Ask HN: As a freelancer, what's the best app to track finances? - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone!

  I've been working as a freelancer practically my whole life. Although I'm not a very finances-oriented person, I do like to keep track of my spending and income, do some basic forecasting, budgeting, to also plan my time and activities.

  One thing I've noticed is that most apps are really not oriented for people who, like me, dont have very fixed/stable sources of income. One month I'm doing something, next month I have very little work, next month I may be working on 3 different projects, with different wages.

  I miss a simple way to track this, and to somehow allow me to plan my future, minimizing working hours and maximizing life (4hr work week anyone? ;)) But so far I haven't been able to find a finance management app that responds to the needs of freelancers like me.

  Being in IT and software dev, I'm begin to think I should probably scratch my own itch and develop something that really suits my needs. So I'd like to ask you two things
 1 - Is there any app I'm not aware of, that you guys might use and that suits these needs?
2 - If you are somehow like me, would you give 5min of your time so that I could get more feedback from other freelancers about what would be useful for them, and other tips and strategies you might use for yourself for your own finances?
thanks so much! <comment><USER2> I'm a freelance myself (since 2005). I ultimately scratched my own itch and created an app specifically for this:

[https://www.wisecashhq.com](https://www.wisecashhq.com)

I built it pretty much for what you describe: to plan my future (it computes your runway & "time wealth"), adjust working hours as needed, "make time" for other topics, negotiate based on data etc.

The goal is not to "track all expenses", but rather to make a reasonable forecast of your situation.

You will likely find those articles useful:

\- [https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/knowing-your-cash-runway- a-k...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/knowing-your-cash-runway-a-killer- tool)

\- [https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/case-study-how-to- increase-f...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/case-study-how-to-increase- freelancing-rates-as-a-beginner)

\- [https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/recurring-revenue-matters- vi...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/recurring-revenue-matters-visual- explanation)

Hope this helps & let me know if you have further questions!

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting! the features do sound similar to what I'm looking for, unfortunately the monthly cost is too high for me :(

<comment><USER2> I'm always looking for feedback, including on similar topics :-)

What would be a "good" price for you?

(asking because when I'll make a complete rewrite, I want to have various price ranges, including a lower starting price).

<comment><USER3> The idea sounds great but the landing page could be so much more informative. Ignoring the testimonials and the looping video that's hard to discern concrete information from you are left with very little in the way of information to justify the expense. That's not to say the product isn't worth what you charge, it most likely is, just that I believe it's doing itself a disservice in convincing me to use the trial. If each one of your selling points from that 3up column section where it's own section with more details on how it works and how easy that particular feature is to use etc I think would do a much better job at convincing people.

<comment><USER2> It's useful feedback, thanks!

There is actually a lot more detail right under each of those sections (see the "learn more" link).

For some reason it's not underlined, so I guess I have to fix this!

Example link:

[https://www.wisecashhq.com/help/setting-up-a-recurring- trans...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/help/setting-up-a-recurring-transaction)

This is, by the way, and git-backed knowledge based & source is available here:

[https://github.com/wisecash/wisecash- support](https://github.com/wisecash/wisecash-support)

<comment><USER3> I saw those pages, but they read like tutorials for people already sold into the idea and just needed help implementing some of the features. What I thought was really missing was selling the benefits of those features before trying to explain to someone the steps needed to use them. I think that's where the gap is on the landing page. As currently it goes from Short Definition of Feature -> Tutorial on How to Use Feature. I think what potential users really need to more content about why the feature is beneficial to them and a very succinct overview on how it works.

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a slight learning curve but I've been very happy with GnuCash. It supports multiple accounts and containers, has decent reporting, invoicing, categorizing, etc. I also really like that it's offline.

[https://www.gnucash.org/](https://www.gnucash.org/)

<comment><USER5> Yes to GnuCash, but for none of the reasons OP wants.

GnuCash is, let's be honest, crap. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it, it's totally free, but it's crap.

 _However_ , it forces you to learn how to do proper double-entry bookkeeping. You'll get it wrong a bunch of times before you get it right. You'll Google stuff and be frustrated that you can't find an answer. You'll just learn, somehow. But then...

...one day something clicks. And that day, you realise why this system has been the way that accountants do things for literally half a millennium [0]. It's extraordinary. It's _impossible_ to lose track of money. The benefits are far too many to explain here, but just trust me when I say that when you 'get it', it's like a transcendental moment.

So how do I plan my future? I put in speculative transactions. I forward-plot my income based on work done, invoice payment dates, and known tax office obligations. I play with the future, what-if this, what-if that. This is all really manual, in this software that will undoubtedly frustrate you, but the _control_ you have is unmatched by any smart online Web 2.0 software. It's like being in the Matrix of your money.

So yeah. GnuCash. Shite, but amazing.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double- entry_bookkeeping_syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double- entry_bookkeeping_system#History)

<comment><USER6> Looks like you might posses valuable knowledge that some are Googling in vain, just as you said. And you have quite pleasant writing style. I would strongly encourage you to document at least some of the endeavours you had with GnuCash, in your free time, for future generations.

Not that I'm using GnuCash or even consider it, heck, I'm not even freelancing. However, people like you, sharing knowledge, are what keeps the Internet alive ;).

<comment><USER5> Kind words, which mean a lot. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm running a company on ledger-cli [1], emacs and org-mode [2]. Sure, there are some additional scripts that will pull banking logs or do repetitive tasks, but these are basic building blocks.

Tried GnuCash few times - first time I failed because I didn't know how to work with double-entry accounting [3]. Second time failed because GnuCash isn't flexible with currencies (maybe things got better now).

All these tools has steep learning curve, but things pays back with extreme flexibility and longevity over time. Everything is a text, which means I can access it from everywhere (scripts, editors, phone). I'm keeping everything on git (invoices, payment details, project status, todo list), so every change is recorded and, most important, I'm not dependent on external company's product that can go bankrupt tomorrow.

As I'm doing business with customers from different parts of world, I'm trying to be flexible by accepting currencies whatever is suitable for them. This is nightmare for ordinary accounting tools and AFAIK only ledger-cli and derivatives are able to handle it properly (eg. cryptocurrency payments and transactions). Hell, I'm even using ledger-cli to track my car fuel consumption and expenses which shows level of flexibility (try that with GnuCash).

Emacs/org-mode is for everything else ;) Invoices, project planning, drawing charts, coding, calculating and preparing tax reports, forecasting (you'd be surprised how powerful Emacs calc [4] is).

[1] [https://www.ledger-cli.org/](https://www.ledger-cli.org/)

[2] [https://orgmode.org/](https://orgmode.org/)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double- entry_bookkeeping_syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double- entry_bookkeeping_system)

[4] [https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.htm...](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> hi! i'm using org-mode for my projects, tasks and general info & planning. Didnt occur to me to use it for finances as well. Will take a look :)

<comment><USER8> I recently moved my ledger entries to an org-mode file - attaching metadata and things like file links are much easier inside org - chunking them by date and using org-babel to tangle them out.

It pretty much works as expected, except for the fact that (at least on my emacs) tangling ledger blocks is much slower than other languages (18+ seconds for 151 blocks, vs <1 s for a comparable amount of elisp).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can relate to you in verbatim, except never had the courage to ask publicly. I ended up going with excel and then ended up hating any tool in the browser.

Updates with startups take too long and your nit-picky features to increase your productivity probably do not directly correlate with these payment software companies business goals. I prefer full control / or the possible option for extensibility. Most importantly, looking at the data, no matter [or my several failed experiments/finance tool investments past year] ... I would eventually go back to excel. You just don't get the mental massaging that you are the shit in the UI.

Anyways, if this sounds interesting, I hope it saves you some time. I spent way too much time wasting my determination to find the perfect tool that actually never existed in the first place.

<comment><USER10> If you are using Excel, I made a frontend wrapper on top of it to add expenses/incomes easily. For analysis you can use whatever methods you are already using.

Check it out: [https://github.com/mitul45/expense- manager](https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It doesn't really have forecasting capability and isn't targeted at business, but just for personal budgeting and finance tracking, I love YNAB, and it works fine for variable income. It has actually changed my life (coming from no budgeting ;)

There's a public API too, so you could probably build forecasting and more detailed reporting on top of it.

<comment><USER12> Can't second this enough. YNAB was really difficult to "get" at first, but it has removed nearly all the stress I used to feel about money.

<comment><USER13> How many hours a week do you spend in YNAB?

<comment><USER14> Reviewing cleared transactions that automatically download into YNAB takes me under 3 min/day (they're auto-categorized based on past inputs). I usually do this on desktop but it can all be done on iOS (and Android?) as well.

Initial setup of budget categories took me about an hour of reading docs and playing with the app. Historical transactions mostly aren't available for import, so over the first 1-2 months of use you'll fiddle with things as you get more data.

From there I found myself just reviewing the reports every so often as needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like GnuCash and wrote about it at: [https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/using- gnucash-as-a-freelancer...](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/using-gnucash-as-a- freelancer-to-track-finances-and-prepare-taxes)

It was also discussed here last year at: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16857884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16857884)

Been using it for a few years now to track finances as a freelancer and I don't see a reason to switch. It works really well.

