The Social Media Problem - <AUTHOR> https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-social-media-problem/ <comment><USER3> Two observations:

1\. The crazy ideas _jacquesm_ decries have a limited _influence_ on one's life. Those are (predominantly) singular topics rather than all-encompassing ideologies. They are more of conversation starters than life guides. Aside of some rare dangerous ones (COVID-19 theories perhaps?), their impact places somewhere between stamp collecting and junk food consumption. All the flat earthers, the 5G's, the moon landing hoaxes etc., - let people have weird hobbies. We can handle them as a society.

2\. Given how prevalent conspiracy theories are - across times, cultures, geographical locations, social niches - I posit our propensity towards them is not a random fluke of human psyche. No, I posit the conspiracy theories play a role in some other societal processes. I posit that trying to eradicate or suppress _the underlying mechanism_ , without understanding the mechanism in the wider context of all societal processes would cause unforeseen negative consequences.

<comment><USER4> Having been around quite a lot of conspiracy based stuffs, I have to disagree with the statement you make about the impact.

Conspiracy theories are a slippery slope. You might not believe something at first, but they are peppered with enough truth that you begin to accept them all because one part was right. "Question everything," as they often tell you. The problem is, facts and science usually comes from people in authority - <USER2> people you're told to question. So you begin blanket distrust all "authority". Which ends up being anyone telling your something _with_ authority. Government, science, medicine, police, Greta...

I'll happily question - but the problem comes when your bias won't let you trust anyone or anything. In fact you deliberately take the opposite stance because "they lie" and they're probably "out to get" you. Then it really is dangerous - and you feel clever, because it's like knowing some secret knowledge the rest of the world doesn't - because the "sheeple" believe the spoon fed lies.

<comment><USER5> I think conspiracy theories should be seen as a symptom of low quality education, and that makes it a big deal.

<comment><USER6> I repeatedly see very intelligent and successful people outright reject the possibility that conspiranoids can be intelligent but misguided. I think conspiracy thinking ("conspiranoia") is orthogonal to educational attainment/quality. I think it's much more likely that we are all susceptible to conspiranoia thinking (we all have the same cognitive biases and we all use good-enough but imperfect heuristics to decide who/what to trust), but that some of us just haven't been introduced to one we are amenable to by a person of trust+authority. Given enough {theories, people we trust, exposure} we will all start falling for some or many of them.

Of course the dumbest of us will fall for more theories, including the more incredible theories, but to pretend like any one person is immune is to ignore the step 1 of a 12 step program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >The fig leaf of Free Speech will no doubt be brandished as the greatest good and too sacred to be messed with but the facts are that every form of free speech has limitations. And that actively trying to harm others by abusing that right should come with some kind of limit or at a minimum a way to reduce its reach. Most of the reasoning around free speech rights and such are from a time when getting a letter across the country took three weeks.

This is what the seed of authoritarianism looks like: moral justifications for forcing people to believe, communicate, and behave the way you think is correct.

<comment> white-flame The specific limit of free speech is where it causes legal damages to others.

The particular form of authoritarian scaremongering on display tries to undefine that court-testable line to include any useful moral panic, but never really addresses the notion that loosening that line means their own speech could also easily be suppressed, as the "other side" could use the new suppression tools as freely and subjectively as themselves.

<comment><USER8> Two things-

What about legal damages but not directly cause and effect. Something like stochastic terrorism? ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_wolf_(terrorism)#Stocha...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_wolf_\(terrorism\)#Stochastic_terrorism))

If someone is saying "Someone out kill x..." either directly or via dog whistles and whoops someone "crazy" kills them, should we tolerate that as a society? This is being played out by the massive increase, for instance, of violence and crime on Asian Americans because of the rhetoric of right wing media in regards to China but you can't charge anyone with a direct comer and yet damages are happening. And if the test is specifically legally proven damages then well society makes the laws and the question returns to should we as a society allow people to incite violence and how do we draw that line? It's not an easy question but I don't think it's as simple as "legal damages".

The second point which is perhaps more to the grandparent is all voices are certainly not equal - especially on the internet. Should a corporation or state actor with the finances to blanket their voice across the spectrum of media not have any limits on it? As speech is weaponized, which it was in 2016 and counties to be done so today, should it be regulated in some way like other weapons are? What will society look like when the voices with the power to spread their message continue to shrink? Everything needs moderation and regulation especially when it can do such harm to society. Again there's a debate on where to draw the line but I don't think we want to live in a society of might/money makes right in the sphere of media communications any more than we already are in it.

<comment><USER9> The points you're making have been known issues of freedom of speech since the drafting of the constitution. I think American society as a whole understands this, and is willing to make these sacrifices because otherwise you open yourself up to authoritarianism by more powerful entities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ain't the software; it's the peopleware.

> But there are a lot of them and they all have the vote, waiting to be pushed > as useful idiots to some higher goal. Politicians have started to realize > that they don't actually need to get a real mandate, and that they won't be > held accountable for lying. At that level, every time someone lies more > people become susceptible to being pulled in to this web of deception.

One viable thing to do is redistribute political power instead of wealth.

The act of trying to centralize everything into a legacy, monolithic, waterfall, big iron system results in a Tower of Babel.

Its proponents swear it's Progress.

Return to the enumerated powers on the Constitution, and refactor all this Progressive cruft to the State level, where voters can either be wise or spendthrift at their leisure.

Doubtless we'll prefer a more catastrophic collapse, but dreaming is still occasionally legal.

<comment><USER11> _Ain 't the software; it's the peopleware._

What does that mean?

 _One viable thing to do is redistribute political power instead of wealth_

No, that's clearly not viable. The US is still "really" a democracy in the sense those who get the most legal votes really do win - real, fair elections right now, are a big factor in the distribution of power in the US, for democratic-ness on a world-scale, that's pretty good. Yet the extremely unequal distribution of wealth makes a mockery of the realness of voting's impact. Most people are effectively powerless to make an impact on much outside their immediate lives.

 _Return to the enumerated powers on the Constitution, and refactor all this Progressive cruft to the State level_

This is an extreme reactionary viewpoint, taken from the 3-percenters or similar outfit.

<comment><USER12> "Most people are effectively powerless to make an impact on much outside their immediate lives."

Isn't this a good thing? Doesn't it mean that they can't harm others?

<comment><USER13> It wasn't a good thing in Aushwitz, Birkenau and other death camps for those who were about to die, while others around did nothing to stop it.

It isn't a good thing for people in Belarus right now with dictator applying brutal force when he didn't manage to win even unfair elections. Police simply shoot people on the streets and even aiming to home windows if they scream in protest.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-ynUNGNHdk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-ynUNGNHdk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Since people are discussing conspiracies, I present to you the Batman argument to inoculate your near and dear ones.

1) All conspiracy theories require the evil organization to achieve several super human/ super organizational feats such as: * Perfect coordination - across timezones, personalities, objectives * Great wealth * excellent control of public figures * Advanced technology * Great secrecy Etc.

These are all impossible asks, which any normal person knows if they have worked in any team of people.

