What If Addiction Is Not a Disease? - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/What-if-Addiction-Is-Not-a/237383 <comment><USER2> Most addicts quit on their own:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200405/the- surprisi...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200405/the-surprising- truth-about-addiction-0)

The reason that addiction treatment programs find it so hard to treat 'addicts' is that they're dealing with the small subset of people who, for one reason or another, can't quit on their own. It's sort of the opposite of survivorship bias.

<comment><USER3> This is a good point, I never thought of it this way before. Then again, that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a disease.

However I've started to come to think of addiction notice a disease onto itself, but as a symptom of some other underlying "dis-ease", clinical or otherwise.

If anything, the debate over whether addiction is a disease underscores the fact that the people having the debate have a very narrow definition of "disease". If addiction isn't disease, then what is it?

<comment><USER4> I went through an addiction myself and I agree with you.

Emotions are not super well understood, and I think they are at the root of addiction. If you are chronically unhappy, drugs let you feel good. You start feeling better because of the drugs, and lose the ability to respond to negative emotion in a healthy way. Healthy emotional balance lets people make good choices and fix bad problems. Being chronically unhappy - perhaps as a result of unresolved mental injury - will hamper a persons ability to make good choices, just like being keep in darkness for a log time will make your eyes way too sensitive to handle normal light.

Show me someone who is addicted to drugs, and I'll show you someone who is unhappy about something other than the drugs. The addiction just makes the underlying problem worse.

If you can learn to fix the underlying problem, then fixing the addiction itself is much easier.

Once you are knee deep in drugs, your life becomes awful which gives you more reason to keep using the drugs. It's like a local minimum, or an AI that learns to manipulate it's model of the world, because that's easier than manipulating the world itself.

<comment><USER5> I have similar beliefs (preference to a theory that appears to make sense to me, but which I cannot readily find supportive scientific evidence for or against).

I suspect that actually curing addiction, or many other mental diseases, will require not just changes within, but also changes externally.

The sooner society can rid it's self of the blame culture, and adopt the more pragmatic 'solve the problems' culture, the better.

<comment><USER3> And I guess this comes full circle back to the 12 Steps: powerlessness is one way to achieve blamelessness

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The first thing you hear when you go to many treatment centers is that addiction is a disease. The 12 steps are posted on the wall and you are told you are "powerlessness" over it. You will hear, "It's not a problem of willpower." That idea will be driven into your skull many times.

I'm not sure I will ever understand addiction. But I know that when I accepted personal responsibility for the things that I did to myself and others in order to get drunk/high, life became a least a little easier. It's not perfect, but to use AA terminology it's not "unmanageable" anymore, at least not as much as it once was. And I am grateful to be where I am today. I guess, for me, my compulsion to drink and drug was mainly caused by my surroundings and upbringing.

Although I don't go to AA or NA anymore, if it is working for some, I hope they see it through. Whatever is getting you through to the next day as an alcoholic/addict, my advice is to keep doing it. Whether it is spiritual cleansing or acceptance or doses of naltrexone/buprenorphine.

<comment><USER3> I just recently read the actual 12 Steps for the first time (mostly out of curiosity) the other day, and was very surprised to find that the theme was about admitting powerlessness and giving in to God.

I also think it's mistaken to conflate "power" and "willpower." It may indeed not be a "problem of willpower", but that (at least to me) does not imply total powerlessness over a disease state in one's own body.

<comment><USER6> The Big Book, as it is called, is pretty clear that, in the writers' opinions, that only through a Higher Power does one become sober. The meaning of powerlessness I think they intended is that without help an alcoholic will not break the cycle. AA teaches that your sobriety depends on your connection to that power. According to them, no amount of self-knowledge or desire to stop will enable one to actually make an alcoholic/addict to put the stuff down. I guess that's how I was intending to describe their version of powerlessness. For me, I believe that was not the answer. I credit my sobriety to that I realize things could be much worse. I am grateful to be where I am and know that, on average, most people that have lived this life would not have made it through or had a chance to even do so.

I honestly don't know if addiction is a disease. Certainly, anybody that has had the dts or benzo/opiate withdrawal will admit that there is a physical component to continued alcohol/drug abuse. I know many addicts (and myself was one) that continued using longer than wanted out of here of withdrawal.

But I didn't need to completely "give in" or submit to the disease, at least I think (others may be able to judge that better though). I wanted and still want so bad to never have to go through some of the things an active addict has to go through again that I am completely terrified to go out again. But at an AA meeting they would probably say that that time will come if I do not develop a spiritual connection to something greater than myself

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Researchers will track how various factors — including diet, sleep patterns, > gender, race, economic circumstance, air quality, and exercise habits, as > well as substance use — correlate with changes in the subjects' brain scans > over the years.

> "How cool will it be if we can collect data on 9- and 10-year-olds that will > help predict how all young people will function in later life?" asks > Garavan. "This is the sort of information that will truly help people > parent, and legislate, and educate, and live healthy lives."

I'm not as enthusiastic about that future as Garavan is, and especially not the idea that it could shape legislation in any kind of significant way. Doubly so if it's going to be done via statistical models and correlation, rather than a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved.

<comment><USER8> Oh it could shape legislation: "low-functioning" children would be kicked out of school, watched closely and sent to jail for their "anti-social" tendencies, while "high-functioning" children will get expensive education, and their mishaps forgiven.

<comment><USER9> I hate this cynical "they're trying to get us" view on politics and laws. Yes, there's potential for misuse of data. There's also the potential for _correct_ use of data. It took scientific data to get leaded gasoline banned.

Opposing scientific studies because they could be misused is no better than opposing scientific studies because they might not support your views. Both cases are fundamentally anti-science and there are no bonus points for trying. If you support science, then you support it. If you oppose science when it might not yield the results you want, then you are anti-science and have no place in a progressive society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Scott Alexander wrote something short but sweet on these kinds of questions: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_questions_about/)

<comment><USER11> Excellent article; expresses exactly why it drives me crazy to see people arguing over a word. Also, it seems in this case the people who study brains are saying it happens in the brain ("disease"); the people who study minds are saying it happens in the mind (emotions etc): given that humans have been aware for some time that the brain is the seat of the mind, it should be obvious that the two possibilities not only aren't exclusive, but even cannot occur independently. I guess they are so focused on their own areas of expertise they apparently forget that the other field is looking at an equally real aspect of the same phenomenon.

<comment><USER11> Now that I've finished reading the link I see that the determinism aspect is discussed, but for the general public. In this case the people having the disease debate are highly educated, many of them in hard-science fields; I would assume most of them would claim to espouse the non-dualistic mind/body model, yet participation in the debate requires not having fully internalised the implications of non-dualism. I think this is explained by being too entrenched in their own fields to see the whole picture. I've met a lot of people working on advanced degrees who had forgotten swathes of the basics in their own fields that weren't necessary to their specializations, let alone survey courses from undergrad. Tunnel vision is the cost of focus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not seeing this here so I wanted point it out: from my own experience and 1st hand witnessing in others, that addiction is a Symptom, not a disease.

Underlying _emotional pain_ is what causes people to literally self medicate.

This is not to say that substance abuse doesn't create actual physiological necessities to then continually consume the substance. It does- i.g. body stops producing it's own opioids when it starts to get them from the outside.

When someone begins using, then abusing, they are trying to relieve an underlying issue. The action is a symptom of a deeper problem expressing itself (the actual dis-ease). These issues are usually severely repressed and suppressed, so much so that one cannot articulate them-- only medicate them.

Digging out and resolving the root emotional issues goes a long way to curing someone. Afterwards, physiological damage still needs to be addressed.

<comment><USER13> > trying to relieve an underlying issue

Often enough that might simply be hunger and thirst, eg with coffee and cigarettes.