But I wrote my own Bash script to calculate invoice amounts. I run 1 command per month and it spits out the number of hours I worked for each client and then shows how much I should invoice them for.

</comment><comment> martin-adams I use You Need A Budget to track my personal finances and budget for the future. I also use it my my company to know exactly how much profit I have. It's the only app I've found that lets me prepare for the future and allow me to make proper decisions.

Whenever I spend money, I record the transaction in the app and import my bank statements to reconcile once a month.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tried it, looks interesting for being different. One thing I didnt like is the inability to plan future months, it doesnt account for future income flows, although it lets you spend money. Obviously I get the red alert because I'm spending money I do not have (but I will, at that time of the month)...

<comment> martin-adams Yeah, it is very strict that you budget the month's spending on the money you have right now. It took me a while to get into that mindset and I now prefer it. It means that if your income fluctuates you always budget on the money you have, not the money you don't have.

Not ideal for everyone, but works great for me. Aside from that, I like the ability to set goals for yearly expenses and making sure you are putting enough away. This is great for insurance, tax, etc. I use Xero for my official business accounts, and being able to look to the future is the single biggest thing missing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> ledger: [https://www.ledger-cli.org/](https://www.ledger-cli.org/)

and its haskell clone hledger: [https://hledger.org/index.html](https://hledger.org/index.html)

I use hledger - but I bellieve both would work.

<comment><USER17> +1 to that. I wrote about my use of the tool here when I was freelancing [http://nibrahim.net.in/2015/11/07/ledger_and_personal_financ...](http://nibrahim.net.in/2015/11/07/ledger_and_personal_finance.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a big proponent of learning how to do this with old-fashioned ledger books. Paper is always more flexible than the electronic solutions, and going straight to electronic tracking risks locking in a poor process for the sake of efficiency -- never spend time optimizing until you know you'll actually use the result.

</comment><comment><USER19> Since I started working as a freelancer, I'm using PaymoApp [1], it's great for managing projects and tracking time for these projects. You can easily invoice these hours to your clients, with based on the projects you have defined. The best part for me is the ability to easily track time for my projects, as I'm working on different projects.

For accounting, PaymoApp doesn't offer full accounting services. I just started using Snelstart [2] a by and for Dutch market developed accounting platform. The best part of this application, is the integration with my accountant, he can monitor my administration 24/7 and this saves me time and money.

[1] [https://www.paymoapp.com/](https://www.paymoapp.com/) [2] [https://www.snelstart.nl/](https://www.snelstart.nl/)

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't know what's the best, but, on the desktop, among other things I tried, I used GnuCash.

In addition to tracking personal/business finances in GnuCash, I used the invoicing feature to track billable hours and notes for each chunk of time. I had a custom invoice format that generated PDFs without the notes, and then I used the notes as reminders of what to put in periodic work reports.

A drawback to GnuCash, though, is that you can spend a lot of time getting your accounts and transaction splits just right, and tracking every little transaction. One of the best things I did was to move to doing _less_ categorization and itemization in GnuCash (e.g., unless an expense was was tax-relevant, it got moved to "Misc.", and paper-money expenses weren't even tracked, but reconciled monthly).

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm using Firefly III [1]. Mostly because it's open-source, self-hosted and had nice import feature that I could use to upload CSV from my bank. It's a webapp, so no need for mobile applications. Although few people created some I think.

It has tags, bugdets, categories, multiple currencies, reports. Author is regularly publishing new versions and is very responsive.

[1]: [https://firefly-iii.org/](https://firefly-iii.org/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I've personally tried several different online services but ultimately landed on Wave ([https://waveapps.com](https://waveapps.com) \- no affiliation). I used it for personal consulting and lately have used it for somewhat more formal (bit still fairly straightforward) corporate accounting. I'm a big fan - just my two cents.

<comment><USER23> +1 for Wave. I started an LLC to do contract work and so far it's been great.

I do have one minor gripe: I have my Wave linked with my Azlo bank account, and when I'm scanning and uploading a receipt Wave creates a separate transaction, in addition to the one from my bank feed. You have to go in and manually select both txns and click "Merge". Seems like a pretty big miss, but still very usable. Especially on my small scale.

<comment><USER22> Completely agree - being able to just add rote attachments to a journal entry is a huge miss. Hoping they rectify it soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've used Simple [https://www.simple.com/](https://www.simple.com/) as my primary checking for years and love it. I create "Goals" as buffer money pockets for things like "Savings", "Investment", and "Credit Card Buffer", and then use their expenses feature to automatically deduct certain bill amounts every payday. Their features are open enough to where you should be able to flex it to your needs. For example the "Goals" also has an auto-fill, but I just use them manually since I don't usually have a set amount I'm trying to save, just a certain percent per payday.

</comment><comment><USER10> Not a freelancer, but I wanted to track my everyday finances since long. I tried lot of different tools but in the end ended up using simple Google sheet with some formulas.

The only issue with this approach is – adding expenses is pain. When I am shopping for something, opening Google Sheet (on phone) and adding an expense/income is too cumbersome. So I built a UI for it – [https://github.com/mitul45/expense- manager](https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager).

I have been using it since last couple of years and have an idea of my monthly/weekly expenses.

<comment><USER25> I use ledger myself, but the issue I always run into is my wife is much less likely to keep track of what she buys and let me know so I can record it. Where that gets especially tricky is when she goes someplace and leaves a tip. Resolving tips is a real pain in the butt, especially since it comes through in the checking account at the original price and is then later processed at the tip-included price. Matching those up is a real bear.

<comment><USER10> I also had a similar issue, but then it became like a habit – every night I would check my accounts and add day's expenses (it's difficult if you have a lot of cash transactions). For the tip, wouldn't you round off to nearest full digit? You can just add that as an expense.

<comment><USER25> I used to reconcile our purchases against our online checking account every night, but the issue with tips happened when I would do that but then a few weeks later I would go through and actually balance everything out and suddenly I'd be off by a dollar and change and have to go on a deep dive to find out where I went wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I second Paymo, which is basically designed around client work. You can create multiple projects with different billing methods and track time on them, which can then be pulled into an invoice for a client. This way you have a concrete idea of how you spend your time vs. how much you get paid for it.

The free plan should be enough for planning and tracking project progress. It's limited to 3 invoices though, so you might need to buy a paid plan for advanced accounting features.

[https://www.paymoapp.com/](https://www.paymoapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Just a note about your posting format- don't use the `pre` tag or backticks to quote long lines of text. They'll overflow and it's essentially impossible to read on mobile.

<comment><USER28> Why haven't ycombinator fixed this problem yet?

It's bizarre that a programmer focused discussion board doesn't support code or quote formatting. And even worse, doesn't strip out formatting that breaks!?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Frappe Accounting is an electron based app exactly for this (GPL v3). We have pushed an alpha version and would love to find collaborators. Out of the box you can setup chart of accounts, make bills, payments, get basic accounting reports.

[https://github.com/frappe/accounting](https://github.com/frappe/accounting)

[https://frappe.io/accounting](https://frappe.io/accounting)

Anyone willing to collaborate, please drop me a mail.

</comment><comment><USER30> Manager is free for desktop / paid for cloud [https://manager.io](https://manager.io)

It has all the things you need, and the interface is pretty good.

<comment><USER31> I'm a huge fan of Manager too. It does the manual task of balancing the books _very well_ , and exports everything as TSV so it's easy to port out if it no longer fulfills one's needs.

I'm a bit concerned that it stores attachments (receipts, invoices, etc) as blobs in its SQLite database, but users on its forum [1] seem to keep large databases without any problem.

Since it's one SQLite file per business, it's also easy to automate file backups on my end.

[1] [https://forum.manager.io/](https://forum.manager.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Over the years, I've tried Quicken, Quickbooks, and other 'mass market' finance tools for my freelancing. I gave up the search for a silver bullet. Spreadsheets are excellent for these types of niche application with one-off requirements. From a development perspective, spreadsheets excel for nailing down the business logic without getting bogged down in frameworks and tooling and UI design. Until the data flow is understood, hard coding may just get in the way.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone for the comments. I should have tried to explain a little bit better, I'm not searching for expenses trackers or time trackers. Its really more about forecasting and having bird's eye view on things, in order to plan work.

I'm really tending to scratch my own itch and do something different. Cushion app comes close to what I what, but still misses a few spots and its a bit more expensive than what I'd like to afford.

</comment><comment><USER33> The answer for this will be different for everyone. None of the answers will be sure to fix your problems.

Dealing with your finances (or anything else you deal with more than once) is a process. Figure out what your process needs to be and then automate the most painful parts with the tools you can find. Rinse and repeat as you locate more pain points.

You'll likely find that a general tool such as Excel is the best way to start. As you gain a further understanding of your problem, then you can trial other tools. As I mentioned above, the best app for you will likely be the one which best handles your greatest pain points.

Apps can still be helpful as a starting point for your processes. Apps have workflows which you can steal for your own workflows. You'll then likely tweak to the point where the tool is no longer a good fit.

The exception to the above is when your greatest pain point is some combination of time and collaboration. It may be best to pick among the leaders in the space and force yourself to adapt. I can track things in Excel, but I may be forced to pick something else if I need other people to use it.

The above is from someone who goes through loads of apps and always ends up going back to basic tools.