Many conspiracies die because of how hard it is to keep everyone aligned, and if people were that efficient in secrecy, imagine how efficient they would be without that burden.

Therefore,

Implication 1) If you believe in the conspiracy, we must also live in a world where such levels of efficiency are _possible_.

which means that

2) It is also possible for an organization or individuals to exist, who take advantage of these efficiencies and advantages to do "good".

Now if it was possible to stay in the dark, while having advanced tech and great wealth - well you've just described Batman.

So the question you can train all your loved ones to ask, anytime they encounter a great claim, is whether this claim means that we live in a world where batman can exist.

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

While this is a childish way to encode a defense, its meant to be easy to consume, and to protect people who regularly wont have time to spend the effort to verify information or toxic content when they encounter it.

So while it is outlandish, that is partly the point - to diminish the earnestness and terror that conspiracy theories exude, without your active intervention being required.

edit: This can apply to any superhero/or superfriends. I just chose Batman.

</comment><comment><USER15> This thesis is crap and is blind to much bigger conspiracy theories that have been going on for thousands of years and that still have much stronger holds on societies than anti mask conspiracy theories. Modern social media did not cause them to grow to what they were since it did not exist when they were created and grew.

Christianity: Jesus died and came back to life. He died for your sins. You are going to hell if you don't repent your sins. Please give the church 10%.

Buddhism: You are going to endlessly suffer. Please contribute to the temple to support the monks. Please pay monks to bless funerals.

Hinduism: You are born into a caste and stuck in it. You are shit and untouchable. If you touch me or try to marry my daughter, I will kill you.

The reality is that you have systems and people that prey on human weaknesses for time immemorial. It is much more interesting to examine how those technologies/systems operate.

<comment><USER15> Free speech was protection against conspiracy theories and now the author wants to ban free speech to protect us from conspiracy theories. Sheer nonsense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Who gets to decide who doesn't get to speak? If an individual, we suppress popular opinion unpopular with leadership. If the collective, we suppress unpopular data and ideas that may be accurate or innovative.

You can't have selective freedom of speech.

<comment><USER17> I agree selective freedom of speech is hard. Probably too hard.

I tend to support selective augmentation of other people's speech - "fact checkers have shown this to be inaccurate" next to a conspiracy fan's latest comment. As long as it is more precise than just downvoting to oblivion.

<comment><USER18> And who's to object to that! Speech is free and visible, and no information is withheld, it's just not passively amplified without reasonable vetting.

<comment><USER19> >And who's to object to that!

I take it you didn't see the outrage around here when Twitter "fact-checked" Trump's statements - even that was denounced as propaganda and censorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Filtering out the bad from the good is going to be very important if we > don't want to accidentally lose such minor marbles as our democracies, our > health and our safety.

I really think that a better solution to this problem is to fix the shortcomings of our democratic systems. The majority of people don't believe that 5G towers cause COVID-19, or that 9/11 was an inside job. A stable democracy should be resilient enough to withstand a small number of wrong people.

But that's not the case for the US. The election result for the entire country (of 330 million people!) can be flipped by a few tens of thousands of voters in the right electorates.

I recognize that this is going to be a hard problem to fix. But I do believe it would be easier than trying to reverse the laws of economics that drive social media companies to do the things they do.

<comment><USER21> I have wondered how much less (if any) this is a problem in Democracies with Parliamentary systems, particularly any that don't use "first past the post" voting. Anyone from outside the US have insight on that to share?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22>
       > quick way to report a Tweet or FB post that spreads disinformation would already help a lot.

That point is what always goes through my head when a Dorsey or a Zuckerberg or a Wojkiki gives another "more work to be done" apology.

If they've been doing so much work, and it's just the "moderation is hard" problem that has slowed them, why do all of their sites make it so convoluted to report content?

<comment><USER23> How is it convoluted? The "Report" button is quite easy to find in tweets and posts.

<comment><USER24> I used it a few times to report clear old schools racist stuff. My experience is that it takes 7 steps to report that content on twitter in Germany, and isn't as easy as expected. I documented the process here:

[https://twitter.com/dgellow/status/1274398162711691266?s=20](https://twitter.com/dgellow/status/1274398162711691266?s=20)

Also, every single time Twitter responded that they won't do anything about the reported content (again, I'm talking about clear old school racist content).

<comment><USER23> To be fair, that doesn't seem unduly convoluted to me. They are doing their due diligence: it looks like you specifically picked the Twitter-is-liable-in- Germany-if-they-get-it-wrong legal option, so they very reasonably give you a questionnaire because they want you to be specific about what you're demanding of their vaguely defined Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz obligations.

Then they got back to you, saying they disagree with your judgement.

That's a lot of "moderation is hard" work and they're doing their job. However much you might disagree with their verdict, they're not hiding reporting functionality or making reports unduly difficult or ignoring reports.

<comment><USER24> > it looks like you specifically picked the Twitter-is-liable-in-Germany-if- > they-get-it-wrong legal option

I don't know what you mean by that. I live in Germany, I used the normal report button, I haven't picked anything special.

In any case, given my experience, I will definitely not use that feature anymore, it's too much effort to just report something that should not be on the platform. The fact that the report button is available and easy to find isn't enough for the platform to self regulate if the rest of the process is broken.

<comment><USER23> > I used the normal report button, I haven't picked anything special.

When you reported the tweet, you picked the "covered by Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz" option, which means you're demanding that Twitter comply with Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz to act on a violation covered under the German law.

It's clear you live in Germany because Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz reports are only available in Germany, and given that Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz reports have a legally defined scope that only applies in Germany, I'd guess that it's treated differently from reports for regular violations (like "It's suspicious or spam" or "It's abusive or harmful").

Other regular options like the "abusive" one is much shorter and easier than picking out sections of a law.

<comment><USER24> Sure, but these other choices are also not correct. It was neither spam nor abusive or harmful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> These conversations become hard, because its not well discussed, and the finesse to divide these into "new" and "old" problems is being developed.

For example an "old" problem is that this is how humans interact with information and sensationalism. The news cycle effect, the sale of content along with the packaging of professionalism - was a problem before the net.

But there are also a novel situations where this new rate, scale, and quality of information creation/dissemination result in new structures issues.

An example of this is the perception that a belief is more widely held than it is in the general public, due to social media. IF you got into a conspiracy group, and it were populated by 1000s of real conspiracists, it would still be a small fraction of the population of %(people online) _(speak your language)_ (other filters).

BUT - the human brain sees "enough" activity in the forum/web page to trigger an internal "critical mass" threshold, this creates "social proof" and the belief gets solidified.

A clear field where tech creates new problems is where tech outstrips old societal and human thresholds of functioning.

Social media feeds which reinforce information, constant and from your pocket? New problem

Automated creation of content to populate feeds? New _New_ problem.

Creation of propaganda ? Old problem, new medium, new tools - question on whether scope and scale make it a new problem.

\-----

Perhaps the "new" problems can, to some extent, be solved by tech. "Old" problems will almost certainly need tech+political will and manpower to solve.

<comment><USER25> > BUT - the human brain sees "enough" activity in the forum/web page to > trigger an internal "critical mass" threshold, this creates "social proof" > and the belief gets solidified.