With other addictions a physical dependence is less apparent and I wondered before, why obsessive compulsion is never mention in this regard. Take gambling for example.

As the comment about rat-park points out, nicotine or opiate addiction do have an extrinsic physical aspect. In any case, the internal chemistry always plays a role.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Addiction is something that makes me fairly curious.

I smoked for about a year straight, and then one day quit cold turkey and had no problems. I drink more than moderately - I'm a craft beer and whisky snob, and my SO loves wine as well. Most weeks, I'll average at least one drink a day, sometimes more. But sometimes I'll get busy and go a week, a month, with nothing or barely anything to drink across the period without really feeling the need to drink any more.

I've done a variety of drugs, and much the same - never felt an urge to do anything beyond mild recreational use.

Yet I'm completely and totally addicted to the internet. I am basically nonfunctional after prolonged lack of connectivity. if kept busy, I can go a weekend, but an unplugged camping trip for a week is a completely unpalatable idea for me.

</comment><comment><USER15> I kind of agree with this quote from the article (even though the article slants against this viewpoint):

 _ultimately I should be able to replicate your findings and you should be able to replicate my findings, otherwise it's not science, it's bullshit. "_

I absolutely, 100% support searching for alternative methods to help people who are drowning and suffering in addiction, but if a method doesn't work, there's no point in following it.

<comment><USER16> ...except "method doesn't work" really just means, "generally doesn't work for people who are classified as having the same problem as you", and when all the other approaches that _are_ classified as working for that group are, you start to consider the possibility that you are an outlier and some of these other options might work. It's a desperate move, but given the high failure rates and low understanding we have of the problem, I wouldn't categorically say there is "no point in following it".

<comment><USER15> Sure, if you find something that works for you, then good job, do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's an interesting idea. What if addiction is not something that falls on the binary classification of "choice|disease"? What if it's some other kind of phenomenon?

<comment><USER18> The article isn't about classifying addiction as disease or "choice." The debate is between disease and "not disease."

<comment><USER19> seems like a debate about semantics. Why can't the answer be a multi-variate model in which disease like factors get a weight and non-disease like factors get some kind of a weight? What's the point arguing about these non continuous binary options?

<comment><USER15>
      >seems like a debate about semantics.

The article specifically addresses that point:

 _a slim majority of the panelists, including Murphy, did not want to emphasize the word "disease," because it implies that chemical dependence is primarily a function of pathology, when in fact environmental factors (dysfunction at home, stress at work), learned behavioral patterns (binge drinking, for instance), and economic disparities have been shown to play a significant causal role. Clearly, the debate was not just semantic._

<comment><USER13> _environmental factors (e.g. bad air), learned behavioral patterns (hygiene) and economic disparities (to afford a doctor)_ all play a role in the course of a lung infection, even leading to death, too. I don't think it isn't a prime example of a disease.

<comment><USER19> understood. But what matters to me when I am in the hospital with a lung infection is how to treat it so that it goes away, not what it's called

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's natural for compassionate people to prefer to characterize addition as a disease, because it gives a powerful argument for treating people with addiction compassionately. But this is deriving an "is" from an "ought".

In fact its very common in this kind of discussion to see an argument like "If you believe <positive statement> then you must support <morally abhorrent policy>". But mostly the morally abhorrent policy doesn't actually follow from the positive statement, and if the person making this argument were forced to accept the positive statement, they would not in fact support the policy. In this debate

      <positive statement> = addiction is not a disease

      <morally abhorrent policy> = people with addiction don't deserve any sympathy or help

<comment><USER13> There's no positive statement, there's a not in there. I do believe this makes a difference.

<comment><USER20> when I say "positive statement" I mean in the positive/normative sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From system thinking perspective, addiction can be described pretty well with a fairly simple model of a few feedback loops. Regardless of the exact feedback structure, the mechanisms are both social and bilogical, human biology will get hurt in the process and the entire thing is likely to behave chaotically. This is why you can argue it's a disease (because you get biological causes and effects) and that it's not (because AA works by providing a balancing loop designed to be tolerant to substance abuse). And this is why you probably won't get to a clean medical diagnosis - a very similar set of factors can lead to a wide range of outcomes. Unless addiction is seen as a systemic issue, I can't really see how it could be better understood beyond describing less and less significant factors in more and more detail.

</comment><comment><USER22> A lot of formerly beneficial adaptations have become "diseases" in the modern world (sugar cravings for instance).

</comment><comment><USER23> > the authors of AA's Big Book, first published in 1939, helped reduce the > stigma of addiction

A truth with modifications. It both individualized alcoholism, and made it more acceptable in a sense. Before, alcoholism wasn't a thing, "drunkenness" was, and it was societies that had a drunkenness problem, not individuals.

</comment><comment><USER24> In A Nutshell, has a nice [video] about addiction:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg&feature=youtu.be)

Note: below is a link from reddit about their opinions from the video (maybe or maybe not they are actually a neuroscientist ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ )

[https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3qp6sa/everything_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3qp6sa/everything_we_think_we_know_about_addiction_is/cwhbg8b)

</comment><comment><USER25> >ctrl+f "rat park"

Not found!? Well, I'm just the motile conglomeration of vermin for the job! "Rat Park", a utopia for rats, is (IMO) a critical component of the pushback against the disease model of addiction. An illustrated summary can be found in this lovely comic [0], while more interested parties can peruse the works of Dr Bruce Alexander, in the form of a blog-retrospective [1], or a slightly more technical presentation to the Canadian Senate [2], or his excellent book, _The Globalization of Addiction: A Study of Poverty of the Spirit_ [3].

A layman-readable synthesis goes something like this: folk wisdom holds that some drugs are insanely addictive, as an inherent property of the drug. But this has generally [4] been borne out by introspective interviews of inveterate drug abusers and highly technical experimentation on lab animals (mostly social animals, like primates and rats). Introspection, for most domains of psychological study, is never used and treated as hearsay (it's not a contentious claim in psychology that people aren't good at examining their own mental states in a scientifically useful way). The methods of the experiments on social animals like rats and primates often dictate cramped, isolated and impoverished conditions. The "Rat Park" study took normal lab rats and placed them in an enormous array filled with nesting-boxes, large open areas, wheels and toys. The control rats, by contrast, were treated in every way identically to a standard addiction study -- tiny cage, no comforts, no stimulation but for a human changing their litter tray. Various experiments ensued, but even with different experimental treatments, the researchers couldn't induce addiction in the rats of Rat Park, while even fiercely bitter, heavily-diluted morphine-water was the choice of the isolated, imprisoned rat.

The orthodoxy of invincible permanent addiction was vanquished in these animals (and the minds of the researchers), by providing a more stimulating, spatious environment filled with fellow rats with whom to interact. This might say something important about the nature of addiction in other social animals, like humans.

[0] [http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat- park/](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/)

[1] [http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat- park/14...](http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat- park/148-addiction-the-view-from-rat-park)

[2] [http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/sen/committee/371/ille/present...](http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/sen/committee/371/ille/presentation/alexender-e.htm)

[3] [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=The+Globalisation+of+Ad...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=The+Globalisation+of+Addiction:+A+study+in+poverty+of+the+spirit&hl=en)

[4] It IS true that you can see pretty drastic rewiring in the ventral tegmental area (which covers, generally, reward systems, drug addiction, strong emotions) with things like nicotine and cocaine, so the picture is probably more complicated than 'it's purely a social problem', but the ascendancy of the dogma of the disease model of addiction functionally prevents further study. Note that the Rat Park paper was very difficult to publish and received no attention for years.

<comment><USER26> I think lack of stimulus at work is why addiction is (mostly) a poverty problem. I have even worked at factories where people got high to get through an inhumanely boring day.

