New bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrolling - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/30/20746878/josh-hawley-dark-patterns-platform-design-autoplay-youtube-videos-scrolling-snapstreaks-illegal <comment><USER2> I'm the dev that built Netflix's autoplay of the next episode. We built it first on the web player because it is easy to A/B test new features there. We called it "post-play" at the time.

When I worked there the product team at Netflix had two KPIs all new features were tested against: hours watched and retention. We would come up with all sorts of ideas to try out, and release them to small user populations of about 100,000 or so. It was great because you didn't have to debate much about whether a new feature was a good idea or not, you just built it and tested it. If the feature didn't increase hours watched or retention in a statistically significant way, the feature was removed.

Autoplay massively increased hours watched. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was by far the biggest increase in the hours watched KPI of any feature we ever tested. There was some skepticism about whether the number was inflated by Netflix continuing to play when the user left the room.

As part of the autoplay test, we tested how long the countdown should be between episodes. 5 seconds, 10 seconds or 15 seconds. 10 seconds caused the biggest increase in hours watched. We thought that it gave people time to digest what they had just watched, but wasn't too fast (5 seconds) where it became jarring. Interestingly, Netflix recently changed the countdown between episodes to 5 seconds. That means they tested it out and found that people watch more if with a shorter countdown. This didn't use to be the case. Netflix user have become conditioned to expect autoplay.

So yes, Netflix wants you to spend more hours watching Netflix and the product team is scientifically engineering the product to make it more addictive.

But...the product team at Doritos does the same thing.

<comment><USER3> > When I worked there the product team at Netflix had two KPIs all new > features were tested against: hours watched and retention.

So, I totally understand retention: that one makes sense to me, as that's revenue for Netflix; if I'm more likely to renew my account, then Netflix makes more money. But... I honestly don't understand why Netflix is optimizing for hours watched, and in fact I had assumed it would be the opposite (leading to Netflix actually making it kind of annoyingly difficult to watch the full credits on movies, for example).

> But...the product team at Doritos does the same thing.

This makes sense to me: the more Doritos I eat, the more money Doritos makes. This isn't true of Netflix: every time I watch something, it _costs_ Netflix money. I would, naively, expect that what Netflix would want to optimize for is some weird balance of retention (at high priority) and _least_ hours watched (at a much lower priority).

> So yes, Netflix wants you to spend more hours watching Netflix and the > product team is scientifically engineering the product to make it more > addictive.

I also appreciate that the more hours I watch of Netflix, the more I might be "addicted" to doing so... but the reason I'd expect Netflix to care about that is because it means higher retention, which is already being directly measured. Any other aspects of my addiction _don 't_ seem to benefit Netflix: it costs Netflix money every time I stream something from them...

...and, it would seem to me _crucially_ , it means that Netflix is "on the hook" for more and more content. If, on a relatively short-term basis (such as during an experiment), my measured retention is the same, but my hours watched is higher, then it means I'm burning through content I like to watch at a faster rate, and so Netflix needs to spend more money to rotate their catalog and create more originals.

It just seems so weird that Netflix would be optimizing for "hours watched", and I'd love to learn from someone more on the inside who was involved in that why they would do that. I understand why YouTube and Facebook optimize for "engagement" (even though I also think it is abhorrent) as 1) their revenue is based on advertisements and 2) they spread using network effects; neither of these are true for Netflix.

<comment><USER4> Why hours watched? Because Netflix wants as much of your time as you're willing to give. The more ingrained they are in your life, the less elastic your demand. We've seen them raise prices and remove just about all of the worthwhile content, and they have more subscribers than ever. Stay tuned for more of this.

<comment><USER5> I wonder how many of those extra hours watched are because the stream just didn't stop after the person fell asleep. I can't tell you the number of times I've fallen asleep while Netflix played (or walked away) and it went right into some other show I didn't care to watch (and never actually did).

If hours streamed is your metric for engagement.. of course having the stream continue on its own would make that number rise. It doesn't actually say anything at all about real engagement.

<comment><USER6> Ours has definitely ended up playing to an empty room for a good long while, a few times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Things like requiring accept and decline checkboxes to be the same font seem somewhat reasonable, even if I disagree with it, but banning autoplay videos and endless scrolling is insane. There are legitimate uses for autoplay videos (ex. Netflix playing next episode, YouTube playing next song when you are listening to music) which I personally use all the time and appreciate, and endless scrolling is great when you don't need to refer back to previous results, and don't want to keep clicking "next". I think people should have the freedom to consume content how they want, the government shouldn't compensate for their lack of self control.

<comment><USER8> While I agree that it's hard to support legislation that's likely to have a lot of unintended consequences, it's also important to realize what's driving folks to introduce a bill like this. It's also worth pointing out that (in particular with Netflix) your example is its own counter-argument. You can't turn off autoplay, and that's the opposite of letting me make choices for myself.

There's also plenty of other examples of government regulating or banning things which exploit human weakness. Ponzi schemes, meth, gambling, and more are all controlled. It's pretty clear that a lot of tech-company design is (intentionally or not) probably scratching a lot of the same itches. It's reasonable to expect regulation.

<comment><USER7> I think the choice is to just leave Netflix when you are done an episode. Maybe it's just me but I've never felt like the autoplay makes me much more likely to keep watching, it is just convenient so I don't have to go through all of the menus again.

If we ban autoplay on Netflix, we should also ban cable I suppose (not a big loss, really), since cable will autoplay indefinitely.

<comment><USER9> This kind of sounds to me like "you can stop smoking by not buying anymore cigarettes". True, but glosses over the addictive aspects which led to cigarettes being regulated as they are. And this isn't an accidental property of these apps, they're intentionally engineered features to drive "engagement"/addiction.

<comment><USER10> The difference is that actually addictive things, rather than just rewarding stimuli, produce increases in incentive salience regardless of actual reward outcome. In cigarettes this is mediated through nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on cells with inputs to dopaminergic systems that predict reward.

There's a vast distance between directly effecting the substrate of thinking chemically and reactions to rewarding stimuli coming in normally.

<comment><USER11> And what would that difference be when you are just describing different methods for affecting dopaminergic reward pathways?

If you scan the brain with an fMRI, the reward pathway lights up and suggest over time you will have reinforced that pleasurable activity and have created a strong affinity towards repeated activations, further strengthening those pathways.

Have there been any studies to show withdrawals from inhibiting consuming pleasurable visual media?

I mean if you were watching a series on Netflix that really resonates with you and you make a strong connection with the characters and feel as if you are a part of the scenes taking place (game of thrones etc), with characters faces activating your fusiform gyrus and dramatic scenes activating your amygdala making you emotional etc, how is autoplay facilitating the pleasurable dopamine response from imagining/anticipating/looking forward to how great the next episode will be, not as compelling of an issue as consuming exogenous substances that activate similar dopamine release?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If politicians could focus their efforts on actually solving problems instead of giving hand outs to their tort lawyer buddies, we might get a better system.

The lawsuits would include:

\- autoplay of gifs vs web videos

\- does Pinterest count as an auto scroll ad

\- does an endless scroll populated with 50% real content count as non-ad?

The law will just create more headaches for the producers and less innovation thanks to having to fight lawsuits.

Example of the depths lawyers can class action: Godiva is being sued in court for putting "Godiva 1927" on the label; the lawyer is arguing that people believe that the chocolate was made in 1927.

*edited the content away from ideas.

<comment><USER13> Outlawing X doesn't mean almost-X is completely fine. That said, none of your examples make much sense (to me).

> \- autoplay of gifs vs web videos

Presumably the content is what matters, not the particular compression format. Does it show animated content continuously without being triggered by active user interaction? Yes, so it's an auto-playing video.

> \- does Pinterest count as an auto scroll ad

It's primarily focused on a call to action, so yes, it's an ad. Would they show an equivalent popup for ordinary user-generated content that they have no stake in?

> \- does an endless scroll populated with 50% real content count as non-ad?

Is there an ad that appears when the user scrolls? I don't even see what this example was supposed to demonstrate.

> The law will just create more headaches for the producers and less > innovation thanks to having to fight lawsuits.

More headaches and less innovation in how to sell bullshit sounds like a very positive outcome to me.

<comment><USER14> > Presumably the content is what matters, not the particular compression > format. Does it show animated content continuously without being triggered > by active user interaction? Yes, so it's an auto-playing video.

By that logic a loading spinner is an auto-playing video. Does me logging in count as "active user interaction" for showing me a loading spinner? I didn't request the spinner, I requested access to my skype chats.

<comment><USER13> The spinner fulfils a purpose (by notifying you that the content is still not quite ready) and is temporary (it goes away once the content is loaded). That said, you could always just replace it with a static "Loading.." label.

<comment><USER15> Plus, it's not exactly "content".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I apologize for making a comment with regard to politics, but I can't help feeling frustrated by the narrative around curbing "addictive behavior" coming from the political party that consistently extols the virtues of "personal responsibility" and regularly characterizes the desire to regulate harmful behavior as the machinations of a "nanny state". I find it especially frustrating in this case because the specifics of this proposal seem to be pretty poorly reasoned from a technical perspective.

<comment><USER17> The Republican party is about personal responsibility as much as the Democrats are for ending wars. Both parties are essentially the same now, and have been for several years.

<comment><USER16> > _Both parties are essentially the same now, and have been for several > years._

This is very obviously and demonstrably false. I don't understand how anyone can believe this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is textbook regulatory capture.