I think you're pointing out some important but extremely easy to overlook things here. How many newspaper articles, blog posts, and twitter/forum discussions have we had in the last two years about fake news and conspiracy theories, typically written in confident but grave tones? But of the people writing these things, how many of them _really_ know what they're talking about? What is the _source_ of their knowledge? What is the underlying source of the claims Jacques is making in the article we're discussing? How many of the people opining on such subjects actually spend any serious time within the communities they're reporting on?

If the topic/culture was something other than the behaviour of conspiracy theorists (say, African Americans), do you think it would have any effect on how the information would be received by readers? In that case, I suspect a lot of people might fairly quickly wonder if the author actually happens to know as much as they claim, and I think it would be fairly easy to find plenty of anecdotal conversations on the internet to substantiate that prediction.

The human brain "sees" all sorts of things. It can produce an instantaneous answer to most any question you ask it, whether or not it actually has much actual concrete data to work with. There are a variety of ways to control this default functionality, the major progress we've made with decreasing racial stereotyping in the last several decades is a good example. But that took _a lot_ of coordinated messaging, education, and peer pressure, for a very long time. Despite that, we're still rather far from declaring mission accomplished. _And that is just one topic_ \- how many others do we have in this same category?

I doubt we'll make much progress on these issues, especially now with the brutal efficiency of mass communication we've released into society (with hardly a second thought), until we can finally realize what the root of the problem is: the human mind. And it's not just "those other people" whose minds are flawed, the problem is with the base hardware and software itself - it's just easier to notice in some people than others, especially when it's constantly in the news.

<comment><USER14> Funnily, the questioning of authority is a common trait of over turning common sense arguments in conspiracy circles, kinda showing how easy it is to make the argument, and how tough it can be to defend.

And even more ironically, since I Don't have any sources off the top of my head which can link you to good content with research, where people are verifiable sources, I am left with personal experience and memory :).

<comment><USER25> > good content with research

On which topic?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Maybe the only ethical thing to do at this point is for the founder/owners of these platforms to commit acts of sabotage so that people might become free of them. Investors are all hedged, founders have cashed out, some of them aren't profitable anyway, employees can find other work if its done over time. Nothing of value would be lost.

The point about connecting gullible people is interesting and useful. It's likely social media has just automated the underlying phenomenon behind mass hysteria. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_hysteria_cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_hysteria_cases))

The real social media problem is we've put a slot machine in every pocket, and now nobody can turn them off until the hysteria has run its course and we evolve a resistance to them - or if the founders do this one unthinkable thing.

</comment><comment><USER27> So we have great tools to facilitate communication between people, and yeah there is downside to having people communicate, does it mean communication is bad? I don't think so.

</comment><comment> core-questions > It would really help if both Facebook and Twitter would be far more pro- > active in shutting down these fountains of nonsense.

When I see this, especially from someone who bills themselves as

> "Professionally I get paid to separate fact from fiction"

it horrifies me. What they're saying is that the existing draconian control of speech that is implemented on the social media networks is not enough, that we need to hire even more people to do moderation, that free speech needs to die even harder, because we can't trust poor stupid people to make their own decisions, read what they want to read, and say what they want to say.

What a bunch of elitist bullshit. Small wonder that people are increasingly finding people like Jacques Mattheij to be unpalatable, nanny-state toadies that are to be routed around at best and attacked argumentatively when needed.

Yes, there's bullshit about COVID and chemtrails and aliens all over the internet. Why do you care so much? You're so worried that people are going to make their own choices, live their own lives, make mistakes that impact others?

This shows me that people have not learned what free speech is, what it is for, and why it was a hard-fought right that continues to need fervent defense. Mattheij can't conceive of a world where his draconian moderation system could possibly backfire. Mattheij hasn't looked at what's happening in Belarus, in India/Pakistan, and what happened during the Arab Spring when governments decided to use the power at their disposal to shut down on the people's ability to freely converse with one another, even about Unapproved Topics, even with Officially Illegal Opinions. Mattheij either didn't read any of the excellent 20th century dystopian science fiction, or thought it was a user's manual for how to create an idealized totalitarian state.

Because of course, gigantic corporations and the government are going to choose what's in everyone's best interests. Of course, it is inconceivable that they would have any agenda of their own, or would want to make cultural changes at scale without the full consent of society. It's never been tried, anywhere, right? Never ends badly?

Ahh, but it's to save us from ourselves, right?

<comment><USER28> Man, it's sad that HN is going down the reddit rabbit hole, spam downvoting these kinds of well-though-out posts that (admittedly) go against the zeitgeist of SV "know-better-than-thou" elitist mentality -- with absolutely _zero_ discussion or counter-arguments. The arguments here are sound:

\- Free speech is a virtue worth striving for

\- Disinformation -- to the detriment of the public -- is a price we're willing to pay (barring some narrow cases)

\- The alternative is draconian authoritarianism

As Juvenal asked almost two millenia ago: _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ I'm sick of programmers that never picked up a philosophy or political science book in their lives think they just solved the world's problems by giving Google or Facebook _carte blanche_ to censor as they see fit (because you happen to agree with the outcome today).

<comment><USER29> >As Juvenal asked almost two millenia ago: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Part of the last 2000 years has been the attempt to development systems of government which inherently reduce the importance of this question. For example, by enforcing churn on "custodes", by creating a culture in which radical transparency is the norm, by encouraging highly participatory democracy.

Now, I will concede that these efforts have not born much fruit. Certainly not enough fruit to make Juvenal's question moot. But we are now in a situation where we may be faced with "draconian authoritarianism" _because_ of the social and psychological impact of social media and its manipulation, so I'm not convinced that this "free speech vs. draconian authoritarianism" dialectic is really useful in an analysis of this issue.

Asserting that there are only two ends of the spectrum: free speech or draconian authoritarianism is very typical American thing to do; other cultures have a much easier time dealing with the idea that while the slope may be slippery, we can choose to take some steps down it and then _stop_.

(I'm not saying that I know you're American, merely that this sort of perspective is much more typical in the political and civic culture of America than most other countries in the world).

And frankly, I don't think your arguments are sound, because they hinge on a hand-waving claim:

>Disinformation -- to the detriment of the public -- is a price we're willing to pay (barring some narrow cases)

You (and I, and the rest of us) don't _know_ what that price really means.

<comment><USER30> >Part of the last 2000 years has been the attempt to development systems of government which inherently reduce the importance of this question. For example, by enforcing churn on "custodes", by creating a culture in which radical transparency is the norm, by encouraging highly participatory democracy.

Majority of the last two thousand years in Western Europe was inept Roman dictatorship followed by Germanic warlords duking it out. More like the last 500 years, no? Saying 2000 years lends an air of credibility that shouldn't be there, though you may just be going for word play in response to the grandparent

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think he's right, but there's a subtlety here that's often missed. Zuckerberg talks about it directly [0] and I think his approach is probably the most reasonable.

