to not make this as if I'm only asking you to do the lifting) a random search that's relevant for me would be 'spacex rocket thrust.' Since Google's results are based on arbitrary tracking and whatever per user magic marketing metrics they decide to apply, it's not repeatable but I imagine you'll probably get at least something similar. We should get identical results for DDG:

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>-----

Google:

\- 4 redundant wiki pages (all link to each other)

\- 2 redundant links to spacex.com site (all link to each other)

\- 1 irrelevant theverge article on an arbitrary launch

\- 1 space.com link with some relevant information

DDG:

\- 1 relevant wiki page

\- 2 redundant links to spacex.com site

\- 1 tangential article from space.com

\- 1 space.com link with some relevant information

\- 1 spaceflight101.com link with extremely relevant information

\- 1 irrelevant link from teslarati talking about a 'spacex rocket package' for a roadster

\- 1 cnn article comparing rocket thrusts

\- 1 redundant wiki page

\</comment><comment>-----

That was literally the first thing I searched for and I think DDG is clearly better there, though both overall results are quite poor. One big thing is a much better diversity of sources with much less redundancy. But the thing that really pushes this example over the edge is the spaceflight101. It not only provides the most relevant information by a rather wide margin, but is also a critical source for a wide array of related news, specs, and other information.

The reason I think both searches are quite poor is because of how much all search engines today lack any notion of context whatsoever. When I search for 'spacex engine thrust' am I searching for technical information, or am I searching for media information relating to recent launches or developments? That's something that ought be able derived from a contextual analysis of my query, yet nonetheless it quite obviously is not!

Google took us that big leap from 'Abraham Lincoln' not returning hardcore porn, but it feels like the progress we've made since then has been pretty.. meh. And I feel the last few years have seen an overall decline in search quality, but a _relative_ increase in quality for the formerly secondary players such as DDG. In other words it "feels" as though Google of ~4 years ago > DDG today > Google Today. But of course this is, in some ways, going to come down to the person.

<comment><USER23> No I don't have examples to hand. Search isn't something I'm interested in really - it's just a kind of commodity to me that I want to get out of my way.

The trend is entirely clear for my search usage though - I just don't find what I'm looking for much of the time with DDG, so end up g!'ing. When that usage reaches a certain subjective redundancy threshhold I switch back to google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Google recent algorithm update made a massive change in the way news sites write their content.

It forced them to be original.

I believe elevating original reports is the incentive google gonna bring sites who follow their guidelines

</comment><comment><USER26> This is cool, i'll have to dig less to see what the original source was for a news report. Also giving more weight to news sources with pulitzers and such is EXACTLY how search SHOULD be rather than ranking up Buzzfeed writers who rewrite news in clickbait worthy fashion

</comment><comment><USER27> Yeah I hate how the top result for any search is 10 news organizations all with the same low effort headline.

</comment><comment><USER28> Okay let's give this a try

news.google.com -> Democratic debate

Websites:

BBC, Vox, Guardian, NYT, WaPo, CNN, Slate (wow), The New Yorker, USA Today

 __Absent: __

National Review, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, reason, Forbes, RT

So basically the news algorithm considers these kinds of stories high quality:

1) Stephen Colbert plays Democrat Drinking Game (NYT)

No Greg Gutfeld sketch ?

2) Funniest one-liners at the Democratic Debate (CNN)

3) Where was Mayor Pete Buttgeig at the Debate? (NYT)

4) OPINION: Winners and Losers of the Democratic Debate (NYT)

actually has the word opinion in the title

5) Who won the Democratic Debate? Texas. (NYT)

I think there ought to be more representation from right-leaning organizations

<comment><USER29> I think you're just pushing an agenda. Where does the blog say anything about opinion being ranked down.

In terms of what the blog actually talks about, "Democratic debate" is a terrible example. This seems to focus on boosting older articles that break the news and down rank low effort follow up stories. I don't think a consistent topic like "Democractic debate" is a good test bed.

Maybe search for a scandal?

<comment><USER30> > Where does the blog say anything about opinion being ranked down.

Every ranking boost for one result is a ranking decrease for all other results.

<comment><USER29> Most likely this is just boosting articles at the beginning of a trend curve for growth for a search. For the purpose of what's laid out here, opinion could and probably should be presented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I wonder how this will deal with content that evolves over time. Some breaking news was published to BBC News with only a sentence and was fleshed out within the hour, so the original publication time and the possible originality of content are disconnected. In theory Wikipedia is meant to be summarising other sites so it couldn't be first.

</comment><comment><USER32> I like the idea of putting a spotlight on original stories, yet this also incentivizes racing to break a story even if it is just a rumor

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

</comment><comment><USER33> On the surface, focusing on original reporting should be a very good thing. But this goes way beyond that. These raters are going to effectively be the arbiters of truth and reality. This is a very dangerous opaque centralization of information control given the monopoly Google has on search.

Maybe take a look at some search alternatives like DuckDuckGo or YaCy.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm all in on DuckduckGo.

No longer doing !g as I don't accept the Google privacy policy (although I have peaked behind the popup using Ublock)

<comment><USER35> If you ever need Google results, just use !s for Startpage instead. It pulls Google results in a privacy respecting way, similar to DDG.

<comment><USER34> thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder how they are going to make this... Only based on timestamp? Based in "trusted sources"? Based in a new API?

<comment><USER13> Besides algorithms, they have a team of raters who manually evaluate the results. The rating guidelines are specifically enumerated in this guide: [https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf)

For example, check out page 26 for their grid of "Examples of Highest Quality Pages"

Algorithmic and signal-wise, there are common conventions in English-language journalism that signal "original reporting", or rather, not original reporting. Such as, "...as reported by" or "...', Rep. Smith told the Washington Post". Of course, not every publication uses those, so I'm guessing the trustiness of a site/source will come into play.

<comment><USER37> The human raters are used to assess the performance of the algorithms (i.e. do human opinions align with algorithmic ones), not to rank content directly.

