Iran Nuclear Deal Reached - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-is-reached-after-long-negotiations.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <comment><USER2> I think the future of the Middle East is a tense balance between Saudi and Iranian poles, with both countries being normalized in the international community. The USA can't bring either country to heel, but it can hopefully prevent the stalemate from being nuclear along Sunni-Shia lines. But what's also changed is that the US needs a normalized partner in Iran to fully isolate ISIS, the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other far worse actors. I think we can also be encouraged by the demographics in Iran, which are moving younger and more liberal. I'm cautiously optimistic.

<comment><USER3> Iran is a country much more aligned with the US in many more ways than Saudi Arabia is. It's really a "natural ally" for the US in the middle east.

<comment><USER4> Out or curiosity, why does the (religious) iranian regime keeps calling USA "the great devil" then ?

Ps :reading some answers, i know about the history of conflicts between usa and iran. I was just pointing the fact that calling Iran a "natural ally" is a bit of a stretch.

<comment><USER5> Iranian here , and I am commenting from Iran.Iranian people maybe most pro usa people in middle east. and about government, they just need keep people busy because of they systematic corruption. Thats all. 10 years before , Ali Khamneai said following : "anyone who says we should communicate with USA is or idiot or our enemy/traitor".

and guess what ? today , FM Zarif have record in our history for maximum time negotiation with a USA FM.

Thats about it , they just want money , they don't care about Israel or otherwhere a little bit , they don't care about people either , they just care about themselves. Look at the whole picture . When there was serious threat about Iran regime existence , they negotiate , and they accept what they called 10 years ago a traitor would do.

They just love money.And they only weapon they have for keeping people in iran busy and afraid of any kind of protest, is "imaginary" enemy.That's all.

I cannot find the exact link . But I read a DoD Analysis about Iran , and the first paragraph they mentioned was this : "Iran regime only care about himself" (meaning of the first paragraph) .

As Iranian I can assure you , They don't even care even about Israel/Palestine.They just need imaginary enemy keeping people in scared position.

p.s. sorry for my broken English.

p.s-2: Yes I know and accept this is so simplistic, we have all kind of majority in our society , but If you see the level of corruption in our economy , You will understand nothing can stand against money.Not even supreme leader.At the end at least in my view (I served in high-level military base in my mandatory military service_sadly was two year waste of my life), at the very end alls boils down to money and keeping regime safe. They interfere in Lebanon , Just because they want to propagate , NOT BECAUSE OF ISLAM OR ANYTHING ELSE , they just feel safer if they have more poppet.

<comment><USER6> I thought it was very interesting recently when FM Zarif, who seems very wise and pragmatic, discussed the nuclear negotiations as a form of diplomatic _jihad_ , presumably to reassure the religious/political factions that that government had not gone 'soft'. As other people said, we have similar factions here in the USA.

I am curious, is awareness of Persian history a regular part of Iranian cultural life? I mean in day-to-day conversation, not just in school or a museum. Anti-Iranian people in the USA often denounce the country because it is an Islamic republic, but every Iranian person I've ever meet seems very proud of their Persian heritage and history, parallel to their religious heritage.

I'm European (living in the USA) and Iran seems culturally much closer to Europe/USA than a country like Saudi Arabia. It seems like religion is very strict in Saudia Arabia because it is the only thing that holds the country together, whereas Iranian people had a strong national identity before Islam existed. Is this accurate?

<comment><USER5> Traditional Iranian ceremonies always was a great part of our society (at least as far as I can remember , and note that these ceremonies are not approved by Islam most of the time but people kept doing them after revolution).But nationalism became regular part in recent years.I don't think it is dominant part , as far as I see it is important part.

I should mention in recent years Iran became so much wired country in cultural sense. at one side of spectrum we have people who hate religion, at the other side we have people just like Al-Qaeda , but Shia version which are so small in compare the other part , but they have secret regime support)

But despite of regime multi-billion $ media funding and propaganda most people does believe in _secularism_. and this is the most serious (by far) dead end for this regime will counter in next 20 years.most of people in Iran knows that, regime needs an imaginary enemy. who is better than US, the supporter of Israel (which they believe is root of all evils).by bombing them you just gave them a reason to deceive more people.Give them internet,twitter, porn , facebook,gay tv shows, game of throne, friends tv shows and etc and you will see collapse of regime much much sooner than you can even imagine)

The distance young generation have with religion is far far than most of people outside of Iran can imagine.Despite of 5-6% of hardliners and 25-35% people who make living inside/because of government,in recent years most of people became or atheist or with some kind of their own religion. Majority of young people proud about pre-Islamic history.(personally I don't know about that area and I don't have opinion)

By their "own religion" I mean secular religion, They believe in separation of religion and government at same time they believe on Islam.(some kind of old fashion Shia, before khomeini). At the other hand , we are having (or generating) serious hard liner in other side. People who hates religious, people who hate Islam.(you can search about Shahin Najafi , A singer who sentenced to death by Mullahs like Salman Rushdie)

In Iran despite of west media propaganda you can have every Idea you want in private and most of the time government will not hurt you if you pretend you are normal person in their definition.(You can be an alcoholic , You can be gay) _BUT_ the serious issue here is ,the cost of doing anything other than regime says in PUBLIC is so so so high (most of the time death), and because of that people are afraid of make public their own identity. Just look at the page "My Stealthy Freedom" in facebook.Just imagine the level of government aggressiveness.Taking picture without scarf becomes heroic act here(just imagine , ridiculous thing like this is punishable).Because of this regime. But about saudi arabia , I can assure you Iranian people are far far secular than people at countries like saudi arabia.I can even claim they are secular than Turkye people. Last friday was a demonstration about Israel.The city I live in with population of 2 Million.They only managed to bring ~50,000.Thats all.This is serious defeat for this regime.Because this demonstration is so important for them (all ideology of regime hinges on resistance against US and Israel and for demonstration for showing this , only 1/40 come with all the money the spent).Every Military person have to participate,most of people works for non-military part of regime should too.But that's all , 50 thousands for 2M city.(the important fact here is everybody who believe in regime politic will come to these demonstration , because these are so important for them)

The main problem here is in Iran we have a people-government spectrum , and they both are at other side. One is really aggressive and religious and the other side we have majority people with believe in freedom-secularism. The majority of ordinary and non-educated in people do not believe in religious- regime.

<comment><USER7> > The city I live in with population of 2 Million.They only managed to bring > ~50,000

That's 2.5%. By contrast the biggest protest in British history (against the 2003 invasion of Iraq) was around 1m people, just shy of 2% of the country. I'm afraid I can't see Al Quds days as indicative of anything other than rabid and endemic anti-Israel, anti-American and anti-Western sentiment.

<comment><USER8> But how many of those 50,000 were paid or "persuaded" to participate?

<comment><USER5> Thats is fair question.Does not all of 50,000 get paid. some of them get. some of them really deceived and believe US is evil.(that's one of main point of my main comment,which by bombing we give them a real reason , Obama policy was effective ,I can see in my real life , Obama was far effective than any other US president could have done)

For that 50,000 you (as west) should show the true nature of Iran's regime without giving them real reason (what Obama have exactly done in recent years). And remember this point , If someone get paid by regime , he have family and close friend.by a simple math you can estimate number of paid people.(maybe 5000-10000)which is reasonable amount.

UPDATE : We are taking this wrong way , this is not about number , this is about money & corruption , and what's going on under the hood. I can assure you majority of participant just want regime money.They don't care about Israel and US.most of them don't care about Iran either.They just want money.

But yes . We all should admit , Iran have Shia version of Al Qaida.(mostly government keeping them in silence, but they are major threat and resistance against reform)

At the end : the only solution for Iran (at least from my point of view) is the following support "civil society" and make people stronger , Iranian himself can handle these small fraction.Facilitate Iranian and world communication.People in Iran really have wish to integrate to world economy.

<comment><USER7> Your reports are very encouraging and give me some hope that this deal won't turn out as badly as the one with North Korea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sceptical Iranian here. There are groups that profit from an ongoing tension and conflict on both sides. This time around it seems they have lost the hand, but we would be a fool to think that this agreement settles things for good.

This has always been and will always be a fluid situation. I think the work has just begun now, let's hope the sane people inc charge on both sides will keep things positive. Otherwise it only takes one delayed inspection permit, or an angry military general to take things back right to the start.

<comment><USER10> I'm interested to hear what the general young Iranian sentiment is towards the Iranian government, the US government, and the agreement.

I worked in Afghanistan at a telecom provider last summer. A lot of my coworkers were young 20-somethings whose parents had fled Afghanistan when the Taliban came to power from 1996-2001. The majority of them had been raised in Iran; the minority, in Pakistan.

The ones who had been raised in Iran were happy for the most part to have been able to return to Afghanistan. They told me stories of a paradoxical society that was quite forward-thinking while at the same time, extremely authoritarian and oppressive, especially with regards to youth education and expression. I kind of started to equate Iran with Singapore in my mind.

Could you shed any light on this perspective?

<comment><USER11> majority of young people are happy! to tell you the troth sanctions were a real pain for us, imagine every time i use internet and i forget to connect VPN i get the "Unavailable in your country message" while visiting Unity or Google Code websites. but on the other hand there are some who are not that happy they think with this agreement we have lost decades of effort toward peacefull nuclear energy.

there is one thing for sure nobody in iran wants a nuclear weapon.