Social Media platforms do have some responsibility to moderate (and they have the legal Good Samaritan protection to do so in the US thanks to section 230). They have a particular responsibility since their 'engagement' algorithms have often historically led to making things worse by elevating controversial content. When they're using algorithms to elevate certain types of content they are employing some level of editorial control and have some responsibility as publishers in how they rank that content (what they choose to show more widely, what they choose to allow to fall into obscurity).

FB for their part has put a lot of effort into determining this kind of moderation standard and what they allow from users [1]. The recent political stuff is interesting in part because Zuckerberg is arguing that democratically elected politicians should be an exception to these rules, basically that citizens have a right to see the speech of their elected leaders (and lies should be corrected by a free press). While FB is legally able to moderate the speech of an elected politician on their platform, Zuckerberg argues it's wrong for FB to decide what political speech is okay to block because they shouldn't be in the position to make that call. I think he's right to be concerned about that precedent. This doesn't apply to the speech of regular users or even to the political speech of non-democratically 'elected' politicians.

[0]: [https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg- and-f...](https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-and-free- speech.html)

[1]: [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/men-are-scum- inside-...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/men-are-scum-inside- facebook-war-on-hate-speech)

[Edit]: Also this:

> "One thing that interests me and that I have so far not been able to find > out is how it starts. How does a 'normal' person step into this cult world > where up is down and not think to themselves: "Hm, this does not seem like > it is believable"."

I think people _do_ think this at first, but I think we are all more vulnerable to being infected by bullshit then we like to believe. People are wildly inconsistent, even in their own views most of the time (yes even you, and me). We think poorly, many people believe crazy things, we argue via motivated reasoning, don't extend views globally, don't consider things the same when they're out of sight etc.

When exposed to lots of wrong information repeatedly I think most people get corrupted, even those that are pretty analytical. I think it takes continuous vigilance to not believe crazy things (and I think people get worse as they get older at being able to do this well).

I don't think these are outliers, I think this is the norm. Most people just don't wonder about things at all so avoid being radicalized into harmful action based on their own crazy beliefs. I also suspect in-person interaction has a lot of built in de-escalation mechanisms that bias towards unity and friendliness most of the time, so things get worse when you lose that natural control.

<comment><USER32> What I notice about the Facebook way of doing things is that, especially in their mobile app, they will highlight the most outrageous and flame-worthy comment on any contentious topic. The algorithms, I'm sure, are doing this deliberately, because they prioritize "engagement". They want people pissed off so they'll respond, get into arguments, and see more ads in the process.

Remember the classic XKCD comic "Duty Calls": [https://xkcd.com/386/](https://xkcd.com/386/) ? It seems the social media companies have decided that promoting this kind of thing, keeping that guy up all night arguing, makes them more money.

<comment><USER31> They definitely did do this (though arguably not intentionally to spread outrage) and scammers took advantage of it. Scammers spread misinformation that generated controversy to drive revenue to ad farms (and of course Russia leveraged it more for political rather than monetary purposes).

Steven Levy's new book (Facebook: The Inside Story) goes into a lot of detail. One interesting thing was that in 2016 the false stories tended to target pro- trump conservative groups because the lies spread more easily (more willing to just share things that fed into existing cognitive bias). They tried fake lies with the left too, but they tended to be less effective because people would call them out as fake and they'd fizzle out (though I'd suspect today it'd be easy to spread lies feeding into the more extreme aspects of the left too).

Today though they're directly aware of this and FB in particular has a ton of people working on 'integrity' to stop this kind of bad incentive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Ok I'll bite. I'm sure this person means well. But I have to ask - why are they the authority on what is OK for people to believe, talk about, and propagate? Who owns the truth? Why is this persons views the correct ones? Or even more, what about things that are talked about on the internet, have their groups, that they don't find problematic but others do. And why are those ok? Because they believe this?

The foundation of Liberalism (I'm not saying left wing here) is that no one owns knowledge. No one has the last day and all opinions can be heard. And mocked relentlessly. And through this we will discover as close to the truth as we can.

Nobody - no group, movement, person, or authority owns the truth. All ideas are fallible. If people use the internet to say the most outrageous things then do be it. The minute someone gets to say "that's ok to be said and this other thing is not. End of story" we are in trouble. It doesn't mean someone can't be raked across the coals for their awful ideas - you need to own it. But anyone or group that gets to determine what is ok and what is not is, in essence, a fundamentalist regime.

We don't need inquisitors. We don't need thought police. We do need people willing to say "that's bullshit and here is why". If you can prove that generally speaking 2+2=5 then the foundation of arithmetic is broken. But meanwhile I can poke holes in your argument. Until you can prove it better than 2+2=4 then I can judge you for a sophist at best, a dipshit less generously.

<comment><USER34> > The foundation of Liberalism (I'm not saying left wing here) is that no one > owns knowledge

This is complete BS to begin with. "No one owns knowledge" is a typical ideological statement without any merits or proof. It is an idea that you want to believe, that is based on nothing factual.

Yes, you can have opinions. Tastes. Ideologies. Beliefs. And they could be true, or false, or changing, depending on where you are and how you look at it. They are all subjective.

However, there are things in this world that are neutral to opinions and stands the test of time. Facts that happened in the physical world and mathematical knowledge, are two examples of such objects. They are the truth. They are absolutely correct. There is no room for "disagreement" because they are not subjective opinions. They are facts that can't and won't be changed.

Math is always correct. 100% correct. From day 1 they are discovered / invented till forever. Explicit assumptions and theorems that followed by rigorous proof are absolutely correct. You can expand it later, you can discover more, you can enrich math. But as long as it is correct, it stands forever. Every single second you are using technologies based on mathematical knowledge that was proved thousands of years ago. They never failed, and will never fail.

Facts, in the physical world, are objective as well. You can argue whether a killer is a good person or not, or how good/bad he is, but you can't alter the fact if he did pull the trigger and killed someone. That is a fact.

Physics, based on a wider set of physical assumptions, can be viewed as close to truth, because they have stood the test of time by physical experiments and phenomena. There is a chance that they are not completely true and will be subsumed by more advanced theories, just like Newton's Laws, however, they are close approximations to reality. That's how we get the rockets into the space. By science.

Now comes to my point. You have the right to express your opinions, even if they are harsh criticisms. But you don't have the right to spread false information that can be proved false by facts. You don't have the right to spread lies. You don't have the right to say whatever you want, however you want it.

Why? Because statements against facts are false, are lies, and spreading lies can hurt and cost others' lives, sometimes millions or more. This is why there is law against spreading hate speech, against spreading extremist ideology against human race, against fraud and scams.

Free speech is about being free expressing your opinions within the framework. Outside these boundaries, your speech becomes a weapon that can hurt others and that is not allowed by law and society.

The fundamental rule in the society is simple. You have every right about yourself, but you don't have the right to hurt others.

<comment><USER35> That these facts inhere in the physical world (and I don't disagree) does not directly correspond to the beliefs of the individuals living in said world. Language exists and is the vehicle used to transmit beliefs about facts.

This is why we speak of proof in the first place. The fact that person A died at another's hands does not directly correspond to the belief held by an individual that person X was the killer. This is why we have "beyond _reasonable_ doubt" as a legal evidentiary standard.