A recurring theme with Google is that they always want to solve problems algorithmically.

<comment><USER38> And what do they do with these human assessments then? Of course they feed them back to the algorithm so that it can improve. In effect it is still humans influencing the search rankings albeit indirectly. So it is a bit duplicitous to say that "it is the algorithm that decides" when there are humans providing learning data for it.

<comment><USER37> It's still algorithm-first. It's not "learning data" in the sense that human ratings are used to train the algorithm.

It's more of a check step. So, for example, if humans think one website is vastly more (or less) authoritative than human raters, the engineers might dig in to see which aspects are causing the algorithm to evaluate it differently and, potentially, test tweaking the algorithm accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Google is scared shitless with the DOJ investigation on them.

</comment><comment><USER40> Google made some pretty serious moves in the last year.

Their recent algorithm update is forcing news sites to improve their overall content quality

and by now highlighting original reports it will force news sites to write original content and not just rewrite each other articles.

It's cool to see how Google is changing online journalism

<comment><USER41> > It's cool to see how Google is changing online journalism

It really isn't. That sort of 'cool' is what got us AMP, Chrome and search results mixed with advertising as well as Google products that are promoted at an unfair advantage compared to established products by competitors.

Monopolies have their occasional upsides but they also have structural downsides which is why they should be avoided.

<comment><USER42> I'm generally pretty right wing and I generally think that the tech companies have a heavy left-wing bias. That said, Google already has a massive influence on journalism. From where we are, today, in the real world, this feels like a good change.

In my opinion. For what it's worth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> In December 2018, Sundar Pichai testified under oath to US lawmakers that search results are completely algorithmic with no human reranking of search results. I wonder if they are still going to stick with this story.

<comment><USER44> Why wouldn't they?

> their feedback doesn't change the ranking of the specific results they're > reviewing; instead it is used to evaluate and improve algorithms in a way > that applies to all results</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What have you used to short Bitcoin? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It's too late to short BTC now, even if it goes down to $1000 the reward of 3x out weights to risk of 100x

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! But really I am just looking for the technical. Like _how_ people are doing it.</comment></comment>


Anxiety Looks Different in Men - <AUTHOR> http://wsj.com/articles/anxiety-looks-different-in-men-11564494352?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> This is a great article. For years I didn't know how to handle anxiety so I handled it "like a man" which lead to a pretty decent drinking habit.

Now that I've stopped drinking and being open about what's going on with me, my anxiety looks like traditional anxiety which was easy for my gp to help diagnose.

Taking the leap to be open and get help was the best thing to happen to me in years.

<comment><USER3> For this audience, I would add that anxiety is in some sense often a career positive. During the years I spent as a sysadmin, the continuous feeling that something was about to gowrong and I really needed to prepare for it was useful to my employers. Even if it was bad for me, my relationships, and my physical health.

<comment><USER4> The worst thing about this is that realizing it isn't necessarily the first step to improving your condition. On the contrary, it can lead to cultivating your own anxiety, because it gives you opportunities you wouldn't get with a more healthy work life...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anxiety is one of the emotions that I have to consciously think about how to express. I have to imagine what people look like in the movies when they're scared, and then I try to reproduce it. I can show many other emotions naturally, without thinking about it: happiness, anger, disgust. But fear I have to consciously simulate. (I suppose if I was in a bus going off the edge of a cliff or someone stuck a gun in my face, my repressive instincts would be overcome and I'd look terrified, but in normal situations it doesn't come out.) I think I've internalized the ability to hide it, to camouflage it as annoyance or boredom, so thoroughly that I have to layer a bad acting job over my lockdown of the natural expression.

I didn't know this until I got in group therapy and realized that many of the other people in my group (the women, in fact) didn't register the fact that I was feeling a lot of anxiety, even though I talked about all the time. When I talked about it, they didn't see any reflection of it in my face or body language, so what I said didn't register. I could say that I was feeling anxious, I could tell them about situations where I was paralyzed with anxiety, and still the absence of the expression they expected outweighed what I was telling them. They even accused me of withholding and not being open about my feelings until I learned how to act it out for them. I had to fake it to be accepted as authentic; my words were not enough.

This knowledge has proved to be very important to me. I realized that in many situations where I have mentioned my fear of something without expressing it physically, people have assumed I was lying. For example, when I talk about my fear of the financial consequences of a purchase, if I don't _show_ fear, my wife may assume my fear is not real, and I'm making up an excuse because I want to spend the money on something else. Also, in situations where everybody else is feeling and expressing fear, if I don't consciously produce an expression of fear, I will come off as apathetic and detached.

It's very, very frustrating. From a young age we learn we are punished for showing fear, conditioned to hide it, and then later we realize there are situations where we are punished for our inability to show it.

<comment><USER6> I have the opposite problem: I don't know what anxiety is. Supposedly it's an emotion people have (and it's certainly possible I feel it too,) but I have no way to identify my feelings as anxiety because nobody has ever expressed the meaning of that term in a way the conforms to any feeling I have ever had.

<comment><USER5> I originally glossed over your comment pretty quickly, but the more I think about it, the more I realize this is true in practice for me as well. I know what it feels like to feel joy or sadness, but for me anxiety is more often a collection of things I observe about myself than something I _feel_. This is partly because my anxiety is so often coupled with depression, and partly because anxiety pushes your brain into a fight/freeze/flee trichotomy, and the "freeze" and "flee" responses can feel pretty emotionally blank when the fear is distant or ill-defined (like a deadline or social rejection as opposed to a grizzly bear.)

Again depending on the fight/freeze/flee response, my anxiety can manifest as stiffness in my body, requiring special concentration to force myself to do normal things, or it can manifest as a jitteriness, like when you drive a car with a lot more power than you're used to and every time you touch the accelerator it surges forward in an alarming way. It can be accompanied by elevated body temperature, even sweating.