Want to host your own website? Be sure to hire a specialized lawyer to audit and sign off on the user interface choices you made (and be sure to retain them indefinitely as your dependencies and the law evolve).

<comment><USER19> > This is textbook regulatory capture.

I do not think it means what you think it means. (Or maybe I don't! :-)

<comment><USER20> The suggestion is that only large established firms can navigate the regulatory requirements.

I don't buy that.

<comment><USER21> Because it is nonsense. A lawyer isn't some sort of rocket or satellite, fundamentally they are accessible to anyone who is even remotely in the middle class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "If I take the bottom out of this glass and I keep refilling the water or the wine, you won't know when to stop drinking"

That's not how drinking works. That's not how anything works.

<comment><USER23> EDIT: see caveat from K-Wall below. Can't trust anything these days :-/ </edit>

That's exactly how it works, to an extent. In a study [1], people with self- refilling soup bowls ate 73% more soup (p < 0.01) than those eating from normal soup bowls. Similar with popcorn [2]. I first read about this either in _Nudge_ or in _Mindless Eating_.

[1] Wansink, B., Painter, J.E., & North, J. (2005). Bottomless Bowls: Why Visual Cues of Portion Size May Influence Intake Obesity Research, 13 (1), 93-100

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2005.12](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2005.12)

[2] [http://projectputthatcookiedownnow.com/2011/bottomless- bowls...](http://projectputthatcookiedownnow.com/2011/bottomless-bowls-of- soup-and-stale-popcorn-can-all-lead-to-mindless-eating/)

<comment> K-Wall I wouldn't cite Wansink... the guy had 15 retractions in the past year for making shit up.

<comment><USER23> Oh, good to know. Are you aware of more details? Replications or critiques of those studies? (As I said, I came across them in pop-sci books.)

<comment> K-Wall The unit I'm affiliated with was tasked by the university to run replications and ultimately assist with the retractions. This was all done by my colleagues but I heard about it quite often. Past that I am going to refrain on commenting more as I'm unqualified to do so.

Two published replication studies (used for retractions) can be found here:

[https://cisermgmt.cornell.edu/go/PHPs/catalogSingleStudy.php...](https://cisermgmt.cornell.edu/go/PHPs/catalogSingleStudy.php?IDTITLE=2796)

[https://cisermgmt.cornell.edu/go/PHPs/catalogSingleStudy.php...](https://cisermgmt.cornell.edu/go/PHPs/catalogSingleStudy.php?IDTITLE=2797)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Even if we could all agree that autoplay videos and endless scrolling are terrible ideas, I still don't understand why we should get the government involved. Use a service that has them, or refuse to. Find another service that doesn't use them. "There should be a law..." is often the wrong response. At least in my opinion.

<comment><USER25> Its coming out of a social initiative that deals with the inability of parents to keep social media (and tech in general) addiction of their kids under control. Human beings have a lot of psychological vulnerabilities and, if you watched the senate hearing, you'd know how tech companies exploit some of our innate addictive personality traits to get people hooked on their product. Pick-up "artists" use this to get laid. Advertisers use it to sell their junk products, etc.

Its easy to point out whats wrong, but nobody sticks their neck out and tells people how to fix the situation. Here, someone seems to be trying, and for that I give them some props..

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This sounds like complete joke. Next another bill will ban pagination?

<comment><USER27> Another bill will mandate that websites display a banner if the user has been there for too long (to protect internet addicts from being sedentary for too long). Pretty soon only big corps will be able to make a website because there is a phonebook sized stack of regulations you have to comply with.

<comment><USER28> > Another bill will mandate that websites display a banner if the user has > been there for too long

Why wait? From Ars's writeup of the same bill[0]:

> As described in the text, social media companies would have to limit users > to 30 minutes of use per day by default. Users would be allowed to choose > their own time limits for daily and weekly use, but companies would have to > reset that time limit to half an hour every single month, as well as > providing "conspicuous pop-up" displays at least once every 30 minutes > showing how much time you have spent using a service in the past day, across > all devices.

This is just political grandstanding. (I hope) nobody would ever actually vote for this.

[0]: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/proposed-us- law-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/proposed-us-law-would- ban-infinite-scroll-autoplaying-video/)

<comment><USER29> This is what they do on gambling websites in the UK.

Similarly if you are in a Casino you will never see a clock anywhere. Also generally food and drink is pretty cheap and there is normally table service in a Casino because they want you to be at the tables spending your cash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This seems like an extremely short sited, overly broad and unlikely to pass bill, and to make it all worse, based on the title, I thought that someone was attempting to ban videos that play automatically when you visit a website, which would have been a deeply noble cause.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have suspicion that these politicians know what they are doing and they are doing these stupid things with the fullest knowledge that the bill does not help the addicted people. Also probably they know these things don't even threaten the tech giants. Then why are they spending their precious time for such a meaningless bill?

This makes me think of McConnell gaining support or lobbying from tobacco industry. Maybe this is a thinly veiled threat or request to the tech giants?

<comment><USER25> You don't seem to be familiar with this. They had a hearing in the Senate, which featured testimony of experts in this field.

[https://gizmodo.com/this-is-how-youre-being- manipulated-1835...](https://gizmodo.com/this-is-how-youre-being- manipulated-1835853810)

<comment><USER31> Do you think this is an important enough issue for a Senate hearing or a bill? I honestly do not.

<comment><USER25> Well,.. the government is taking drug addiction seriously, so on principle I don't see why tech addiction should be a-priori excluded from discussion. I'm sure good people on both sides can disagree as to the measures that need to be taken..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Tech needs to fight. There are tons of new regulations being pushed to regulate tech with politics. It's going to end very badly. This is not about caring for people, but controlling tech. People care about high hospital bills, expensive insurance and high college costs. Why are these same politicians not writing new bills to fix those? Why do they want to tame Netflix, Youtube, Facebook, Google, Amazon?

<comment><USER33> Because tech companies are run by the "liberal elite" and they don't bribe enough congressmen.

People in tech should be much more concerned than they are about the government encroaching on it. The government does _not_ represent big states/big cities in proportion to the population once you consider the tiniest state has the same two senators as the largest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It seems like a lot of the bill could run up against first amendment challenges. The only parts that seem "safe" are checkbox parts that deal with contracts; agreeing and disagreeing to terms. I am not a lawyer.

</comment><comment><USER35> An app I worked on had a similar feature to Snapstreaks, but it was used to help people quit smoking. This bill would have killed this feature that helped many people lead healthier lives.

<comment><USER36> This bill would only apply to social media sites, so unless your 'quit smoking' app was such, it woulnd't have affected it at all.

<comment><USER37> Until a 74 year old politician expands "social media site". Come on, you know how this always goes. Slippery slopes and what-not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I would like to see warnings on certain websites which use user retention tactics such as these to prominently display warnings like cigarette companies are required to do. Something like the following:

"Facebook is known to be addictive and use deceptive practices in user interface design to influence you into spending an unhealthy amount time on their platform in order to maximize the number of advertisements you view."

<comment><USER39> That would be a much better law than the lawmakers'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Uh, TV is unending, constantly "scrolling" to new content meant to addict you as well, correct? How does this differ from having the TV on and just consuming what's on it versus Netflix autoplay feature? Is it possible to distinguish autoplay (auto-continuation) from just regular TV streaming over the airwaves or cable?

</comment><comment><USER41> From TFA...

> Deceptive design played an enormous part in last week's FTC settlement with > Facebook, and Hawley's bill would make it unlawful for tech companies to use > dark patterns to manipulate users into opting into services. For example, > "accept" and "decline" checkboxes would need to be the same font, format, > and size to help users make better, more informed choices.

So don't use color. Make the two choices equally clear.

Example:

Would you like to enroll in our craptacular offer which is free for 90 days and then costs $9.95 per month thereafter?

Please check one of the following options:

[_] No. Please DO NOT add me to the list of people to be excluded from being automatically enrolled in our special craptacular offer.

[_] Yes. Please DO add me to the list of people ineligible to not be excluded from not being enrolled in our special craptacular offer.

If you do not select one of the options, then default will automatically be selected for you.

Thank you for enrolling in our craptacular special offer!

</comment><comment><USER42> The government has nothing better to do priority-wise than regulate UI/UX behaviors like video autoplay? This is not essential to the functioning of society; it's bureaucrats avoiding the real issues. Also, ironic coming from the party that is ostensibly for less government intrusion.

</comment><comment><USER43> I doubt this will happen. First Amendment free speech restriction will get batted down by the Supreme Court.

<comment><USER44> In theory yes, but there are enough cases where amendments were castrated by the SCOTUS so that one cannot predict what will happen with this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I thought I was going insane with all these videos auto playing in Facebook and Twitter. It truly is annoying.

I'm not sure if I am against endless scrolling, however. I would, though, accept the loss of endless scrolling if that would stop videos from auto playing.

</comment><comment><USER46> I could support something like this if, instead of banning it, simply made these practices opt-in. Autoplay is great if you want it. It sucks if you don't. And Netflix makes it so dang hard to disable (you have to use a web browser and find an obscure preference). So instead of autoplay, it should require interaction the first time, with an option to autoplay for the rest of the session. Similarly for infinite scrolling, how about we don't infinitely scroll the first time, but have a footer you can click to load more, with an option to infinitely scroll for the rest of the session.

</comment><comment><USER47> This is the last shreds of personal responsibility disappearing from the culture.