I agree that factual axiomatic truths exist in the physical world and are evident to individuals _as_ factual axiomatic truth. The problem is communicating these as such without granting license to counterfeits.

The most successful form thus far has been to let the facts speak for themselves to individuals as factual axiomatic truths.

The least successful has been to establish unassailable dogma concerning what is and is not factual.

The certainty that you and others present concerning your set of beliefs-as- facts-themselves is of the same species as other true believers throughout history. Historically, this has led to the suppression of the scientific method and an open society in favor of a prelatical and clerical class that determines by edict what truth is, often solely at the behest of the hegemonic power and not factual axiomatic truth.

This is why it is preferable to have minimal rather than maximal control over the exchange of ideas concerning the nature of what constitutes a fact, let alone what those facts actually are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Misinformation spreads because Twitter rate limits users replying to misinformation.

</comment><comment><USER37> Anecdotes abound, when this is really not the sort of debate that should be conducted using anecdotes (cf. [https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and- chin...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese- robbers/)). Sure, some societies have uncensored social media and wind up with a lot of people believing that vaccines are a Bill Gates conspiracy, occasionally leading to real harm. Other societies, as a downstream effect of uncensored social media, wind up with racial pogroms, as a commenter elsewhere in here pointed out. On the other hand, some societies with censorship wind up totalitarian hellholes, and some societies didn't even have social media at all and still had racial pogroms (whether initiated by local word of mouth, or the local counterpart of the same elites that presumably would be in charge of censoring social media if there were social media). The existence of these anecdotes tells us nothing about whether we would be better off with or without uncensored social media, or whether some other more subtle solution than censoring or not censoring would lead to better outcomes. So, which one is more likely? Which one has worse consequences _in expectation_? This argument can only be done quantitatively, and as far as I know nobody has produced the numbers that we would need to do that.

We might as well try to determine whether private possession of bladed objects should be permitted based on a comparing whether an emotional account of a marital stabbing, defense of the cultural value of home cooking or appeal to the value of adults feeling like society trusts them to hurt themselves feels more moving.

(If we stop trying to pretend that there is a meaningful utilitarian argument to be had here, though, on an _idealistic_ level, where emotional appeals are properly at home, I'm with the more critical commenters here. Quoting from low culture like video games may be a little tacky, but: "Beware he[sic] who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.")

</comment><comment><USER38> > But a person who does PCR analysis and knows the ins and outs of PCR tests > that maintains that there is no such thing as COVID-19 is on another level > for me. That's the kind of purposeful refusal of the world as it exists all > around us that I can not get my head wrapped around.

A person who specializes in analyzing viruses tells the author something counterintuitive and instead of re-assessing his own assumptions, he labels the specialist delusional. That last sentence, "That's the kind of purposeful refusal of the world as it exists all around us that I can not get my head wrapped around", could easily apply to the author.

</comment><comment><USER39> This article sounds to me like a lot of hand-wringing and complaining that people are thinking for themselves and talking amongst themselves rather than worshipping at the ivory tower.

In other words, music to my ears.

<comment><USER39> downvoted... must've struck a nerve.

<comment><USER40> > Be kind. Don't be snarky.

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, > and it makes boring reading.

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


Is this the new Apple TV we have been waiting for? - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20121217/all-i-want-for-xmas-is-my-apple-tv/

<comment><USER2> Matt Collins is the artist behind the Apple TV and Apple TV device concept renderings. You can see more of his work on his Dribbble; <http://dribbble.com/matt_kicks> and his footwear blog; <http://www.lastplacefootwear.com/></comment>


Printing the contents of a C macro - <AUTHOR> http://burgerbecky.livejournal.com/59928.html <comment><USER2> Great trick! Didn't know about this. This may be handy for debugging C macros, as an alternative to run the preprocessor by hand over the whole source just to see the expansion of a single macro.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is so great! I wanted this since forever. That's been said, shouldn't this be a compiler feature? print out macro at compile time for easy debugging?

<comment><USER4> `gcc -E foo.c` will just run the pre-processor and print to stdout (including expanding all the `#include`s, so it's a bit verbose).</comment></comment>


We should probably step back and rethink this devops thing - <AUTHOR> http://thenewstack.io/towards-cloud-native-operations/ <comment><USER2> I blame containers. I'm a sysadmin. My shop uses -- last I checked -- 4 different versions of Python. This is insane.

Nobody knows or cares what's in the stack anymore, because sysadmins are just creating container infrastructure and letting devs do whatever they want with it, and containerization has lowered the pain threshhold for that. Which still doesn't make it a good idea.</comment>


A Single Founder: Why Start with Such a Tremendous Handicap? - <AUTHOR> http://thinkspace.com/a-single-founder-why-start-with-such-a-tremendous-handicap/# Reasons to have a co-founder rather than be a lone wolf. How to deal with co-founder disagreements and things to think about when writing a bullet proof partnership agreement. <comment><USER2> I picked a guy with lots of carisma as my co-founder. I thought he would do the business side and I'd do the technology side. 3 years later I had to kick him out of the business. 6 years later I bought out his share for millions.

Get a cofounder if you find someone insanely good but it's definitely not required.

Edit: The now common facility of founder vesting improves this situation somewhat. Don't rely on that though.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's with the constant "you need to get a co-founder" advice? It almost seems like insecurity: "well, if you don't get a co-founder (like us), you're doomed! Better give up now." There are plenty of companies that started with a solo founder, and starting a company solo is better than not starting one at all.

Not everyone has the ability or desire to spend 6 months hunting for that perfect cofounder. The exit strategy of someone else is also going to be different, which in my mind is a huge issue. Personally, I despise the idea of an acquisition (vs. building a long-term organization), whereas a majority of the industry feels (and caters to) the contrary. Each additional cofounder increases the likelihood of the "cash-out" mentality and gives one less control of the company's future.

</comment><comment><USER4> How about: Because it's better than being shackled to a loser who will destroy your business?

How about: It's better to strike while the iron is hot?

A co-founder is not something that should be obtained just to have it. You should carefully choose your co-founder, and you shouldn't let the choosing slow you down.

</comment><comment><USER5> You know a lot of "co-founders" weren't really co-founders but really good first employees of the founder. You don't need a co-founder and sometimes, you just need to start a company w/o one or have no company at all.

Take Apple for example. Steve Jobs was the founder who completely ran the company. Steve Woz was a really great employee who helped make Job's vision a reality. Yes, they were "technically" co-founders but they aren't at the same time. Not to say Woz wasn't important - he was very important - however, I think Apple could have been created without him. In a way, I would say Mike Markkula was more of a co-founder than Woz was and he was brought in after the company was founded but that's going into a whole different world. I suppose the lesson on this is, you might find that "co-founder" your looking for after you created the company.

Now for opposite end of the spectrum, try Larry Page and Sergey Brin. From what I've seen, they equally contributed and created Google and the company would have never been created without them. If one or the other disappeared, Google would have not been Google.