The way I differentiate the paralyzing kind of anxiety from depression is that depression paralyzes with lack of energy and an inability to believe that anything you do will come out well. Anxiety paralyzes with stiffness and a blank mind that is too twitchy to make plans.

Paralysis is the flight/freeze response to anxiety, but it also has a fight response, where I single-mindedly execute the next thing to do. I can get a lot of things done this way, and sometimes this is the only thing that snaps me out of procrastination, but sometimes the "clear next step" I'm unthinkingly executing is not the right thing. And when it becomes unclear what the next thing is, I'm back to being paralyzed.

Likewise, in social situations, anxiety can make me talk a lot (for me) and become much more open and engaging, and it can be a great thing to get me over the hump to knowing someone well, but more often it just makes my mind blank and makes me so slow to say the things I want to say that the moment passes. From the point of view of my social anxiety, I guess that's a win, preventing me from engaging more than superficially.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've thought about this a bit. I don't have anger issues but I have anxiety issues and I spent decades not understanding that I experienced anxiety. In my experience, the culture tells men to exhibit strength and show no weakness. What counts as strength/weakness has changed over time and varies depending on your social groups — it's not just the stuff associated with typically masculine values, but it also shows up in coding skills, or parenting skills, or how much work one takes on in those or other domains without complaint. In Behave by Robert Sapolsky, it's repeatedly observed that testosterone doesn't necessarily amplify aggression, but it does drive status-seeking/maintaining behavior, where status is some set of collective values where one member can have more or less of it than another and be seen as above or below the other. To me, this maps very well to generalized sense of strength or weakness.

So, in my opinion, men are both wired and trained by the culture to avoid admitting anxiety, to themselves and others, because it is a weakness.

<comment><USER8> Yup. I had a serious anxiety condition since childhood. But my parents were so disgusted by my fear that they made me dissociate from it. I went to doctors and said something is wrong, they asked, what? And I could not answer because I could no longer feel my fear. I went for 30 years without knowing my problem. Society has a serious attitude problem towards men and it is seriously damaging a huge number of people.

<comment><USER9> > Society has a serious attitude problem towards men and it is seriously > damaging a huge number of people.

As I understand it, this is what "toxic masculinity" is supposed to mean.

<comment><USER10> That just sounds like misandry.

Society has an attitude problem with women in some respects too, but people just call it misogyny, not "toxic femininity" or whatever.

Being consistent with terminology is sadly underrated.

<comment><USER11> Toxic femininity is actually a utilized term in the same spheres as toxic masculinity was coined (ie. Academia). Toxic masculinity is not against men but against a false societal pressure that men cannot show weakness, are justified in expressing their anger with violence, and that showing aggressive behavior instead of genuinely healthy human bonding is an acceptable and many substitute. It forces pressure on men to be unable to report when they've been sexually assaulted, when they're anxious, in need of comfort, when they're mentally ill, etc.

This is how I've understood the concept and it seems to fit with the claim that "I am a man and my parents emotionally abused me in response to my deep anxiety disorder in my childhood to force me to avoid treatment for decades".

Toxic femininity is the same sort of societal expectations for women that are toxic. Women have more pressure to avoid being assertive even when their personalities are naturally more aggressive. That a mother is a mother first and a person second, such that everything she may do as a mother reflects on her worth as a human being.

EDIT: Regarding 'toxic femininity' I've been corrected that this isn't widespread used in this way. It's probably just used this way in my own academic circle and I had made an incorrect assumption. Thanks HN.

<comment><USER12> > Toxic masculinity is not against men but against a false societal pressure > that men cannot show weakness

It seriously needs a name change, because the name implies that masculinity is toxic and that's how I've seen it interpreted.

<comment> blaser-waffle That's how a lot of people interpret it. That people take that away may be deliberate, if you look at the roots of where the idea comes from, e.g. Andrea Dwokrin and S.C.U.M.

<comment><USER13> >if you look at the roots of where the idea comes from, e.g. Andrea Dwokrin and S.C.U.M.

Toxic masculinity as a concept was invented by the mythopoeic men's movement in the 1980s, and later taken up in mainstream feminist critique. It was not invented by feminists, and certainly not invented by radical feminists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This surprises me as a male who suffers from anxiety and exhibits none of these symptoms.

To be more specific my anxiety manifests as a feeling of unease, sometimes fear; and at times blends in with OCD where I become unsure of my short term memory and whether or not something did or did not happen.

<comment><USER15> I was only recently diagnosed with anxiety after spending thousands and thousands on an emergency room visit and visits to a cardiologist, and I work for a healthcare company with free access to GPs!

I had a variety of symptoms and none of them immediately seemed to shout "anxiety" to my physicians. I was given dozens of blood screenings, X-Rays, CT Scans, EKGs, Echocardiograms, stress tests, sleep studies, only to be told that my heart is in wonderful shape, and that all of my symptoms were probably anxiety (and after being put on Lexapro for several months, the bulk of the issues really seem to have resolved).

I was experiencing: chest tightness, left-side chest and arm pains, random dizziness, random feelings of disorientation, massive blood pressure spikes that would last for hours (110/70 -> 190/120), headaches, pressure in my left abdomen, heart palpitations, and several more very worrying symptoms.

At the end of the day, it all seemingly boiled down to a generalized anxiety disorder.

<comment><USER16> Thank you for writing this.

Last December I started getting some kind of weird 'fog' in my head. I didn't take it seriously when it first started and thought it would go away on its own. But instead it became worse and I got severely cognitively impaired. My speech got slow, I forgot basic words, I forgot names of people I knew, my logical thinking was impaired. It improved a little bit but I'm still incredibly cognitively impaired.

I spent hours searching online, using complex search queries and APIs to gather a lot of info on other people that report the same symptoms. This wasn't because I felt anxious, but I just really wanted to continue with my life ASAP and my symptoms seemed very vague. The conclusion was that, besides some medical causes, people with the same symptoms usually had anxiety.