<comment><USER10> I was also having the same dilemma, although not a freelancer. I wanted to track my finances and tried lot of different tools but in the end decided to use plain excel.

But then adding expense on Excel from mobile is real pain, so I wrote a frontend client for it. I've been using it for about 1.5 years now, works like a charm.

I have expense history of almost every cent I spent in last 1.5 years :)

Check it out: [https://github.com/mitul45/expense- manager](https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager).

<comment><USER33> I like it! Thanks for sharing.

The best thing is that you have been using it for 1.5 years. The hardest part is making something stick. Even just entering stuff into a spreadsheet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am on Harvest on which I track small freelance gigs, longer consulting engagements and time spent on side projects.

I like the way I can split up projects into multiple roles and track/bill differently for dev time vs admin work.

I also generate all my invoices through Harvest but I don't use their builtin online payments.

There is a desktop tracker for MacOS and Windows and some open source Linux clients but I prefer to use a pinned tab in Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have been tracking my expenses in one form or another for my entire life. How long well before we had computers and I used columnar paper spreadsheets. Its always been a pain, Excel, whatever when you need data at the end of the year.

Now I use a database with my own application that handles table entries just like a spread sheet, has analysis, and charting, import/export of data.

Need income tracking, project time tracking whatever add a table(s).

It will read whatever schema you define and works with MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite and others. If you want something a little extra then it supports plugins. Make your own. Videos, docs, and plugin tutorial see website. Its free open source.

My Expenses:

[http://ajqvue.com](http://ajqvue.com) [https://github.com/danap/ajqvue](https://github.com/danap/ajqvue) [http://dandymadeproductions.com/temp/GeneralExpenses.html](http://dandymadeproductions.com/temp/GeneralExpenses.html)

</comment><comment><USER36> I use beancount [1] for double-entry bookkeeping. It's similar to ledger/hledger, but it enforces correctness of your ledger a bit more, and it's written in Python which suits me well. You keep a ledger in a plain text file (easy to keep under source control), and then run various commands for analysis. Fava [2] is a web interface that gives you some stats. There's also a Vim plugin [3].

For analysis and filing taxes and stuff, I've written some custom analysis scripts that take the ledger file as input. Pretty easy to write, since the tool already gives you a large and reasonably well documented Python API.

[1] [http://furius.ca/beancount/](http://furius.ca/beancount/)

[2] [https://beancount.github.io/fava/](https://beancount.github.io/fava/)

[3] [https://github.com/nathangrigg/vim- beancount](https://github.com/nathangrigg/vim-beancount)

</comment><comment><USER37> Dave Ramsey, - Every Dollar App.

Dave Ramsey is probably the biggest expert in helping people get out of debt and stay out of debt. While its a 8 step program, he requires you to sit down and budget.

Just one more accolade. He is known in circles as the best program to get people out of debt and fast.

Along with his program he offers an App called Every Dollar.

Its a must have if you know anything about budgeting personally.

</comment><comment><USER38> YES. Thank you for thinking of developing something to address this.

1\. Most banking apps segment spending, but they don't perform analysis in an actionable way.

2\. Most banking apps allow you to automatically budget for goals, but they don't help you _actually structure_ your budget; usually they relegate customers to siphoning money automatically, at best.

Solution

1\. Create an app that not only performs both actions above, but also adds in a platform that caps/limits spending by category in order to reach monthly goals.

e.g. monthly rent is x. App suggests/limits spending on y + z.

e.g. planning for baby requires $x. App suggests/allocates n per week while limiting spending on y + z.

e.g. finances are unstable. App performs analysis of income patterns to determine safe threshold for discretionary spending or whether discretionary spending is even feasible.

Probably an app like this would need to have some sort of AI that not only leans on spending analysis algorithms but also can adapt to predictive behavior and set boundaries for the user.

(Does anything like this exist??)

</comment><comment><USER39> Something like Cushion might help - [https://cushionapp.com](https://cushionapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER40> [https://waveapps.com](https://waveapps.com)

IMO you need to know the ins and outs of bookkeeping anyway and Wave has been such a joy to work with. It has great apps for snapping photos => OCR receipts and sending invoices (if you require all your clients to pay invoices via Wave, accounting will be much easier).

</comment><comment><USER41> I personally use Harpoon: [https://harpoonapp.com/](https://harpoonapp.com/)

The tracking and forecasting it provides are absolutely excellent. It absolutely lets you specify income, expenses, budgeting, existing and proposed projects, and since it lets you add estimated income for the future, you can get an excellent view of what your actual needs are in terms of future work and income.

For example, with my most up-to-date data I know that I'm booked solid with good income for the next two months, but for the rest of the year I need at least 1 project a month to meet my financial goals. I'm abstracting a bit, but it actually gives you hard numbers for where you're at and what you need in the future.

Feel free to toss me an email if you'd like to discuss this further. My email is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER42> For invoicing and tax, I do everything through Google sheets. Accessible anywhere, link any cells/tab from any other one, complex formulas, it has all you need.

For purchasing and receipt collection, I take a picture of the receipt with my phone, always on me, and put it in a folder.

</comment><comment><USER43> I love Gnucash. I love it so much I've learned Scheme to be able to write my own reports. I am now hacking Scheme, fixing bugs, and dragging this application forward into the 21st century. There's a lot to love about it, and the user community is superb.

</comment><comment><USER44> Do any of the apps mentioned in this thread have Business scenario planning/forcasting.

ex. I have my current and future expenses in the system, I want to see what will happen to my cashflow given an extra $25 a month expenses for 6 months but also between $20 and $50 a month in revenue. I'd like to see some sort of best case/worst case report and maybe show the current "scenario" at the top with a toggle button to switch between scenarios or current projection.

Cool factor would be to lock in a scenario and later report on projected balances with and without scenario. ex. If I hadn't made that decision where would I be at.

<comment><AUTHOR> exactly! this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. Years ago I did an app for the blackberry playbook that played with this idea. You dont micromanage stuff, just insert the averages, and then play with estimates, future scenarios, and see how the charts change.

this is more or less what I'd like to have, but with a little bit more of micro-management to be able to track income and plan work accordingly

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I've found a net worth tracker to be awesome, and wish I'd started using it earlier. Every month I actually look forward to logging my new net worth that takes into account all my assets and liabilities. I view myself as a business, and net worth is a KPI. This is the app I use [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wealthplus-net- worth/id93353...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wealthplus-net- worth/id933534901?mt=8)

For invoices, time-tracking etc., I use Freshbooks Cloud which is great.

</comment><comment><USER46> I am not sure about freelance, but I am obsessed with keeping track of my finances. I tried many many apps and I have certain requirements that are sometimes hard to meet.

For me it's important that:

\- There's a website

\- Multiple wallets in multiple currencies and conversion on as much as possible.

\- Export/Import Data

The only one I found that I am satisfied with is Spendee[1]. It's not perfect, actually far from it. But It's got what I need, it's flexible enough and it seems to be getting enough updates.

[1] [https://spendee.com](https://spendee.com)

<comment><USER47> I've been using the free version of Toshl for a couple of years and it ticks all your marks. Great UX too.

[https://toshl.com](https://toshl.com)

<comment><USER46> Interesting! I'll give it a try! Thanks for the suggestion!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> There is an app my wife made that I use: it's for expense ticketing. It's available here: [https://spendtrim.com](https://spendtrim.com)

</comment><comment><USER49> I found these guys during my last stint of consulting/freelancing before building another startup:

17hats.com

I really liked it and my wife uses still today for high end cakes and stuff she does. I've also gotten quite of few of my buddies that do trade jobs on the side (plumbing, electrical, low voltage, etc) to use it and they love it as well.

Probably more than what your asking, but it's a great AIO platform. I particularly like the built in contract and digital signing abilities.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm using defter.net (ios name should be defter). It's actually an iOS app with a web companion. It can handle from personal licenses to middle-sized businesses.

\- It can do double-entry accounting and inter-account transfers.

\- It can generate reports about your accounts and money flow, hence allows you to see trends and plan your finances.

It's very straightforward, hence very powerful, and allows me to track my finances very accurately and see my situation clearly.

</comment><comment><USER51> QuickBooks online from Intuit is big in European countries. Works also good in Android and iOS. If you go really big use Xero (but not cheap).

If I would live in the US I would use Freshbooks (not so good for Europe if you need to handle VAT taxes in my opinion).

It's also good to speak with your accountant what to use (if you have an accountant).

Personally I use Google Spreadsheets but only because I only write invoices 1-2 times a month and I don't have ton of expenses.

</comment><comment><USER52> I don't use finance tracking apps anymore. Using Tim Ferriss's advice "how can I throw money at this problem to solve it?", I pay my accountant 200 to 300 euros every month and as part of their job they handle my financial tracking. I just upload my invoices & expenses to their online tool or forward it via email, they process it and hand me quarterly and yearly reports with suggestions for optimisations.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess that works fine when you have money to throw at :) My current status is to know the money you have at any point in time (or estimates), to know more or less what is throwable and what is not ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> For the UK, I'd really recommend Freeagent. Not sure how rest of world coverage is, but Freeagent will cover most things you need to do (invoicing, taxes etc)

</comment><comment><USER54> This will depend a lot on where you are.