</comment><comment><USER6> Part of what hasn't been mentioned yet in favor of co-founders is that on the right team everyone makes everyone else better. Or, in this case, with the right combo you both make the product better together - over time. When I see someone focusing on the immediate benefits of a co-founder, I wonder if it's short sighted.

For an analogy that may resonate with this community - think about a hacker house or group of programmers that are friends. Those relationships can make each of you better programmers. In effect, you're each helping each other move from, say C or B players, to A players. Imagine if you only thought someone at an equal or higher level than you could teach or help you with something.

You might carry more weight for the first 2 years, your partner's skills may become more valuable for the 2 after that. That's either a reality you accept in creating a true team or a point of tension for you - depending on your personality.

Of course, a solo founder can be a part of a community that helps them become better, just another perspective.

</comment><comment><USER7> It is hard to find a person with the same level of commitment, who is normal, and can survive barely while getting everything going. If they flame out your holding the bag that they partially own and still have to do everything yourself.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's easier to land (and vet) a cofounder after you've done some initial work on the concept.

Particularly if you've been going out of your way to meet people who might be suitable for some time beforehand.

</comment><comment><USER9> And HP, Warnock and Geschke (adobe), Morita and Ibuka (sony).

But there's also Wilson (xerox) and of course Edison.

</comment><comment><USER10> _My favorite analogy for one founder vs two or more is that it's possible to raise a child as a single parent, but vastly more challenging and personally taxing to get the same outcome._

One difference between a start-up and a child is that raising a child means taking time away from making money whereas if your start-up is successful it should be making you money. So I think that is a big flaw with this analogy.

<comment><USER4> Only if you define 'money' as the only value you could ever obtain from anything.

<comment><USER10> I have no idea what you mean. I did the stay-at-home parent thing. So I had no income of my own for a long time. I don't regret it and I still have a very close relationship to my now adult children but it did hurt my earning capacity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't speak for others, but I do want a co-founder. But 1 of 3 things happen:

1) The person I really really want to be my co-founder is working on his own gig, and can't join me, and I can't join them.

2) They're not the entrepreneurial type and are content with their "safe", secure job.

3) I don't trust they can bring much to the table.

Trust me, I would really really love to have a co-founder. I ain't greedy. But a lot has to fall in place to have a good co-founder. I'm not looking for perfection, but if they don't meet any of my criteria and won't bring some value to the table, why should I settle for less?

And if I can't find a co-founder, I'm not gonna twiddle my thumb and wait for someone. Life is too short for that. I'm gonna suck it up, brace myself, and get right to work to bring my dreams to reality. I'm not gonna rely or depend on other people to start what I want, and risk regret.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not sure why alot of hacks these days with no startup experience or success feel the need to tell entrepreneurs that they need certain things.

I've never heard Richard Branson or Li Ka-Shing say that being a single founder is horrible.

<comment><USER3> Branson actually wasn't a single founder; see Nik Powell. 1

That said, he owned the majority of the company and more or less made the final decision. Perhaps the moral of this story is that one person should ultimately have the final say.

1.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nik_Powell>

<comment><USER12> Virgin Group wiki says the only founder is Branson.

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

One of these wikipedia page is lying :)

<comment><USER3> Having read multiple Branson biographies, I can assure you that he had (and has) help.

Edit: Branson may be the sole founder of Virgin Group, which is a holding company. He definitely was not the sole founder or Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic, or _Student_.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook open-sourcing Thrift, their software framework - <AUTHOR> http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2261927130 <comment><USER2> "Many large corporations are famous for keeping this type of tool under lock and key, but we think we stand to gain much more by collaborating with other smart companies and developers."

Is Facebook in some unique position to be releasing big parts of their infrastructure like that? Why don't companies do it more often?

Although this isn't the same thing as Ruby on Rails, and not to be overly cynical, but could this be a new form of community-building-based PR... in the sense that the goodwill/PR value of the FOSS community is worth more to Facebook than the value of keeping Thrift proprietary?

<comment><USER3> I'm disinclined to think that this is PR motivated. The tool is pretty general, and FB has a history of open source involvement (notably, memcached, to which they contribute heavily).

<comment><USER4> Open source involvement is definitely a PR move. When was the last time the open source community took something Google open-sourced, improved upon it, and then Google used those improvements? For the most part, these open- sourcing arrangements from big companies turn out to be one-sided, and so they're essentially buying good will in the hacker community. In Facebook's case, it also suggests that smart people get to work on cool stuff, so it helps for recruitment, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It looks like they've reimplemented CORBA.

Their implementation doesn't look all that bad - it's at least reasonably simple, unlike CORBA. But I think I'll stick with JSON-RPC, because it's transparent, open, simple, and available for just about every language imaginable.

</comment><comment><USER6> Code generation...isn't that what macros are for?

<comment><USER7> In languages which have decent ones, certainly. Of the five languages this library seems to work for, only C++ has any sort of macros at all, as far as I know...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> ah. you beat me to it, just realized.</comment>


Make a Digital Valentine the Way You Used to Make a Paper One - <AUTHOR> http://www.scrollkit.com/s/317/

<comment><USER2> I don't understand why it took so long for someone to put out a drag 'n drop webpage editor that's this easy to use. This is what I always wanted Dreamweaver to be like.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some examples so far:

<http://www.scrollkit.com/s/297/> <http://www.scrollkit.com/s/324/>

And templates:

<http://www.scrollkit.com/s/301> <http://www.scrollkit.com/s/313>

</comment><comment><USER3> FYI, the link to the classic valentine template in this page goes to scrollkit.com without the www, which does not exist.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, we've been having some really bizarre DNS problems, that I've never encountered before. Thanks for letting us know though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why does the river of love template require a password?

<comment><USER4> Whoops! I've fixed it

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Huh</comment>


Show HN: Scenario.js: Crazy Simple A/B Testing with MixPanel - <AUTHOR> http://makerstudios.github.io/Scenario.js/

<comment><USER2> There are JS errors in the presentation and it doesn't show an example of an actual test.</comment>


WhatWG JavaScript streams standard - <AUTHOR> https://streams.spec.whatwg.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> I was just lamenting the need for a more coherent and verifiable spec for node stream modules, when I discovered that there is an actual industry standard they are working on.

i wonder how this stuff will affect the streams v3 or future versions of the streams api in node. From the looks of it, they would be incompatible with this spec.</comment>


VCs Leaving Internet Investing to Seek Better Returns in Physical Sciences  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13ping.html <comment><USER2> Title is misleading. It is not 'VCs' leaving but rather a 'VC' discovers an opportunity and takes it. A few others may follow. Expect it to be filled soon,</comment>


What nobody tells you about documentation (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vKPhjcMZg <comment><AUTHOR> I'm writing software documentation at the moment, and having watched this will I'm sure make it 1000x better. It could be called "How to write good documentation - everything you need to know". Thank you Daniele! and to HN for mentioning it.

webpage here: [https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/](https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/)</comment>


Show HN: Remote jobs from leading companies (e.g., Twitter, Shopify, etc.) - <AUTHOR> https://www.prospercircle.org <comment><USER2> Nice. Currently, almost all of the jobs are US-only, even though they are remote. It'd be great to be able to filter for EU-friendly listing.</comment>


Ask HN: What qualities make a marketer good/great? - <AUTHOR>

My 2011 goal is to launch 12 products (or six), and I'm looking to get some marketing support. What should I be looking for in people? <comment><USER2> Track record. Alternatively, data-drivenness.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the first "thing" you ever made? - <AUTHOR> Not necessarily a product, but even as just a child. <comment><USER3> The first thing I remember is writing a space invaders clone in BASIC on a a 386 25MHz with 4mb of RAM.