<comment><USER12> Speaking as somebody with no interest in the region, if I was an Iranian I'd want a nuclear weapon. Nobody invades a nuclear power. Nuclear powers get propped up instead of sabotaged.

<comment><USER13> It's too late for that now, though. The 5 nations that have them are the only five that will have them, if the 5 nations that have them have anything to say about it (and they do).

<comment><USER14> The number is closer to 9.

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

<comment><USER13> Good call, I was _completely_ wrong in what I thought the state of nuclear weapons proliferation was.

<comment><USER15> And it's generally understood that some other countries are only "non-nuclear" because the question hasn't come up yet. Does anyone doubt that Japan could have a nuke in three months or less if it really wanted to? Or Canada?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm in the middle of reading "Countdown to Zero Day", the book about Stuxnet. It contains a very good summary of how Iran started enriching Uranium, where they acquired the technology to build the centrifuges, and how most countries that signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons attempted to reason with Iran to stop enriching Uranium.

I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this topic. And of course the detailed analysis of Stuxnet is great as well.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you had told me that would be today's headline at any point over the past decade, I'm not sure I would have believed you.

If this works out, the President has another thing to add to his list of "things no President before me achieved".

<comment><USER18> Have you read the Iran deal? The Iranians were happy about it, this it likely wasn't a good deal for the rest of us. The Iranians can't be trusted. If Obama cares about Iran, he would have supported their Green Revolution; instead those protestors were executed, tortured or imprisioned. Yet, strangely, Obama supported the Egyptian coup. Honestly, Obama doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to foreign policy. He sort of waddles along weakening the U.S. position whenever possible.

<comment><USER19> _> The Iranians can't be trusted._

National stereotypes, pillars of pragmatic diplomacy ever since 2000 BC and the clear mark of logical thinkers the world over.

 _> If Obama cares about Iran, he would have supported their Green Revolution_

How do you know he didn't? Because he didn't send in bombers to "support demonstrations"?

 _> Yet, strangely, Obama supported the Egyptian coup_

... when the alternative would have been much more Iran-friendly; yeah, how strange, right? Honestly, how do you make these random mental associations?

 _> He sort of waddles along weakening the U.S. position whenever possible._

A comprehensive Iran-US 'peace deal' (or even a strategic partnership going forward) would immensely strengthen US standing around the world, dramatically reducing tensions in the Middle East and providing a balance to the uncritical reliance on Saudi Arabia and Turkey that so much pain has brought since the '90s (from Al Qaeda to IS). So uhm, there is that.

But yeah, I agree that it weakens fearmongers' positions, both in US, Israel and Iran.

<comment><USER20> >> The Iranians can't be trusted.

>National stereotypes, pillars of pragmatic diplomacy ever since 2000 BC and the clear mark of logical thinkers the world over.

The OP clearly means the theocratic regime, not the Iranian people themselves.

<comment><USER19> Large parts of that theocratic regime are elected.

<comment><USER21> ... after controlling who can run for office.

If you let me select both the Republican and Democratic candidates, I'll happily let the people vote however they want.

<comment><USER19> That's exactly how large donors think in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands Not sure how this benefits the US at all. Iran reaps billions in frozen assets and the end to their oil embargo. Plus, the US caved on giving the Iranians a 14 day windows to prep for UN inspections which is more than enough time to cover up their non-compliance.

This is a huge win for the Iranians, not sure what we get out of it besides a shaky ally in the region who's never backed us up and essentially undermined everything we've attempted to do in the region.

<comment><USER22> As others have said, the US will get support in fighting ISIS. Also this will go a long way in building up relations with Iran in the hopes of one day counting them as a reliable ally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am i the only one amazed at the fact that we actually had to wait for iranians to accept to stop going toward nuclear weapons ?

I mean, why did EU and US insist so much on wanting a deal ? It seemed to be that one side has all the leverage in the negociation and the other has none. We could have simply waited for the iranian regime to get so weakened that they'd simply surrender and accept every measure.

So I don't understand what's the counterpart that the US and EU wanted from Iran, that could get Iran get leverage in the negociations. Anyone ?

<comment><AUTHOR> A prolonged weakened economy doesn't necessarily prevent a country from developing a nuclear weapons program. Take a look at North Korea.

<comment><USER4> North korea is what scares me, because the path seems exactly similar to iran's one. Half-baked embargo , fear of sending soldier or bombing nuclear infrstructures, followed by half-backed agreements, leading to a country lead by insane dictator with nuclear bombs.

Only north korea had china to protect it, whereas iran has (to my knowledge) nobody wanting to risk anything for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Let's hope this works out better than the North Korean nuclear deal.

<comment><USER2> Fortunately, I think Iran is the more tractable of the two nations, at least until the North Korean regime collapses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Some possible reasons to be sceptical:

[http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/opinion/the-iran- deals-...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/opinion/the-iran-deals-fatal- flaw.html?_r=1)

<comment><USER24> There's a back-and-forth on that opinion piece, here [1] and here [2].

[1] [http://iranmatters.belfercenter.org/blog/iran-op-eds- fatal-f...](http://iranmatters.belfercenter.org/blog/iran-op-eds-fatal-flaw)

[2] [http://iranmatters.belfercenter.org/blog/misleading-spin- cen...](http://iranmatters.belfercenter.org/blog/misleading-spin-centrifuges)

<comment><USER24> On the key point of low enriched Uranium, here's the text from the agreement:

> During the 15 year period, and as Iran gradually moves to meet international > qualification standards for nuclear fuel produced in Iran, it will keep its > uranium stockpile under 300 kg of up to 3.67% enriched uranium hexafluoride > (UF6) or the equivalent in other chemical forms. The excess quantities are > to be sold based on international prices and delivered to the international > buyer in return for natural uranium delivered to Iran, or are to be down- > blended to natural uranium level. Enriched uranium in fabricated fuel > assemblies from Russia or other sources for use in Iran's nuclear reactors > will not be counted against the above stated 300 kg UF6 stockpile, if the > criteria set out in Annex I are met with regard to other sources. The Joint > Commission will support assistance to Iran, including through IAEA technical > cooperation as appropriate, in meeting international qualification standards > for nuclear fuel produced in Iran. All remaining uranium oxide enriched to > between 5% and 20% will be fabricated into fuel for the Tehran Research > Reactor (TRR). Any additional fuel needed for the TRR will be made available > to Iran at international market prices.

<comment><USER24> That would seem to add 2 months to the breakout time. i.e. It would be 5 to 6 months based on Kuperman's reckoning (as opposed to Obama's claimed 12 months). Whether they can divert or reconstitute some of the 20% material during or after fuel conversion is unclear. Some scenarios are discussed here:

[http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/LEU_20_percent_upd...](http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/LEU_20_percent_update_May_4_2015_Final.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Iran agreed to provide "Managed access". Iraq inspections all over again.

<comment><USER26> If there's one thing we learned from the invasion of Iraq, it's that access for inspections doesn't matter. Iraq complied, the UN reports all indicated that there were no WMDs, the people who wanted to invade just made up some nonsense bullshit anyway.

Hans Blix, Jan 2003: "...access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect... cooperated rather well".

Iran just watched a neighbour get invaded and seriously screwed over for basically no reason. Access for inspections is irrelevant.

<comment><USER25> Access most certainly matters, we wouldn't have made that mistake with Iraq had we had reliable access.

If you recall, one of the "smoking guns" that the administration used to move into Iraq were intercepted phone conversations between Iraqi Republican Guard members.

Those conversations mentioned "hiding" something before the inspectors got to a site. Since Iraq (like Iran) was allowed a few days before any visit, it was believed at the time that they were shifting materials whenever the inspectors came. I recall even liberal media organizations poking fun at the inspectors -- about how they were playing a game of chase with the Iraqis.

Remember this graphic, much shown in the media? [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Powell_U...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Powell_UN_Iraq_presentation%2C_alleged_Mobile_Production_Facilities.jpg)

Had no such rule been in place, they could have moved that day to inspect the site, and would have realized there was nothing to be found.

Hans Blix also said, in December 2012, (from wikipedia:) that the Iraqi weapons declaration filed on December 7 "is essentially a reorganized version" of information Iraq provided UNSCOM in 1997, and that it "is not enough to create confidence" that Iraq has abandoned its WMD efforts. So the US was not alone in that position.

and

Hans Blix states that Iraq still has not made a "fundamental decision" to disarm, despite recent signs of increased cooperation. Specifically, Iraq has refused to destroy its al-Samoud 2 long range missiles. (These are not a WMD, and Iraq is permitted "battlefield" missiles. However, Iraq's missiles were limited by UN instruction to a diameter of 600mm, and the Al-Samoud II has a diameter of 760mm). These missiles are deployed and mobile. Also, an R-400 aerial bomb was found that could possibly contain biological agents. Given this find, the UN Inspectors have requested access to the Al-Aziziyah weapons range to verify that all 155 R-400 bombs can be accounted for and proven destroyed. Blix also expresses skepticism over Iraq's claims to have destroyed its stockpiles of anthrax and VX nerve agent in Time magazine. Blix said he found it "a bit odd" that Iraq, with "one of the best-organized regimes in the Arab world," would claim to have no records of the destruction of these illegal substances. "I don't see that they have acquired any credibility," Blix said

<comment><USER27> Not forgetting the US uncessingly trying to undermine the weapon inspections to their own end, according to Blix [1]

Before Blix was sent in, again the cover of "International" weapons inspection (note, not US inspections) were subverted by the US spying and constant attempts to discredit the results if they were wrong (wrong as in not the US version of events) [2]

[1] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2966639.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2966639.stm) [2] [http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/07/world/us-spied-on-iraq- und...](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/07/world/us-spied-on-iraq-under-un- cover-officials-now-say.html)

<comment><USER25> [1] Blix didn't say the US "uncessingly" tried to undermine the inspectors. He said that he believed there had been a single leak from someone in the US Government about Blix's failure to report two weapons, and was unable to say who did it -- "Also disturbing, he said, was the question of who was responsible for the falsification."