In the UK, many FinTech startups have started launching current accounts targeted to freelancers and small businesses. Some examples:

[https://getcoconut.com](https://getcoconut.com) [https://www.tide.co/](https://www.tide.co/)

Obviously if you're in the US this won't work, but you haven't mentioned explicitly.

</comment><comment><USER55> I built a Telegram Chatbot for this, mostly to keep receipts backed up, but it also tracks your month to month finances. Check it out: [https://accountgram.com](https://accountgram.com)

Use Accountgram if: 1\. You do not want to install yet-another-app (other than Telegram) 2\. Your workflow revolves around backing up receipts

</comment><comment><USER56> I highly endorse Cushion for this purpose - it helps you estimate revenue, and understand how you're tracking so far. It's the only good solution I've found that helped avoid 'freelance anxiety' leading to bad business decisions [https://cushionapp.com](https://cushionapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER57> [https://www.youneedabudget.com/](https://www.youneedabudget.com/)

</comment><comment><USER58> I've been using the Everlance iOS app for a few months now, which tracks miles driven, revenue, expenses, and receipts. It supports having various types of work that need to be tracked separately. I also like that it stores receipts in the cloud. For me, tracking expenses is easier when it is right on my phone.

</comment><comment><USER59> I've experimented with quite a few, and personally I think there is only one right answer: ledger-cli

</comment><comment><USER60> In Sweden, Bokio is pretty good ([https://bokio.se](https://bokio.se)). It calculates VAT reports and templates for filing taxes pretty well. I haven't tried any of they alternatives but I'm pretty happy with it. (No affiliation)

</comment><comment><USER61> I personally use Prism [https://www.prismmoney.com/](https://www.prismmoney.com/) Helps me make sure I have enough money for bills without me having to input anything (after initial setup).

</comment><comment><USER62> Try: [https://www.gotruffle.com](https://www.gotruffle.com)

Edit: although the app is marketed as finding deductions, we show spending breakdown by category and are in the process of adding automatic revenue tracking.

</comment><comment><USER63> I used Google Sheets to create my accounts. It means I can create different views easily and I am in full control of my accounts without having to pay anything.

I can use Google Finance to pull in FX rates and I save my receipts to folders on the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER64> I can recommend Cushion ([https://cushionapp.com](https://cushionapp.com)). For me it's a great suite of tools in one intuitive and easy to use platform.

</comment><comment><USER65> Http://Albert.com is best for tracking your finances (also gives advice and saves money etc)

[http://track.tax](http://track.tax) for managing freelancer taxes

</comment><comment><USER66> Get a bank like Monzo or Revolut. The rest follows pretty easily I found.

</comment><comment><USER67> youneedabudget.com

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm a freelancer and I keep track of my finance by using iOS Numbers default app. I switched to Airtable but it is too slow on the iOS and their offline caching sucks.

</comment><comment><USER69> [https://Catch.co](https://Catch.co)

For tracking and putting aside money for freelance withholding, retirement and planned time-off.

</comment><comment><USER70> I have a bunch of Excel spreadsheets that I use to handle invoicing and expenses; they're easy enough to feed into tax software at the end of the year.

</comment><comment><USER71> As a freelancer, I used fresh books, and it did everything I needed for the most part. When I incorporated, I switched to Xero and Receipt Bank.

</comment><comment><USER72> Numbers for iOS, or just a spread sheet App. The reason is because you know what you want to track instead of having a specific App tell you

</comment><comment><USER73> Excel (well, Google Sheets actually). I manage most of my freelance business in spreadsheets, also timesheets and invoicing.

</comment><comment><USER74> I use FreeAgent, and it's always worked great. My accountant can deal with it from her side which makes tax easier.

</comment><comment><USER75> I use [https://payzzer.com/](https://payzzer.com/)

</comment><comment><USER76> PocketSmith for personal but can also work for biz. Or just the budget tools in Xero

</comment><comment><USER77> [https://mint.com](https://mint.com)

<comment><USER78> I used a hybrid approach with mint and spreadsheets.

Not a huge fan of mint, but I have about a decade of history in there. The UI is awful but every transaction continues to show up. So I export all to a spreadsheet every so often and manage everything in that sheet.

I've tried plenty of tools. Quicken, QuickBooks (online and offline), msn money when that was a thing, a few online services, etc. None of them got it right as far as I'm concerned.

Mint doesn't get it right either. And my spreadsheet isn't very good. But it gets the job done with very little hassle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Excel ala Martin Shkreli.

I'm not trying to stir the pot, but excel will do everything and more.

</comment><comment><USER80> Freeagent is good.

</comment><comment><USER81> My wife is the best financy tracking "app" indeed. When I buy something, she is screeming like alarm :)

</comment><comment><USER82> Xero

</comment><comment> grayed-down Excel? LibreOffice Calc?

</comment><comment><USER83> Emacs all the way. With orgmode, org-tables.

It will take a while, especially if you start out with emacs, but it is very rewarding. Some day I'll try ledger-mode and maybe up my level even further.

TLDR: Try Emacs/Orgmode with dynamic tables

</comment><comment><USER84> Those little paper sleeves you put coins in.

</comment><comment><USER85> GnuCash.

</comment><comment><USER86> beancount.</comment>


Social Skydiving With a Code Monkey: Day Four - <AUTHOR> http://socialskydivingwithjustin.posterous.com/social-skydiving-day-four-back-in-the-saddle

<comment><USER2> I'm not exactly in the same boat, but interesting read nonetheless. I'd suggest for the author to try online dating, seriously, even if only to meet interesting people and hone your social skills. I've gone on a handful of dates that started on online dating sites. It's a great way to get to know the person in a calm setting and you actually have a lot to talk about by the time you end up having a date. just my .02

<comment><USER3> _try online dating, seriously, even if only to meet interesting people and hone your social skills_

OK Cupid is used this way. I also knew a young woman who regarded online dates as "dating practice." (She was an avid martial arts practitioner.) If you regard the online dates as just practice, this relieves a lot of the pressure and focuses your attention in a way likely to improve your presentation.

About social skydiving -- I did stuff like that when I turned 27. If you psych yourself up, be confident, act like this happens all of the time, you can literally get 100's of phone numbers. Don't expect most of those to pan out, however. I found only about 10% of those were defunct or bogus numbers. But a majority of the remaining were not interested in me enough for me to get a date. Still, if you can keep your confidence up, you will get dates. If you can manage to genuinely have fun with your dates, then it will also lead to other things.

Keep in mind: you are doing sales. Expect a 90%+ failure rate. Pay attention to how your audience reacts. Make adjustments. Always be positive and cordial. Always keep your confidence up. Always believe that the universe wants you to experience happiness and beauty too.

Don't keep your confidence up by psyching yourself up with a sense of "entitlement." This can work. You can observe lots of guys working off of this. Unfortunately, it can turn you into an asshole and lead to big regrets.

One tip: if you and a beautiful woman keep ending up in the same places, she will sometimes warm up to you even if she seems frosty at first. But don't test that more than about 3 times with the same woman. Be cordial, positive, and after 3 meetings, move on. (Some of the best sex I ever had resulted from a circumstance like this. Caution: use condoms.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is no way this is hacker news or 10+ karma points.</comment>


Second-Order Thinking: What Smart People Use to Outperform (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://fs.blog/2016/04/second-order-thinking/ <comment><USER2> I think this article is saying:

      - 1st order thinkers primarily see causes and *direct* effects.
      - 2nd order thinkers frequently see causes and their *indirect* effects.

I guess that seems like a reasonable idea.

For what it's worth, the truly exceptional people I've met in life had a different quality.

* When most people are presented with a difficult/challenging problem, they soon give up.

* The most exceptional people that I've met just kept hammering away after the rest of us had stopped. Most of the time, they failed, but if you have some aptitude and you keep hammering, you have a better chance to make breakthroughs that the rest of us don't make.

Just as an example, I had worked for a company that used X-ray crystallography as a tool for drug-development. I would be in meetings with crystallographers where we discussed the technical problems they were having in trying to grow crystals. The crystallographers were all smart and talented, but when we had group meetings, there was only one guy who would float suggestion-after- suggestion-after-suggestion, long after everyone else had run out of ideas. I don't think he was any "smarter" than anyone else in the room, but he just could not shut himself off. He was _relentless._ He went on to make some important contributions to the field.

<comment><USER3> It's worth pointing out that blindly hammering away on the wrong problem is a failure mode for many intelligent people.

The key is not just sticking to things, but also having enough taste to know when to drop a problem.

<comment><USER2> > blindly hammering away on the wrong problem is a failure mode for many > intelligent people. The key is not just sticking to things, but also having > enough taste to know when to drop a problem.

Agreed. In my original comment, I was trying to imply that those exceptional people _did_ (ad you say) have enough "taste" to know when to stop, but I don't think I made that aspect clear.

The crystallographer I was talking about definitely failed more often than not, but I was always struck by his ability to keep floating reasonable ideas after the rest of us had reached what we thought was an intellectual cul-de- sac.

If you have ever read the transcript of Richard Feynman's speech "There's plenty of room at the bottom" [1] you get the same feeling--here's an incredibly bright person who can't seem to stop when he's told that "x is impossible."