<comment><USER27> Flourishing requires more than wealth. Think of all the celebrities who have struggled with addiction.

Suffering is a human universal.

<comment><USER26> I didn't say lack of wealth, I said lack of stimulus at work. I don't actually believe that wealth makes you flourish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Transmogrifying destructive habits into `disease' is public policy, and there is far too much establishment invested to tolerate this blasphemy. One can easily picture the furrowed brows of our elites as they quietly note the names of the latest additions to the unwritten list of pariah.

</comment><comment><USER29> There are opioid antagonists that reduce cravings and drug and alcohol use. That combined with CBT or other therapies can help people move from a state of suffering as part of the disease towards remission.

</comment><comment><USER30> The idea that addiction is a disease was reinforced by decades of trying to help people with strategies that don't work. ... Pellagra is only cured with Vitamin B3; scurvy is only cured with Vitamin C. Treating diseases of nutritional deficiency with anything but the missing nutrients is an exercise in futility.

Addictions are not simple like Pellagra or Scurvy, but when you figure out what a specific person actually needs, they can rapidly recover. I've done it twice - my alcoholic friend is doing quite well; my poly-addict (opiates/cocaine/alcohol) would be doing quite well if she hadn't been captured and court-ordered to endure palliative Psychiatric treatment.

The Alcoholic became an alcoholic when she discovered that Vodka helped her anxiety more than Xanax. Benzodiazepienes lose effectiveness after about 4 weeks - when a person who is addicted to this class of drugs tries to quit, their anxiety is worse than it was before. She was peri-menopausal at the time, which was probably a huge factor...

As for the poly-addict.... When I met her, I said to myself, "this woman is 'high as a kite'..." As the months went by, she gradually invited me into her world, and I learned that she really was self-medicating with the street pharmacy.

She latched on to me like a life preserver. After almost six months of my influence, and a little non-quantifiable hocus-pocus, she called to share three insights, spread over 3 days:

      - "I wish I wasn't a drug addict..."
      - "I should only use substances which are legal!!! *Alcohol is legal...* "
      - "I hate methadone, I hate everything about it."

Before these insights, drugs were fine, because they'd always been there to help when she was suicidally depressed. Her alcoholism started a month after she began treatment with Methadone... The problem with methadone is that it has all of the addiction of heroin, but none of the thrill.

So after six months, she was doing rather well. But alcohol is hard to kick on your own, and she was taken to the hospital as "psychotic"... The psychiatrists got hold of her - it's been a disaster. . They pretend that the symptom of withdrawal from substances ("psychosis") justifies the use of so- called anti-psychotics in perpetuity. Robert Whitaker has looked at the evidence, and has concluded that there is no benefit to the routine use of these drugs [1]...

[1] [http://www.madinamerica.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/The-C...](http://www.madinamerica.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/The-Case-Against-Antipsychotics.pdf)

The mental health field needs a clean-sheet redesign. Nothing else will help.

(edits: formatting, clarity )

</comment><comment><USER31> One thing that has always puzzled me.

If addiction is a disease why wait for an addict to hit rock bottom?

Would you wait for a diabetic/heart disease patient to hit rock bottom before treatment?

<comment><USER32> If they deny the problem and refuse treatment, what else can you do? The rock bottom part is usually the catalyst to change their view (for a moment).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> There needs to be a distinction made between addiction and dependence, neither of which necessarily implies the other.

Dependence is when your body depends on a substance (generated internally or externally), and suffers withdrawal when it's missing.

Addiction is any repetitive self-reinforcing behavior.

Whether an addiction is "good or bad" is a value judgment which is very dependent on sociocultural and legal context.

Going to work every day to a job you love, can be considered a "good addiction". Same for a "runner's high".

Addiction occurs when the behavior is self-reinforcing and other behaviors of the same or less cost cannot produce the same relative reward that the addictive behavior does. The reward can be decreased pain, distraction from stress, euphoria, or other conditions which subjectively feel better than the status quo. Usually this means there's a stressful situation or lack of pleasure in the status quo. Addiction can be viewed as a rational economic decision based on limited information or time preference, with benefits and costs which are totally subjective to the addict. The benefits and costs do not need to appear to be rational to an outside observer, who has different subjective values and time preferences. [5]

The AA model of complete abstinence and submitting to a higher power is bad for several reasons: It can trigger painful or life-threatening withdrawal symptoms; it denies the person the power to control their addiction, causing learned helplessness; and it does not allow the person to learn to moderate their own addiction.

People behave rationally towards satisfying their addiction, such as by taking complex steps to buy drugs, and they rationally avoid law enforcement and/or medical intervention which prevents them from satisfying their addiction. Their behavior may not be legal, wise, moral or safe, but it is rational towards their immediately perceived needs. They are not hostage to a "disease" which makes them behave uncontrollably, like a seizure does. A disease does not involuntarily make one correctly drive a car down a complicated route to satisfy an addiction. Addiction is a choice. [0] [1] [2]

To say "addiction is a choice" does not imply any moral failing of the addict. In societies where addiction is not tolerated and is viewed as a moral failing, this can either help or hurt the addict, depending on their temperament and situation.

Conversely, saying "addiction is a disease, and not a choice" does not help a person gain control of their addiction, and it delivers an underhanded moral judgment against them, similar to calling someone a sinner but praying for them.

In some societies, ingesting psychotropic substances like coca tea is common, even among children, and does not generate social stigma. There's also not an expectation of intoxication, which decreases the somatic effect it has on the person, and lowers its addictive potential. Zinberg called this "Set and Setting" [3].

In societies where certain behaviors are severely punished, there can be a higher rate of addiction, because of the "forbidden fruit" syndrome, and because the addictive behavior is one of only a few ways out of an seemingly oppressive situation, giving the person a temporary feeling of self-control.

The disease model of AA is unscientific. It presupposes a biological disease, without any demonstrable etiology or mechanism.

When addiction researchers describe changes in body chemistry, MRI scans, etc., they are rarely controlled experiments, so it is uncertain whether the observed changes are due to: 1) random variation among the population, 2) a preexisting condition which increased the chances of the addictive behavior, 3) a symptom of the addictive behavior itself, 4) the effects of (sometimes involuntary) medical treatment post-addiction, or 5) the stress of simply being tested. [4]

Addiction is a learned behavior which provides a temporary subjective reward over not doing the behavior. There is no disease or involuntary lack of control over the behavior. The reward is extremely subjective, and depends on the biology of the person, their social/psychological state, the effects of the behavior on the person's biochemistry, and the social/legal consequences of others learning about their addiction. Everyone will value the multitudes of factors differently. But they always make the final decision of whether to continue the addictive behavior or not.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/081269404X](https://www.amazon.com/dp/081269404X)

[1] [http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/addiction/addiction- choice](http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/addiction/addiction-choice)

[2] [http://www.macleans.ca/society/health/addiction-new- research...](http://www.macleans.ca/society/health/addiction-new-research- suggests-its-a-choice/)

[3] [http://www.psychedelic-library.org/zinberg.htm](http://www.psychedelic- library.org/zinberg.htm)

[4] [http://www.thecleanslate.org/myths/addiction-is-not-a- brain-...](http://www.thecleanslate.org/myths/addiction-is-not-a-brain- disease-it-is-a-choice/)

Edit: Added:

[5] [https://www.wiso.uni- hamburg.de/fileadmin/bwl/rechtderwirtsc...](https://www.wiso.uni- hamburg.de/fileadmin/bwl/rechtderwirtschaft/institut/Materialien/Mikro/Becker_Murphy__a_theory_of_rational_addiction.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER34> The AA model of embracing helplessness needs to die in a fire. I've never seen such a depressing pseudoreligion, denying people agency in their own lives, promoting a bizarre sort of monasticism (if you actually do the stepwork as fanatically as you're _supposed_ to).