</comment><comment><USER48> While we are at it, ads need to be marked in contrast colors and show business details of the ad buyer and if its an app, what kind of contract you are entering. My Android nags me "Enable anti-malware" and I don't know if it came from the OEM or from some originally minimal app that sold itself to a unscrupulous buyer. Elders's Androids (in India) have undismissable notifications many times taller than 2000s IE toolbars nagging them to install intrusive system tools.

</comment><comment><USER49> This seems silly of course, but you can't have companies such as Google and Facebook claim they are a carrier while they promote and curate content, even if they are only curating via AI (which turns out at to be really smart at connecting people to extreme content). It's like the phone company putting up an ad to suggest your child call a pedophile and then saying we're not responsible for the call, we're just the phone company.

<comment><USER16> > _you can 't have companies such as Google and Facebook claim they are a > carrier while they promote and curate content_

Do you have any examples of google or facebook claiming to be a "carrier"?

<comment><USER49> Certainly

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook- mark-zuckerberg-platform-publisher-lawsuit)

<comment><USER16> The article does not support your position that Facebook claims to be a carrier.

If you want to extract some specific sections of the article that you believe support your position I'm happy to discuss them, but I'm not seeing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Banning things is obviously silly but I wouldn't mind regulations that force media outlets to give subscribers some simple _options_ so we can choose exactly how we consume the media we pay for.

That might wreck the holy grail of A/B testing that these companies live and die by, but it would be fantastic for the consumer.

</comment><comment><USER51> You can disable Netflix auto-play following these steps: [https://help.netflix.com/en/node/2102](https://help.netflix.com/en/node/2102)

I disabled Netflix autoplay for the reasons mentioned in this article.

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm not sure if banning can fix anything. They will come up with different ideas. Every company is heavily focused to optimize digital products for business values now.

Auto-play-video is probably very high on list of things that wasted so much time in human history.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think it makes more sense to require apps to let people know how much time they spend using them (especially if more than a few hours per week), and encourage people to take breaks. Banning one type of UI is not going to change anything.

</comment><comment><USER54> If this is something people want, why does it need a legislative fix? Couldn't we just implement a technical solution and let people choose whether to use it? Like a browser plugin that stops videos from automatically playing?

<comment><USER55> This could just as well be said about opiates. Human's are not very good at regulating ourselves, when we encounter artificial signals that would have meant success in an earlier time. Not to mention minors, who do not yet have the physical capacity to regulate themselves. Not to say I support this regulation, but there is something to be said for protecting us from our primal selves.

<comment><USER56> I know you're not saying the government should fully regulate everything, but I see drugs used to demonstrate need for government intervention in people's choices despite drug policy being perhaps the most visible and painful failure of such paternalistic policymaking. Namely because it _hasn 't_ protected people from themselves, it _hasn 't_ treated anybody's addiction, it mainly just creates violent black markets and saddles nonviolent offenders with a permanent criminal record.

Cynically, I think the real purpose of these laws always looks more like protecting entrenched interests rather than helping people who would get better if only they had some legislator making their life choices from a thousand miles away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> So why wasn't a ban necessary for the ultimate autoplaying video, television?

</comment><comment><USER58> Infinite scrolling is just good UI. I've implemented it in Libr, the Tumblr replacement ([https://librapp.com](https://librapp.com))

</comment><comment><USER59> Umbrella bans are never a good thing - there are tons of legitimate and corner cases. Instead force companies to provide easy to find and to use option/toggle for those.

</comment><comment><USER60> Endless scroll has lots of legitimate uses, and there are a million more dark patterns where the dark use of endless scroll came from. Bills like this are not the answer.

</comment><comment> m-p-3 > endless scrolling

With how many poor implementations out there (looking at you new Reddit), I don't think a ban would fix that but I'd like to see it scaled down.

</comment><comment><USER61> Don't ban things. Educate the population as to why they should ban themselves from doing things; and whenever possible, offer people better alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER62> Would this set a legal precedent for regulating code or is there already a precedent? If this does set a new legal precedent, the future looks messy

</comment><comment><USER63> China's anti-internet/video game addiction stuff isn't totally insane. The premise is actually noble.

</comment><comment><USER64> Seems like a way to limit a users access to desirable content while ramping up paid placement advertising?

</comment><comment><USER65> Here's an idea, how about spending time and effort on something that's an actual priority.

</comment><comment><USER66> I'll be the first to say that dotcoms overall have become an industry of greedy and grossly irresponsible and sneaky backstabbing sociopaths, _but_... the idea of legislators trying to get into the fine details of practice, and keep up with it, doesn't immediately sound like it's likely to be effective.

And that's even before we factor in the possibility of lobbyist influence.

While you're banning infinite scrolling (which has legitimate applications, and people should be horrified that such basic neutral ideas of communication could become illegal), the dotcom bad actors are running circles around you -- with numerous other dark pattern tactics, and sometimes entire technology infrastructure architectures and platforms irrevocably designed around what could also be considered dark patterns.

I'm reminded of some other abusive industries, with regulations that create waste, and barriers to entry for upstart competitors, while not doing nearly enough to reign in abuses.

Bring on the regulations (and, hopefully, eventually, a culture of professionalism and responsibility will follow), but first figure out how to make the regulations wise and genuinely effective, not counterproductive distractions.

</comment><comment><USER67> Are there comparable regulations for casino games, where some gamification techniques originated?

</comment><comment><USER68> Can we also replace "next"/"prev" buttons with "newer"/"older"?

I always get confused by the 2nd page.

</comment><comment><USER64> They just want to prevent people from easily tabbing/scrolling away from ads.

</comment><comment><USER69> I hate web 3.0 features like this, more so for CPU than psychological reasons, but this is textbook useless government overreach; it's the web equivalent of those firearm bills than ban some auxiliary features that looks scary but are functionally irrelevant

</comment><comment><USER70> Auto-play is a tax on the poor with limited data plans.

<comment><USER71> So true. Just like high definition video or images.

This bill should also ban: large hero images, serving more than 500 KB of JavaScript, making more than 50 HTTP calls when loading a page, causing the fans to spin up when loading the page, unnecessarily using web fonts.

Banning these things would make the web so much better.

<comment><USER72> It'd be awesome to have an extremely lightweight protocol that lets you get the size or approximate size of a resource before download. Maybe a new HTTP method like SIZEOF.

But how to make it truthful? Other than client cutting off download at the expressed limit. Would that be good enough? And how to express "fuzzy" sizes like "at least 1MB but might be a little more or less".

<comment><USER73> I believe you want HTTP HEAD. It's defined to return the same response as a GET but without a body. You can therefore look at the Content-Length response header to see what actually issuing a GET will cost you.

The server should not return fuzzy content lengths: your client should have soft limit ranges rather than a single hard limit.

Of course, the server is not required to support HEAD, nor is it required to include Content-Length, which touches on your real complaint:

Programmers get to write programs the way they want to, and most of them don't share your value of preserving bandwidth and using progressive enhancement.

That is a relational and human problem. There is no technological solution to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> So fitting for The Verge to be reporting this.

</comment><comment><USER75> Fantastic.

Can we also ban scroll-jacking?

</comment><comment><USER76> God this is so fucking stupid. Can we get the Government to focus on actual problems rather than this bullshit?

<comment><USER77> Porque no los dos?

<comment><USER76> That's like saying "Why not both?" to eating healthy and putting your balls in a vice grip. Eating healthy in this analogy is the government making laws regarding actual problems that require government intervention, while the balls in vice grip in this analogy is a pointless law concerning something that doesn't require government intervention just because people have a moral panic over technology allegedly ruining society.

<comment><USER77> No, it's more like saying "why not fix both 'big' and 'small' problems at the same time", because whataboutism is a constant defense of problematic status quos.

I don't know that this bill is a good or bad thing yet, I haven't dug deep into it yet. But the idea of making more designers eliminate dark patterns in software and make more features opt in instead of opt out is a good use of regulation in my mind.

I get it, "regulation ruins innovation" or some other libertarian nonsense. The bottom line is that the software industry has some problematic behaviors that they have refused to self-correct, and this is what happens.

<comment><USER76> This is not a "whataboutism". This is a "The government doesn't need to tell me how long I'm allowed to have an erection-ism"; i.e. micromanaging bullshit is not in the purview of the federal government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Don't know about others but i support this

</comment><comment><USER79> Banning autoplay videos, with extremely severe penalties for offenders, would be a great thing for the world.</comment>


Innovation comes from educated, hard-working immigrants–not genius dropouts - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/622893/innovation-comes-from-educated-hard-working-immigrants-not-genius-dropouts/ <comment><USER2> So they surveyed a subset of innovators that had won national awards and are now claiming that this represents most innovators? Also, isn't "innovator" a pretty loose term?

</comment><comment><USER3> As a lazy immigrant.

Immigrants in any country are extremely diverse.

The thing to understand is just because you are an immigrant doesn't mean you are hardworking or innovation.

The fundamental argument is much more simpler - labor moves wherever they see the most opportunity for their work.

And for a long time that has been the United States.

Its the same argument that I would apply in reverse. I see a lot of college educated liberal arts major working at coffee shop - these people would be extremely productive in lets say china - where there is shortage of people who are good at liberal arts - just like there is a shortage of software engineers in silicon valley.

Freedom of labor is what you really want - it would make the world a much better place.

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't a simpler explanation that innovative people have unique experiences, or experiences outside the norm? Immigrants, college dropouts, people with parents from other countries, people with learning disabilities etc, etc, all have different life experiences from the norm, thus they see things differently and have the ability to come up with different ideas (innovate).

</comment><comment><USER5> >More than a third of those surveyed were born outside the US—a much higher percentage than in the general population—and another 10% have at least one parent born in a foreign country.