Since I don't feel anxious or depressed and it appeared suddenly I still want to rule some medical causes out. But it is comforting to know that when all medical causes are ruled out, there is still a huge chance of it being just anxiety.

<comment><USER17> You may want to attempt to improve your sleep. Foggy head with reduced cognition and memory loss are pretty major symptoms of long term inadequate sleep. They're very common symptoms that parents of young children complain about, and can have some very long recovery times. Personally it took almost 6 months to recover once my first child started sleeping through the night. All it takes is an hour a night deficit for an extended period of time to really impact mental acuity, but you might not notice because it's almost enough on a daily basis, and by the time the cumulative effects show up, it's not always obvious sleep is the culpret.

<comment><USER18> I had a really rough month where my 2yo was jet lagged and waking up crying multiple times a night. After that I've had two months of anxiety on and off, this is really helpful. Have always suspected that sleep could have been the trigger but didn't realize that an hour a night could make such a huge difference. Cheers!

<comment><USER19> And of course this is a self-reinforcing downward spiral. Sleep quality destroyed by kids, underperformance in all areas of life due to sleep deprivation, anxiety and stress due to underperformance, making it harder to get to sleep...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm an anxious person, but my anxiety just looks like regular anxiety. It led me to take sub-optimal decisions and overall made my life more difficult that what it could have been. I didn't know anxiety was a thing, and that it was "curable" until I was 25. At that time, my gf who just became MD noticed my issue and prescribed me benzodiazepines. They really helped. I know they have bad press as they can be abused, but in my case, I take them occasionally and I haven't noticed any side effect or addiction.

I don't think anxiety can be cured but the symptoms can certainly be alleviated. It really helped me to understand that it was a condition, like headache, and that it was temporary and could be controlled to some extent.

It's also interesting that while I'm still anxious, I'm not anxious for the same things anymore. I used to be paralyzed by the mere thought of giving a talk (esp. in English). I don't care as much anymore. Now it manifests itself in other occasions.

<comment><USER21> For what it's worth: I know that writing is not the same as speaking, and of course I don't know how long it took you to compose that comment, but your English is excellent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Most sex differentiated medical stories which pop up in my feed tend to be about drug interactions in women being misunderstood because of the overtesting of males. That mental illness is mis-characterised in men, speaks to me of two things:

1) we haven't had a large enough war to produce the volume of war psychosis outcomes which correct for this and

2) women are tragically over-represented in all forms of mental illness profiles, which may relate to their real condition but also may relate to distortions in societal views of women and mental illness.

<comment><USER23> 3) We really don't know what mental illness is, outside of what makes people criminally violent.

<comment><USER3> Honestly, we don't even know _that_ it is, not in the same sense that we think of physical illness. There's a really good Philosophy Bites on how applying the conceptual model of physical illness to mental differences is problematic: [https://philosophybites.com/2016/01/steven-hyman-on- categori...](https://philosophybites.com/2016/01/steven-hyman-on-categorising- mental-disorders.html)

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that X is or is not real. It's more the point made by George Box: "All models are wrong; some models are useful." The traditional medical model has helped plenty of people when applied to mental issues. But it definitely made me think there are less wrong models still to come.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This one hits home. I have been arguing with my wife over stupid things that have been triggering my anger. Two weeks ago I ended up in the emergency room with a heart rate of 220. Got diagnosed with Supraventricular Tachycardia. I have continued having episodes and it is obvious to me that the trigger is anxiety. I worry a lot about too many things. Always thinking of worst case scenario. I have a cardiology appointment in a few hours and depending how that goes my next step is to see a doctor to get my anxiety under control. Hopeful it will stop my anger issues.

Edit: I would also like to add that I think my anxiety and preparing for worst case scenario in everything I do has been a factor in my career success. I worry I will lose my "edge" if I change. Looking for advice on this.

<comment><USER25> I have found the Buddhist's have a neat trick to this. I think it boils down all of life is suffering, but suffering is just an illusion.

When you start seeing reality that way, it becomes easier to detach emotionally from everything. It's not that you don't care, you obviously can. But the physiological stress responses like the one your describing can be neutralized by training the response system.

If you have watched talks by Buddhist monks[1] they have described people who suffer from horrible neurological disorders that cause them feeling of pain almost like a chainsaw and the emotional response from that. But through meditation and other practices their heart rate and brain responses can be calmer than the average person.

This is by no means easy it takes years of dedication of aligning your physiological systems with the mental one. But at the end of the day everything is just more or less chemicals and electrical impulses to various parts of the body. Knowing that is the ultimate freedom from that. There are usually lots of factors involve whether its fear, anxiety and the whole spectrum of "darkness" needs to be addressed at a deeper level.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fixvb3s25Uk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fixvb3s25Uk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anxiousness, alertness to danger, and the imperative not to show it, is an essence of the male human condition surely?

<comment><USER27> What a really insightful comment. I had never thought of it from that perspective. I like to view culture as a layer on top of our instinct and natural proclivity for certain behaviours. Men's choice to exhibit or inhibit their anxiety probably would have dictated mating behaviour. No mate would choose another that visibly responded to fears that weren't real. So an adaption would be the redirection of that anxiety into violence or antisocial behaviours, which ironically, are more attractive to some mates, eg. the bad boy image. Fascinating stuff!

<comment><USER28> Evolutionary psychology says that women are looking for men who have the characteristics of a strong leader. That means assertiveness, calm, self- confidence, happiness, etc. If you look around, that seems to be very much true. I don't think women are necessarily paying that much attention to wealth, but it definitely seems like they are drawn to confident and charismatic men. Men on the other hand, don't seem to mind if a woman is shy or anxious.

It puts you in a tough spot, as a male, because you want to be truthful and honest, express your feelings in a genuine way, but at the same time, there's that voice in your head, that strong societal pressure telling you that telling a woman that you are afraid, anxious or unsure might push her away. I've had a situation recently where a woman suggested that she wanted to sleep with me and came back to my place. We were both shy and nothing happened. She suggested that our being too shy was my fault, that I should have broken the ice and made her feel comfortable, and then she left. I kid you not. My self- esteem was _shattered_ for a week afterwards.