[2] Spy agencies spy. That is to be expected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm pleased to hear this news and I think it's a good thing. However I do think that if Iran and the USA are re-establishing relations then the USA should apologize for killing 290 civilians by shooting down a passenger jet. I don't think I can really think highly of a country that could do such a thing without apologizing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655)

</comment><comment><USER29> Hooray!

</comment><comment><USER27> >(besides Israel, obviously) Out of interest, why obviously? The unfaltering support given to Israel seems strange (to most outside of the US who I have spoken to).

Israel has it's religious fundamentalists (just like the rest of the region).

Is militarily aggressive, disregards civilian life, commits war crimes, disregards international law and opinion (with impunity due to the US and their veto - and forcing other countries to at least abstain from votes), has actual developed the nuclear bomb, is destabilising to the region, discusses attacking their neighbours (sorry not attacking - pre-emptive...

Yet this is never questioned, nor discussed from what I can tell. They are "the good guys" so the rules are different for them.

<comment><USER30> > The unfaltering support given to Israel seems strange

There's nothing strange about it. Yes, it is militarily aggressive and has to be considering the neighborhood.

The support given is purely selfish as Israel is the only nation in the region which mirrors the values the US wishes to promote in the region, provides military support when needed, and a plethora of other various benefits which none of the other players in the region are able to provide.

As far as the "strangeness" is concerned, with rampant antisemitism in Europe, I supposed it would look strange when that hobby isn't shared elsewhere?

<comment><USER31> > with rampant antisemitism in Europe

Because Israel isn't escalating this at all with the palestine conflict...

Netanyahu is a warmongerer that keeps the conflict alive, because it serves his interests, in increasing antisemitism, resulting in jews feeling increasingly threatened, and starts to consider relocation to Israel, increasing support for Netanyahu.

<comment><USER32> To be fair, this is not all the Israel government's fault.

USA defense contractors make a ton of money, that originates with the U.S. tax payer, by selling weapon systems to Israel. Powerful economic interests in the USA want the unfortunate situation in that area to continue. There is a lot of money to be made in war, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> but why is oil going up? I thought that this news would push down the prices further due to additional Iran oil adding million barrells a day.

</comment><comment><USER34> In This Thread: Opinions differing from the majority groupthink downmodded or flagged. HN is now officially worse than Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER35> I thought I was on "Hacker News", why is this post on the front page?

<comment><USER36> This is rehashed often. It's "news that hackers would find interesting" not "news about computers".

If an article does not gratify your intellectual curiosity, I suggest just ignoring it.

<comment><USER35> Lol, that looks like an automated response from a bot.

Moderation could add value to the community by removing these posts.</comment></comment></comment>


A freelance lifestyle in a corporate workplace - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN2832352020080529 <comment><USER2> I'd love to see the adoption of the ROWE (results oriented work environment) model on a large scale.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, in my experience, ROWE remains an exception to the rule. This is exactly what drove me to freelancing.

Although this is not true for everyone (including people I care about), traditional "ass-in-your-char" office environments literally drove me insane.</comment></comment>


Twitter suspends alt-right figureheads - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37997864 <comment><USER2> I can only see this as furthering the echo chamber that caused many to be so blindsided by Trumps victory.

I would like to see specifically why these people were suspended. If they're engaged in harassment obviously the suspension should hold up. If it really is just mass reporting for political speech (I've had friends msging 'targets' for reporting purely for them admitting to voting for Trump), I can only see it as a bad trend.

These people don't go away just because you ban them from your favourite sites. They just disappear from your own view, and go away to a more insular community, more of an echo chamber, where they become more radical.

<comment><USER3> But these alt-right figureheads aren't your average trump voters. They actually are racist and nasty people and we shouldn't group them together with other conservative/right/trump voters.

<comment><USER4> > They actually are racist and nasty people and we shouldn't group them > together with other conservative/right/trump voters.

This sounds like stereotyping to me.

<comment><USER5> alt-right by definition is racist and sexist. that is the definition of the alt-right platform.

<comment><USER6> Dozens of people in my close social circles identify as "alt-right", and none of them are remotely sexist or racist.

<comment><USER7> Do they understand what is happening to the label that they identify with? Do they seek to make a clear statement about what they believe the alt right stands for?

If they let some definition take hold that includes racism, then in the future when they object to saying that the alt right is racist, they aren't standing up for what they believe in anymore, they are providing cover for the racists that stole the label from them.

<comment><USER6> Racists are not the people who are defining the term - it's the left and the media.

<comment><USER7> Who changes the meaning is totally irrelevant to it becoming cover. It's not fair to the people that aren't racist, but it's irrelevant to whether they end up providing cover for racists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Although Twitter obviously has the right to do this, legally, I don't think it is good.

Twitter is esentially a public infrastructure for real-time communication. We have public officials from countries all over the world that use Twitter to communicate to their citizens.

For that (and similar) reasons, I would strongly prefer if Twitter didn't go around policing what types of political opions are okay and aren't. Even if you really hate the people that Twitter bans, imagine if things were the other way around, and they started banning very liberal users.

<comment><USER9> The very liberal users aren't inciting hate speech, racist, misogynistic, and often times anti semitic attacks on other users en masse

<comment><USER10> Just to give an example of how this would sound if it were reversed:

Liberals are inciting violence using paid operatives(probably including the recent riots), have shot Trump supporters, use powerful institutions(Twitter, universities, etc.) to shut down speech they disagree with, and their most recent presidential candidate has historically been opposed to gay marriage and took foreign money from a country that executes gays. Liberals are also very racist, using zoning laws to exclude minorities from their gated communities in California.

Rattling off a bunch of hate every time you think of the other side is how you get angry people.

<comment><USER9> These are all true, and I'm not a liberal so I'm cool with this. There are things I don't like, such as your complaint about Twitter overstepping it's bounds. Hell, I'll even do you one better. Liberals love pipelining more people to prison, they love unnecessary voter registration beuracracy, and they love supporting institutions that keep the poor poorer and the rich richer. Racism is a bipartisan issue it's just that the alt right has been more vocal about their racism online recently while the left tends to hide it away while still quietly supporting it. Check out a trend dubbed "white feminism," it talks all about this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 118 points in 1 hour, page 3 of HN? This story is writing itself.

The alt-right is not a small number of people. 50 million went to the polls and voted for Trump. And with things like this, you're giving them ammunition. You just told 50 million people that their views are not accepted in society. You just told the electoral majority that they are not allowed in one of the most common forums for political discourse.

It's not a good thing. The nation is deeply divided, and the actions of the liberals are giving the alt-right more strength. Tactics like this only work if you apply them to small groups, and even then it only works if the vast majority are not sympathetic to the cause.

That's not the situation in America. You are covering your ears and telling the bully he doesn't matter, and that he's not allowed to play with you. Except you're telling that to half the classroom, not just one bully. And you've got control of the soccer field, and most of the balls. You've become the bully. And you've given the rest of the class a lot of ammunition to dislike you.

<comment><USER12> The story here is simply that politics don't belong on Hacker News, and users (rightly) flag stories like this.

<comment><USER13> IMO the problem seems to be this stories shoot up until people who are happy with the outcome of the election cements the top spots of the threads again (they do, on every story, seems there is a majority of people here who are happy with or at least respect the election.) Then flagging starts. At least this is what it looks like to me.

IMO some debate is useful and it could also be good because we could flag out a few more people who like to dismiss others as "dumb racists".

<comment><USER12> You honestly think the majority of HN participants are _happy_ with the outcome of the election?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why does the alt-right have issues with them being banned from systems, but don't see issues with themselves banning others from systems.

For example, Twitter bans them from using Twitter, but the /r/The_Donald echo chamber bans anyone with a counter view to their own.

If you want freedom to speak on certain platforms, you need to provide the same rights to everyone.

<comment><USER15> I'm very interested in this topic. Do you have concrete evidence of contrary voices being silenced by administration in /r/The_Donald?

It may bear some consideration that this particular sub-reddit is itself silenced by having its stories removed from the front page by algorithm, which to me represents as great a sin or greater.

<comment><USER16> /r/The_Donald has in its sidebar, literally, that people that do not wholly support Trump are not welcome.

That being said, I'm okay with that. It's not a place for reasonable discussion, it's just shitpostland.

However. Twitter prides itself on being a serious social network with considerations for free speech and the "new media"... being banned from something like that just because of what you believe is silly.

<comment><USER17> They're not being banned for their opinions, they're being banned for their actions on Twitter.

<comment><USER16> Can you point to some of those actions? I'm having trouble finding any evidence that shows they should be banned.

Now, I think their viewpoints are disgusting too. But their views don't affect people, their actions do.

<comment><USER18> Have you suddenly lost your ability to create a relevant Google/DDG query?

I can't, for the life of me, understand how you can't find evidence (example of Alt-right figurehead Milo Yiannopoulos):

[http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/leslie-jones-twitter- tro...](http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/leslie-jones-twitter-troll- regrets-attacking-ghostbusters-actress/story?id=41808886)

Now, whether he _should_ be banned for what he did is up for contention. But he knows what he did, and he knows how he attacked her.