You mean like the guy in the hero image with the caption, "The exception, not the rule."?</comment>


Six-Legged Giant Finds Secret Hideaway, Hides for 80 Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/02/24/147367644/six-legged-giant-finds-secret-hideaway-hides-for-80-years <comment><USER2> This story resonates with me.

Here in New Zealand, we have many native species of birds, insects, frogs, lizards and the like that thrived when our islands were cut off from the rest of the planet, but that have become extinct, or are in imminent danger of being so due to introduced predators such as rats, stoats, hedgehogs, ferrets, cats etc. etc.

It leads to the bizarre situation that conservation here is largely about killing things.

<comment><USER3> It's the same in the Galapagos islands too. I wonder how it is that rats are so fierce that they destroy everything they touch...

<comment><USER4> That's basically what rats do. I've got pet rats and they're cute and intelligent, but they're rodents optimized for breeding. That can breed so fast it isn't even funny and they destroy everything with their teeth to either eat it or build nests from the bits and pieces or just to test it out with their teeth.

<comment><USER5> It could be argued that every organism is optimized for breeding.

<comment><USER6> He means well optimized, not just "did their best". Look at the Panda's difficulties.

<comment><USER7> Pandas : Rats :: Bubblesort : Timsort

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did a search to see what happened with the stick bugs and discovered the population is now large enough they're in zoos in San Diego, Toronto, and Bristol: [http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/01/13/16/52/revived- au...](http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/01/13/16/52/revived-aus-stick- insect-takes-on-world)

</comment><comment><USER9> Wingsuit flyby of Ball's Pyramid:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQrWWpcT0I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQrWWpcT0I)

</comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of a Radiolab episode[1] about a similar effort to bring back a specific species of tortoise in the Galapagos islands. The offending infringing species there where goats. What was really interesting was the method used for the eradication program.[2]

[1] [http://www.radiolab.org/story/brink/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/brink/) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_goat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_goat)

</comment><comment><USER11> Multiple previous discussions on HN: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Six- Legged%20Giant%20Finds%20S...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Six- Legged%20Giant%20Finds%20Secret%20Hideaway,%20Hides%20for%2080%20Years&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

</comment><comment><USER12> The old accepted view was that terrestrial arthropods are limited in size by their system of respiration which amounts to exoskeletal pores (spiracles) and internal airways. So terrestrial bugs can't get much bigger because of the body volume (cubic) versus passive respiratory surface (square). (we've got a forced air/blood circulation system so we can get bigger) Consequently it would be fascinating to learn how close _Dryococelus australis_ is to that theoretical limit, or has it developed some sort of active respiratory system? (in which case, maybe it's time to start engineering insect saddles?)

</comment><comment><USER13> The story of the Lord Howe Island stick insect is nicely told in this award winning short animation, "Sticky" [1].

There is also a book out now on the insects [2].

[1] [https://vimeo.com/76647062](https://vimeo.com/76647062)

[2] [http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/7226.htm](http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/7226.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> Are they ever going to go back to the island and collect more specimens for breeding (and perhaps release some captive-bread individuals to replace them)? Even though that population was probably extremely inbred there's probably still some genetic diversity there that wasn't represented in to two wild specimens they managed to breed.

<comment><USER15> Having such a genetically homogeneous population would make me nervous about disease potentially wiping them all out. Hopefully they can keep many breeding pairs in multiple locations around the world to prevent this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are those edible? They look like a good replacement for shrimps. Nothing would guarantee their survival better than becoming a food source for humans!

<comment><USER17> As a counterpoint to your claim that being a food source for humans guarantees survival, the orange roughy is a good example. It is a fish that was discovered as tasty and then fished to 10% of its original numbers within 50 years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy#Threats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy#Threats)

<comment><USER16> True, but I didn't think that we should go to Ball's Pyramid and eat them up. I was thinking about mass production. Think about chicken: there are more chickens than humans on this planet [1].

These creatures have such a great name! Nobody wants to eat crickets or worms, but who could resist a tree lobster? It is such a great marketing name!

[1] [http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/global- liv...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/global-livestock- counts)

Edit: you are right that being a food source for humans doesn't guarantee survival. It only happens if the food source can be mass produced.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a southern Louisiana (US "Deep South") native. Here, and in other areas of the south (and elsewhere in the world), we have similarly large "cicadas", which are basically giant crickets. They hatch once every 13 years (shorter than most other cicadas, which hatch every 17 years) [1]. Though the hatches produce huge numbers (sometimes causing areas of road to be literally covered and obscured), and can sometimes be a nuisance because of their sound, they play a very integral role in the ecological cycle and contribute to a very diverse system of plants and animals which many people around here take great pride in. I hope that the residents of Lord Howe Island can learn to live with some new friends.

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

<comment><USER19> Those aren't limited to the deep south. We have several broods here in VA. As a kid, those big brood years were always amazing - so many bugs crawling around, and their shells littering the roads for weeks. Amazing stuff.

<comment><USER20> Chocolate covered cicadas, cicada pizza, fried cicadas. The mind reels at the thought, but they're generally not bad at all.

When the last giant bloom came to the southern Ohio area (~2000 or so), there were people using snow shovels to the clear the sidewalks of the carcasses. There was one particular neighborhood where the sound was so deafening, you couldn't hear the person next to you, even if they were shouting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This needs a (2012) in the title

<comment><USER22> >Updated January 18, 20161:39 PM ET

>Published February 29, 201210:10 AM ET

I remember reading the article in 2012. I wonder what the update was? I only skimmed, is it mentioned anywhere?

<comment><USER23> same

I need something like a web diff

<comment><USER24> You can use the wayback machine to get old versions and diff the two raw html files (little bit dirty, but it works). Only found changes in the wording of the "description" and "og:description" meta tags.

<meta name="description" content="The insect is so large — as big as a human hand — it's been dubbed a "tree lobster." [-It was thought to be-]{+Presumed+} extinct,[-but-] some enterprising ento mologists [-scoured-]{+found them on+} a barren hunk of rock in the middle of the [-ocean and found surviving Lord Howe Island stick insects."-]{+ocean."+} />

Edit: Is there a way to get the raw html from archive.org without the rewritten links? It pollutes the diff badly.

<comment><USER23> I meant something automated like google translate in chrome ;)

but yeah I see your point, still you have the issue of no older archives existing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> All those eggs from one breeding pair, do insects not need gene diversity for the population to succeed?

<comment><USER15> It's possible to successfully breed inbred insects like this, because eventually you can select out all the ones with recessive gene problems (you can get lots of generations quickly with insects). The big issue is that such a homogeneous population is much more susceptible to disease -- a virus or bacteria that can kill one can probably kill them all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I remember this posted from a year ago. I remember reading it and being grossed out that it was a giant bug and not some sort of 6 legged bear. Why that guy would ever touch that thing is beyond me.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179292)

</comment><comment><USER27> It's interesting how this story has a true purpose, to convince the residents of Lord Howe to allow the insects to be released on their land by the pressure of the article's readers. Ball's Pyramid itself is perhaps even more fascinating to me. It looks like a good place for a wizard to live...

</comment><comment><USER28> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179292)

</comment><comment><USER29> Once humans spread and travel became commonplace, its inevitable that 'invasive species' should become a worldwide problem. It only has to happen once; you can't ever be careful enough to avoid that. And the most invasive species of all, which erases whole ecosystems and changes everything including the water, soil and weather, is of course, us.

</comment><comment><USER30> > It was 12 centimeters long and the heaviest flightless stick insect in the > world.

So there are bigger insects around, and _they can fly_?

<comment><USER31> Meet the (up to 16.7cm) titan beetle:

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

[http://www.odditycentral.com/animals/bugs-the-size-of- your-h...](http://www.odditycentral.com/animals/bugs-the-size-of-your-hand- the-titan-beetle.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Those things scare the bejeezus out of me (irrationally, I'll grant), but these stories give me hope, if at least a little.

<comment><USER33> I wonder if you are also scared of lobsters. Now tarantulas, that is an animal I wouldn't touch with a ten feet poll.

<comment><USER32> No, it's mainly insects that wig me out. Tarantulas... not so much, but I'm not keen on spiders big enough that I can feel their weight.

In the house if a spider is found, I generally try to save it and put it outside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> That video. I'm traumatized, yet I can't look away.

</comment><comment><USER35> How do they propose to rid Howe Island of rats?

<comment><USER36> Poison, looks like.

[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130729-rats-...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130729-rats- islands-invasive-species-animals-environment/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Woa. It's a Rock Lobster!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDZy6-fMCw4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDZy6-fMCw4)

</comment><comment><USER38> Don't pitch the bugs. Pitch their shells. As buttons or jewelry.

<comment><USER39> Personally I thought the detail about them forming pair bonds and cuddling was the most adorable thing I had ever heard about a bug. I'd save that species.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> If only everything on HN had a wingsuit flyby

<comment><USER41> Wingsuit flyby of spacex landing...

<comment><USER42> wingsuit flyby of Heartbleed disclosure...