<comment><USER35> I have been to AA, it was not for me for the reasons you mention, also I received thinly veiled threats when they found out I was an atheist (making it clear I was not welcome if my personal "God" wasn't literally the Christian God).

However, that doesn't mean AA doesn't work for some people.

I have read somewhere it has a 10% success rate, so we can't ignore that for some people, as flawed as it might seem to some, it does work.

<comment><USER36> Anyone that talks about AA like this isnt really doing what AA is... the helplessness thing also isnt true.

Powerlessness is just about "I dont have power over X" where x=other people, other circumstances, etc etc.

All you have power over is your OWN actions. And thru that you gain immense power.

The steps are just about clearing out the shitty character your developed lying and cheating your way to get high/drunk... So you can start making decisions without trying to cover up 100 other shitty decisions.

The higher power thing is just about not being so self centered and framing the world from a point of view where the addict isnt in the center of it, but a participant equal to all others.

Theres lots of crazy everywhere, and AA attracts alot of them. But people who have found true freedom outside of addictions thru the process. And many people just build new frameworks to be assholes with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Chronicle? Who wrote the article, dr dre?

<comment><USER13> Oh come on. I can't yet downvote articles and posting comments while not upvoting the title is my vent, but if I'm being down voted I will have to continue.

<comment><USER37> No one can downvote articles.

<comment><USER13> I expected to be downvoted anyway</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fidelity chief warns of global corporate solvency crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/d6fd7d11-c06e-4e88-82a7-87465c84a120 <comment><USER2> Paywall bypass link: [https://www-ft- com.ezproxy.babson.edu/content/d6fd7d11-c06e-...](https://www-ft- com.ezproxy.babson.edu/content/d6fd7d11-c06e-4e88-82a7-87465c84a120)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what the proportion is between pre-pandemic debt (fuelled by quantitative easing and low interest rates seemingly)and debt accrued during the pandemic?

Is it that the pandemic has uncovered a long-standing problem of high corporate debt since the 2008 Financial Crisis fuelled by quantitative easing and low interest rates? What other factors are at play here? Or am I completely wrong?

<comment><USER4> Hasn't the the vast majority of recent QE been done as a direct response to the pandemic? (Legit question, it's my impression but may be misinformed)

<comment><USER5> no. the pandemic triggered the 4th big one.

<comment><USER4> And when was the 3rd?

<comment><USER6> QE3 was 2012-2014: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#US_QE1,_QE...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#US_QE1,_QE2,_and_QE3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is that at all surprising when you have corporate execs, hedge funds and private investors reaching into the cookie jar, not with one hand, but with both and shovel out the money into their bank accounts?

"The biggest U.S. airlines spent 96% of free cash flow last decade on buying back their own shares."

"In 2018 [...] companies in the S&P 500 Index did a combined $806 billion in buybacks, about $200 billion more than the previous record set in 2007."

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-16/u-s- airli...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-16/u-s-airlines- spent-96-of-free-cash-flow-on-buybacks-chart)

[https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous- for...](https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for-the- economy)

<comment><USER8> The thing is, the return of cash to investors (or growth) is kind of the point of investing; whether that's dividends or buybacks is a matter of tax treatment.

(Execs looting is a bit more of a problem)

<comment><USER7> It is not the same. Dividends reward continued investors who also have a bigger incentive to care about long term health of the corporation. Buybacks reward those who deinvest (sell shares).

<comment><USER9> Why is that a bad thing? The money gets deinvested and then reinvested into other growth companies, giving them a chance to grow as well.

<comment><USER10> Is there evidence that the returns are "reinvested into other growth companies"?

Why would a growth company return money to investors? They should be using that capital to grow.

<comment><USER6> Two reasons that come to mind:

1) Not all growth is easy or cheap. Investing $X to grow by Y% doesn't mean you can invest 2$X to grow by 2Y%. At some point the ROI is close to zero or even negative, though I would agree with risk-free interest rates also close to zero, nearly any positive ROI is better than cash distributions.

2) Some investors want a portion of profits to be distributed when a company is doing well. Investing in growth is a risk, distributing cash is not.

<comment><USER10> Once the value of distributing profits outweighs re-investing in growth, you are no longer a growth company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the US and elsewhere, the pandemic has shown some dangers of too much reliance on JIT, just in time stocking and use.

Just in time _income_ seems to be as risky, if not worse.

In both cases, everything's fine as long as everything's fine.

EDIT: Mildly interesting side note: I'm an OTR semi truck driver. I am sometimes assigned trips that are designated JIT. There is usually a note included with a JIT trip stating that late delivery will result in work stoppage at the destination.

<comment><USER12> > I'm an OTR semi truck driver. I am sometimes assigned trips that are > designated JIT. There is usually a note included with a JIT trip stating > that late delivery will result in work stoppage at the destination.

Interesting. Do these trips pay better for the associated stress on your part?

<comment><USER11> No, same pay (but I'm only one guy in one company). And they're really no more stress than any other trip, they just require that you pay a little more attention to your legally available hours, and you communicate any problems immediately, so that CSRs can do what they do.

One thing that could happen is that the trailer could be taken from you, and assigned to a different driver who isn't having a problem with legally available hours. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hours_of_service](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hours_of_service)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We entered this crisis with record levels of household, corporate, and government debt worldwide.

Quoting from a World Bank report warning about record global debt levels on December 19, 2019 -- three months before the lock-downs:

 _> The global economy has experienced four waves of debt accumulation over the past fifty years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging and developing economies. The latest, since 2010, has already witnessed the largest, fastest and most broad-based increase in debt in these economies. Their total debt has risen by 54 percentage points of GDP to a historic peak of almost 170 percent of GDP in 2018. Current low interest rates mitigate some of the risks associated with high debt. However, emerging and developing economies are also confronted by weak growth prospects, mounting vulnerabilities, and elevated global risks._

Source: [https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/waves- of-d...](https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/waves-of-debt)

</comment><comment><USER14> The western economic system cannot deal with lockdowns, and more generally, any kind of stop-the-world scenarios.

What will be most important now is how the west will be able to deal with this crisis in comparison to China.

If the Chinese system is able to deal with the crisis more effectively in economic terms, this may put the western system as a whole in jeopardy, in particular values like freedom and privacy.

<comment><USER15> A very good point (and I'm not a china shill). China's philosophy is The State Above The Individual, so it is willing to trade off a many more deaths, in theory. The west is The Individual Above The State (or at least to a much greater degree), so in theory we should do worse.

However the west has imposed large scale quarantines so the collective is in fact valued (because most people understand them paying a some cost will benefit others).

Also china is not an ant's nest, and the government can't go mad or their government will become unstable and even overthrowm.

We're not so totally far apart. I don't know. My feeling in good times the west does better, in hard times authoritarianism does better. We're in a hard time. Things will change. Also china and the west are entangled economically (so you can't examine each in isolation), so if the west does worse, china suffers economically. Also china's allegedly been misusing cash - the tide's going out, who's (more) naked? It's a good question.

<comment><USER16> But that's not what we've seen is it, China has worked hard to minimize the number deaths by going really hard on a heavy lockdown early, while the US with 1/4 the population has dithered and not really mobilized the resources of its state and has 24 times as many people die as China has.

I think it's more that modern China has been prepared to do everything it can to minimize death in this case and by doing a serious lockdown along with serious contact tracing they've come out early and are able to reopen their economy

Some countries in the West have done the same and are in a similar state. Others have fiddled why their countries have burned.