<comment><USER16> Yiannopoulos was banned months ago. I'm talking about the current article and the views and actions of those who were freshly banned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure I agree with this. I think I'd rather have people with extreme opinions talking in the public where they are subject to counter arguments than somewhere less public where their message goes unchallenged.

<comment><USER20> The next leader of the most powerful nation on earth already elected on a campaign that openly advocated torture and war crimes and made all sorts of racially charged insinuations. The USA seems set to embark on a terrifying policy of mass deportations in a few months.

A white supremacist is set to be installed as White House Chief of Staff, and his previous incarnation was as owner of news outlet talking in the public arena, presumably having his message challenged in exactly the manner you describe.

I think that your way of doing things has already run its course.

<comment><USER19> There was more to the Trump campaign than just misinformation on social media. Without wanting to rehash old discussions I think it's fair to say that most of the people who voted for Trump acknowledged his flaws but ultimately found Hillary Clinton less palatable.

Personally I don't think there was a single good candidate on the ballot.

<comment><USER21> Making Hillary unpalatable was part of the alt-right campaign to elect Trump. #SickHillary and other ways of killing her trustworthiness were campaigns imagined and put into effect by Trump sympathizers.

<comment><USER19> Yes, smear campaigns happen on both sides. I'm talking beyond that though. E.g. Some saw Clintons "career politics" as her being indoctrinated into the status quo whereas Trump represented a change.

I was as unhappy about the result as the next lefty but it doesn't help the situation to assume that all Trump supporters are ignorant, nor any of the worse accusations. Those supporters will have their reasons and if you want any hope of swaying their opinions then you have to listen to their arguments - something we did a poor job of in both the UK's EU referendum and the American election. We got preachy instead, so many on the opposing side kept their opinions quiet and we ended up not only misjudging the support of those campaigns had but ultimately losing the vote as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Doesn't Twitter allow actual terrorists to post?

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/17/islamic- state-twitter-accounts-rainbow-makeover-anonymous-hackers?client=safari)

<comment><USER23> Just so long as they don't post anything supporting Trump.

<comment><USER24> Zing!

Seriously though, if we have to have these political (tech-related if you stretch) discussions on HN, these green accounts should not be allowed to participate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> In other words, Twitter gives the _Information They Don 't Want You To Know badge_ to a group that already thrives on such framing [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12961185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12961185)

</comment><comment><USER26> Unless there were specific examples of breaking Twitter's terms and conditions from each individual, this does nothing but popularises alt right. Even then, the way they did it, just plays into alt right narrative. I don't how is this benefitial

</comment><comment><USER27> Painting insults and threats and bullying as legitimate criticism is the main rhetorical fallacy of the alt-right movement. They have a guarantee of free speech in this country but they do not have a guarantee of Twitter access.

<comment><USER28> Twitter allows threats and bullying when it comes from the left. They refused to ban the freaking jihadists. They have SJWs posting #killallmen, #KillAllWhiteMen #maletears in droves. Nothing ever happens to them.

This move is simply political censorship.

<comment><USER29> For all the people downvoting, it's true:

[https://twitter.com/hashtag/killallmen](https://twitter.com/hashtag/killallmen)

About half of the tweets are serious "killallmen" comments. The other half are people complaining about it. And, complaining that twitter won't do anything, despite their terms of service saying such behavior is ban-worthy.

Or look at twitter banning Milo... because _other_ people engaged in harassment. People who had no clear tie to Milo.

At no point could Twitter point to _Milo 's_ behavior, and say "this violated our terms of service, so he's banned". They just banned him, _despite_ their terms of service.

I've mentioned this before on HN, and asked "What, exactly, did Milo _do_? Please point to something he _did_."

I received no replies, but got plenty of downvotes. Which says to me that the people involved (like the ones downvoting here) _know_ their opinions are contrary to all facts and reason.

So if you're thinking of downvoting, try instead to convince me I'm wrong. Adult discussions are much more productive than naive attempts at censorship.

<comment><USER27> You're being intellectually disingenuous to believe that #killallmen is a legitimate threat of violence towards men. Find me some examples of violent feminists lynching and murdering men on the basis of feminist dogma.

Meanwhile, those with racist, bigoted, homophobic, and anti-semitic viewpoints continue to commit actual hate crimes, murders, campaigns of intimidation, and worse.

So yeah, you're making a typical strawman argument to deflect legitimate criticism and turn the conversation away from the topic at hand. Not worth engaging you further on this point, but if you want to discuss the topic at hand, I'm all ears.

<comment><USER29> > You're being intellectually disingenuous to believe that #killallmen is a > legitimate threat of violence towards men

Many (not all) of the people who say this really do believe it.

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

[http://www.dailywire.com/news/8386/feminist-journalist- all-m...](http://www.dailywire.com/news/8386/feminist-journalist-all-men-are- rapists-and-should-amanda-prestigiacomo#)

> Find me some examples of violent feminists lynching and murdering men on the > basis of feminist dogma.

How about violence towards men, based on their dogma? See Jordan Peterson in Toronto, among many others.

> Meanwhile, those with racist, bigoted, homophobic, and anti-semitic > viewpoints continue to commit actual hate crimes, murders, campaigns of > intimidation, and worse.

Which are all bad. And should be stopped.

But you're being intellectually disingenous if you believe that fighting _all_ bigotry is bad, because some bigots are more violent than others.

> So yeah, you're making a typical strawman argument to deflect legitimate > criticism and turn the conversation away from the topic at hand.

Only if you ignore all facts and reason.

Sorry.

> Not worth engaging you further on this point, but if you want to discuss the > topic at hand, I'm all ears.

i.e. you don't want to admit to the bigotry and hostility I dislike, because you think it's not as bad as the bigotry and hostility you dislike. And, you're so full of yourself, that you're unwilling to learn from people who disagree with you. People who just might have reasons for their opinions.

In this mindset, the good people are (by definition) good, and can do no wrong. The bad people are (by definition) bad, and can do no right. You don't need to engage the bad people as people, because they're evil and despicable. You can just dismiss them out of hand.

Or, you can do what Daryl Davis did. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis)

A black man befriended KKK members, talked to them as _people_. He used friendliness, along with facts and reason, to convince them that racism was wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why does everything that Twitter does feel so ham-fisted.

</comment><comment><USER31> People love having their speech limited, I'm sure this will work out _great_ for twitter.

<comment><USER32> This isn't the limitation of free speech, this is a private company telling one of its users that they aren't welcome due to their behavior. It's like if you were at a store and started soapboxing about <insert alt right conspiracy bullshit here> loudly right in front of the register, the manager of the store is 100% allowed to ask you to leave. Freedom of speech means your speech isn't _illegal_ , not that you will suffer no consequences for it.

ETA: some people made some comments below this that made me want to clarify a few things:

1) Twitter being publicly traded does not automatically make them beholden to every person on Earth, especially in matters of free speech. They're still allowed governing their platform in whatever way they see fit.

2) a better analogy might be a comedy club on open mic nigh.t. If you get up on stage and start making racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Jokes the club owner has every right to throw you out. Yes, it's a public forum, but limiting your use of what is ultimately a private (i.e. not government owned) establishment does not constitute a violation of your rights unless it can be proven that you were denied access due to your membership in a protected class, or based on your gender, etc. Free speech doesn't protect you from (peaceful and appropriate) backlash.

<comment><USER7> The comment you replied to doesn't say _free_ speech and doesn't invoke the constitution.

They are talking about the comedy club where the owner permanently bans anyone who makes jokes on certain topics. People stop going to it.

Which I think Twitter is going to have to have some standards about what sort of behavior they allow, it's just that there is risk of going too far and making the platform boring and useless. Banning accounts used for harassment is not going too far. Banning accounts because some arbitrary number of people don't like what they say probably is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Twitter finally bans accounts partaking in persistent abuse and harassment"

This isnt a freedom of speech / diversity of thought issue, these people are abusing others. Frankly I would prefer the police got involved and hate crimes and threats were taken seriously, but while late at least twitter are doing the right thing.

</comment><comment><USER9> The comments here are extremely disheartening. It appears that the HN community values hate speech and harassment over "free speech" on a privately owned platform. I applaud Twitter for making itself a safer space for marginalized groups with this step even if it is very little, very late.

Edit: it is with heavy heart that I must say that I am EXTREMELY depressed by the amount of white racism denial I am seeing in the comments here. The hacker news community is demonstrating to me an extreme aversion to understanding or deconstructing racism in this country and is satisfied with endlessly repeating ancient defenses against racism under the package of feeling oppressed because marginalized groups of people are finally speaking out against their oppression.

</comment><comment><USER34> People with different views need to be listened to and debated with rather than silenced. this newspaper article from a BBC journalist is quite thought provoking [http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/journalists-are-helping- to...](http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/journalists-are-helping-to-create-a- dangerous-consensus-1.2868638)

</comment><comment><USER35> As much as I disagree with the views of the "alt-right" (why not call them far right by the way?), I can't help but be astounded that we've opened that can of worms? Who got to decide who should be banned? Isn't Twitter basically free speech? Why are we even drawing lines to begin with? As soon as you do that, someone else with a different world view will start banning the accounts of transgenders, community organizers, since we're now basing our judgment of Twitter accounts on subjective criteria.