<comment><USER40> wingsuit flyby of the latest "startup" getting a small fortune in funding....chapter 11 before the 'chute deploys

<comment><USER43> Wingsuit flyby of wingsuit flyby of man posting a comment on HackerNews </comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Carlos Matias La Borde's answer: I have an idea of an app but can't code it - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/App-developers-I-need-someone-who-would-like-to-be-my-partner-50-50-I-have-an-idea-of-an-app-but-cant-code-it-Is-anyone-interested/answer/Carlos-Matias-La-Borde?share=1 <comment><USER2> Not a very smart way of looking at it. With this attitude Steve Jobs had never been able to create Apple</comment>


What I Have Learned from My Arbitrage Experiences with Cryptoassets - <AUTHOR> https://blog.coinfabrik.com/what-i-have-learned-from-my-arbitrage-experiences-with-cryptoassets/ <comment><USER2> Wallet "under maintenance". Yeah, right.

If that happens regularly, you have to assume the "exchange" is front-running, trading for their own account ahead of customer trades.

<comment><USER3> Well if you believe this we can go the extra step and assume that the exchange is _causing_ the wallet "maintenances" to run up the price of a coin they want to sell to their customers.

<comment><USER4> >Well if you believe this we can go the extra step and assume that the exchange is _causing_ the wallet "maintenances" to run up the price of a coin they want to sell to their customers.

This isn't hard to believe at all. In fact that sounds like a pretty tame level of scamming for the crypto world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you tried doing any arbitrage on any of the DEX out there (the only one I have experience with is the Stellar DEX).

If you manage the offers yourself (rather than going through some client) there are no exchange fees, and the transactions are nearly instant.

There could be two approaches to it:

1) Find pairs/paths within the order book that can make a profit. There's practically no fees here so I suspect the margins will be pretty thin.

2) Use "anchors" to convert your Stellar assets back into the real cryptocurrency, and then deposit again them via another anchor (or exchange) and complete your trade.

<comment><USER6> DEX could be a good idea. However, I've tried something without success. In waves, for example, you can sell btc for USD tokens with good profit, but you can not extract them. When exchanging with other ctyptos there is no high volume, then I've found bid / ask prices with high spread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> well to be fair arbitrage in traditional markets only really works at massive scale.

Its also part of the invisible hand that brings equilibrium to markets. Unfortunately its not really accessible to the average investor.

<comment><USER6> What do you mean on a large scale? in cytpo eschanges, large orders only lead you to pay too expensive (or sell too cheap)

<comment><USER8> Building a sustainable arbitrage business requires scale. Margins are thin and should always be getting thinner, so to remain viable, you have to pursue ever more exotic arbitrage opportunities. Arbitrage opportunities encourage a speed race, and the way to win that race is to use ever-increasing resources to elbow out competition and discourage newcomers.</comment></comment></comment>


CloudFlare helps save Wikileaks' bacon - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/13/cloudflare-helps-save-wikileaks-bacon/ <comment><USER2> I think this move will help establish cloudflare as a strong brand. Great marketing!

<comment><USER3> Cloudflare's stand on free speech is really impressive. I just wish more companies would have such a strong position on that issue. They deserver all the marketing/pr they can get, but first signs are already showing that they not just making friends with their position: <http://www.cloudflare- watch.org/>

<comment><USER4> FWIW "www.cloudflare-watch.org" currently resolves to an IP address used with a DSL connection (adsl- _-_ - _-_.dsl.snantx.swbell.net).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the FBI comes knocking down your door and ask your to stop helping Wikileaks, I think we'll have confirmation of who's been doing this to Wikileaks.

<comment><USER6> Even the FBI wouldn't be that obvious about it.

Now that I think of it, this is a great job creation program. Pay people to attack wikileaks and wikileaks pays people to defend them. Sort of like breaking windows and then someone has to fix them.

<comment><USER7> Ok, Zorg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> He really thinks the government push back is going to be via legal channels?

Who does he think is doing the ddos in the first place?

The ddos is happening at over 40GB/sec (2TB every minute). You need massive resources for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where does the 40GBps number come from? Wikileaks appears to have tweeted about 10Gbps. That's nothing unusual for CloudFlare to handle.

<comment><USER8> I didn't realize who you were at first.

You best set up a page that just says, "as long as this page is up, we have NOT been served a National Security Letter from the FBI".

Because it's going to contain a gag-order that prevents you from even talking to your lawyer. So probably want to ask them ahead of time what to do when you get the letter.

<comment><USER5> That's a good idea. But seriously, you can't even tell your lawyer to defend yourself against something like that? How is that even remotely constitutional? Does the US Congress pass laws that violate the Constitution on purpose these days?

<comment><USER9> ACLU challenged it in two cases and that aspect was ruled unconstitutional in both. The law was changed in 2005 to explicitly state that the gag order does not stop you from talking to lawyers about the NSL.

<comment><USER10> Internet time passes much slower than real time. It's still 2004 here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does CloudFlare have experience identifying the _source_ of attacks like this? Because that could be quite interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote up a little about our DDoS statistics here: [http://blog.cloudflare.com/the-wednesday-witching-hour- cloud...](http://blog.cloudflare.com/the-wednesday-witching-hour-cloudflare- dos-st)

One important conclusion is that it's very hard to identify the source for most DDoS attacks because the IP address is either forged, or innocent. Identifying the true source would mean getting into the CnC of the botnet being used. Our business isn't about tracking down who, but simply stopping attacks.

<comment><USER12> I've been behind a large often-targeted service for the last 10 years or so, and most of the large attacks we get are pretty easily filtered as our service is TCP (like CloudFlare), and most of the attacks we get are either ping or UDP floods, which we drop at the boundary.

a little harder is the SYN flood with spoofed addresses, how on earth can you filter those?

<comment><USER13> Aren't SYN-cookies [0] the traditional defence against SYN floods? The proxy, or a device in front of it, could take care of that. Only connections that complete the 3 way handshake would take up any room in the connection table.

0 - <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4987>

<comment><USER12> it's just the sheer amount of packets hitting our network that cause the issue, not what is inside them!

<comment><USER14> I don't understand. Why is it simple to filter UDP but not simple to filter based on a cookie? Is the validation cpu-expensive in bulk? Do you not have the capability to filter that way at the boundary?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Will the massive DDos on wikileaks affect other cloudflare users? increased latiency/server load?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unlikely. This stuff is our bread and butter. We are under DDoS attack 40% of the time 24/7 (see: [http://blog.cloudflare.com/the-wednesday-witching-hour- cloud...](http://blog.cloudflare.com/the-wednesday-witching-hour-cloudflare- dos-st)). A 10Gbps attack is not unusual for us and we've seen much higher. We have a lot of experience dealing with DDoS attacks.

<comment><USER16> You guys are the best!!! :) now if only you supported wildcard dns so I can protect my Wordpress site as well

<comment><USER17> What does wildcard dns have to do with wordpress sites, I have 5 wordpress sites with subdomains all pointing to one single server but protected behind cloudflare. All sites have their own domain with their own subdomins, like mobile.domain.com or whatever, but has nothing to do with wordpress or cloudflare support, just create new records.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > On Friday Wikileaks complained on Twitter that CloudFlare had preemptively > blocked the organization from signing up.

I wonder what the actual error message is. Wikileaks actually had to complain on Twitter before finding out they weren't actually blocked, just that there was a special signup process for high-volume accounts.

If there are high-volume site operators who didn't want to tweet CloudFlare for whatever reason, I wonder who else they could list as customers by now.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not clear on how this works... Doesn't cloudflare just replace the domain's DNS record to point to their own servers? So an attack on the original wikileaks IPs would still be fairly effective. Maybe less effective because CF delivers cached content to normal users, but it would keep WL from delivering large files to the CF servers to begin with.

<comment><USER20> Well, it's easier to block packets coming from every IP except CloudFlare's IPs, so I guess that would be one way of doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> And the initial product offering is free fellas.

</comment><comment><USER21> That network provider legal protection, does it apply if you're caching? Are you caching wikileaks or just proxy/filtering?

</comment><comment><USER22> Headline in a few days: CloudFlare servers impounded on suspicion of "piracy" or some such, CloudFlare executives arrested.

/sigh</comment>


Online Dating for Scientists - <AUTHOR> http://dating.newscientist.com/ <comment><USER2> Interestingly, I think my science/engineer friends are behind the curve when it comes to online dating. I guess they're over sensitive about the stigma, but I think it's misplaced. A lot of my single female friends have OKcupid accounts and use them. It's a great alternative to the bar scene for women. No sweaty drunk guys harassing you.

Also: shared interest forums are a great place to meet people. My wife and I posted on the same law forum before we ran into each other in person.

Also, and this is unrelated but I have to share since I'm too married for it to be useful to me: if you're in Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art on their gallery nights.

<comment><USER3> Works great for women, but poorly for men.

Women sign up, immediately get hundreds of messages - choose one and go on a date. Men sign up, send out a few messages and nothing happens.

<comment><USER4> I'm a guy and I've gone on a couple dozen dates from online dating sites over the years and met six of my past girlfriends this way. All of these dates came from women who wrote to me.

Cultivate interests that appeal to women, write an interesting profile, and put up a nice photo and the women will come to you. (I'm no Calvin Klein model, by the way.)

<comment><USER5> Cultivate interests that appeal to you. Those interests will probably appeal to people you will want to date as well.

<comment><USER4> For many geeky guys, this turns out to be a self-indulgent view that will virtually guarantee that they'll spend their life alone. I've met plenty of guys who think that they should just be able to find the video-game playing, D&D-, MtG-, hard scifi-, Linux-loving girl geek of their dreams. If they can, more power to 'em! On the other hand, I'm willing to bet that their chances will be significantly increased if they develop a taste and passion for art and cinema and cuisine and travel, etc.

Of course, it's not going to work if you end up having no real interest in these things, but if you do, then you might take these interests off of the back burner.