This kind of thing is hard to cope with. I think I obviously need to pick kinder women to go on dates with, but I understand why so many men are drawn to alcohol and drug use. It's because they feel society can't accept those feelings of inadequacy and anxiety that they have... And they're partially right. As a male, if you show weakness, you can lose social standing. I think attitudes are maturing and it's easier to be truthful and honest as a modern male, but it's still tough. The worst part is that it seems society generally does not give a shit about the struggles men go through. The popular narrative is all about oppression of women by men, and there isn't that much room for listening to the issues men face. I know that's how it feels to a lot of people. Anyways, just my two cents. To the men who struggle out there, you are not alone, and I hope that you can find good friends who are willing to listen to you.

<comment><USER29> > My self-esteem was shattered for a week afterwards. I think I obviously need > to pick kinder women to go on dates with.

Based on what you've written, I'm not convinced her behaviour was all that unkind. At least you received honest feedback which I think is kind. Consider the social norms of the society you live in and then consider the impact to her self-esteem your lack of initiative had.

I say this as someone who had the exact same problem with shyness. Don't get me wrong, shyness is nice, but shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Toxic masculinity: "The concept of toxic masculinity is used in psychology and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and to men themselves." \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity)

It's not the same as misandry. "Homophobia" sounds like it means "afraid of homosexuals" but that is incorrect. "Toxic masculinity" kind of sounds like it means "all masculinity is toxic" but that is incorrect.

I am female, have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, have been to therapy, and am interested in gender theory. These comments read like unguided group therapy mixed with fuzzy realization of the concept of toxic masculinity.

<comment><USER31> There are multiple definitions of "toxic masculinity" even in the Wikipedia article you linked. The intended meaning of the term seems to vary from user to user, which I think is one of the reasons people react defensively to it; they're all responding to the most frequent usage of "toxic masculinity" they've heard, which often don't match.

From the Wiki: "In a psychoanalytic context, Terry Kupers describes toxic masculinity as 'the need to aggressively compete and dominate others'".

Is a competitive sports match where both teams are engaged in a spirited attempt to compete and dominate others an example of toxic masculinity? Is it only toxic if the participants feel a 'need' pressured from the outside to participate? What if it's an internal need, and brings them joy? Would a woman needing to compete and dominate others be displaying toxic masculinity? Is competition itself masculine, or toxic? Is a kid who's excited to wake up early every day to play sports displaying "toxic" traits? Already the need for asterisks is present.

Relevant, I think: The Motte & Bailey Argument

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another- bri...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-brick-in-the- motte/)

(Edit: all of the questions I asked aren't meant to be prove the non-existence or non-impact of harmful male-standard behaviors; based on a carefully curated definition of "toxic masculinity", I am thoroughly opposed to it. My point is that upon hearing a single simple definition, all of these relevant questions can be immediately generated, and I doubt all the experts would answer them identically, which I think means there's something wrong with the definition as it stands.)

<comment><USER30> Of course wanting to win your tennis match / soccer game / ping pong tournament isn't inherently toxic. I don't want to get in a match of word definitions here but the point of the "toxic" part of the term is that it's the part that does harm.

The specific usage that I was trying to point out was not correct which I stand by is the "I assumed from the phrase 'toxic masculinity' that it means 'masculinity is toxic'" and the accompanying weird anti-feminist-backed-by- misguided-logic mindset that seems unfortunately common on HN

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Many anxious men (and women) aren't suffering from an anxiety disorder. Their anxiety is a perfectly reasonable response to the life they are living. I'm fine with therapy, meditation, and medication as long as they aren't used as tools to make it bearable to stay in a bad situation.

<comment><USER33> This comment couldn't be more counter-productive.

The article makes it clear that a feeling of anxiety at certain times is completely normal; it is when that anxiety is affects your daily life, causing you distress, or leads to depression or harm should it be concidered an anxiety disorder.

The article notes that men can react to or present with anxiety differently; and that representation is ignored, leading to a reduction in their quality of life. Dimissing it, as you have, is exactly what prevents men from receiving mental health support and society, at large, from recognising mental health issues in men.

<comment><USER34> If you are chronically stressed because you are working a terrible job, have overwhelming family obligations, etc., that doesn't necessarily mean you have an "anxiety disorder".

It might instead be that your anxiety is a perfectly natural response to bad circumstances. To fix the problem it would be better to address the causes of the stress instead of trying to just treat symptoms.

At a societal scale, it would be better to e.g. improve worker protection laws, expand the social safety net, subsidize childcare for working parents, crack down on fraudulent business practices, allow people to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy, make sure skilled immigrant workers can switch employers without losing their immigration status, work to reduce domestic violence, reform the criminal justice system, etc. instead of just expanding access to anxiolytic medication or pretending that therapy alone can solve all problems.

For an individual, the proper response might be to quit a job, start saying "no" to demands to work overtime, break up with an abusive partner, sit down and have a frank conversation with overly demanding parents, declare bankruptcy, take a leave of absence from college, let someone else take over maintaining the open source project, ...

<comment><USER35> > To fix the problem it would be better to address the causes of the stress > instead of trying to just treat symptoms.

The effect of depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental illnesses is that they prevent you from taking steps to address the addressable issues in your life. To start exercising while depressed, to start socializing while suffering from anxiety, etc., are some of the hardest things to do. That's why medication is typically paired with counseling - the medication prepares you to take the steps the counseling guides you into taking.

To put it another way, anxiety disorders (and depression, and ADHD, and more) take away agency. The purpose of medication is to reintroduce agency. The medication (for most people) won't fix their problems, but it will help them fix them.