People have a right to follow/unfollow accounts and we should leave it at that.

</comment><comment><USER36> Out of place but I want to hear American HN regulars opinon;

Is this provacation or utter lack of self awareness as it i will only play into Trumps hand?

<comment><USER37> Part of Trump's argument has been "the system is rigged" so this support it, especially once you consider that Twitter did _not_ ban people calling for protests during the Arab Spring. In fact, the State Department - run by Hillary Clinton at the time - specifically asked for Twitter to keep accounts open and information flowing.

This is ideal for Trump and crew.

In the US, the Net Neutrality position describes internet access as a utility, not a luxury. Further the UN declares it a Human Right. If either/both of those positions hold, then the gatekeepers - Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc - suppressing _any_ view or blocking access to any group could be a violation of human rights.

I think that will have to be settled in court, but it will get messy for those companies.

<comment><USER38> But Arab Spring tweets weren't characterized by racially-charged harassment of other users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> the-dude Next time, MSM can honestly claim they didn't see it coming.

</comment><comment><USER39> It's sad how what's supposed to be an open and democratic platform, isn't.

<comment><USER40> Letting people silence others isn't democratic, it's antidemocratic. You can spout whatever garbage you want but don't try to prevent others from spouting theirs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> little meta - HN is not the best place to have these discussions. the way voting works here, everything is too conformist, too sugarcoated, and most importantly, downvotes are regularly handed out (at least in such emotional discussions as political discussions are wont to be) according to the political views of the high-karma elites, and more particularly according to their lack of moral self-control (i.e. many will not "abuse" downvotes like that, but that then just gives more power to those doing it).

is it OK to assume that, among the people with high enough karma to cast downvotes, the distribution of political views equals that of the general commenting population? or, better question - does that even matter? i don't know, is it even possible to achieve some kind of crowd-sourced moderation without exposing the system to the risk of gangs of idealists attacking dissenters with downvotes?

</comment><comment><USER42> I think the musician Jarvis Cocker explained this best in his song, "Running the World." Particularly the lines, "In theory, I respect your right to exist, I will kill you if you move in next to me."

People love to free speech, except when it involves supporting all the things they don't like. For the record, I don't love any extremes and certainly not the alt-right, but censorship is worse. It is never justified, under any circumstances.

If you don't like something, don't listen. People are and can be protected plenty of other ways, for example by laws against murder. The law anywhere isn't perfect, but censorship is even less so.

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

</comment><comment><USER43> Actually this matches NPI's policy too, guess they can't complain:

>"NPI will, however, exclude those who show reckless disregard with the media, or those who've made morally indefensible public statements. Such people make our movement look bad. We choose not to grant them a platform. It's as simple as that."

Source: [http://www.npiamerica.org/the-national-policy- institute/cate...](http://www.npiamerica.org/the-national-policy- institute/category/the-rainbow-coalition)

</comment><comment><USER44> This will end badly.

<comment><USER45> For whom? I think this is going to go very well for gab.ai. Obviously, not as well for Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> To all those concerned, they were not suspended for being racist. They were suspended for trying to silence people they disagreed with via targeted harassment. If you do that, you might get banned, regardless of your political alignment. There are PLENTY of white supremacists who are doing just fine on twitter. According to twitter you are free to spread your shitty ideology as long as you don't actively prevent people from spreading theirs.

</comment><comment><USER46> It seems Twitter just follow some political will from left/liberal camp. "Freedom of speech" and "democracy" we all know and love.

</comment><comment><USER47> As I think this is important considering all the discussion so far I feel justified in guiding people to the Ask HN [0] I have just posted. Welcome all feedback

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12967873](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12967873)

</comment><comment><USER48> Not only do I not see a problem with this, but I don't think Twitter went anywhere near far enough. They should have suspended Trump's account well over a year ago.

</comment><comment><USER49> Good.

</comment><comment><USER50> How has the media STILL not realized that the "alt-right" is primarily composed of self-proclaimed "shit posters" and forum trolls who enjoy posting provocative things to get a rise out of the over-sensitive PC police and social justice warriors? They refer to this election as The Great Meme War, and their "leader" (aside from Trump himself) is a poorly drawn cartoon frog.

Those weren't red flags to whatever gullible stooge wrote this story? This is "The Hacker Known as 4Chan" all over again: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhn_tdF3eo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhn_tdF3eo)

</comment><comment><USER51> What about the tens of thousands of accounts belonging to islamists cheering about killing non-muslims and preaching hate all day?

</comment><comment><USER52> Great job, Twitter! Now you can go back to promoting the jihadi profiles at the fullest.

</comment><comment><USER53> Twitter is a (going bankrupt) common carrier. Lawsuits?

<comment><USER54> I've heard of ISPs considered common carriers. Is there precedence for sites to be as well?

<comment><USER53> Not to my knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm going to sell my Twitter stock. They are making one mistake after the other. Do they understand how free speech works? Can they enable that on Twitter?

<comment> throwaway-hn123 > I'm going to sell my Twitter stock

You've left that a bit late, haven't you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> How about suspending people who openly advocate genocide? #killallmen

<comment><USER57> As an able bodied straight male working in tech, I don't understand how any man can be offended by the killallmen hashtag. I don't feel threatened. They can't even hurt my feelings. Offended men must be very soft and have small dongles.

<comment><USER29> Here's a simple test. Take someone's rhetoric, like "killallmen". And replace the target with "Jews". If the updated statement feels racist and evil, then the original is also racist and evil.

There's an entire subreddit devoted to this idea: [https://www.reddit.com/r/menkampf/](https://www.reddit.com/r/menkampf/)

It's eye-opening just how racist many "mainstream" comments are.

<comment><USER58> But the difference is the context of history, right? While I definitely don't advocate for any "killallmen" stuff, I can recognize the difference between Jews, who were the actual target of a real genocide in which millions died and whose people are located in a country in a region embroiled in actual physical wars, vs men who are the target of.... internet campaigns? A key aspect is how these sentiments manifest (or have manifested) in a tangible sense.

<comment><USER29> I don't want to go down the path of who was oppressed, or how, or why.

I will say that advocating for genocide is wrong.

This shouldn't be rocket science. Advocating for the death or oppression of any group "just 'cause" is wrong. People shouldn't do it. Their behavior shouldn't be condoned, or excused as "they don't really mean it", or "they're not _really_ going to do it", or "other people have it worse".

Personally, I've never advocated for genocide, and never defended anyone who advocates for genocide. The idea horrifies me.

<comment><USER58> Sure, but can you at least recognize that conflating what's happening here to men (an internet campaign that has no signs of manifesting in the real world in any significant way) vs. what Jews have experienced is not a useful thing to do? It is a huge false equivalence. You can believe that both are bad, while also saying that one of the two is much, much worse to the point that the comparison is unjust.

<comment><USER29> > an internet campaign that has no signs of manifesting in the real world in > any significant way

Then you're not paying attention. See my other links.

> You can believe that both are bad, while also saying that one of the two is > much, much worse to the point that the comparison is unjust.

Your argument comes across that advocating genocide isn't really _that_ bad, because they don't really _intend_ to do it, and anyways, the Holocaust was worse.

I find that entirely unconvincing. Morally bankrupt may be a better description.

<comment><USER58> Your idea that men and Jews are equivalently oppressed, to the point where you seem to believe it is invalid to point out that these situations are different and require different responses, is psychotic and incredibly toxic, and I will not humor it. The evidence you provide is an overtly anti-Semitic subreddit that makes its "point" by minimizing the Holocaust via a word game, and yet you question _my_ morals. I see a world where the "oppression" of men takes the form of a handful of anecdotes of people saying mean things (that I concede they should not say), compared the oppression of Jews that takes the form of systemic violence ([https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2012/topic- pages/victims/vict...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2012/topic- pages/victims/victims_final) "62.4 percent [of anti-religious hate crime victims] were victims of an offender's anti-Jewish bias."). The willful non- recognition that these are different types of issues that require different responses is naked bigotry.

<comment><USER29> > Your idea that men and Jews are equivalently oppressed

Which is not, in fact, what I said. Or what I believe. But why let facts interfere with a good flamewar?

> you seem to believe it is invalid to point out that these situations are > different and require different responses

You're missing my point. Which is explained in simple English FFS.

> The evidence you provide is an overtly anti-Semitic subreddit

Uh... no. You don't seem to be able to understand rhetoric or analogy.

No one in that subreddit advocates anti-semitism. Instead, they re-write hateful articles to show that they have the same tone and style as anti- semitic articles. And that both are wrong.

Your interpretation of these analogies is that the people are actually advocating the opinions they're mocking.

Which (again) entirely misses the point. Depressingly so.

> I see a world where the "oppression" of men takes the form of a handful of > anecdotes of people saying mean things

Like advocating for the genocide of men? Which isn't entirely saying "mean things".

> The willful non-recognition that these are different types of issues that > require different responses is naked bigotry.

I think your hostility comes from a point of view which prevents you from understanding what I've written.

I've tried to make it as clear as I can. Genocide is bad. Advocating for genocide is bad.

Anyone should be able to understand that.

Your point is that advocating for the genocide of _some people_ isn't really that bad... because jewish people had it worse.

If you can't understand the immorality of such a statement, I have little more to say. If the only way you can defend such actions is to label me an anti- semite, well, that's your delusion. You're welcome to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> How will this help Twitter turn a profit?