Another common fallacy is that you can weigh 300 pounds and yet attract a 110 lb waif. It's been known to happen, but the odds are stacked against you.

<comment><USER6> > Another common fallacy is that you can weigh 300 pounds and yet attract a > 110 lb waif.

For guys, being skinny isn't considered that attractive though. Better than being fat, but not as good as being buff.

<comment><USER2> Yes. That being said, women's tastes seem to fall on a broader spectrum than men's. If you're a skinny guy, dress flatteringly and you'll be attractive to some non-trivial demographic of women. Skinny guys can look great in a suit or more formal clothing, or they can get skinny jeans and go for the heroin chic look. Same is true for heavier guys. Take up touch football on the weekends and there will be a demographic of southern women who will be into that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whois tells me it's a white-labeled "launch your own dating site!" site from <http://datinglab.net/>

<comment><USER8> so does the footer

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Title is a little misleading, as far as I can tell there are no aspect of this site that verify the users are scientists at all. If only there was a dating site that did, that let me filter my potential mates by how prestigious an institution they got their PhD from =)

<comment><USER10> It filters by whether or not you want to date a scientist ... should be sufficient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are the profiles peer reviewed? Joking aside, one of the featured profiles is for someone who thinks "American" is a language.

<comment><USER12> > "American" is a language.

"American" covers a number of very distinct varieties of English. It isn't considered its own language for political and cultural reasons, not necessarily linguistic ones. (As another example, look at the divide between Hindi and Urdu.)

<comment><USER13> There is no legitimate linguistic authority that recognizes a language or dialect called "American". Even the term "General American", used to discuss features shared by most forms of American English requires "scare-quotes" to indicate that it's an abstraction across many different dialects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just want to warn you gold diggers that scientists tend to be very underpaid given their high levels of education.

<comment><USER12> Don't call them 'gold diggers', just mention that they're uninterested in people unable to financially provide for them.

It's a perfectly valid concern in this wintry economic climate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When I Google "dating website for scientists" my first search result is Science Connection. They advertise in Scientific American and probably other places too. If you go to their website:

<http://www.sciconnect.com/index.htm>

the copyright notice at the bottom says "Copyright © 1991-2012." Does that mean they've been around since 1991?

<comment><USER16> this page [1] seems to suggest that the service predates 1997 by a good number of years.

[1] <http://www.sciconnect.com/staff.shtml>

<comment><USER17> I remember them running print ads in Scientific American back in the 80s (if not them, an organization with a very similar logo of two lab mice).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Only a matter of time before such a service sprung up. Nice to see News Scientist take this up though "The Dating Lab" seems to be behind the implementation [0].

[0] <http://www.thedatinglab.com/>

<comment><USER19> It seems to have sprung up a while ago. I found a profile there which was last modified in 2007.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> OKCupid found through their data that online dating is highly racist. I am wondering how the online dating for scientists would look!

<comment><USER21> Do you mean that most people are highly selective about the race of their potential mate? If this is the case, I don't think that this is racist. Besides, scientists are humans too, I doubt there would be much of a difference.

<comment><USER22> How isn't that racist?

Racism doesn't _need_ to involve blathering idiots who want to burn your house down, all it takes is someone to treat another person worse because of their race.

Which is to say, we're _all_ at least a little bit racist. One of the greatest lies of modern society is that racism is somehow exceptional, or intrinsic to a character, when it is in fact highly contextual and can be brought out of anyone.

Race in dating is very heavily influenced by popular perceptions of particular races, including stereotypes - that someone won't give a black person the time of day even if they are articulate and hit other criteria _is_ racist, though the fault here seems to lie more with society than the individual.

<comment><USER23> I disagree. Mating is deeply biological phenomenon; the rational brain has little to do with it.

For example: I'm attracted to slim women. But some of my best friends are curvy. I'm not discriminating against curvy women; it's just that I find the skinny ones more attractive, without any rational reason for it.

<comment><USER22> I believe this is less biological than you think it is. You're attracted to slim women because there are a truckload of cultural artifacts celebrating slim women. If you were born 500 years ago, or in a different part of the world today, you may very well be attracted to curvy women.

And this is even more true for race - there may very well be people who are _biologically_ wired to dislike certain skin colors, but IMO they are well into the minority. Race in dating has _much_ more to do with cultural perceptions of race than any evolutionarily hard-wired perception.

In any case though:

> _" it's just that I find the skinny ones more attractive, without any > rational reason for it."_

Which makes you, I guess the word would be... weightist?

The whole point of my post isn't to point at people and go "you monster! you won't date black people!", it's to point out that even subconsciously influenced racism _is_ racism, and the net effect for the target individual is the same, regardless of if you're "simply like that without rational reason" or if you actively and consciously dislike them.

The fact that we've been programmed by culture and circumstance to discriminate against a certain group doesn't make it our fault, but it is still discrimination at the end of the day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Previous employee of Dating lab here, some info you guys might like: All in- house dev done on linux, content and profile vetting is taken very seriously, there is a dedicated team making sure no one get's scammed and profiles are real people. There is checks and balances to prevent on-line stalking also. The two-way match algorithm is also pretty beefy and rather impressive. A few of my friends are married to partners they met on one of the datinglab network sites, a few employees also. These guys have been in the business a while, they know what they are doing.

</comment><comment><USER25> Pro tip from them: "Lose your heart, NOT your cash" ;)

Wonder how the male/female percentages on those platform are...

<comment><USER26> Probably better than EE, where it is +infinity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> dating limited to any given group of people is just so backward it's amazing they'd try it for scientists. If you're university educated and are dumb enough to think only other university graduates are educated, you'll disregard lots of great people that have learned by say, reading on their own, and would also have a lot to offer. Reinforcing these artificial boundaries is just absurd.

</comment><comment><USER28> Finally a place for sheldon cooper .. :)

</comment><comment><USER29> Is computer science science?

<comment><USER20> Computer Science is Science as much as Math is.

<comment><USER29> So no.</comment></comment></comment>


J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon says bitcoin is a 'terrible store of value' - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/01/23/j-p-morgans-jamie-dimon-says-bitcoin-is-a-terrible-store-of-value/

<comment><USER2> Bitcoin is a direct competitor to the existing banking industry. Of course Jamie Dimon isn't going to like it.</comment>


Three Planets in Habitable Zone of Nearby Star - <AUTHOR> http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1328/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EsoTopNews+%28ESO+Top+News%29 <comment><USER2> This is an amazing discovery! The star is only 22 lightyears away, and it's got three potentially habitable planets. That's astounding. This is probably going to be one of our first destinations, when humanity starts building interstellar craft. Of course, the discoveries are still very early right now and we'll probably find all sorts of Earth-like planets quite close. But three Super Earths in the habitable zone of a close-by star? That's almost as good as it gets.

Edit: And surely this will be a focus of searching for life as well. A high concentration of life-capable planets in the same radio direction? Yes please. Also, I've often wondered if having a high density of habitable planets in the same system as your species would increase the chances and speed to becoming a spacefaring species. If you have a lot of places to go that are quite inviting and not that difficult to get to, you'll probably go.

<comment><USER3> Seems unlikely to be the first choice of destination on that basis. By the time the technology exists to reliably transport people (or equivalent amounts of mass) to other planetary systems in a usefully short amount of time, then the technology will also exist to cost-effectively (a) make everything habitable for baseline humans via habitats and other forms of engineering, and (b) engineer sentient entities that can live comfortably in native conditions near anywhere in a star system.

So whether or not the system has habitable zone planets will be irrelevant. Our descendants will go to the closest one first.

<comment><USER4> Could still be useful in case anything ever happens to our solar system.

But 22 lightyears means it's still going to be one-way trip, even with matter/anti-matter engines. Unless we develop immortality by then of course...

<comment><USER5> Or procreating on the space ship.

<comment><USER6> How is that not a one way trip?

<comment><USER2> Staying on Earth is also a one way trip then.

<comment><USER7> I think the point was more about a one-way trip for a single person.

I'd agree that it's not a one-way trip for humanity, though. Once some of us get there (e.g., progeny of the original crew), eventually some of us could get back to Earth too (at some later date). Assuming Earth isn't destroyed by that point...

<comment><USER8> Probably by the time the progeny get back to Earth the current species will have self-annihilated and the earth would have returned to a more peaceful place, the atmosphere recovered, the vegetation replacing the asphalt and the oceans clean and pure. A few thousands years peace is exactly what the Earth needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Link is broken (404). Here's an alternative:

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130625073544.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130625073544.htm)

<comment><USER10> Based on the artist's conception: we've discovered Tatooine!

It sounds like there's two problems for anyone/thing living on these planets. First, they're closer to their star than Mercury is to our sun. Unless the atmosphere is pretty dense and there's a strong magnetic field, the radiation on the surface is going to be pretty intense.

Second, one of the notes at the bottom of the article says the team believes the planets day and year are the same length, so one side always faces the star. That'll reduce the habitable area to a ring around the planet instead of the entire surface. We'd still be ok to put a colony there and we could probably generate lots of energy from the temperature differential, but it's much less likely that life would have evolved in that environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd like to see a simulation of how this system's orbits work. Amazing

<comment><USER2> When the Exoplanet Explorer app gets updated with this data we're going to be in for a treat. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.burlock.ex...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.burlock.exoplanetexplorer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For anyone who is interested in this, I highly recommend listening to the podcast of Richard Pogge's Astronomy 141 course at Ohio State Uni.