<comment><USER17> >has 24 times as many people die as China has

This is predicated on the CCP numbers being accurate, which according to multiple intelligence sources is false. [1]

They also made systematic attempts to withhold information from the WHO. [2]

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china- con...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed- extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/02/china- withheld...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/02/china-withheld- data-coronavirus-world-health-organization-recordings-reveal)

<comment><USER18> I wouldn't put too much stock in their exact numbers, but it's not realistic to think that China has had 24 or 12 or even 6 times as many deaths as publicly reported, let alone on a per capita basis.

<comment><USER6> China has 18.7% of the world's population and 0.00018% of the current coronavirus cases [0], if you believe their reported numbers. So yes, I'm willing to believe there are vastly more deaths than reported as well.

[0] [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting to see the fund industry angling for a share of the coming bailout ("we can help with recapitalisation). Tier one banks have made a lot of money managing TARP etc. This would be a nice new revenue stream for companies with razor thin margins. And it would give them (and hopefully their customers) more representation in the rooms these decisions are made in...

<comment><USER20> This is exactly what is happening. The fund management industry is encouraging and attempting to get their slice of the next bailout funds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I do not understand why central banks are allowed to print money at low/close to zero interest rate. This will build up some kind of future subprime bubble where all the created cheap debt cannot be paid back. Central banks step in and save the financial system, more finance regulation is put in place but nothing is really solved. As an engineer working within operations, I cannot understand this as the root cause too much debt which cannot be paid back is not solved. Neither is the current economic system compatible with the environment. Common things we share like clean air and water and environment resources are not priced. You can profit from not being nice to the environment yet you do not pay for that profit.

</comment><comment><USER22> what consequences would that have for the lower and low middle class?

</comment><comment><USER23> Archive.md paywall bypass link:

[http://archive.md/j2kcI](http://archive.md/j2kcI)

</comment><comment><USER24> "In less than three months time, the Fed has done everything it did under QE1, plus everything it did under QE2, plus half of what it did under QE3!"

[https://seekingalpha.com/article/4349214-fed-is- dead](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4349214-fed-is-dead)

How can there be a global corporate solvency crisis given the amount of money flowing from central bank spigots?

Unless, of course, corporations have used the very cheap interests rates of the last decade or so to buy back there own shares, which is great for shareholders but terrible for the economy at large.

[https://www.visualcapitalist.com/stock-buybacks- explained/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/stock-buybacks-explained/)

So the stock market is going gang busters but many global corps are swimming in debt.

Wonderful.

edit: caveat – this obviously is a fairly simplistic caricature of the financial picture, but it's not entirely inaccurate!

<comment><USER25> The issue is that liquidity — the ability to meet short term obligations — and solvency — the ability of a corporation to meet long term obligations are not the same thing.

The fed has provided lots of liquidity. The crisis is in the "zombie corporation" question: the solvency.</comment></comment>


Yahoo hack steals 400,000 passwords. Is yours on the list? - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2012/0712/Yahoo-hack-steals-400-000-passwords.-Is-yours-on-the-list <comment><USER2> This story already been covered I thought. People pick silly passwords, people pick great passwords. Hosts use expoitable systems, passwords leaked. Passwords leaked in clear text indicating no encyrption/hashing or anything approaching the 21st century. Article then goes on to explain how to protect yourself and yet ignores the aspect that you could of changed your password daily and used 200 characters which would require the dexterity of a hamster on ridlin just to be able to type - that it would of made no difference at all as they hosted on a insecure server that was expliotable by a type of expliot that is inexcusable and held them in plain text. Not sure there is much to say realy apart from if it had been RIM then there would be the standard addition of how the company is doomed, but as it's yahoo then non of that is mentioned or even touched upon in any shape or way.

</comment><comment><USER3> It always bothers me how the focus is on making a robust password when the real world security risk is not brute force attack but rather phishing. It always has been (even in the days when hackers would call 'Jim' down at the control center for a reminder of the password).

</comment><comment><USER4> Direct link: <http://dazzlepod.com/yahoo/>

</comment><comment><USER5> I thought that Yahoo was only used by the elderly.</comment>


Black ops: how HBGary wrote backdoors for the government - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/black-ops-how-hbgary-wrote-backdoors-and-rootkits-for-the-government.ars

<comment><USER2> This is a _really_ good article after reading through thousands of emails. It also provides good insights into the bigger picture, and what kind of fascinating glimpse this email leak provides in to a secretive industry.

I'm glad this whole thing has happened.

<comment><USER3> Please don't think that the information security industry (or penetration testing or malware niche) in general is like this. While many firms have relationships with defence contractors, the local military and intelligence agencies, we're not all writing undetectable rootkits and exploit code for commercial gain. I would say the actions disclosed in the very well written article (in a series of very well written articles) highlight one of a subset of security firms. I'm loathe to use the enron-esque bad apples description, because the truth is I just don't know but I suspect that such actions are limited to a minority of firms.

<comment><USER4> Considering the amount of money governments are willing to spend on rootkits as compared to more benevolent activities, I suspect that these companies won't stay a minority for long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The more I hear about the HBGary story, the more concerned I get with their business partners at Palantir and Berico. This can't be the bottom of the rabbit hole.

Apparently both companies are deep into fighting the war on terror, are they seriously pursuing business against U.S. citizens?

<comment><USER6> You are probably right.

Always follow the money. The government is concerned about "cyber-security type things" and there will be no end of shady and less-shady firms willing to charge millions of dollars for providing whatever the government thinks it wants (which is probably not what it needs).

And as you pointed out these firms don't operate in a vacuum, they form networks. They compete with each other but also look for a possible strategic partnership if one comes along.

The real key is to recruit someone who retired from the military or from one of the 3-letter-agencies. (At least ask them to serve on the board). Just that right there nets you an enormous amount of projects. You thought big enterprise runs on golf-ware, but big government projects also run on friend- ware and friend-of-a-friend-ware. It is very much an incestuous family.

<comment><USER7> Case-in-point: "For eight years, government officials turned to Dennis Montgomery, a California computer programmer, for eye-popping technology that he said could catch terrorists. Now, federal officials want nothing to do with him and are going to extraordinary lengths to ensure that his dealings with Washington stay secret." [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/us/politics/20data.html?_...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/us/politics/20data.html?_r=2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8>
      "I got this word doc linked off a dangler site for Al Qaeda peeps"

I find his choice of words there to be rather amusing.

<comment><USER6> > Al Qaeda peeps

Interesting that these people brainwashed themselves and believe there are actually lots of Al Qaeda operatives out there hiding in the bushes, researching methods to kill their victims using fecal matter. These are the kinds of people who get lots of government money for "security" related projects...

<comment><USER3> No doubt Al Qaeda were researching a biological weapon based on Jenkem ;) - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenkem>

<comment><USER6> Clearly we need to be worried and perhaps we should even phone our representatives and ask them to increase anti-terrorism and DoD funding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know whether Anonymous got all of the 0-day exploits discussed? If so, does anyone know what they are planning to do with them?

<comment><USER10> Having slides claiming ownership of exploits is a very long way away from having the exploits themselves. Such a commodity has substantial financial value - if an intruder came upon them they'd be unlikely to publicly announce their existence but not release them.

It's possible such exploits don't exist, are misrepresented or were never in HBGary's possession. Exploits have a shelf life that degrades as other actors are likely to discover the same bug, maybe 6-18 months in general wisdom. But, it is always possible to claim you have a private cache and then buy them if/when they are needed.

<comment><USER11> It's possible that it is all a work of fiction, but Greg Hoglund is an accomplished security researcher. It's certainly a realistic scenario that Hoglund discovered them himself, or purchased them from someone else if he didn't have time to do the vulndev. That being said, if it is fiction it wouldn't be the first time a contracter mislead the government about competency.