I love this part of Feynman's speech: _" The reason the electron microscope is so poor is that the f- value of the lenses is only 1 part to 1,000; you don't have a big enough numerical aperture. And I know that there are theorems which prove that it is impossible, with axially symmetrical stationary field lenses, to produce an f-value any bigger than so and so; and therefore the resolving power at the present time is at its theoretical maximum. But in every theorem there are assumptions. Why must the field be axially symmetrical? Why must the field be stationary? Can't we have pulsed electron beams in fields moving up along with the electrons? Must the field be symmetrical? I put this out as a challenge: Is there no way to make the electron microscope more powerful?_"

[1] [https://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html](https://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html)

<comment><USER4> I think the deeper explanation here is that unusually clever people know how to locate the unquestioned assumptions and have no problem throwing them out. Or put another way, they ask questions of the form, "I know this sounds dumb at first, but hear me out. Why don't we..."

Most problems come with a slew of constraints we take for granted, and then a set of constraints we consciously impose on the solution because we think it helps. Most reasonably bright people try lifting those conscious constraints, but rarely touch the less apparent ones.

I think that more neatly explains what you both are going for with "gives up too soon" (not identifying all constraints), "hammering away" (also investigating non-obvious constraints), yet "have enough taste to stop" (there are no more constraints to lift).

<comment><USER5> Couldn't agree more here.

I've been encountering this effect in rapid succession in the last couple of years as a new parent.

First few weeks: Everything is new and you have no firm assumptions other than what you've observed from the outside of other families, so you try to build a new model on how your child behaves, how you should react and the routines needed to function as a family.

A month in and every other month going forward for the next year: Everything you think you know about your child has changed, and all (most) assumptions about what works when comforting, putting to sleep, and feeding goes out the window and you start over building a new model.

Of course _everything_ doesn't change, but this scenario of developmental changes has really ingrained the idea in me how easy it is to make assumptions (deliberately and not) that you assume are static truths. It has made me go back and reexamine everything from old wives tales I learned through osmosis as a child through my politics through technical decisions in my work.

Whether you consider Jobs, Musk, Wozniak, Brin, Page, etc creators/innovators or something, I think a lot if not most successful ventures has come from reevaluating assumed truths, ranging from the market, state of technology, or paradigms. I'm not saying you should throw out everything old, but merely that learning from history should be a scheduled process, not a one-off.

Sorry for the unwarranted rant, but your comment just resonated with my own experiences.

<comment><USER4> Musk, in particular, appears to me to be refreshingly naive when confronted with a problem. His suggestions sometimes sound like something a kid would say, and that's not a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This isn't second order thinking. Deciding to eat a salad when you're hungry instead of a candy bar because you value health over immediate satisfaction is discipline, not intelligence. You're still thinking linearly about the costs and benefits of the decision, you're just placing more emphasis on the longer term costs and benefits. Second order thinking refers to holistically looking at a situation to see emergent behaviors, which allows the intelligent to see things that are not intuitive. Second order thinking would be choosing a salad when you're hungry so that salad becomes associated with relieving hunger, thus making it easier to choose salads going forward, which will create a positive feedback loop keeping you on your diet. It's the self-interaction of the decision that makes it qualitatively more complex than first order thinking.

<comment><USER7> > _This isn 't second order thinking. Deciding to eat a salad when you're > hungry instead of a candy bar because you value health over immediate > satisfaction is discipline, not intelligence._

Nope, it is. Instead of sticking to a solution that only solves the immediate problem (hunger, first order), he changed the solution based on the adverse side-effects of going with the first solution (hunger solved, but health worsened, second order).

> _Second order thinking would be choosing a salad when you 're hungry so that > salad becomes associated with relieving hunger, thus making it easier to > choose salads going forward, which will create a positive feedback loop > keeping you on your diet._

Nope, that's motivation engineering, which is orthogonal to second order thinking.

<comment><USER8> "Nope, it is. Instead of sticking to a solution that only solves the immediate problem (hunger, first order), he changed the solution based on the adverse side-effects of going with the first solution (hunger solved, but health worsened, second order)."

Yup. This just happens to be something that we get pounded into us (not without merit) a lot, so it's something that people understand fairly well.

Consequently, as a gateway into understanding higher-order thinking, it's really poor, because this "knowledge" has all but bypassed rational thinking at this point due to being repeated for us to the point that it's been internalized.

I'd say this is why the trivial examples are also uninteresting to people. If it's something obvious enough that everyone has figured it out, making it an accessible example, it also doesn't seem like higher order thinking.

<comment><USER7> Well, here's a non-trivial example, but still easy to follow, that describes second order effects quite well:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This closely mirrors my own thesis on genius.

There are first level, direct thinkers. This is the lower 50% of all people, although everyone is capable of it. It is direct and without irony, sarcasm, or self reflection. Think slapstick comedy, or superhero movies.

The second level is in 4th wall breaking, analogy, simile, anything which takes "getting" the joke beyond the purely visual. Most people who consider themselves "smart" fall here. About the 50th to 90th percentile of intelligence/creativity.

Third level is hard to describe with words by it's nature. It's all about indirection. Not making an analogy, but taking the analogy for granted and riffing off of that. Most truly genius artists, comedians, musicians, scientists, etc. live at this level. Think the comedy of someone like Dave Chappelle, the music of Bob Dylan, or scientists like Stephen Hawking.

The fourth level is unattainable for humans as a constant state. The very best third level people can just _barely_ get glimpses of it, and bring those glimpses back down for us to see. These are our all time great works of art, and generational scientific breakthroughs. Picasso, Bach, and Einstein are the archetypes here. But what we (the second level masses) are able to see is just a projection, like a 3 dimensional representation of a 4 dimensional shape. The effect is still mind-blowing, but unless you're at that 3rd level it's impossible to really conceive its' true nature. Genius is in the ability to translate those brief fleeting glimpses of the 4th level by a 3rd level person into something intelligible by the 2nd and 1st.

<comment><USER10> > It is direct and without irony, sarcasm, or self reflection. Think slapstick > comedy, or superhero movies.

RDJ/Tony Stark would like a word with you.

<comment><USER7> Irony, sarcasm, and self reflection at the context of the movie, not the character.

RDJ/Tony Stark's "Irony, sarcasm, and self reflection" are still a flat description of an ironic, sarcastic etc character.

Not irony, sarcasm etc superimposed on the design/presence of the character itself within the movie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The lack of second order thinking seems to be the essence of what ails modern medicine.

"I have an infection!"

"Time for antibiotics!"

Don't bother to ask "And then what?"

Some populations are given antibiotics so regularly that it isn't uncommon for them to develop antibiotic resistant infections and even lose their colon to E. Coli.

We are given drugs with a multi page handout covering side effects, the doctors take credit for short term improvement -- "Look! Your latest infection got better!" \-- then blame your _condition_ for long term decline. No one stops to wonder if it's the drugs -- even though in some cases we absolutely know the drugs caused X.

<comment><USER12> Second order thinking was thought further by Hans Jonas [1], a philosopher known for his contribution to environmentalism. In his book "The Imperative of Responsibility"[2] he argues that because of our technological breakthroughs (e.g. medicine) it's so easy to make impacts beyond your control that thinking through whatever you do has to become the core of a new ethic.

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

[2] [https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo59...](https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo5953283.html)

<comment><USER11> I'm an environmental studies major. It's been very helpful in trying to develop mental models for thinking about my health issues.

<comment><USER13> This is interesting: can you provide some examples?

<comment><USER11> I've had a class in Hydrology and also read "Salt Dreams" (about water in Southern California) and a book about the history of water development in Fresno County.

Modern people often seem to have mental models of the world where a river has a set place, similar to a road. This is not accurate.

Water percolates down into the soil. Rivers meander. The amount and type of plants impacts rain patterns.

Water is constantly moving and cycles through the air and moves through the ground, both largely invisible to the naked eye, but critical to the pieces we can readily see. Plus, its movement occurs in a larger context, such as the Moon causing ocean tides.

The human body's relationship to water is similar. It isn't just limited to how much you drink, how much you sweat and how much you pee.

Like the Earth's crust, your skin takes in water. aso, for example, you can get hydrated with a bath, especially a salt water bath. This is helpful to understand if you are so sick that you are having trouble taking anything by mouth.

My condition predisposes me to retain fluids. I've made progress on reducing the chronic bloat in part because I have mental models for how water moves through the environment.

Invasive species disrupt ecosystems. This is not unlike infection.

Trying to fix a thing like that is far more complicated than our current medical mental model of just giving out antibiotics for infection.

On some island, someone wanted to eradicate mosquitoes. They poisoned the mosquitoes, which all died. Small animals ate they poisoned mosquitoes and they died too. This went through several layers, almost like the Biblical plagues (deconstructed and analyzed by modern science on some TV show).

Those sorts of things influence my concept of the body's relationship to disease. I don't accept the mental model that "Well, just add antibiotics to the mix and voila! All better now!"

We know antibiotics kill gut flora. We know gut flora are critical to our digestion and even help provide certain nutrients. We know that killing gut flora not only screws up digestion, it also promotes the overgrowth of Invaders like E. Coli.

Yet we currently do not have a policy of making sure to remediate what antibiotics do to the body. We assume the gut will just repair itself over time without active intervention.

Some individuals know to at least eat yogurt, but doctors do not give out handouts with recommendations for "The Post Antibiotics Diet."