It was challenging without internet access, I invented things like the game loop, and tried to compartmentalise the enemy code vs input code, First version cleared and redrew the screen every frame, then I learnt about blacking out the characters and only drawing the essentials (it was all ASCII based I didn't know how to draw graphics)

Looking back on it, I can see there's a bunch of polling where there should be events, the game loop is full of input code, and lots of global state and gotos

But I was pretty young at the time, about 8 or so - it was the first proper development project I made and the first time I thought "hey, this software stuff is complex!!"

I fondly remember spending hours trying to hold the program state in my head, being so inexperienced at programming I was oscillating between getting distracted by implementation details or thinking too abstract to be useful - <USER2> practiced shifting up and down the abstraction layers to try and hold all this complexity (not knowing terminology or really understanding what I was doing) so challenging and fun!

</comment><comment><USER4> As a kid, I used to make tons of little things that a lot of kids do. But I had special interest in arts and crafts which got me to build a few cool things. I remember crafting a peacock on a canvas using wood ice cream spoons and toothpicks.

As an adult: A web based Basketball scorecard in plain HTML/CSS/JS. Was in college at the time and it came as a side project through a contact. Was really fun in the beginning but it was my first taste of how real world works when the client started calling me day and night to make tweaks and fixes :). No regrets though.

</comment><comment><USER5> A small C64 BASIC program for keeping tennis match scores and generating a ranking from those. I must have been about 9 years old at the time.

</comment><comment><USER6> A game made using MS PowerPoint on Mac. I can't remember if it's Mac OS 8.6 or OS X.

</comment><comment><USER7> A web page about Worms 2 hosted on Tripod.</comment>


Why Objective-C is Hard to Learn - <AUTHOR> http://ashfurrow.com/blog/2012/03/why-objective-c-is-hard

<comment><USER2> Objective C was confusing to me when I first looked at it. Then I looked at Smalltalk and then it made more sense. The reason it is hard to learn for me is that the tool chain sucks if you aren't on a Mac. I have had nothing but issues with GnuStep on Ubuntu and Windows so I just gave up.

</comment><comment><USER3> I stopped learning objective c for fear of losing interest in programming. It is, simply put, horrible.</comment>


The Carmack Plan - <AUTHOR> https://garbagecollected.org/2017/10/24/the-carmack-plan/ <comment><USER2> I like the approach tbh for my own work.</comment>


Full-time Startup: Skribit Week 30 (Coding, Coding, Coding) - <AUTHOR> http://paulstamatiou.com/full-time-startup-skribit-week-30-coding-coding-coding

<comment><USER2> We have had several suggestions via Skribit this week. Some are using it to make snarky comments that stay on the home page and not really because they expect a post about it on <http://www.techdrawl.com>. We'll leave them up for awhile.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool idea. Just curious, did you try out for YC Paul?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have not applied for YC. I was still finishing up college and was never really in a position to be able to move and have a cofounder that could do the same. And when I did graduate, Georgia Tech invested in us. <http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=2356>

<comment><USER4> Woot, GT! Are you a fresh grad?

<comment><AUTHOR> December 08, so pretty fresh. ;-)

<comment><USER4> Awesome. Good luck with skribit! The more local start ups the better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How many people are actively using Skribit on their blogs?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure we are comfortable giving this info out yet (although we have a live # of blogs on our homepage), but about 65% of all account holders are what we would consider active, and if you wanted to get nitpicky ~10% are very active. This does not include users that do not use us with a blog, but instead just to keep track of suggestions/people they follow.

As I mentioned in my post though, this is with _no_ formal marketing efforts aside from me blabbing about it on my blog. Hopefully in 2-3 months we'll be in a position to market and spread the word out a lot more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great insights. Anything on revenue forecast Paul?</comment>


UK police chief advises banks not to compensate online fraud victims - <AUTHOR> https://thestack.com/security/2016/03/24/bernard-hogan-howe-do-not-compensate-online-fraud-victims/ <comment><USER2> Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe must have forgotten _why_ the presumption of innocence and requirement to refund was introduced in the 90s. Or he's an idiot.

Thousands were having money going missing and the banks generally tried to blame the account holder. Refunds were rare.

It was later discovered to be extremely widespread, and of a seriousness large enough to bring down the banking system if it became more widely known.

The flaws in the systems were never closed, btw. The introduction of chip and PIN made the exploit no longer possible, at which point more information came out.

The Register has a pretty good write up here: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/21/phantoms_and_rogues/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/21/phantoms_and_rogues/)</comment>


Rethinking Open Source: The Challenges Behind Establishing a Modern Emulator - <AUTHOR> https://emucross.com/rethinking-open-source/ <comment><USER2> In general this is an insightful article (once you apply the Wadsworth constant), but I am bothered by the sentiment of section on Citra and 3rd party builds. The narrative seems to be that "good guy developers who care deeply about you" are telling you not to use builds that solve your problems and do what you want, and instead you should just suck it up and wait until they get around to fixing it _properly_ , presumably with love instead of hacks. That's just a silly thing to expect.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it much more satisfying to emulate the very lowest levels of hardware/software.

Then the fact that very complex software, such as an unaltered app, runs as it was intended to, on top of your emulator is verification that your emulation is indeed correct.

Emulating an app is trivial compared with emulating the underlying structures. Actually, emulating an app is just doing a 'clean-room' rewrite.</comment>


Exotic optics: Metamaterial world - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/exotic-optics-metamaterial-world-1.13516

<comment><USER2> The antenna product would be pretty sweet, though it doesn't get around the fact that satellite data transfer is still pretty expensive^ comparatively speaking, though maybe getting a lot more people on board with it would bring the price down. But it'd be even better for the larger ship-borne satellite receivers already out there which right now use a bunch of expensive gears and circuitry to be able to target satellites (and often break), seems like it would solve making those systems less complex as well as make a good consumer product.

^I base this on personal experience shopping for and paying for broadband data on a ship I worked on, things may have changed significantly since that time though.</comment>


You Are Listening To – Ambient Music and Radio Scanners - <AUTHOR> http://youarelisteningtolosangeles.com/ <comment><USER2> Two of my favorite things. Pretty cool :)</comment>


The incredibly simple story of how the gov't Googled Ross Ulbricht - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/the-incredibly-simple-story-of-how-the-govt-googled-ross-ulbricht

<comment><USER2> Between Silk Road 1 and Silk Road 2, both administrators lived in San Francisco and used their real name for an email address.

What're the chances?