<comment><USER60> It depends. There are two angles to this that I can see:

A) Twitter has a bad reputation for bullying and harassment; almost _any_ financial analysis I read about Twitter has this as a strong negative. If Twitter is cracking down on this finally, this would help this reputation and potentially it's profit.

(Note that I'm assuming here that Twitter actually is suspending these accounts not because they are alt-right, but because they are bullying or trolling. I know the alt-right has a bad _reputation_ in some sources for engaging in trolling behavior; I do not know whether this applies to the individual accounts in question.)

B) Being a haven for extremely divisive speech tends not to be the type of place that attracts advertising from companies with large amounts of capital; companies like these (larger ones) tend to default to inclusive for obvious reasons (it's better to have a potential customer base of everyone).

I don't like the idea of banning alt-right accounts for the sake of them being alt-right, but I _can_ easily see justifying bans if either a small population harasses a larger portion of the users, or if significant advertising dollars are at sake. Twitter is a business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Yet another reason why Twitter will ultimately fail. Censorship of whoever you think are nefarious characters when purported "victims" can easily just block people is just plain silly. We already know there are block list services that will autoblock. So if anyone is getting trouble from troll / enemies or want to be their own echo chamber, it's easy to do all this stuff. Bye Twitter, hello Minds & Gab.

</comment><comment><USER62> Media is trying to control the narrative of the Trump victory... Filter- Bubble, Alt-Right, Fake-News Anything but the truth

</comment><comment><USER63> There's actually a decent canary to determine whether this is the opening salvo of a purge.

If Twitter bans @ScottAdamsSays - whom some have called a Trump apologist but who doesn't seem overtly racist - then we'll know the purge is on.

</comment><comment><USER64> Good.

Twitter has a legal and ethical responsibility to not allow their platform to promote vile racism, sexism, Islamophobia, etc. No one owes anyone a platform to spew their hatred.

If the bigots don't like it no one is stopping them from getting their own websites.

</comment><comment><USER65> >A cartoon of Pepe the frog is a commonly used symbol of the alt right

So basically a witch hunt where they're finding "problematic" people and removing their opinions. On the first screenshot two of the "leaders" of the alt right have MAGA hats on, twitter could have just came out openly and said it didn't want Trump supporters on their platform.

</comment><comment><USER63> Has the other shoe dropped yet? Having gone after the figureheads, who's next? Their followers? Smells like the beginnings of a witch hunt.</comment>


Can a single car break a traffic jam? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160428-how-ai-will-solve-traffic-part-one <comment><USER2> I often try the technique of leaving lots of space and going at a slower, steady pace. One problem is that everyone re-routes around you, and you induce road rage and traffic weaving. The other problem is that unless it's a straight stretch of road, you have no idea what speed is slow enough.

<comment><USER3> Truckers (professional drivers) do this all the time.

If ever there is a traffic jam on the highway, you will see the big rigs consistently leaving hundreds of feet of space in front of them.

They also seem to concentrate in the center lanes of the highway for reasons I haven't figured out yet.

<comment><USER4> Semi trucks aren't trying to calm traffic, they are maintaining a consistent speed (or rather engine RPM) and gear for fuel efficiency. Drivers are paid per mile and the further they can go on a single fill-up is more money in their pocket.

Edit to add: It is a computer telling them how fast to go, usually something similar to [http://www.scangauge.com/](http://www.scangauge.com/)

<comment><USER5> >Drivers are paid per mile

That doesn't seem to be the majority here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This sort of traffic jam dissipation is only applicable to phantom traffic jams. Here in Los Angeles, traffic jams are caused by too many cars being on the road.

At some point, every available square foot of roadway is filled with a car. AI can help limit the amount of extra space taken up by air, but that will only moderately increase the number of cars that it will take before traffic hits. That number of cars will be reached, easily.

<comment><USER7> AI will eliminate truck night stops, allowing them to be driven 24/7\. Hopefully more trucks will be moving at night. That should reduce the jams.

<comment><USER8> Increasing the efficiency of a process also tends to paradoxically increase its utilization (Jevon's Paradox). So it's entirely possible that automated trucking will actually increase total traffic volume.

Still though, even a few vehicles "eating traffic waves" can break up a traffic jam. I've heard the number put at 3-5% of traffic being self-driving would prevent phantom traffic jams.

So overall I would say that self-driving cars could help reduce phantom traffic jams, but they may actually increase _real_ traffic jams caused by overcapacity.

<comment><USER9> Tariffs. If people want access to a congested zone, charge them for it. Dynamically adjust the tariff based on the level of congestion.

Of course people hate this and wail that it isn't fair, but it is among the more fair solutions to the immediate problem and inflicting traffic jams is probably not a good way to address economic inequality.

<comment><USER10> Agree. Tolls (assuming they means the same thing as tariffs) can also create the critical mass necessary for commuter bus lines to work, thereby allowing people to spend only a little more than they do now on commuting but get there faster since the roads are cleared. (The per person effective toll would be lower on a bus, even if they are charged by size.)

But they would have to be much higher than in most proposals, and they should be much lower or non-existence during hours when they're not choked despite the zero price.

<comment><USER11> So the poor person who needs to get to the doctor should take the slow lane, and the rich person who wants to get to the next bar faster should take the fast lane? Public utilities INTENTIONALLY are not and should not be run according to the principles of profit maximization.

<comment><USER10> The poor person should take the bus, which could actually be a fast option if the streets weren't choked at critical times. That's what a sane utility looks like. (If they're not choked, no congestion charge.)

I'm not a big fan of the mentality that the transportation system should suck just so we can avoid the rich have better options than the poor. Taken seriously, that would mean a ban on air travel because the poor can't have as much.

If you meant emergency vehicles, those always have priority :-p

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Over here, I noticed it is much more pleasant to be stuck in rush hour traffic than off peak. At peak hour, people know the game and know they won't get anywhere faster by cutting and trying to fight for every inch. They tend to stay in their lane, merge smoothly and all lanes go the same speed.

But as soon as the traffic lightens a bit, idiots just come back to break the peace. I include myself in those.

</comment><comment><USER13> The game Error Prone is cute, but it mostly shows that it's very difficult to keep going a constant speed when your only controls are a binary "Full Throttle" and "Idle".

<comment><USER14> Which is exactly how some people drive - an ex- used to make me car sick with the way she drove - rather than maintaing a constant speed, she'd speed up 'till she got too close to the car in front of her (dangerously close), then let off on the gas (or even tap the brakes) to slow down.

Annoying and led to no end of arguments "Why are you always criticizing my driving!?".

<comment><USER15> With that style of driving, the minimum speed is also far more likely to drop to 0. And when one person is stopped, everyone behind them is stopped. Even for people who don't normally drive that way, add in a cell phone and that's exactly what starts to happen because they don't have enough remaining attention to avoid being "surprised" by a stopped car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The trick is to leave enough room in front of you so you don't have to jam the brakes, but not enough room that some fucker will pull in front of you.

I also try to jump into the left lane at an intersection stop, if there's no left turner, to let people turn right

<comment><USER17> > not enough room that some fucker will pull in front of you.

why does it matter, most of the time?

<comment><USER18> Because then you have to slow down to open a new gap.

And then once you do some other genius pulls into the space.

Repeat for entirety of journey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> William J Beaty's video on Traffic Waves (linked in the article) is an enjoyable summary of some of these ideas:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFqfTCL2fs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFqfTCL2fs)

</comment><comment><USER20> When driving I've also noticed another phenomenon. When reaching the crest of a hill there's an optical illusion that cars are bunched together. From this viewpoint the driver can see more of the road and vehicles ahead. My theory is that this causes a momentary shock or panic, and it often causes drivers to slam on the brakes, causing ripples of braking behind them.

</comment><comment><USER21> A long long time ago, I stumbled onto the personal website of a guy who was really into this. He had little simulations of different types of traffic patterns, and how a single car could break it and return it to normal. It was really interesting, but I don't have the slightest idea on how to find that website again if it even still exists.

EDIT: Found in the comments, this may have been it. Honestly don't remember: [http://trafficwaves.org/](http://trafficwaves.org/)

<comment><USER22> This was one of the first sites I remember finding, in the late 90s. Back then it was hosted on the personal website provided by the author's dialup ISP, eskimo.com, as I recall.

Edit: I just noticed it still is hosted by eskimo.com, it just has its own domain now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every time people try to say we can eliminate traffic if we just leave space in between cars, I think of this great article: [http://jliszka.github.io/2013/10/01/how-traffic-actually- wor...](http://jliszka.github.io/2013/10/01/how-traffic-actually-works.html)

TL;DR there is an effective maximum number of cars that can pass through a given point of roadway (about 1 car per 2 seconds per lane). No amount of space-leaving is going to chance that.

<comment><USER23> I think you need to read the update #2 in the page you linked, of course you can't create capacity out of nowhere, but if you are in a "phantom jam" situation it does help to "smooth things out" as the page clarifies (which I think is what this article is about)

<comment><USER6> I guess I am just not used to that sort of traffic jam where I am. Here, it is always just 'way too many fucking cars on the road'

<comment><USER24> In that traffic jam, is 1 car passing that point every 2s? No? Then I guess your road is not operating at peak capacity.

<comment><USER6> That is the maximum number of cars that can pass a given point in 2 seconds; it does not mean that a road operating at peak capacity can reach that number.

You also have to take into account cars merging onto the road you are on. Imagine a road acting at peak efficiency, with a car passing every 2 seconds. Now merge in more cars. They are going to push back every car behind by that same 2 seconds.