<comment><USER10> I agree with you, it's not that I'm trying to say the whole thing is a work of fiction, just that things are often (partially) misrepresented. I believe the breadth of the claimed in house and unused code is unusual, but certainly not impossible. There seems to be a lot of people that attempt to sell/broker other peoples code that they aren't in possession of (since IP protections in these cases are non-existent)

Regardless, it seems anon got a SQL dump, root on a web server and a ticket box, and a google apps admin account - these aren't the types of places marketable vulnerabilities are usually kept.

<comment><USER9> Anon got more than that. Anon got passwords that got reused. I would be shocked if they did not poke around the network more to see where those passwords would go, and (given that passwords were reused where they shouldn't have been) I would not be surprised if there were not some more interesting places that they got into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So the whole thing about plugging something into your computer port (firewall, etc) to gain complete control like in the movies is true.

<comment><USER13> Yes there are two pieces of uber-secret space alien technology Microsoft included in Windows at the behest of the NSA called "autorun" and "plug and play".

 _Windows installs a Plug and Play device and its driver automatically._ [http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/...](http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en- us/pnp_driver_support.mspx)

<comment><USER14> Well, there's a piece of Apple-championed technology, Firewire, which doesn't care what OS you're running because it has direct path to the DMA controller, and can read and write physical memory.

<comment><USER15> This is not true. OSX locks down the FireWire ports to protect system memory. I am not sure exactly how this works but I believe it's firmware/driver dependent and Windows usually lacks the drivers to force the firmware into a protected mode. FireWire having direct access to the system ram is not a requirement of the 1.0 spec, it's a stupid implemention decision by chip designers.

<comment><USER14> It must have done it pretty recently then, because it's been vulnerable to this for a very long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if the "technology to carry payloads through USB drives" was used in Stuxnet?

<comment><USER17> The highly sophisticated _autorun_ technology? Shrugs.

<comment><USER18> Is USB autorun not enabled by default in XP? I tried getting some stuff to autorun from a thumbdrive and I never did get it working.

<comment><USER19> Microsoft recently patched that so it's no longer the default action.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The best part of the article is the obvious sockpuppet in the comments. Same format I saw among many paid stock bashers: Buddy up with the emoticons, claim little, suggest a lot.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wouldn't researching and discovering 0-day vulnerabilities be treading close to DMCA violations and/or cybercrime laws? I don't see why this information isn't causing Microsoft and/or the Government to go on the offensive legally against the likes of HBGary.

<comment><USER22> I can't speak to any cybercrime laws (I'm simply not familiar enough with them), but the DMCA 1) only applies to mechanisms which protects copyright, and 2) has very explicit exemptions for the purpose of security research, among other things.

<comment><USER23> Not to mention, government TLA's do their own "research."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Has anybody tried a "grep stuxnet" on the email messages? Or is the Torrent still up? Then I could try it myself.

</comment><comment><USER25> All of this reminds me of Daemon.

<comment><USER26> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28technothriller_series...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28technothriller_series%29)

Came up as the third result for "daemon" on Google. There's a lot I don't like about Google, but sometimes it just works.</comment></comment>


In 1901, a 14-year-old published article in a newspaper describing the world of 2001 - <AUTHOR> http://holy-web.blogspot.com/2008/10/in-1901-14-year-old-student-published.html <comment><USER2> I didn't think it was that impressive to be honest.

Skyscrapers were around at the end of the 19th century, we haven't reached 200 livable floors yet (as one of the commenters on that article said), and you certainly don't see "air-ships and carriages fastened to balloons for the transportation of the people through the air, and you will often see collisions in the clouds."

It just seems like a linear prediction based on what was seen during that era.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's impressive. If you read some other predictions and if you're a fan of Sci-Fi, you'll see that this one is actually pretty close for a change.

Try making a linear prediction for 2100 and see how hard it is.

<comment><USER3> The Law(?) of Accelerating Returns implies it will be enormously much harder to predict from now to 2100 than it was from 1900 to 2000. (Or that a linear prediction will be enormously much less accurate).

"we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate)" - <http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1>

<comment><USER4> I wonder how much that law applies.

The 20th century will be hard to beat. For one thing, we'll need to find new resources to exploit.

<comment><USER5> "find new resources to exploit"

instead

make use of resources we already have found, but remain unused for the most part (solar etc).

<comment><USER4> similar

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At least this 14-year-old writes better than the 17-year-olds of today.

</comment><comment><USER7> 'Old People Restored to Youth by Electricity, While You Wait.' Were still working on that one.

<comment><USER8> actually, someone in the comments said this is already being done in japan. (Results may vary)

I think he had a better idea of 2001 than those old looney tunes cartoons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's quite interesting to look at this from a cultural point of view. Most interesting to me is the assumption that the transportation of today would be just like the centralized system of then, only bigger and better. There's been such a massive movement toward individualization over the past century over the past century that it seems completely natural. We've gone from semaphore towers transmitting a few messages over a single line for the central government, to a few telegraph operators sending and receiving scores of messages for corporations and individuals, to citizens renting standard-model telephones from AT&T, to owning one of a bajillion landline phone models and having cellphones with customized ringtones as a personality item. While anyone who's seen a horse -- heck, anyone who's ever walked -- is familiar the concept of a transportation device that moves according to your whims, it would have taken a great deal of insight to see these racing curiosities called "automobiles" as a potential return to that model in an age where increasing progress in transport was synonymous with expensive machines incorporating more and more advances the only conceivable way to make their use efficient was to make it centralized. (I've heard the first subway line in New York changed a three-hour trip into a 10-minute one.)

It's just like how most '50s and '60s sci-fi ('70s, even!) foresaw computers as becoming ever-bigger, ever larger undertakings. I know Isaac Asimov, in his 1958 (?) short story "The Last Question," had computers initially growing to hundreds of square miles for a few centuries before taking a sudden leap down to the size of a family-owned ship, before transitioning again to the centralized-model of having galactic and universal computers, even though miniaturization happened along the way. If he made the connection during that time period that miniaturization would happen continuously rather than discretely and might cause individual-owned computers to be present for a larger chunk of history, he made it in one of his hundreds of short-stories I haven't read.

Of course, it is expected that we will, not too long from now, reach a fundamental limit on component miniaturization and revert to building larger, centralized computers, which highlights that we should not conceive of the old model of centralization as wrong, just wrong for the present time period.

Naturally, people back then conceived of advances solving the aging problem, but it's interesting electricity was conceived as the vehicle that would deliver it. They foresaw miracle inventions, and assumed it would come from electricity, just as we assume future advancements will come from nanotech, or biotech, or Ajax. It was their buzzword of the day. While it's much more reasonable that de-aging will come from nanotech or biotech since it's easily conceivable how those would create a relatively straightforward mechanism for achieving that, I think we'd do well to remember this example if we start to point to anything well-known today as the solver of more diverse problems.