[http://www.astronomy.ohio- state.edu/~pogge/Ast141/#lectures](http://www.astronomy.ohio- state.edu/~pogge/Ast141/#lectures) (iTunes link: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/id559775126](https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/id559775126) )

Here's the overview:

Astronomy 141, Life in the Universe, is an introduction to Astrobiology. The topics covered in this course lie at the interfaces between astronomy, chemistry, biology, geology, and the earth and planetary sciences. We will learn about scientists' ongoing quest for answers to some of the most fundamental human questions: How did life originate on Earth? Is there life on other worlds? Are we alone in the universe? What is the long-term future of life in the universe?

</comment><comment><USER13> What would be the timeframe of reaching/colonizing these planets? With another 20 years of engine development, would it be possible to reach these planets in our lifetime? That would be a world-changing event.

<comment><USER2> Yes it would be possible. Project Orion in the 1950s demonstrated that using nuclear pulse propulsion, you could accelerate to (max) 0.1c for intersteller missions. If we were to actually spend a little bit of money and effort on real space travel - which we're about to, if SpaceX and Plantery Resources succeed - I think it's completely reasonable to think that we will launch (and perhaps arrive) on these planets in our lifetimes.

It's optimistic, sure, but it's possible.

<comment><USER9> 0.1c would make this a 220 year journey each way. So what you're really saying is: no, it's not possible reach these planets in our lifetime.

<comment><USER10> Is that fast enough for relativistic effects on-board? It might be 220 years for those left behind, but for the people on the ship it might be less than a lifetime. They'd probably still have to raise children on the way to take care of the exploring when they got there.

<comment><USER14> 218 years, instead of 220.

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+dilation+calculato...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+dilation+calculator&a=*FS-_**RelativisticTimeDilationFormula.to-.*RelativisticTimeDilationFormula.t-.*RelativisticTimeDilationFormula.v--&f2=220+year&x=0&y=0&f=RelativisticTimeDilationFormula.t_220+year&f3=0.1+c&f=RelativisticTimeDilationFormula.v_0.1+c)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So.... interstellar colonisation kickstarter project anyone?

</comment><comment><USER16> We define the word habitable to be the ability for a planet to have life on it. But that is by standards of Oxygen/Nitrogen breathing, H20 drinking lifeforms. Who's to say that there aren't carbon life forms that have evolved to live off elements that are toxic to us

<comment><USER17> We have those life forms here already=) Microbes that eat arsenic. I am sure there are a lot more examples in extreme areas of our planet if there was a bigger budget to find them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 22 light years, in layman's terms equals 5 billion round-trips from San Francisco to Paris.

.

\- SF to Paris (1 trip = 5831.79 miles)

\- double that for a round trip

\- 22 light years = 5.87849981 × 10^12 miles

\- Divide 22 light years by the round trip, yields total trip count.

<comment><USER19> Actually, it's WORSE.

1 light year = 9.454 x 10^15 meters 22 light years = 2.080 x 10^17 meters SF to Paris, round trip = 1.877 x 10^7 meters Number of trips = 1.108 x 10^10

In layman's terms, it's about 11 billion trips!

Here's another way to get a sense of scale. The earth rotates the sun at an orbit with semi-major axis of about 150 million kilometers. Using some data you can determine that the orbit of Earth is about 9.398 x 10^11 meters in circumference. Divide the distance to the star by this number to get 2.213 x 10^5 years. That is, it takes the Earth about 220 thousand years to go this distance around the sun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm getting a 404 error. Even the link posted on their homepage sends the same error.

</comment><comment><USER21> It should be easy to detect whether any radio signals come from that direction.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1.29326996 × 10 to the 14th miles = Nearby

<comment><USER2> Some exoplanets discovered recently are 10,000 lightyears away. So indeed, 22 lightyears is absolutely nearby.

<comment><USER22> Kittens are gigantic, compared to protozoa. That doesn't mean we should describe kittens as cute, fuzzy, and gigantic. I would be ok with "only 22 lightyears away." But "nearby"? Most people have a hard time grasping the size of our galaxy. "Nearby" does not help promote a good understanding of the discovery IMHO.

<comment><USER23> Words like these are inherently relative and depend on context.

If the context is protozoa, then a kitten is absolutely "gigantic". There's nothing wrong with that at all.

The local grocery store is "nearby" for me, about 500 meters. I sit "far away from" the window in my office, even though it's still two orders of magnitude (and then some) closer than the store. Context.

"Nearby" is absolutely an appropriate word to use for a distance of 22 light years when discussing exoplanets.

<comment><USER24> especially when you consider that Alpha Centuri is 4.367 light years away, and that is the closest thing, 5 times that is pretty damn nearby.

If your friend lived 5 houses down the street I think that'd qualify as nearby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The planets have three suns? Only three more suns to Nightfall!</comment>


Tribler, a Torrent client supporting onion routing - <AUTHOR> http://tribler.org/anonymity.html <comment><USER2> [https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- dev/2014-December...](https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor- dev/2014-December/007999.html) — for those looking for some critic of software before trying it</comment>


Sanitation conquered disease long before vaccines or antibiotics - <AUTHOR> https://rootsofprogress.org/draining-the-swamp <comment><USER2> I always love bringing up [Ignaz Semmelweiss]([https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis)), the Hungarian physician who advocated for hand washing before germ theory was established, after observing that pregnant mothers were more likely to become infected when they were handled by doctors than by midwives. His fastidiousness made him unpopular though and he was ridiculed as a stickler by his fellow staff. When he refused to drop this theory, his colleagues convinced his wife to commit him to a mental hospital, where he died due to infection from an unsanitary operation.

<comment><USER3> His story gives me hope... Sometimes, it _is_ everyone else who's crazy.

<comment><USER4> If by crazy you mean steadfastly clinging to the status quo due to human behavior at scale still being programmed by our herd mentality, then yes, everyone else is crazy. The only hope I derive from it is that there's a chance we'll overcome that nature at some point. But I'm not that optimistic about our chances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Prevention vs treatment, indeed! I anticipate that as antibiotics become less effective that table manners and food handling hygiene will have a revival. For example we'll go back to proper butter knives rather than everyone using their bread knife in the communal butter dish.

<comment><USER6> Related: First bacteriophage therapies are entering human trials and gaining steam.

Antibiotics will likely become obsolete when you can target bacteria without the bystander side effects they have on our cells. They are the perfect antibacterial smart weapon really.

[https://medcitynews.com/2020/01/adaptive-phage- gets-10-from-...](https://medcitynews.com/2020/01/adaptive-phage-gets-10-from- dod-for-antibacterial-phage-therapies/)

<comment><USER7> _IF_ you can identify your specific bacterium and the phage that kills it before the disease kills you.

Antibiotics will continue to be effective precisely _because_ they are broad spectrum. A doctor can hit you with an antibiotic before they know exactly what you have.

I am always happy to see new tools in medicine. However, I suspect phages are most going to be used initially in persistent, chronic, antibiotic resistant infections where everything else has failed.

<comment><USER6> You are absolutely right, I failed to note that the increased specificity means you lose the broad spectrum effect.

I still think in the cases you describe that they could stand to replace e.g. Vancomycin - BEFORE that fails. The side effect profile for that drug is horrendous: GI bleed, neuro/sensory damage, liver damage, retinal damage etc..

It seems like a blend of phages with slightly varied activity could also reproduce the broad spectrum effect, and CRISPR is going to make that pretty easy I think.

<comment><USER8> One approach might be broad spectrum antibiotics when urgent and specific bacteria undetermined. In parallel, cultures to isolate the problem, then apply the specific phage to finish the job. Seems like this would prevent or at least hugely reduce antibiotic resistance from increasing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sanitation is good, but too much sanitation is not so good. We're only just beginning to understand our relationship with bacteria, virii and micro- organisms. While sanitation was a great boon to reducing deadly pathogens, we're now in the process of swinging the pendulum too far, using antibacterial products that should really only be used in hospitals, keeping children out of the dirt (with growing indications that this leads to allergies), and generally living in fear of anything not institutional-clean. Our immune systems are beginning to atrophy from lack of "exercise".

Have you ever wondered why lovers touch their lips together, effectively sharing the bacterial brew in their mouths with another? I can guarantee that such evolved behavior is not simply coincidental.

<comment><USER10> I prefer this much intimate/disgusting/sexier explanation:

"Kissing in humans is postulated to have evolved from the direct mouth-to- mouth regurgitation of food (kiss-feeding) from parent to offspring or male to female (courtship feeding) and has been observed in numerous mammals.[59] The similarity in the methods between kiss-feeding and deep human kisses (e.g. French kiss) are quite pronounced; in the former, the tongue is used to push food from the mouth of the mother to the child with the child receiving both the mother's food and tongue in sucking movements, and the latter is the same but forgoes the premasticated food. In fact, through observations across various species and cultures, it can be confirmed that the act of kissing and premastication has most likely evolved from the similar relationship-based feeding behaviours."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss#Biology_and_evolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss#Biology_and_evolution)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A fantastic graphical representation of this is "The Conquest of Pestilence in New York City", produced by the Department of Health & Mental Hygine, showing progress from 1800 to 2002:

[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uTWEATUzgxk/TXQoTibILtI/AAAAAAAAAA...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uTWEATUzgxk/TXQoTibILtI/AAAAAAAAAAM/eyirotYDmXo/s1600/2004_01_healthstat.jpg)

This tracks _mortality_ (rather than life expectency), but shows clearly the tremendous progress made from 1850, with a peak mortality rate approaching 50 deaths per thousand peak (from a baseline of ~30 - 40 per mille) to about 12/mm in 1920, and the present rate of about 6/mm.