You can read the section on 'merging' in the link above to read more details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I want to propose a second more radical suggestion.

I think pacer cars might work very well for phantom traffic jams, but I very much disagree about /how/ they should be used. Instead of encouraging an over- capacity jam, I believe that the pacer cars should expressly communicate to other traffic something along the lines of.

"Temporary" / "Speed Limit" / "Follow at XX"

On a rear message board.

The pacer car would then draw out the stuck traffic in to the space /ahead/ of the jam and encourage the compression wave to expand to the front instead.

</comment><comment><USER26> Somewhat related to this traffic hobbyist, written on 1998-- [http://trafficwaves.org/](http://trafficwaves.org/)

<comment><USER27> Somewhat related? It's linked in the second part of the article :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Traffic jams are often causes in the way the article suggests, and if you drive at the average speed, instead of the maximum legal or safe speed whenever you can, there's a good change the jam will have dissipated just before you reach it, and you'll get where you want to go just as fast. This means that the cars behind you (provided it stays behind you) also don't have to stop. Their drivers should thank you for saving their fuel rather than curse you for driving too slow.

To minimize fuel consumption, it's best to drive in the highest gear, at the lowest speed for that gear. Failing that, to drive at a constant speed in the highest gear for that speed. If you do have to slow down, ease off the accelerator and change down gears, rather than use the brake. This means thinking ahead. You can do this when approaching a red traffic light, so that it will be green by the time you reach it.

There are a few other tricks to save fuel, such as driving at the minimum _safe_ distance behind a big rig, and using gravity on hills to slow down or speed up.

This is sometimes called hypermiling: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy- efficient_driving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-efficient_driving)

</comment><comment><USER29> This game is easy to beat. Wreck most cars except a few, get a single car in the inner circle by slightly bumping it and press and hold the corresponding key.

62.8 kilometers covered.

</comment><comment><USER30> I've always wanted to see what would happen if the government employed workers (maybe traffic cops) to take up each lane on the motorway, and form a line that you can't get passed, and drive at a speed just right to unclog traffic jams during peak hours.

I wonder how much more throughput and time saved we could get just by having lines of breakers every 50km or so on a highway during peak times.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have adaptive cruise control in my Subaru Legacy and I have often wondered what will happen when more people have ACC. Or even if I were following another car exactly like mine - would the lag time grow exponentially with more intense stop/go or would it even out? Or does it depend on how well the car implements it?

<comment><USER32> The adaptive cruise control in my Ford turns itself off if the speed is low enough-- which on Seattle-area freeways happens pretty often. So I stopped trying to use it.

<comment><USER33> The Subaru one stays on until you come to a complete stop. Even then, it's still "on" in a way, since it'll hold the brakes, but you have to flick up on the cruise control switch to get the car to start moving again. It'll also notify you if the car in front has started moving again and you haven't done anything (with or without ACC on). It's on my girlfriend's car, so I don't use it every day, but it has been nice the times I've driven it in traffic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> No, at least not for I-405 / I-5 near Seattle.

These roads, due to a complete lack of effective urban planning and development, are several times over capacity.

I like to think that this heuristic would be effective for such cases.

* Aim for a hard speed limit (maybe the actual speed limit).

* Actually obey the law of this state: Keep Right Except to Pass.

* ALWAYS allow merges (from either side) with higher priority.

Edit:

After reading the github link from one of the other posts I want to expand why I disagree and suggest always allowing merges.

It is to allow traffic to leave the freeway (merge right to exit) as well as to enter the freeway (merge left, mostly to enter at all, but also in case they're going a long distance or need to get to special use lanes on the left).

<comment><USER34> > Aim for a hard speed limit (maybe the actual speed limit).

That's not gonna work. Depends on the day, the time, the weather, rain, fog etc. Some days, traffic flows at 70 on 405 during rush hour. If you go the legal speed limit you will be the dangerous blockage that makes everyone else down, and makes a few people unnecessarily grumpy. Other days it's misty because the water on the road gets stirred up by all the trucks. It's impossible to go the speed limit on these days, the flow is going 45.

There is no hard rule, except: go with the flow. SEE the traffic. BE the traffic. Do not FIGHT the traffic.

<comment><USER35> Enforcing a speed limit on freeways is completely possible. They've got it done in England. What you need to do is capture license plates on entrance and exit, and calculate the average speed for each car's trip. If the speed limit is 50 MPH for traffic-flow reasons, and you do your 15 mile commute in 15 minutes, you're getting a "60 in a 50 MPH zone" ticket in the mail, every single time.

People will learn in a hurry that speeding is pretty much pointless and self- harming.

<comment><USER36> They've really got the surveillance state thing down to a science there, if they're doing things like that. In North America, where there are cameras, they tend to only look at your speed at a specific moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if we'd have as much stop and go traffic if every car on the road was standard.

I drive like this just to avoid using the clutch. I'll basically crawl at the average speed in 2nd gear, until traffic speeds up.

I suspect truckers may be doing it for the same reason, and their gear ratios mean they would have even more gears to cycle through.

Stop and go would be a huge pain for them if they have to come to a full stop.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how much of this is mitigated by good lane discipline?

My SO actually got pulled over the other day (or at least that's what the cop used as an excuse) for driving in a passing lane when not passing anything. I said I was glad because it's a terrible habit - every lane ending up going the same speed as the slowest driver

<comment><USER37> >every lane ending up going the same speed as the slowest driver

And if two drivers drive abreast, then it's like having two roads going to the same place, where no one can pass anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Vehicles talking to each other will not break a practical traffic jam. The one caused because one car had to stop for some reason or other, now everyone has to stop or slow down in the same vicinity until there are less cars flowing through the area.

<comment><USER39> I'm not so sure. I think the big difference it would make to have cars talking to each other is that they can all know where the other (within a local range) is heading, make interchanges more optimal.

A lot of traffic congestion happens because we have nothing but (too- infrequently-used) turn signals to indicate our intentions. If all the cars knew where they were going at an interchange, you could at least optimize the flow.

Of course, there is _no_ solution when there are just too many cars trying to fit on a road that can't handle it. And that's probably 80-90% of the problem anyway :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I would avoid blaming any traffic on "non-optimal" driving by other drivers (not leaving enough space so they maintain constant speed, stuff like that), since it's just another recipe for road rage.

</comment><comment><USER41> I just had fun crashing cars. 25 crashed with 1.8km travelled. I know it's not the point, but I don't care (nod to Icona Pop). I love it. I needed the laugh.

</comment><comment><USER42> Without AI, the answer today is to drive as fast as possible all the time.

</comment><comment><USER43> While, in the right environment, a single driver may be able to break a jam, a single driver can create one just about anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER44> This theory has been running around for a a few decades now. But a couple years ago I read a paper where they were studying traffic jams, and the conclusion is that elastic traffic is the problem, and this technique does nothing really to solve the problem. Instead simply maintaining the exact same spacing in front/back of your vehicle does a much better job of avoiding and clearing traffic jams.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is almost a perfect metaphor for the failings of capitalism, or at they very least the notion that the singular pursuit of selfish greed can lead to ideal outcomes. The selfish need for individual drivers to go as fast as they can leads to a collective failure, here in the form of a traffic jam.

<comment><USER46> Capitalists are generally smart enough to forego immediate gain in favor of substandard greater gains under different conditions.

Rather than drive as fast as I can in Atlanta's 8AM rush hour (and get nowhere fast in the ensuing jam), I leave for work before 6AM (with half the drive time).

<comment><USER47> On the other hand, quarterly profits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Traffic jams exist because humans drive cars, and humans are not designed to process data at 120 kilometers per hour.

This is a major repost but still misses the main problem. When you look at a car in front of you, you perceive it as a stationary wall, not a moving wall. When you slow down, you're trying to avoid hitting where the car in front of you _is when you press on the brake pedal._ You're not smart enough to realize that you should be slowing down to avoid hitting where the _car will be_ when that car stops.

You do this, and you should not be driving cars. Leaving space in front of you is an inefficient solution to this problem, now you're overcompensating even more for the problem.

You can try watching one car ahead of the one in front of you to predict when the car in front of you will slow down and need to stop. Your passengers will freak out, constantly thinking you're going to hit the car directly in front of you, because they perceive the car in front of you as a stationary wall. In reality, you're driving more efficiently.

The day when us unevolved meat sacks stop controlling two ton metal bullets can't come soon enough.

<comment><USER49> But my car weighs only 1600kg, and for _years_ my passengers have been telling me I'm going to hit the car directly in front of me. Looks like that day has already come ;)</comment></comment>


Dear Google, You Just Crossed the Line - <AUTHOR> http://aguacatelang.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/dear-google-your-just-crossed-the-line/

<comment><USER2> I'm not seeing an update to YouTube, and my YouTube app does not currently do this. Perhaps they're rolling it out slowly, but it seems almost self- defeating to me to do this. One of Android's main selling points is how customizable it is, and the way apps are easily able to hook into the OS.

Removing that ability from the YouTube app doesn't make a lot of sense.

edit: Just checked, I'm on the same version as the blog post lists -- 5.2.27.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is odd, at first I thought It was just my fault due to having selected a default for sharing by clicking "Always" instead of "Just Once", but I've cleared YouTube's Default Data, Cache and even its Data (Settings->Apps->YouTube). Then a proceeded to also unlink my G+ account from the app by clearing G+ App data, still no effect, instead of quickly appearing the share view from G+ it was first asking me which gmail account to use to then start G+. The only way I was able to revert it back was disabling Google+'s App, which then causes some things to not work properly such as Google Search.