</comment><comment><USER10> Like pointed out elsewhere, I think the interesting thing about this story is not the prediction of the future but the fact that description looks like some kind of crazy Nostradamus quatrain predicting 911.</comment>


Need Feedback on Google Panda Hit Site - Out of Ideas - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone. First time poster, long time reader but I could really use some honest feedback from knowledgeable people and forums just don't cut it. I have a 3 year old niche hobby site (http://goo.gl/aNwGy) that has become well established as a top 2 or 3 resource within my industry. We have more unique, expert curated content written on a daily basis then any other site in our industry, and are the only site in our niche that is syndicated through Google News. I've put a lot of money into hiring experts to write high quality content and have never engaged in any black hat SEO practices.  Up until late February of this year this practice had paid off and was reflected in the steady Google search traffic growth we'd enjoyed throughout our first 2 1/2 years.
Then Panda hit and we dropped from about 3,000 unique visitors per day down to about 2,000 per day. Another month later we dropped to 1,400 visitors per day. I removed what little thin content I could find and kept on the best I could.
I purchased two competing sites and merged them into my main site, adding several more expert authors, a podcast, and a well known forum in the process. Thanks to this my core domain's Google search traffic slowly but surely returned. As of last week it was back up to about 2,500 unique visitors per day.  Then the latest "Minor" Panda tweak on Oct 13th/14th hit late last week and my traffic dropped back down to 1700 visitors per day. Even before that happened I was being outranked by vastly inferior sites all across the board thanks to most all the large retailers within my niche having the budget to purchase large amounts of links.
So here's the deal, I'm just at a loss as to what to do now. I've tried to be as objective as I possibly can but it just doesn't make any sense. I literally have the best overall content in my industry. My writing staff include legitimate experts, including a former MLB All-Star, a Hall of Fame recognized Author, and a lot of lesser known, but very knowledgeable (and well known within my industry) college educated bloggers and enthusiasts. But I'm getting beaten by thin ecommerce sites who have insane amounts of paid links, various exact match domain cookie cutter sites, and lesser information sites which again engage heavily in link buying.
This seems completely counter to what Google was trying to achieve with the Panda update. I've done tons of reading on the specifics of the update since being hit in February and have hired several SEO experts to give me feedback on my own analysis as well as to perform their own research. We've made some small changes here and there and optimized the speed of the site. Everyone has confirmed that I have the best link profile - its legitimately natural and features links from all the top industry authority sites as well as many mainstream media outlets and everything in between. However somehow I continue to get my ass kicked by 1 dimensional sites which have nothing but paid and reciprocal links, and have no unique content that adds value for visitors. So there's only so much we've been able to change.
Am I really an unintended casualty of the Panda Algorithm (and its subsequent updates)? Or am I blind to one or more serious issues that make this ongoing Google ass kicking justifiable and well deserved? Either way any advice on what to do next would be sincerely appreciated. I'm a young guy with two kids and depend on my online business to pay the bills.
Thanks guys...
I just find it hard to believe that the right answer here is to cut my content budget out and go and use it to buy links everywhere - but that is exactly what Google has rewarding within my niche since late February. <comment><USER4> Act as if Google doesn't exist. Don't worry about SEO. Make your site something people love enough to recommend to their friends. Something they would miss if it was gone.

After 3 years, people _should_ love the site, and a sizable number of them should be coming to it directly. The fact that it has dropped out of existence and no one cares is a powerful indicator.

Imagine if StackOverflow was deindexed tomorrow. Its traffic would drop by 90%. People would be pissed at Google for it. Then they'd start visiting the site directly, because it's _that_ valuable to them.

If users aren't _pissed_ that they can't find you in Google you're not providing enough value.

It looks like no one is actually searching for your site:

<http://www.google.com/trends?q=cardboard+connection>

<http://www.google.com/trends?q=hacker+news>

<http://www.google.com/trends?q=stack+overflow>

BTW link shorteners are frowned upon on HN. The site is: <http://www.cardboardconnection.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't say it dropped out of existence by any means. There is enough of a user base and word of mouth to sustain it and I'm by no means deindexed. I don't feel that Google "owes" me anything. The content that is often times outranking me is just flat out bad and my content is much better. It feels like something I'm doing / done is causing me to rank in spite of, rather then because of, my quality content. But I haven't done anything black hat and have always focused on user experience first, SEO second.

<comment><USER4> Your site is the very definition of a content farm, and worse yet, it's a _niche_ content farm. No one visits content farms intentionally, they stumble across them via searches. Google is trying to kill the incentive to create these kinds of sites.

Some of your content might be written by real authorities, but it's still lightweight and relatively thin. Compare it to Wikipedia if you want to see the standard you have to meet.

Even if you do manage to game Google again it's likely you'll get slapped down in a future tweak. It's an arms race and they're not playing around anymore.

Build something that's strong enough to stand on its own.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I'm a bit perplexed by your assertion that my site is a content farm. Could you maybe provide some specifics and/or insight into what led you to that conclusion? I appreciate your candor, but personal feelings aside, my site doesn't meet the criteria for being content farm based on Wikipedia's definition (or any other definition that I'm familiar with). And I'm not sure why you keep making the assumption that people aren't visiting my site directly as I never said that. At least half my traffic is from direct / referral sources. I also have one of the more active user forums in my niche.

My site is cited by numerous museums, libraries, and reference sites as being an authoritative source for information related to my industry. And after reading your comment I looked through Wikipedia for several hours and my site is one of the most commonly referenced and cited resources for my subject matter. For example: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_cards> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topps> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Deck_Company> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rookie_cards>

With all that said, since we cover niche news stories the length / depth of the content is dependent on the stories themselves. For instance, if a company releases an updated checklist for one of their sets, it may only give me enough information to create a 200 word article. But since its information that is both helpful and relevant to my readers, I publish it anyway. Maybe its time to cut that portion of my business out though and double down on other types of content so that I don't have news stories pulling the rest of my site's content down.

<comment><USER4> I should have been a little more careful with my phrasing. Your site fits the description of a content farm. It looks and smells like one.

My reference to Wikipedia was to the quality of their articles.

I know they're not exactly the same thing, but look at these:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T206_Honus_Wagner>

[http://www.cardboardconnection.com/baseball/t206-wagner- card...](http://www.cardboardconnection.com/baseball/t206-wagner-card-among- the-highlights-of-memory-lanes-i-own-it-now)

All your content appears to be about this thin, and you have tens of thousands of pages like this. That's what a content farm looks like to me and Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for the clarification. While I don't have tens of thousands of pages like that (my site has under 10,000 pages in all and lots of those pages are very informative, rich resources), your point is well taken. It prompted me to look back over my last couple of years worth of content in a whole new light. Thus far I've deleted several hundred old news articles with no residual value, and repurposed several dozen news stories into evergreen reference articles that present lasting value to readers. And I have only gone through about 1/3 of my site's articles thus far. The end result is going to be a much better, more useful site for my readers - <USER2> is really exciting.

So thank you for your insight, and thanks to everyone else for their feedback as it has been extremely helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1) Make sure you have a Google Webmaster Tools account and see if your site has any warnings and/or other problems identified by Google.

2) Think about reducing the number of links on the homepage, and increasing the amount of content. Maybe a greeting for new users letting them know what your about. Overall your homepage is covered in links and as a user at first glance nothing stands out and I'm likely to hit the backspace button.

3) Create a better site structure (clear tiers of content), its very hard to navigate your site.

4) Get rid of empty pages like this: [http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2011-topps-tier-one- baseb...](http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2011-topps-tier-one-baseball).

5) Make sure you aren't copying other's content and they aren't scrapping yours see: [http://www.copyscape.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cardboardconnec...](http://www.copyscape.com/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cardboardconnection.com%2F2011-bowman- baseball)

6) Save posts like these for Twitter and Facebook: [http://www.cardboardconnection.com/hockey/amazing-patches- fr...](http://www.cardboardconnection.com/hockey/amazing-patches- from-2011-itg-ultimate-memorabilia-hockey)

7) A new design with larger font, different colour scheme and better plugins (commenting, ratings, etc) is in order.

8) Get rid of the Hot Auctions tab, link to eBay from the product page and not a secondary link farm looking tab.

9) Despite all these minor problems (and there's more) the quality of content on site is pretty poor, I guess if I was coming for the history of some cards maybe your site would be helpful but the content is written in a detached, impersonal tone that doesn't garner links or Google rankings.

Focus on writing high quality articles based on your/author's personal experience and expertise.

Check out www.copyblogger.com for more information on how to write well for the net.