<comment><USER36> do you think that, in general, medication is successful in improving the agency of it's users?

i worry that medication harbors a reliance on drugs, and facilitates growth of a society in which drug-use is necessary to participate "normally".

if someone with ADD/ADHD has an opportunity to increase their agency, do you think that would increase their quality of life? the parent commenter suggested that mental illness (in the case of depression) might be the result of someone with healthy brain chemistry in a bad environment. but do you think that someone with healthy brain chemistry can demonstrate an attention disorder as a result of their environment, and would be more able to improve their environment through medication?

<comment><USER37> > i worry that medication harbors a reliance on drugs

It can also get you out of bed when nothing else does. Or prevent you from killing yourself when you otherwise would have. Or give you a push to take small steps to get your life together. All of these effects are valuable despite efficacy being far from 100%, there being side effects and issues with reliance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I appreciate the TLDR in the subheading:

 _" Instead of coming across as nervousness or worry, anxiety in men often appears as anger, muscle aches or alcohol use—leading many men to go undiagnosed"_

I wish all articles did that instead of burying the lede.

</comment><comment><USER39> A few years back I for the first time labeled something I was feeling as "anxiety."

It was liberating, really did change my life, I just had no idea that was what that feeling was called.

</comment><comment><USER40> > When a man explodes in anger over something seemingly insignificant, he may > appear like just a jerk. But he could be anxious.

What's in a name... Its amazing the difference a title makes. Being "a jerk" is frowned upon, its "bad" and the jerk should know better. But when its "anxiety" its met with compassion and understanding. He needs help not a stern look.

Why do we feel that the jerk has agency over his actions but the anxious man doesn't? If anything, I'd say it's the opposite: the poor titleless jerk has no option but to be like he is. The anxious one could seek treatment to reconfigure his behaviour.

This whole arbitrary divide between agency and fatalism pops up again and again. See nature/nurture, gayness, crime (compare poor vs richer perpetrators), insanity, acts committed under influence of drug etc etc. It seems like society had to decide on the age old unanswerable question of free will, and it did, arbitrarily.

<comment><USER41> In one case, someone is being a jerk because they can't control their reactions due to their anxiety disorder.

These people are likely remorseful for what they have said or done.

A true jerk is someone who is being a jerk on purpose because they don't care about others. And they don't regret their actions because they think they are justified.

Seems like an important distinction to me.

<comment><USER40> The question then becomes: Does the "true jerk" have more control over his actions, or is he bound by his personality traits just as much as the "remorseful jerk"? Can we not say that the former can't control his reactions due to their "true jerk" disorder?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This article helped me to realize I probably should be seeking help for anxiety. I always knew I had anxious tendencies, but I didn't ever think I was just "sucking it up" until I read this.

I grew up being taught that drinking alcohol is a sin and drugs are evil and your body is sacred. Although I don't hold those beliefs myself I can't help but be manipulated by them. In actuality, I think I'm glad I was raised that way because I think I could very well have fallen into a hole of substance abuse. I've had to learn to cope with my anxiety in other ways. I tend to get very stoic and hyper-focused on problems that make me anxious. I try to use logic to find solutions or--more likely--to find a way to run away and avoid the problem. It hasn't always been easy on my marriage; fortunately I think my wife understands these emotions I have better than I do.

I don't know if this is generally true, but for myself, I think the problem has gotten worse as my family has become more and more dependent on me to survive. My wife skipped getting an education to raise a family and as I make more and more each year and our lifestyle gets more and more comfortable then I feel this pressure building up to not fail. If my 18-year-old self could see me now he would be shocked. I'm totally risk-averse, far more introverted, and far more anxious. I don't think it's totally a bad thing, it keeps me and my family protected to a degree, but like everything in life it's a sacrifice. I sacrifice some unknown quality of life to keep what I have now.

I find that sometimes I wish it would all come crashing down. That I would lose my job, lose my home, or worse. I think I fantasize about these possibilities sometimes because although they scare me I recognize that I might need an external force to change a life with too much momentum. To be clear, I'm pretty happy. I love my family, I have a decent job with fantastic coworkers, I make good money. I don't have suicidal thoughts, I'm not "healthy" but I don't abuse substances. That's all great, but somehow it isn't enough by itself. I'm just an anxious man I guess.

<comment><USER43> Judging by this thread, this seems like the norm. (Social) media makes it seem like it isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I can relate to this article. I didn't know how to handle anxiety so I handled it like a man, by drinking, fighting, screaming.

</comment><comment><USER45> CBD is really working for me to curve anxiety. I'm surprised there not that many replies about it here yet.

</comment><comment><USER46> Question for fellow non-Americans. Is it just me or is anxiety rarely a condition someone would describe themselves as having? I only ever hear about it in relation to Americans.

I'm sure the difference not physiological. Perhaps anxiety is just rolled under the more general heading of depression?

</comment><comment><USER18> Has anyone experienced their anxiety symptoms flare up after a strenuous workout? I know this seems fairly obvious, but I was just wondering if anyone else experiences this.

<comment><USER47> Yep

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> That's because as men: We aren't allowed to be a worrier, anxious, etc.

We're expected to be confident and assertive. If we aren't then we possibly suffer rejection in relationships and we get socially isolated.

<comment><USER49> I don't think that's true. Some women like extremely assertive guys, but most don't. Acting super insecure is a turn off, but acting super confident isn't a turn on. The "be more confident!" advice that most guys have heard really means, "don't act super nervous and insecure, just be yourself, even if you think you're boring."

And to all the guys thinking, "but if I'm just myself, nobody likes me." Well, that's probably not true (sounds insecure actually), but even if it is, that's either a personal growth opportunity or a sign that they've been talking to the wrong women.

<comment><USER50> > Some women like extremely assertive guys, but most don't. [..] acting super > confident isn't a turn on.

The post you replied to didn't use the "extremely" or "super" adjectives.