And then we kind of shrug if someone "mysteriously" develops serious and chronic gut issues. Broader society also seems to fail to understand the gut as the foundation of the immune system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> alan-crowe This reminds me of Frédéric Bastiat and his essay "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen". Nicely formatted at [http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html](http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html)

The article notes that "It's often easier to identify when people didn't adequately consider the second and subsequent order impacts." That failure to consider the second order impacts is what Bastiat refers to as "That Which is Not Seen"

<comment><USER14> That is such a fantastic article. It's timeless: it was published in 1850, but it remains more relevant than ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think _people_ are generally good at 2nd order thinking, and thinking within complex systems with multiple causes, effects and subsequent effects. Especially so if we're immersed and experienced in a field.

We are bad at thinking this way in groups, relatively. We're especially bad when these groups are political. If we're deciding on arming rebels, the political dynamics are the 2nd order effects that dominate thinking, not the war... especially if it's a small foreign war that's unlikely to reach home.

The rebel field commander has no problem recognising these strategic dynamics.

<comment> alok-g >> I think _people_ are generally good at 2nd order thinking

>> We are bad at thinking this way in groups, relatively.

Wow! This seems to answer a long-standing question I have had. I think I can now work out the mathematics of this, given appropriate amount of time. I think this is it! Thanks.

<comment><USER15> good luck to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That is quite a lot of words to say "think a few steps ahead".

<comment><USER17> \+ Look beyond the obvious and conventional and what it is saying that the second order thinkers see unconventional things that might sound absurd to conventional first order thinkers. And do it with good precision, otherwise, they might end up with failed results too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am not against "higher-order thinking" but in my experience it often leads to wishful thinking and self-deception. Especially political arguments are prone to disagreements on higher order effects (as opposed to effects that are directly observable and measurable).

For example, take basic income. Opponents of basic income argue that it will lead to inflation (second-order effect) and it will have no effect. Proponents of basic income argue that it will lead to higher velocity of money (second- order effect) and it will have positive economic effect.

Often the magnitude of second-order effects is not clear (often they are large sums of small numbers, and somewhat non-linear), and this leads to disagreements even among reasonable people. It's very easy to see 2nd order effect of some type and not another. So I would be cautious to rely on it too much.

(This is also partly a reason why I am in favor of empiricism as opposed to rationalism - humans often have bad intuitions when we just think about things.)

<comment><USER19> Yes, there is this common reverse problem:

If we allow X to speak, his ideas will spread and Y will be harmed. So banning X is best.

But why not:

Banning X will cause a back reaction in X supporters and spread X's message leading Y to be harmed.

Or any other of a number of possibilities.

There is a fallacy of "hypothetical higher order danger justifies first order violence (/action)" \-- where the higher order thinking is mostly ideological fantasy.

<comment><USER20> Often that fallacy is argued on the basis of artificially reduced complexity.

"Some first order actions can be justified by higher order danger" is often transliterated as "this first order action is justified by higher order danger" precisely because it drops all the subtlety and pretense for higher- order reasoning that the original speaker intended as an unspoken follow-up.

People often seem to allow others only the luxury of starting a thought, but never finishing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A good book on the topic is "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows [1]. It's a catalog of common system patterns and how they behave to give you some tools to answer the "then what?".

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H- Meadows/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H- Meadows/dp/1603580557)

</comment><comment><USER22> Ordinary people don't like when they are getting asked "And then what?"

Socrates kept asking questions. That was his defining characteristic. We know how that went...

<comment><USER23> I think the story of socrates has repeated itself multiple times over the course of history.

Very often men who were ahead of their times were prosecuted for being right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> 1st order thinking dominates our politics and economics. And worse, there's no incentive for 2nd order thinking from our politicians, since the electorate doesn't go beyond 1st order. Further, pre-existing assumptions are usually backed by 1st order thinking, but not 2nd.

Not a bad little book promoting 2nd order thinking in economics: [https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one- lesson/](https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one-lesson/)

<comment><USER25> > 1st order thinking dominates our politics and economics.

At least in U.S. politics, we have a surplus of second order thinking. We can't get mundane immediate compromises made because people are worried about identities, factions, and trust issues, which are all second order concerns.

For instance, it's not controversial to think that H1B visas are a mess, but legislation on specific immigration reform tends to get stymied by the desire for comprehensive immigration reform. Why not just fix one immigration problem? Because immigration proponents and restrictionists do not trust each other that the piecemeal reforms _they_ want will be passed the next time around.

The same pattern comes up in plenty of other controversial issues such as abortion, tax reform, and lately judicial appointments.

<comment><USER26> I think it's a tactic.

Politicians use whatever order thinking is most convenient to promote their ideas.

nth-order thinking is great for debate because you can use increasingly tenuous connections to justify your position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > The ability to think through problems to the second, third, and nth order—or > what we will call second-order thinking for short—is a powerful tool that > supercharges your thinking.

Clearly it should be called higher-order thinking.

<comment><USER28> Just "planning" seems adequate to me.

<comment><USER29> If the author called it planning then everyone would realize that they had already heard of it...

People might also realize that with every additional step of reasoning the chance that you got it right decays exponentially.

<comment><USER30> That's why people make multiple plans and backup plans

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "For example, consider a country that, wanting to inspire regime change in another country, funds and provides weapons to a group of "moderate rebels." Only it turns out that those moderate rebels will become powerful and then go to war with the sponsoring country for decades. Whoops."

Unless you want to make it look like a beneficial regime change but your actual wish is long term destabilization of a region ;)

<comment><USER32> To stimulate sponsoring country's economy and cement electoral choices in the face of a common threat.

<comment><USER31> Indeed, but you can hide behind your 1st order thought, play dumb and get the vote of the 1st order thinkers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just make sure though that you don't end up in 'paralysis by analysis'.

Sometimes, the bullish people that don't overthink things end up in far greater situation (through a rollercoaster) than if they just sat there and pondered about all the consequences.

</comment><comment><USER34> I love to do this, keep iterating on n-th order thoughts, figuring out emergent behavior etc etc (systems mapping is actually a quite useful technique to do this) but at some point you need to scale it back down to the 1st order to actually get things done.

It's fun to fantasize where the industry will be heading 10-30 years from now, but figuring out what needs to be done tomorrow is more important.

<comment><USER35> Honest question, just for the sake of respectful debate, not trying to be obnoxious:

Can you actually derive emergent properties from nth-order thinking? I think they're both fascinating topics, but when I think about emergent properties of human biology, I struggle to imagine how I could have derived them from nth- order logic. To me, emergent properties seem like something you have to observe first, not something that you can reach from any kind of reason. Emergent properties are so awe-inspiring precisely because you can't predict them when you go down a level or two.

<comment><USER36> I doubt that anyone frequently predicts emergent properties precisely, but I still think that thoughtfully considering them is beneficial. There is a line in "Clean Architecture" to the effect that every architectural decision is akin to a shot in pool: you aren't merely trying to sink the ball, you're also trying to line up the next shot. This is true of decisions generally, and I think it's infinitely easier to do if you're thinking of navigating complex, dynamic systems rather than simply imagining "I'll do A because A –> B."

<comment><USER37> You might like this video that shows emergent behaviour that I find fascinating: [https://youtu.be/gaFKqOBTj9w](https://youtu.be/gaFKqOBTj9w)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The best way to exercise second order thinking is to play turn based games like chess or even magic the gathering. You can't be good at those games without considering actions several turns ahead and aggregating a tremendous amount of knowledge about the game, and you get almost immediate feedback on how good your thought process actually was.

<comment> T-A [http://theconversation.com/does-playing-chess-make-you- smart...](http://theconversation.com/does-playing-chess-make-you-smarter-a- look-at-the-evidence-76062)

<comment><USER38> I don't think playing games makes you smarter. I think it practices a certain kind of thinking, and practicing thinking makes you better at that kind of thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Temporal thinking is something that needs to be exercised. It's relatively easy to think 'what if', 'and then what' but much harder to think these through when each next level overwrites the previous one, it's not a matter of adding up the effects of static layers. Successive effects invalidate former ones to varying degrees. It's really just running thought experiments, but running them deeper and simulating for longer time periods.

The most visual demonstration of most of these talking points is in the game of Go. Being able to 'read' the board is seeing the good/bad outcome of a world of possibilities.

The other really good comment made was about quantifying second order effects. Being able to imagine higher order effects without being able to estimate them leads to analysis paralysis.

</comment><comment><USER40> So you're successfully applying 2nd level order thinking on your job. Other's don't do it. You're working towards your goal. Achieving your 2nd level order thinking successes.

But the rest of your colleagues don't understand what you're doing. They don't see your vision. They live in the 1st order thinking world. To them your choices don't make sense. They don't understand how the successes came from the 2nd level choices.

They'll say: "Why are you eating a salad? You're hungry! Take a chocolate bar! It has much more calories so it will better solve your problem."

You try to explain. They don't get it. They wave it off like some ridiculous story.

How can you effectively sell your 2nd order thinking ideas to 1st order thinking people?