From 1950-1970, and for a briefer period in the 1980s, progress was _reversed_ with mortality increasing. There's actually been an impressive (though small realtive to 19th century improvements) reduction since 1990.

Looking at that chart, realise that virtually all the improvement through about 1950 precedes _most_ of what we consider to be modern medicine: advanced cancer treatments, antibiotics, most vaccines, transplant surgeries, genetic therapy, pacemakers, and more. The progress instead comes mostly through increased sanitation and hygiene, as well as reduced environmental contaminations and hazards, though it includes both antisceptics and anesthesia.

We've been paying a _tremendous_ amount in medical advances for a very slight improvement in outcomes.

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't you really need a log scale or further interrogation to make that claim? To me it seems mortality dropped about 40% in last 50 years which is quite substantial.

<comment><USER11> Absolute vs relative improvements, vs cost of attainment, are two different questions. The largest overall reductions, and increases in life expectancy, come from very basic interventions.

The problem w/ efficiency measures generally is that there's progress to some theoretical maximum, and it comes with diminishing returns.

Breaking down life expectancy gains by demographics, the've moved more for men than women (since 1920, far more the reverse before), largely due to workplace risk, violence, and military service), and the poor/minorities rather than wealthy/majority (access, preventive care, environment, violence, stress).

The upper bound's moved little. Exceptional longevity is profoundly correlated geographically with poor recordkeeping.

See:

The difference in gains by age, here for England and Wales beginning 1700, through2013, w/ all ages from 1850: [https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/05/Life- expectancy-b...](https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/05/Life-expectancy- by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013.png)

Note that whilst at-birth increases (1850) from about 40 to 80, a 40 year old gains only 67 - 82 or so (15 years). It's early-life mortality that's changed most.

Similar US trends: [https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/qtYQp1x-ZF9iXc- zVh7Kg2xJBX...](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/qtYQp1x-ZF9iXc- zVh7Kg2xJBXGZE3Uzb0l3wEKBiYqrKDU6tRCkZqdoz4lyiwoU5JUUDXyJc0wrsQexprLMzzhdA74rj_m1guuEHvzCnMai2Tn7gQqVn7vktQ)

By gender/race, 1970-2010, US: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/databriefs/101-150/db125_fig...](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/databriefs/101-150/db125_fig1.png)

An unusual presentation, showing mortality by age in 1950 vs. 2015. Note the double factor: reduced infant/early childhood mortality, and somewhat reduced adult mortality: [https://siepr.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/styles/page-w...](https://siepr.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/styles/page- width/public/fuchs-fig1.png?itok=3P-fXpH-)

Discussion: [http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2018/04/inequality-...](http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2018/04/inequality- in-us-life-expectancy.html)

Geographic distribution: [https://localtvwtkr.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/s078658261-3...](https://localtvwtkr.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/s078658261-300.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&strip=all)

There are also hidden costs: mortality is selective pressure, and we've lifted much of that for about 5 generations. I have concerns. (I'll also note this generally impacts the wealthy more than poor, within _and_ between countries.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's degrees of "conquered". Seat belts 'conquered' motor vehicle trauma before airbags did. Each new thing helps fill in the gaps left by the already- existing things.

<comment><USER14> Yes and no.

I'll use an anecdote from my personal life. If you by some misfortune end up in the hospital for an extended time, you have an ever-increasing risk of being infected by drug-resistant bacteria. This happened to a loved one, and it's a tragic thing that will significantly reduce that loved one's lifespan.

Why does this happen? Antibiotics and filth. Antibiotics enable the awful management practices of this particular hospital. There aren't enough aides, the rooms and equipment are filthy, even the lunchroom is dirty. I sat visiting for weeks at a time a different times of day and night and _never_ saw a mop, or a cleaning of surfaces that were soiled. Your average McDonald's kitchen is cleaner.

The economics of insurance are such that the consequences of these infections don't damage the bottom line.

For some people, airbags can discourage seatbelt use in the same way.

<comment><USER15> Was this in America? Which hospital was it?

<comment><USER14> I won't call out examples because they are common.

Bring up one of the medical quality websites (the feds publish this as well) and you'll find plenty of examples in 3 star or lower hospitals. Most hospitals in NYC are like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm actually anti-sanitation, we mud people believe it causes allergies!

<comment><USER17> There's a difference between mud and that other brown stuff.

<comment><USER18> Unscheduled fecal transplant

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Note that the title chosen does not match the title of the article, which is "Draining the Swamp".

<comment><USER20> Obviously we can't use that title or the thread will lose its mind. Since the submitter's profile indicates that he is the author of the article, or at least the proprietor of the site, I think it's fair to stick with what he posted.

<comment><AUTHOR> The HTML title is deliberately different from the header. The header is a catchy/literary title; the HTML title is more descriptive of what you'll get if you click through. So, all is as intended. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> rootsofprogress.org? Funded by "Emergent Ventures," some affiliate of Marginal Revolution University... Whose narrative am I looking at here?

Honest question. Anyone know?

<comment><USER22> Popular economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok maybe. And people can agree or disagree with them on a variety of issues.

But describing "sanitation improves health outcomes" as just somebody's "narrative" feels a bit like responding to "The sky is blue," by asking "Yes, but who benefits?"

Sometimes an idea is just an idea.

<comment><USER23> Sometimes a poorly communicated idea turns into an anti-vax movement. Other times a poorly communicated idea is used as cover for malfeasance, such as "war on drugs" which is actually about oppressing an underclass.

<comment><USER24> The article isn't poorly communicated. It says that vaccines are "extremely effective", backs that up with citations and numbers, and lauds the scientific revolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [https://observablehq.com/@mbostock/the-impact-of- vaccines](https://observablehq.com/@mbostock/the-impact-of-vaccines)

That figure is real hard to refute, or square with any other cause of reduction of measles infections except vaccination.

<comment><USER26> That's true -- though the figure you're linking focuses specifically on measles cases rather than overall mortality, which is what the OP article is focusing on.

(as an aside, it's really weird that the (first few) comments here on HN seem a little adversarial; I wonder if maybe some people looked at the headline only and assumed it was attempting some sort of anti-vax argument, which the article isn't doing at all.)

<comment><AUTHOR> So there is something odd going on with measles. I haven't dug into the data, but from a couple of data points I've seen, it seems that measles _mortality_ was declining for a long time even while measles _cases_ were not. That is, there was a decline in the case-fatality rate, without a decline in cases. The disease was still around but getting less deadly. Then the vaccine actually reduced the number of cases.

So what was reducing the case-fatality rate? I don't know, but it might have been nutrition. There's evidence at least that Vitamin A makes measles less severe/deadly.

<comment><USER17> > So what was reducing the case-fatality rate?

Sanitation, antibiotics, oral rehydration therapy, machine ventilation, nutrition, and so on.

It's not the measles itself that was the cause of most fatalities, it was the pneumonia, diahrrea, and other opportunistic infections that come with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> People should not settle this dense in the first place. I hope more people are going to rural areas once StarLink an competitors deploy universal Internet connection coverage.

<comment><USER15> That will be acceptable if we price in carbon externalities into things so that people who live rurally pay the costs they impose on the world.

<comment><USER24> There's more to it than just carbon. It's certainly possible to have a carbon neutral lifestyle in rural areas, however that doesn't account for the habitat destruction innate to low density rural development.

<comment><USER28> Low density rural development can easily fit into existing habitat; I live on 5 acres of forest with maybe 1/2 acre set aside for house, lawn and garden plots. Aside from gasoline for vehicles, my house is nearly self sufficient resource-wise. The biggest destruction of habitat is massive fields for farming.

Of course, when a "developer" comes along, buys up an entire field or three, and builds a mini-suburban style neighborhood in the middle of nowhere, the habitat was already lost, but it will do absolutely no favors to any wildlife that might try to come back... not to mention the absurdity of living on tiny half to 1 acre lots in a division miles from the nearest village.

<comment><USER15> In which case, I suppose pricing for restoration elsewhere will be low cost to you and high cost to the developer. As it should be. It's all just a matter of putting the externalities back in.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Freelancers Union: Going It Alone, Together - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/business/freelancers-union-tackles-concerns-of-independent-workers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 <comment><USER2> _American employers relied increasingly on independent contractors, temporary workers, contract employees and freelancers to cut costs._

I think the article approaches the story from a particular vantage point. But for me personally, as freelancer and a substantial earner, I tend to not identify with the idea that we are part and parcel abused. It may be what I came from (poor farm family) that gives me a different perspective. But I have found corporate America to be fairly generous, you just have to ask. Which brings me to the above quote, while I do belive employers utilize independent contractors in some instances to cut cost, what I have found in many of the situations I have been in, is that it is a tool used to identify cost up front and to mitigate risk, usually companies are willing to pay a small uptick in cost to reduce a huge downsize risk and employees and employes health both represent substantial risks to a company.

I think where we as individuals go wrong is in charging rates similar to those of employees and then taking on the risk the companies does not want to shoulder on top of it. When the reality is, we should be asking to be compensated for that risk (just as insurance companies are) and we should be willing to walk away from a company that unreasonably expects up to take on their downside bet with no upside of our own.

What I don't believe that high earning potential people need is collective bargaining. That being said, what the article discusses sounds like they are more of a health care co-op than a employment union bargaining with employers and I am all for that. Health care co-ops help us offload that risk onto a proper entity, employers where never really the correct entity to deal with that risk in the first place.</comment>