Or is there something about wanting to admin a darknet market that precludes moving to a beach in Asia with wifi, and using the bitcoin you're taking a cut of.</comment>


Ask HN: Who are the most efficient Founders? How do they manage their time? - <AUTHOR> I have two businesses that are growing modestly, maybe a couple percentage points a month. I have 4 employees. Bills are paid. Some months are slower but I don't so much worry.
I'm trying to figure out how to efficiently GROW.
some tasks I do:
- helping my employees grow our current accounts
  - help write pitches
  - help with account optimizations
  - help without
- get more accounts
  - google advertising
  - facebook advertising
  - <USER2> - Do HR/Bookkeeping/admin(this is only like 3-5% of my time)
Does anyone have a better way to visualize all my POSSIBLE tasks so that I can prioritize them? <comment><USER3> Get rid of one of the businesses, and make the other one grow twice as fast.

One business growing 10%/month greatly exceeds the impact of two businesses growing 5%/month. Projecting those numbers 5 years out, your total business would be 8x larger [0].

[0]

      >>> (0.5 * 1.1**(12*5)) / (1.05**(12*5))
      8.150292022020569</comment>


Will Humanity Be Better Off in 2118? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/will-humanity-be-better-off-in-2118-d1b2b44cd998 <comment><USER2> It's just sad that when artists get asked about how humans will be in 100 years, they talk about physical appearance.

They do not talk about the state of the world, the culture, the state of the planet, how people are feeling etc.

Yes we will have amazing tech in 100 years but if we are still on ape level emotionally, we will have horrible societies where people are very unhappy and will want to escape the real world as much as possible.</comment>


The world's 50 most powerful blogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs <comment><USER2> The Huffpo is influential? They just seem like the average of every left-of- center editorial I've ever read.

Can anyone tell me any stories they've broken? Has anyone ever read anything on the Huffpo that they felt like quoting later? That changed their views in any way? I have trouble imagining this.

This article keeps getting weirder. Michelle Malkin is not very influential among conservatives -- Glenn Reynolds or the Powerline guys or the LGF guys have done a lot more to shape conservatives' web presence. Samizdata should rank below them. I don't see Lew Rockwell or Brussels Journal, who have both gotten far-right fringes (anarcho-capitalists and anti-EU isolationists) a lot more attention.

Also, no business blogs? No economics blogs? To the extent that valueinvestorsclub.com is a blog, it's more influential than all of these put together, since it's caused measurable multi-million dollar changes in stock and bond valuations. And no peak oil blogs? Where would peak oil be without blogs? How many people routinely chat with petroleum geologists?

<comment><USER3> Lew Rockwell did a lot more to kill attention seeing as he was outed as the ghost-author of the [person we aren't allowed to talk about here]'s controversial newsletters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> After reading the list, finding that I've never read the majority of them, I feel better. I still don't understand the appeal of kottke.org "home of fine hypertext products"

<comment><USER5> Kottke is a collection of good links. Kind of like news.yc or reddit, only picked by one guy who is much better at picking links than your average reddit or news.yc contributor.

<comment><USER4> Thanks. The stories linked to on Kottke.org seem very diverse. Arts, photography, journalism.

Via kottke.org, I just read a disturbing but fascinating article on a photojournalist's ill-fated love affair with a Colombian assassin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I stopped reading at #8... Icanhascheezburger. Funny and entertaining, yes. Powerful though?

<comment><USER7> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Surely they mean English-speaking world's 50 most powerful blogs.

<comment><USER9> It's like the "World Series": The best in America is the best in the world.

But seriously, they do include a number of blogs from countries whose main language is not English.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh, please, everyone knows Achewood and homestarrunner are both more powerful than the icanhascheezburger and Gaping Void.</comment>


Ask HN: Why browsers directly open pdf file but not markdown file? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> My guesses would be: PDF is an ISO standard, while MD has a handful of competing implementations/standards. PDF is very widely used, while MD-as-file is rather niche.

And browsers _will_ open .md files, they'll just interpret them as plain text.</comment>


Qqqr: QR Code Music Player - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/qqrs/qqqr <comment><USER2> How about putting actual music in QR code? There's probably enough space on a bigger QR code for a short chiptune?

<comment><USER3> The maximum data is about 3k and that results in an enormous code.

</comment></comment><comment> m-p-3 That makes me thing that it would be so useful if we could have a unique ID for each song out there (kinda like the ISRC, could be something more modern like how we now do audio fingerprinting) that is universal across music services.

It would be way easier to migrate from one to the other if that was the case.

<comment><USER4> Musicbrainz provides that. Doesn't help with service migration, though - that's on tne service providers to establish the needed cross-licensing agreements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like your code - simple and well packaged. Neat!

Don't you wish they made a larger case with a hole for the camera? I had one for the Raspberry Pi 2 like that.</comment>


The 80% Lean Startup - <AUTHOR> http://readncode.com/blog/80_percent_lean_startup/

<comment><USER2> I tend to agree with the "ADHD"-"undigested thoughts" analysis of the book. It's clear that Ries has some extremely innovative ideas about startups and has perhaps invented the best method of idea validation. However, he seems to have learned to write from a generation of bloggers who can organize a collection of paragraphs for poignancy, but have no idea how to organize chapters for understanding.

Still, you don't read this because Ries has mastered the pen, but because he's developed a system that will eliminate waste from your startups.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Eric is a fantastic author (and speaker). He uses examples from real companies like Dropbox, provides helpful vocabulary to use with your team, and moves on to the next point. Most modern business books take one fairly simple concept and tease 10 chapters out of it. I'd much rather have a book that is packed with ideas you can use, even if densely packed.

I'll take Eric's writing style over Steve Yegge's any day.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm in the process of reading it and wonder how different Build-Measure-Learn is from the Ready-Aim-Fire mantra of the late 90's.

Most businesses seem poor at measuring outcomes of what features they introduce but can't help but wonder if Eric's proposal is taking things too far the other way.</comment>


Tim Berners-Lee Supports DRM in Browsers - <AUTHOR> https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/02/on-eme-in-html5/ <comment><USER2> The web used to be a very open place. But as commerce and big players started operating within it, the influence of money and power came with it. And that's what this is.

I can watch movies in my browser today, and i can't just 'download" them. Maybe i missed a memo, but this isn't the problem it gets made out to be - that there is no way to distribute movies without DRM in browsers, is not so true. There is - it's maybe just not perfect, or ideal.

And I recognize the current solutions are not perfect. But once you let a little DRM in, it paves the way for so much more.

My concern is a web that cannot be explored - basically reverting back to flash. Ironically, this is one of the mechanisms used presently for DRM. Which - is fine. But remember when most sites were flash based? What's to stop the major players from DRM'ing everything just because they can?

This won't make the web a better place. We won't see new tech or new possibilities - just more bullshit and more frustration. It will serve corporate interests well, but not ours. So with this the web becomes more for them, and less for us.

I'd love to be wrong, and see this play out in a tasteful manner. But knowing the players involved, that's not likely.

</comment><comment><USER3> After reading, the biggest impression with which I was left was that Tim's comment does a decent job demonstrating the irrelevance of the W3C.</comment>