<comment><USER49> You're right, I misread it. I'm reading my own experiences into it, but those aren't everyone's experiences. I had what I felt was crippling social anxiety in my teens and 20s (I'm in my 40s now), or at least an extremely limited and lonely high comfort zone surrounded by an unlimited discomfort zone. I felt like my whole life had been filled with people always telling me to "just be more confident" or "be more outgoing", but what does that even mean? That's not actionable advice. It was especially annoying because it's so ambiguous and unactionable, but always seemed obvious to whoever was giving me the advice.

One thing that helped me personally was realizing that in my case, "just be more confident" really meant not worrying about putting up a falsely confident front. Like, I always felt this pressure to appear confident and charming and however I wanted people to see me, but I never felt that way on the inside, especially around women I was attracted to or other people I wanted to impress. So if I didn't feel confident, the only thing I could do was at least attempt to appear confident. After all, that's what everyone kept telling me to do, or so I thought. Anyway, this pressure (probably rooted in a form of narcissism) that I subconsciously put on myself in the moment to be confident/charming/etc. was just overwhelming, to the point where it sometimes rendered me incapable of social interaction at all. It was like the part of my brain that was in the driver's seat during social interactions would just lock up sometimes and I wouldn't even know what to say. But even when it was working it was exhausting.

In hindsight, this was the source of much of my social anxiety. It was like an ass-backwards subconscious instinct to play the role of the person I wanted other people to see me as. That's never going to work, it's like scripting and acting in a role in real time, a role that you don't understand well enough to write in the first place. I could never begin to get any better socially until I really truly internalized the fact that I didn't need to pretend to be someone I wasn't when I presented myself to other people, and I should just try to be in the moment rather than anxiously observing my own behavior. But, that's probably pretty specific to me and may not even make sense to anyone else.

Also my brain parsed "confident and assertive" into "extremely confident". When I think of someone who's consciously assertive, I think of a display of confidence for its own sake. Maybe that's not what they meant though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> > "Aggression tends to be more socially acceptable to many men than anxiety."

Is this what is meant by 'toxic masculinity'

<comment><USER52> Yes, definitely part of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I sometimes suffer from bad and acute anxiety attacks: I carry xanax (with the md prescription so I can travel). It happens very rarely (few times per year) and only 1 max 2 pills is enough to kill it usually. Without pills it just keeps going and when it happens it is impossible to stop unless using alcohol but then it does not end soon; it can take a week or longer and the feeling drives you mad (if you do not know it, good for you; you would not wish it on your worst enemy). So I make sure I have 2-4 pills on me.

There is no underlying cause that they can find or use to 'fix it', although I have a specific moment when it started (20 years ago). It used to be far worse (every 2 weeks taking 2-3 days) than it is now.

I often notice someone behave a certain way (some kind of movements or suddenly being ill and having to stay home, especially when there is a stressor; it is usually that or a migraine, which also still has stigma (here?), like, just take an aspirin and get over it, by people who do not suffer from them (I do not anymore luckily)) or tell something specific that makes me wonder if they suffer from anxiety; when I talk with them it often is the case. That way I found out that many of my friends and acquaintances suffer from it even though they never told anyone or were not even sure what it was.

A few months ago I was driving with someone from my village who I told someone next to me in the plane was vomiting all the trip; she said that maybe he has that weird feeling losing control she sometimes has which leads her to stay at home and grab a bottle. I told her to go to the doctor and ask about anxiety; they sent her to the mental health dep after some tests and gave her xanax and diazepam; she now is much happier as she can stop the attacks before they become full blown. She never knew that it was anxiety and she was afraid people (including the doctor, who usually is a guy who does not really believe in this stuff; he tried to give me soothing tea before I got a signed and translated doc from my Dutch ex doctor saying what I have) would find her a whining weak person.

Of all people I know who suffer or suffered from it, including my wife and family members, noone got properly diagnosed because it seems there is a big stigma resting on this. Mostly people think they can just 'man up' and tell themselves it will be fine. That is often not how it works; once it really starts you just cannot stop it; no amount of meditation or positive thought or exercise helps. So you try to mask it (for yourself and others) in several ways.

If you have anything; just go see a doctor; if it is anxiety, your life will improve massively if you get proper help.

Edit: I don't recognise the anger bit, but yes, without pills, drinking is the only thing that helps/calms down and it often makes it worse besides being unhealthy (especially as this can happen any hour, day or night, and downing a few beers at 6am is not quite, well... good, so definitely get pills and keep them on you; no drink needed ever again).

</comment><comment><USER54> Am I the only one who feels that all the gender studies that keep being mocked ultimately have the potential (if executed properly yada yada...) to benefit cis men as much as anyone else?

<comment><USER54> lol I'll take that as a "yes you're the only one". Oh well...</comment></comment>


StructuredJS Demo - <AUTHOR> http://khan.github.io/structuredjs/ <comment><USER2> Interesting concept. I wonder if something like this is used for codeschool.com.</comment>


Plumber sues Ford dealer after truck with logo was used by extremists in Syria - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/14/plumber-sues-ford-dealer-after-truck-with-company-logo-was-used-by-jihadists-in-syria/ <comment><USER2> Note that he is not suing Ford the manufacturer, but a local dealership, and he is not suing them for the truck ending up with Jihadists, but because the dealership said they would remove the decals before selling the vehicle.

Both being much more reasonable than the what the headline implies.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure which headline you're reading, but the one here references both "Ford dealer" and "truck with logo" (I had to shorten from "truck with company logo" to fit Hacker News' 80 character limit)

<comment><USER3> It's easy to interpret the "after" in your headline as "because". But the real "because" is because the dealer didn't remove the decal, not because it ended up in Syria.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc)

edit: why the downvote?

<comment><USER5> I guess it's because this fallacy is not relevant to the topic. The association of "after" with "because" in cases like these is not about fallacious reasoning, it's because _particular_ two things were chosen and put together to form a headline, and it doesn't make sense to create a headline like this if you only want to connect the two things with a temporal relationship (one came after another).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly, I hope he wins.