</comment><comment><USER41> Another way to look at Second-Order thinking is whether someone can understand C pointers intuitively. Joel Spolsky once wrote that understanding pointers is an aptitude, and I believe he was right. It is the same concept as second- order thinking - being able to follow several layers of indirection. Recursion and regular expressions fall into this group as well. I find otherwise very bright individuals that don't have something in their brain that allows them to grasp these concepts. I think it is how the brain is wired, like good hand- eye coordination or fast memory recall (aka being witty). Just because your brain is good at one of those traits doesn't mean you are good at all of them.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is closely related to 'Chaos theory' too. There is a great correlation.

"Small differences in initial conditions yield widely diverging outcomes for dynamical systems"

My interpretation is that second order thinkers see unconventional things of how a dynamic system behaves to fine tune it initially and intervene when it's moving in wrong direction to drive it in the direction that yields desired results.

> What do the consequences look like in 10 minutes? 10 months? 10 Years? 1

> Extraordinary performance comes from seeing things that other people can't > see.

Although experience plays a key role, the second order still have to think that aren't yet experienced by them based on the patterns they can recognize.

</comment><comment><USER42> And here I was using regular thinking like an idiot.

<comment><USER43> D'oh!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The first quote by Ray Dalio is from his most excellent book [https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray- Dalio/dp/150...](https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray- Dalio/dp/1501124021)

I've listen to the section for personal principles on audible 5 times now, and I will probably keep repeating it at least a couple times a year.

</comment><comment><USER45> This definitely explains why we have things like the drug war (and other idiotic pseudo wars) and can't even learn the second and third order effects of such prohibition after the mass experiment with alcohol prohibition in the twenties and thirties. In fact, it explains a lot if not most bad policy decisions. I'm convinced regular people are simply incapable or unwilling to consider second, third, and higher order effects of their actions and politicians especially take advantage of this to push through atrocious policies. Healthcare policy is another that comes to mind. Retirement saving. Lack of infrastructure spending. Anti vaccine idiots. Etc. Etc. I mean towards people being to incompetent and stupid rather than unwilling, as there is plenty of evidence for that (three quarters of people are purported to not be able to name the three branches of government), but who knows? The end result is the same. Stupid thinking driving forward a stupid populace. I didn't know there was a term for what the stupid were missing till now.

</comment><comment><USER46> While I agree with most of this, this can also lead to a kind of "analysis paralysis". I've seen a good number of "first order thinkers" succeed because they just plow through stuff, and when the indirect consequences appear that they didn't originally think about, they plow through that, too.

</comment><comment><USER47> I call it S1 (simple 1, arrogant and ignorant) vs S2 (simple 2, which is elegant and informed), but I've only found it possible to attain S2 after navigating the complexity between these two points, which implies that I'm often guilty of S1 thinking as the genesis of getting to S2, if I have the sand for it.

<comment><USER42> And S3 is where you store all your memories.

<comment><USER47> And S10 is a _smart_ phone. I think I'm seeing the matrix.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This article reminds me of tree searches. One of the results we've found in various AI related investigations into the playing of games is that a good policy selects the action which maximizes the value of a future state. A good value for an action corresponds with where that action would eventually leave the agent. The article points out that a person will get better results by expanding the tree out to a depth beyond one. This is usually true. Interestingly, humans are real time and so we also experience contexts in which this is not true. Expansion takes precious time. Thus, one of the cognitive biases which sometimes steers us away from more optimal answers.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is interesting, I'm pretty sure we all do this to a large extent, I would say one thing that I've noticed when everything was going sideways was I learnt that in the absence of a good viable outcome doing nothing was a very effective strategy.

Not without its risks either, but in some cases my act of doing nothing allowed what I had done to progress (where I knew it would not have a detrimental impact and couldn't see any path forward that was effective, I just circled the wagons and waited. Surprisingly effective.

</comment><comment><USER50> 3rd order thinkers see direct causes, indirect causes, direct effects and indirect effects, which establishes the need for setting up an internal feedback loop to strengthen the causes classified as direct (coming from within) and to power the process of distinguishing between direct and indirect causes. Without this feedback loop the experience of indirect causes results in an experience of loss of agency.

1st order thinkers know what they do, 2nd order thinkers know what they do to others, 3rd order thinkers know what they want to do. I'm leaving an interpolation which is both obvious, crucial, trivial and infinitely deep to the reader.

</comment><comment><USER51> Not terribly insightful... I expected something about meta-reasoning - thinking about your own thinking - but it was more along the lines of just, "smart people don't have tunnel vision when making decisions".

</comment><comment><USER52> Maybe world policy makers should think to the nth order before making bad policies.

<comment><USER53> I think they do, but I suspect that their goals are bad, which is why we have the world we have now.

<comment><USER14> It's worth noting here that an astonishing number of prominent politicians and politically-involved elites are still avowed (and publicly acknowledged) Malthusians. So when trying to understand their actions, keep in mind, their goals may in fact be to "reduce the global population to a more sustainable level."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Here is my attempt at second order thinking -- where did he pull out that odds of success exponentially depending on "second order thinking" graph?

</comment><comment><USER55> Has anyone read the book "The Most Important Thing", which is mentioned in the blog? If so, can you give a review of it?

</comment><comment><USER56> Interesting article.

While there may be nature/nurture arguments here, IMO, first order thinkers are trained to be that way by society and markets. Someone who doesn't think ahead is more "useful" as a consumer. Someone who doesn't think ahead and question, gets along with others with less friction.

</comment><comment><USER57> So, to put it in a meme: [https://youtu.be/CkdyU_eUm1U](https://youtu.be/CkdyU_eUm1U) ( not really a smart movie - dude where's my car, but it thought about that the entire time)

</comment><comment><USER58> My second order thinking holds me back in some ways, because when I think of something new, immediately I start thinking of ways why it would not work etc.

</comment><comment><USER59> Smart people get everyone else to bog themselves down with "second-order thinking" perpetually tying themselves in mental knots wondering endlessly "what happens next" and "should I or shouldn't I." That is because smart people that get shit done will not think twice, do the thing, and then quickly re-evaluate the results and proceed apace. Smart people that get shit done, outperform by actually executing. You can't predict the future. Asking "but what about in ten years" is the height of hubris. The only answer can be "who knows."

<comment><USER60> Please don't give this man a company.

I agree that smart, effective people do generally have a bias toward action. But not in the bull in the shop "thinking twice is a waste of my time" sort of way you're describing.

<comment><USER61> Yeah I was thinking this is how Erie Canal, love canal and more boring things like Clinton Lake happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Slightly off-topic: what app is used to create low-fi sketches like the illustration in this article? I'd love to use these in my product work.

<comment><USER63> You could make images like these easily with Krita on most platforms or Procreate on an iPad/iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Another way to say this is to evaluate the consequences of your actions. Good advice but don't confuse people by renaming it.

</comment><comment><USER65> There is a famous saying in chess which captures this: "If you find a good move, look for a better one".

</comment><comment><USER66> I think it is just one skill of critical thinking, why stop at second order when third order thinking is even better?

<comment><USER67> You have an opportunity to practice second order thinking in regards to using second/third order thinking here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'm not sure how much I agree with this article. In my opinion, most people's practical problems don't come from an inability to consider the later consequences of an action. They're either things completely beyond our control or they come from an inability to discipline ourselves to do the responsible thing given the consequences. People don't take the easy road because they're dumb. They take it because the hard road is hard. And as far as I can tell, gaining or building discipline oneself is nearly impossible. (To be clear, I'm not some hard core libertarian that thinks everyone has made their bed and therefore should sleep in it. I think the struggle to conform one's life to productive positive decisions is ubiquitously difficult and just telling people their problems are their own fault has probably never helped a situation.)

Regarding less daily matters like foreign policy, I actually think this kind of second order thinking is a trap. It's the pride that goeth before the fall. It leads us to believe problems that are too complex, too variable and too opaque are within the grasp of our rationalim if only we think hard enough. Robert McNamara didn't advise Kennedy and LBJ deeper and deeper into the Vietnam war because he lacked second order thinking skills. He did so precisely because he had like 10th order thinking skills.

<comment><USER69> > To be clear, I'm not some hard core libertarian that thinks everyone has > made their bed and therefore should sleep in it. I think the struggle to > conform one's life to productive positive decisions is ubiquitously > difficult and just telling people their problems are their own fault has > probably never helped a situation.

Not super relevant to the topic at hand, but I am a very hardcore libertarian, and I have to say that this is not an accurate representation of libertarian views.

It's not your fault, this seems to be a common misconception among many, even some of those who call themselves libertarian.

Libertarian philosophy does indeed stress personal responsibility as a part of voluntary interactions with others. However, this doesn't mean that a person's status is deterministic. Many of people's problem are not their own fault: hell, many of the problems are caused by the state, which is why we hate it. The problems that aren't caused by the state (scarcity, some inequality, externalities, etc) ate very difficult to solve, and state attempts to fix them usually result in even worse outcomes.

To bring it back around to second-order thinking, it's very important in politics especially to be able to see these unforseen consequences of political action. First-order thinking is how we end up with things like the PATRIOT Act and other emotionally-driven policies.

<comment><USER68> Fair enough. Let me rephrase that. I'm not some hardcore puritan...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> infinity-order thinking: hanging all the self-improvement gurus from the highest tree.

</comment><comment><USER71> Why didn't I think of that!?