<comment><USER2> Interesting. To be clear, I have the Google+ app installed, running, connected to my profile, and all related apps (such as Google Now) work as expected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Tried and I can share to any app, no problem here</comment>


Lightweight document management system for individuals and businesses - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sismics/docs <comment><AUTHOR> I'm the main developer, feel free to ask any question, I'll be happy to answer!</comment>


Equifax fined maximum penalty under 1998 UK data protection law - <AUTHOR> https://www.cyberscoop.com/equifax-uk-ico-fine/ <comment><USER2> That's got to be a joke; it's not even close to enough. IMHO, they should be banned from having access to our data, the same data we never approved them to have in the first place.

I'm all for companies growing and learning from mistakes, the credit companies have a higher standard to live up to and should have a very steep cliff to jump off if they mess up.

</comment><comment><USER3> Only £500k, so almost as much as if you pirate a few songs or movies..</comment>


The Epic Games Store infuriated people. Gamers spent $680M there anyway - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/01/14/epic-games-store-infuriated-people-gamers-spent-680-million-there-anyway/ <comment><USER2> This is yet another example of 1) the vocal minority does not necessarily reflect the majority market, and 2) people rarely have enough moral strength to accept pain (in this case having to wait for a game or maybe not play it at all) in exchange for taking a stance on an issue.

It's much the same as people frequently complaining about Hollywood remaking the same movies over and over again while at the same time remakes continue to rake in money for studios. Businesses will follow the money, angry hardliners be damned.

</comment><comment><USER3> I reject the premise.

I think Gamers were not infuriated by Epic. Just normal everyday complaints that happen with every new business.

Gamers were, as an example, infuriated by Blizzard. That is infuriation.

[https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/5/18295833/epic-games- store-c...](https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/5/18295833/epic-games-store- controversy-explained)

</comment><comment><USER4> Gamers are not a monolithic bunch. Many boycott efforts seem to be unsuccessful.

Yet I suspect the full-price coupon and checkout method used on their continuous flow of "free games" allows them to rack up an impressive game sales total at no actual customer cost. Were free games used to pump the sales figures?

</comment><comment><USER5> Epic, Blizzard, Zynga are basically Philip Morris. Their products are mad addictive, sometimes mad fun and always life sucking. They should be taxed at like 80%.</comment>


Podcast – Chris Keathley on Wallaby and Raft / Smart Software Elixir Internals - <AUTHOR> https://podcast.smartlogic.io/season-two-keathley <comment><AUTHOR> In our latest episode, we talked with We talked with Chris Keathley from Bleacher Report about Wallaby, Raft, concurrent tests, why he doesn't work on front ends, consensus algorithms, and how he got started contributing to open source projects.</comment>


Leonard Nimoy's final tweet - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/27/8121021/leonard-nimoy-spock-live-long-and-prosper

<comment><USER2> The amount of retweets by whatever company owns that account now completely drowned out his actual tweets, so the first three pages are just click- harvesting now:

[https://twitter.com/TheRealNimoy](https://twitter.com/TheRealNimoy)

Would've been much more respectful to set up a second account that retweets whatever messages go that way, and retweet one tweet pointing there.

<comment><USER3> Complete and utter mistake.

That tweet, those words, sigh, words to etch into you consciousness and meditate on daily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> direct link to the tweet: [https://twitter.com/TheRealNimoy/status/569762773204217857](https://twitter.com/TheRealNimoy/status/569762773204217857)

</comment><comment><USER5> For reference, the much longer discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9119951](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9119951)</comment>


Getting into top MBA program with a low GPA - <AUTHOR> https://www.sageadmit.com/getting-top-mba-low-gpa/ <comment><USER2> "If you pay us we'll help to get you into a course you are academically unprepared to profit from so that you can accrue massive debt associated with master's programmes at premiere institutions so you too can be an unhappy holder of the much-vaunted degree."</comment>


Wandering in the Void, Billions of Rogue Planets Without a Home - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wandering-in-the-void-billions-of-rogue-planets-without-a-home/ <comment><USER2> I always thought the definition of planet was an object of a specif size (see Pluto debate) in a mostly stable orbit around a star. Would these just be big asteroids?</comment>


CatchApp Today – CatchApp – simple way to catch up with friends - <AUTHOR> http://www.catchapp.today/

<comment><USER2> Have you personally made all these projects? If not, you can't post them as Show HNs. I'm going to assume that you're just trying to promote them and take Show HN out of the titles. If that's wrong, let us know and we'll fix it.

</comment><comment><USER3> so new that your DNS hasn't updated I fear? or maybe so successful you've busted your bandwidth? i just get a hosting company holding page.</comment>


Ask HN: What happened to clean tech? - <AUTHOR>

10 or so years ago clean-tech was going to be the next big thing.  A bunch of VC funds created dedicated clean-tech funds.  It seems like the underlying premise of needing more clean energy never changed.<p>So, what happened?  Why did clean-tech seem to fizzle? <comment><USER2> I've read about programs for new geothermal technology and new wind technology. But most of that work is happening outside the USA.

My impression is that "Big Oil" has too much control here in the USA, and has successfully killed any innovation related to clean energy. So you have to go to places like Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland to find most innovation on clean energy.

(Just yesterday I heard about a wind farm in the USA being fought. They claimed that it destroyed too much ecosystem. But compared to oil, gas, and coal - which destroy an incredible amount of our environment - wind energy is very clean. It seems obvious to me that the effort is being funded by Big Oil - just as it has been for decades in the USA. I think it was Buckminster Fuller who said that a wind turbine on every power pole would provide more energy than we could use.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Tesla?

 _edit_

Meaning, 'clean-tech' is alive and well.</comment>


Show HN: Finding insider stock transactions in real time. - <AUTHOR> ShareSEER is a research tool for investors. We are excited to announce the launch V 1.3 of ShareSEER. We now have: - A real time insider filing dashboard - https://shareseer.com/today/insiders . View live sales and purchases of stocks by company insiders! Get information one day faster than in major brokerages. Filter by existing companies. - A risk extractor which highlights unique risks for S & P 500 companies. e.g - https://shareseer.com/analysis/risks?tick=MOS -We augment the existing feature of searching for 10-k/10-Q's for a given company with a.) Recent Insider filing information when available b.) Extracted risks for S & P 500 companies. E.g https://shareseer.com/search?q=KLAC - Super fast infrastructure. We have rewritten the previous generation infrastructure to a blazing fast go server. We are still learning what investors want to know. This tool is born from the pain we faced as individual investors. We want to level the playing field between what the big investors know and what we know. We would love to hear your feedback to make ShareSEER even better. Please check it out. One more thing. For now- ShareSEER is free! <comment><USER2> Very cool! Mark Zuckerberg sold $3M in Facebook shares yesterday! [https://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/0001127602180216...](https://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000112760218021658/xslF345X03/form4.xml)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool, and interesting! As a retail investor / layman, can you explain the benefits or workflow? (legalities, how to go about this, use cases)

From a high-level, I understand that this is just public data in a nice UI that you get a day earlier. What happens if this gets really popular -- will there be a gate/fee?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

>>> As a retail investor / layman, can you explain the benefits or workflow? (legalities, how to go about this, use cases)<<<<

All company insiders(e.g CEO,Directors etc) are required to report to the Government, stock transactions they make in their company. Many brokerages will give you this information on a per company basis. What we have seen is there is a delay between one to three days. So the benefit is you get the information as it is reported. What you do with this information is up to you. But being aware of large transactions by insiders could be a useful metric as part of your research. For example here are transaction's that we came across on our insider page last night [http://shareseer.com/today/insiders?f=walmart](http://shareseer.com/today/insiders?f=walmart) There was ~120M of stock that was disposed of.

>>>What happens if this gets really popular -- will there be a gate/fee?<<< We have some ideas on building specific insights on top of this, that we could consider as a paid feature. For now everything is free as we are learning about the pain points of investors. Our focus today is to learn from you what your pain points are as an individual investor and what you think about the application today?

<comment><USER3> Cool, thanks for the example. Again, apologies as a layperson/everyday investor -- Can you explain what 'D - Disposition to the issuer of issuer equity securities' means, and how that is different from something like 'S - Open Market Sale'?

If the Waltons dumped $120m in common stock, is that significant to the market? How so?

Just trying to tie that in with how a retail investor would go about this.

<comment><USER4> I think insider sales are a useful guide when they're unusual. Some insiders sell a little stock every month. Somehow you would need to extract a signal from the normal behavior. Larger or smaller amounts. Trend shifts or something

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. We will consider adding such a feature. Thanks for checking it out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks cool. I currently use finviz, and the insider trading feature looks similar. Are you looking to quantify the risks anytime in the future, ie how would revenues/ earnings be affected if they materialized.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Hyencomper, How this is different from finviz is that this is real time with all transactions. Finviz has a delay and generally is for few largest transactions.

<comment><AUTHOR> we haven't thought about quantifying risk in the manner you suggested but we definitely want to identify all kinds of risks that may not be obvious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> we also added company descriptions for all S & P 500. e.g [http://shareseer.com/search?q=AFL](http://shareseer.com/search?q=AFL)

</comment><comment><USER6> How are you planning on monetising?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have some ideas on building specific insights on top of this, that we could consider as a paid feature. For now everything is free as we are learning about the pain points of investors.</comment></comment>