The Ford dealership that he sold his vehicle to cannot reasonably claim innocence, and has put this man's, and his family's, life in danger.

Now, whether if the Ford dealership is legally liable, I don't know. However, they're basically screwed: they'll forever be remembered as the dealership that sold a vehicle to terrorists (no matter if that is technically true or not; they immediately unloaded it at a car auction like all dealerships do if they don't have a local buyer already lined up).

I'd like to see an investigation, however, why a perfectly working truck was shipped overseas and left the American market. I know working computers are "recycled" (ie, dumped in a hole in the ground somewhere in China, India, or Africa), but I wasn't aware we did the same to vehicles.

<comment><USER7> There is a massive export market in Africa and the middle east for vehicles from North America, Europe, Japan, Australia, certainly other places as well. Most of the importing nations have far less restrictive (or any) restrictions on things like emissions and road-worthiness, and often have highly competitive local secondary markets. New vehicles are often much more expensive then they would be in western markets as well.

Sell any low-cost used 4x4 vehicle in North America and you are likely to at least be approached by somebody intending to ship it to West Africa. East Africa is serviced by huge japanese auction sites such as beforward ([http://www.beforward.jp](http://www.beforward.jp)).

Ford and Toyota trucks are highly valued because they're the easiest to find spare parts for. High demand and low supply pretty quickly justifies the expense of shipping over a container and (maybe) paying import duties.

What here needs to be investigated?

<comment><USER8>
      What here needs to be investigated?

Presumably we have a trade embargo with ISIS?

I'm not an expert on military strategy, but if our aim is to bomb all their equipment, we should probably investigate the possibility of not selling them replacement equipment?

<comment><USER9> Easier said than done. Even if the cars originate from within the United States, they pass through so many brokers and middle men that it will be quite a challenge to track their final destination. I would even argue that ISIS doesn't source their cars from the US. Instead they look to the United Arab Emirates, who remain the number one importer of used US car (in containers) by quite a margin. [1]

[1] [http://www.wcshipping.com/hubfs/D_OfferPDFs/PDF/2015_Q3_Fina...](http://www.wcshipping.com/hubfs/D_OfferPDFs/PDF/2015_Q3_Final.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was going to ask who would believe a plumber _from Texas_ would blatantly give/sell/donate his truck to ISIS. But a linked article says he has received 1000's of phone calls (some threatening).

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/12/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2014/12/19/plumber-gets-threats-after-old-truck-complete-with-logo- shows-up-with-syria-jihadists/)

<comment><USER11> People are funny about what they believe. For many, seeing it on TV makes it true.

Plumber has truck. Plumber's truck ends up on TV being used by ISIS. Ergo, Plumber must be supporter of ISIS.

This is further harmed by it being surprising to people that trucks could be profitably shipped all the way to the Middle East.

<comment><USER12> * This is further harmed by it being surprising to people that trucks could be profitably shipped all the way to the Middle East. *

This really frustrates me - because its 7100 km from TX to Syria, while Japan is 10000 km away. If you include things like convenience of shipping, it's probably easier to move things between Syria and TX than Japan and TX (because there is a direct ocean route that doesn't involve major canals or going around pesky continents).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This got me wondering about other companies that own branded vehicles. I found this on the UPS wikipedia page.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Parcel_Service#Vehicles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Parcel_Service#Vehicles)

 _When UPS ground vehicles reach the end of their useful service life and are no longer roadworthy (typically 20–25 years or more, but generally when the body 's structural integrity is compromised), they are almost always stripped of reusable parts, repainted in household paint to cover up the trademark, and then sent to the scrapyard to be crushed and broken up. The only exception to this policy is when a package car is repainted white for internal use, usually at a large hub. Prior to scrapping, UPS trucks and trailers are assigned an ADA (Automotive Destruction Authorization) number and must be crushed under supervision of UPS Automotive personnel, which records the vehicle's destruction, as UPS does not re-sell any of its ground vehicles._

<comment><USER13> 25 years is astounding, that's impressive utilization of assets.

In the UK, Royal Mail disposes of its delivery vehicles every three years when they become due for annual roadworthiness testing.

And quite often the replacement vehicle is a different type entirely ( lowest- bid contracts ) so they have no commonality of maintenance.

Seems like an expensive way to operate a fleet but they show no sign of changing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> An interesting case where huge "mental and business damages" could easily be justifiable for what amounts to, in essence, minor cockup that had unfortunately wide ranging impact

<comment><USER15> I find the "truck sold in Texas, reappears in Syria in the hands of extremists" thing much more interesting to say the least. People in the west always wonder where these nuts get their gear... well, at the market like everyone else...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting how almost everyone, and certainly those who harassed our good plumber, sees the words "extremists in Syria", completely ignores what group it actually is (the name is there, it's not ISIS), and just assumes it's ISIS. Even a lot of people here just go with "it's ISIS". If only the Syrian War was that simple. This is actually a group[0] hostile to ISIS, although affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

One other interesting thing, from the article, that seems ignored – this car was exported to Turkey.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaish_al-Muhajireen_wal- Ansar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaish_al-Muhajireen_wal-Ansar)

</comment><comment><USER17> The biggest problem of all is that anyone, literally thousands of people according to the source, would assume that an American company would provide branded vehicles to a terrorist group.

At least the people in Idiocracy KNEW they would stupid and acted accordingly, puts them head and shoulders above a huge part of our population.

</comment><comment><USER18> Shouldn't he rather go after people who harassed him? That's where neutral information morphs into harmful action.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is either the second time this has happened, or this story is a rehash of something that happened a long time ago.

<comment><USER20> Pretty sure it's a later development of the same story. The first time was just the guy trying to clear his reputation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Man, I feel really bad for the truck. Probably was looking forward to a new life being driven by some 19-year-old kid who scrounged up to save it and treat it with love....nope, got turned into the terrorist rapemobile instead.

<comment><USER22> ISTM a sort of "Ridin' with Private Malone" country song could be written about this...</comment></comment>