</comment><comment><USER72> BS alert

</comment><comment><USER73> OK, so to follow up with the author of the piece and to maybe throw in a little 2nd order thinking into this equation:

"Second-Order Thinking: What Smart People Use to Outperform" - the author makes a broad claim that all smart people use second order thinking to outperform those who aren't smart.

Questions: What makes the author credible, and what data / research does he/she have in order to support the claim? He/she cites Howard Marks as an example, but is Howard Marks really enough to support the claim for such a broad and generalized statement? What about the fact that even people who try to think deeply tend to get it wrong often-times, which has been shown to be true over and over again? Example:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/dont-blink- the-h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/dont-blink-the-hazards- of-confidence.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all)

That's not to say that I disagree with the premise – I think that in general, this piece puts forward a hypothesis that smart people are deep thinkers who think critically and deeply about the effects of their decisions, while those that aren't so smart might not put such an effort in. There is some truth to the statement the author puts forward, but by no means is this the differentiating factor between smart people and the not-so-smart. I'm not an expert in this field either, but I've read a lot of stuff from Feynman, Einstein, and the geniuses of the field, and I find that some of the things which differentiate them from the rest are:

1\. Deep curiosity. They were incredibly interested in finding out how things work / solving a problem. 2\. Persistence: They worked hard to achieve what they wanted to achieve and didn't give up. 3\. They used their visual cortex / visual systems a lot. Tesla for example would have live simulated conversations with other people and build things inside of his head. Einstein is in the same boat - he would spend hours trying to visualize concepts. This makes total sense from my perspective. We have a heck of a lot more capacity to process information using our visual cortex than other areas in out brains. We can process something like 10 million bits per second vs. a much lower capacity in other brain areas. When you read silently for example, you're only processing around 45 bits per second.

Apologies for the long write up here – I guess I might be over-analyzing things a bit, but I just don't really see the point of this article, nor do I see it pointing out the real differentiating factors between those that are 'smart' and those that aren't, and I think the author is making a very broad statement and doesn't have any data to support his/her claim. Howard Marks also by the way is not a class above other investors. He still uses a value- based approach in a time where the value based strategy doesn't really guarantee maximum returns. It doesn't mean that he isn't bright – he definitely is. I just don't think that this presents enough evidence or data to support the generally broad claim made in the article.

</comment><comment><USER74> So, most of Robots are smart ?

</comment><comment><USER75> In politics I've heard higher order thinking called 'running the traps.' Would love to learn of a way to apply derivatives or higher order thinking to polling and the decisions I make in my work.

Take Trump in 2015 if voters were less likely to say they support Trump in polling which 2nd order affected Clinton campaign malpractice to not campaign in MI etc, which gave Trump election.</comment>


Ask HN: What paid email provider service - <AUTHOR> I want to move away from gmail to a paid email service. I want to use my custom domain and I am ready to pay around 50$/year for this service.<p>So far I have considered fastmail and proton mail. Any suggestion or consideration? <comment><USER2> I use Office365 Business (Premium). I love having ActiveSync push emails to my phone (vs. Poll), and if I grow my family I can manage contacts and services.

Also gives me Word, Excel, PPT, OneNote,

<comment><USER3> There is a less expensive ($5/mo) option without the desktop apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can also use google's paid email through google apps. $5/Month for one email (some limits on storage).

</comment><comment><USER5> Fastmail is very nice.

</comment><comment><USER6> Protonmail if you care about your privacy.</comment>


Working paper suggests online education can lower tuition costs - <AUTHOR> https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/27/working-paper-suggests-online-education-can-lower-tuition-costs

<comment><USER2> This is great news. If only a similar thing would happen in healthcare. Not that you'd want people doing their own healthcare but at least having the costs of treatment being advertised and transparent so people could shop for affordable treatment. Somewhere I heard that within a state costs for a given procedure can vary between 2x and up to 4x from lowest to highest and found that price wad independent of outcome. Ie the cheaper facility was just as effective as the more expensive one.</comment>


Questions I ask in interviews - <AUTHOR> https://ifelse.io/2015/11/07/questions-i-try-to-ask-in-interviews/#fn:4 <comment><USER2> why post a footnoted page with a link to the link rather than the direct link itself, e.g. [http://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in- interv...](http://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in-interviews/) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> 2 reasons: 1) I wrote the blog post and wanted to get it out there; 2) I thought it had already been submitted due to its breadth and how it was created. Turns out I was wrong, though. There you go: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10527831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10527831)</comment></comment>


Copper – Password-free signup for your product - <AUTHOR> https://withcopper.com/ <comment><USER2> Good in concept, but would I rather give a random site my mobile number vs a social network login?

I'd be curious to hear more about how it works. When the user first uses copper, does it ask them for their email and photo then? Or does it glean the details from social networks?</comment>


Evolvist.com, NY startup looking for some great Hackers - <AUTHOR>

We have received some small amount of funding to pay some hackers for the rest of the summer to help us build evolvist.com. Evolvist.com wants to be the one stop for green businesses, services, and products. If all goes well co-founder status will be bestowed upon thee. We are looking for someone with great technical skills ( language irrelevant, as many as possible) with an entrepreneurial spirit. Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if interested. I can answer questions below. <comment><USER2> Speaking of which, PG, can we open up the job postings to folks other than YC companies, so long as they embody the spirit?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah definitely, it would be much help.</comment></comment>


Missile alerts direct Fort Greely residents and workers to take shelter - <AUTHOR> https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/military/2019/08/09/missile-alerts-direct-fort-greely-residents-and-workers-to-take-shelter/ <comment><USER2> I had no idea that the interceptor missiles are so toxic. Can anyone explain further why that is, and why no safer alternatives are available?

<comment><USER3> "Command and Control" had an excellent discussion of the wide variety of ways that icbm fuel and oxidizer will kill you. (It's a truly great piece of journalistic writing, with excellent systems thinking. highly recommend if you haven't read it.)

<comment><USER4> The missile (a Titan II) discussed in Command and Control is liquid fueled. The interceptors are solid fueled, so it won't directly apply.

Good book though for anyone interested in nuclear policy and ICBMs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > And he, like most people who live around Greely, has for years heard > announcements over the post's loud PA system that's called the Giant Voice.

"The Giant Voice" is a pretty creepy/disturbing name.

</comment><comment><USER6> After the second or third, I wouldn't take the alerts seriously anymore. At least they are running their psychological and behavioral analysis operations there, instead of someplace like Hawaii:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_aler...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_alert)

Also, if they are worried about North Korea missiles being an actual threat, then they should take up their concerns with the President.

<comment><USER7> I have no idea why you're being downvoted because that's perfectly fine argument. Alert fatigue is a thing. And if a missile really was headed towards there, well, all hell would break loose.

<comment><USER8> Alert fatigue is a thing true. But these are people living within a mile a launch site that's designed and sited to protect not just Alaska, but a good chunk of the lower 48. Missiles wouldn't necessarily be targeted at the fort.

The chain of logic is straight forward if you accept the premise that it makes sense for the site to be in an alert state for all North Korean missile launches.

<comment><USER7> Good point about the other states served by this launch site.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Yuuuge Cards Against Humanity #madethis - <AUTHOR> http://trumpagainsthumanity.com <comment><AUTHOR> Yes I know, not complex, not novel, etc. First app built using Clojure at any rate.</comment>


Medical device alarm safety in hospitals - <AUTHOR> http://www.jointcommission.org/sea_issue_50/

<comment><AUTHOR> To me, this is the same type of issue we see in IT/software development with users ignoring error messages or even banner blindness.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I use my technical skills for good, in our time? - <AUTHOR> I have never really cared about anything bigger than my own life, since I've been lucky enough to be privileged. Recent events have for the first time led me to think that there are some things bigger and more important than me, and I am at a complete loss as to how I can apply my skills and energy towards being part of the solution.
How can technologists help in this era of broken media, global internet trolling and misunderstood lower economic classes populations?
I am not looking to rant, or insult anyone, I am looking for ideas of how to apply my energy and skills to yield results.
Thank you in advance for your time. <comment><USER2> Above all, you've got to be kind--don't forget the human costs of your software and how it'll be used. If you need to work on stuff that might not help people, make sure you understand who it won't help and to what degree. The only thing worse than callousness is ignorance.

That said: I'd suggest against falling into the privilege trap, of considering your position as somehow immoral or unethical or unnatural or something to be shunned. Don't pick up problems that don't interest you because you think they're for "the common good". Don't sideline projects you are passionate about because you feel like you owe it to some other less-privileged group.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess, a political campaigner might tell you to help make phone calls during the election cycle. But, there's nothing you can do about that for 4 years.

Until then, make an honest effort to understand the other side of the equation and help people to understand your view point by having intelligent conversations without attacking the other side.

<comment><USER4> > 4 years.

2! Two, god damn it! In 2018, as a matter of possibility, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate will (technically) be contested. No matter your politics, the makeup of Congress is a large factor in what the President is actually able to pass.

</comment></comment><comment> UK-AL From purely utilitarian view. Earn as much as possible, then donate to the professionals.

<comment><USER5> It's hard to tell which professionals actually address pressing issues effectively. Many are only in it to enrich themselves.

Any suggestions on how to identify the professionals that are worthy of our support?</comment></comment>