10) Try and get in touch with Matt Cutts (<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Matt_Cutts>), he regularly helps out sites that feel like they have been harshly treated (proof: [http://www.seroundtable.com/google-ban-cutts- support-14164.h...](http://www.seroundtable.com/google-ban-cutts- support-14164.html))

11) After you have fixed all these problems submit a reconsideration request to Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the suggestions. In terms of content, that is exactly what I'm going for with the majority of my site - to be an objective resource for people looking for information on cards. The industry has been plagued with a lot of backroom dealing and unethical partnerships, so being an unbiased source has been one of my strongest selling points.

I've used a few market research services to randomly survey visitors to my site. The content itself was always gotten exceedingly positive marks from collectors, but non-collectors have given it mixed marks. That seems to substantiate the feedback I've also gotten on some Webmaster forums. The vast majority of collectors and people in the sports collectibles industry (and to a lesser extent people in the mainstream sports industry) regard my content as high quality and those outside of it give more of a mixed response.

What did you mean by [http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2011-topps-tier-one- baseb...](http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2011-topps-tier-one-baseball) being an empty page though? Did it not show up correctly for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Make sure it is not because of seasonality.

2\. Access your site using a text browser like Lynx. Your first 5-15 links should be pointing to to content-rich pages which are unique.

3\. Analyze the keywords. You said thin e-commerce sites are beating you. Are those keywords transactional or informational?

4\. Continuing from point 3: Create silos. Separate your "information" and "commerce/transactions" neatly. Then, focus on the one which needs more attention. Add content/products and create more links.

5\. Assuming you have analytics software installed: check your bounce rates, average duration/page, and pages/visit. See if something is amiss.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for the feedback. I've tried to silo the news / information content (<http://goo.gl/uSDfm>) away from the product / transactional related content (<http://goo.gl/X3M8d>) by assigning them to different categories. Do you think I should go further then that? I've considered subdomains but have held off because of the subsequent need to 301 so many urls.Maybe there's another option?

Product wise I have a bigger database then any other website. Each product profile features a mix of product info, reviews, price comparisons, and checklists. So they are a combination of both types of content in a way.

<comment><USER6> Subdomains are not a must. However, your titles will kill you. "101" - <USER3> doesn't mean anything to a search engine. "tips", "information" -> those mean something. If you have products, make sure to add "buy" or "purchase" or any such keyword which screams "transactions". You don't have it right now. tl;dr: Help the search engines to categorize your silos properly. Same goes for subcategories.

Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I visited your site and it "looks" like a link farm.

There is no content on your homepage, it's 100% links.

I also visited your top level pages (clicked on Baseball,Football etc) and they are 90% links.

You need to move some actual content to those pages. They should at the very least having have content similar to the third level pages (like <http://goo.gl/3RFqI>).

You seem to have new articles on a regular basis, having fresh real content (not just links) on your 1st and 2nd level pages can only help, especially if your external inbound links are pointing to those pages.

My $0.02

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks you very much for the insight. That is something I've struggled with because it seems like from a user useability perspective having those types of 2nd level sub-index pages would be necessary in order to find and navigate through all my content. I have 6,000 some odd various articles with new content published daily. Do you have some examples of online news / magazine sites that do a good job of placing real content on high level pages without sacrificing useability? Again, thanks for the comment.

<comment><USER7> You mention news and magazine sites, they are very topical and change out almost all of their content on a regular basis. Your site very definitely doesn't do that and but should.

An easy to find example:

<http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/index.html>

This is what your home page looks like now, except I'd have more "fresh" content and less duplicate content.

Additionally, under each of the three feature images/stories I'd include the first paragraph from that article under the image with a meaningfully named link to the article.

Try to reduce the duplicate content, for example you have the same article teaser for "2012 Topps Heritage Baseball Cards" image,headline,paragraph on your home page and at least two other pages:

* <http://www.cardboardconnection.com/baseball/> * <http://www.cardboardconnection.com/sports-cards-sets/>

And it;s the only content on those secondary pages. Google will definitely frown on that.

If you have fresh content, you should be using it.

On your second level pages put your most recent article teasers on the page (The teaser is the image/headline/first paragraph combo) like on the third level pages, do your best to bubble the actual content up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent feedback. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know how you feel. I got out of the content race a year ago and it seems like Panda destroyed 9 out of 10 sites out there focused in the content space.

The best thing you can continually do is push out better content, get linkbacks and decrease your bounce rate.

Have you thought about putting adsense on your site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response. It doesn't seem like Google fully "gets" my site. It appears they often times try to rank me as if I'm a mainstream sports site but then overlook me for my area of specialty (sports collectibles). For instance, I may rank for the term "Lou Gehrig" or "Hope Solo" but not for "Lou Gehrig cards" or "baseball cards". Its bizarre since mainstream sports is so much more competitive an area. However a mainstream sports fan is going to bounce after reading an article unless they also happen to be a collector. That kind of traffic is better directed to mainstream sports sites.

I already have links from all the main industry sites and think I've done a good job of onsite SEO. What else can I do to help Google more appropriately "theme" my site and understand its specific area of authority?

<comment><AUTHOR> As for Adsense, I have tried it in the past but the payoff per click for my niche is really low. I prefer eBay for this site because I can incorporate it in a way that actually adds value to the user experience.

Just out of curiosity, where did you go after leaving the content publishing arena?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> is your site getting scraped by other people? what about site response times?</comment>


Improving the Cappuccino Theme System - <AUTHOR> http://www.annema.me/blog/post/improving-the-cappuccino-theme-system

<comment><USER2> I think using JavaScript to parse CSS is a great solution to this. Even as a developer I find theming with CSS easier than Objective-C-style code.

<comment><USER3> The fluid nature of HTML is fantastic as well. Insert a div and the other stuff moves to make way for the new element. Remove it and things pop back. That sort of thing is a major PITA with standard Cocoa views.</comment></comment>


Newly Discovered Exploit Makes Every iPhone Remotely Hackable - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/newly-discovered-exploit-makes-every-iphone-remotely-ha-1740096591 <comment><AUTHOR> There's also [1] which is quoted as the source in gizmodo

1) [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/somebody-just- won-1-million...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/somebody-just- won-1-million-bounty-for-hacking-the-iphone)</comment>


Sony will allow indie devs to publish their own games on PlayStation 4 - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/10/sony-will-allow-indie-devs-to-publish-their-own-games-on-playstation-4/ <comment><USER2> I'd be immensely wary of Sony declaring themselves open to indie devs. When I was a teenager I did homebrew development on the Sony PSP. Sony did every damned thing in their power to stop it. To run homebrew, you had to either run an older version of firmware or root the device. Every time an exploit was patched, a new one was found. This inevitably meant a lot of people spent a lot of time rooting the PSP[1]. I was impressed with how the security of the device fell time and time again to the community.

If Sony just allowed the PSP to run homebrew games, they'd not be in such a mess. Many of the developers rooting the devices just wanted to run their own software, but the shadow community would use that result to pirate games. Separating the two communities by allowing homebrew software on their device would have made sense for their own protection.

This was then followed up by the PS3. After releasing with both the ability to run Linux, they removed both. You paid for a device with X, then they removed X. Understandably the community became somewhat irate. Eventually their private signing key for their entire console was leaked due to the desire to allow homebrew and to restore OtherOS (Linux) support[2]. Sony's legal department tried to fix that...

So, from all this past history, I wouldn't trust Sony's new direction. At the very least not until they start to act on their new found conviction.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable#Homebrew](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable#Homebrew)

[2]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz#Hacking_the_PlaySta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hotz#Hacking_the_PlayStation_3)

Edit: Thanks for Dylan16807 correcting me re: PS2 emulation. Having a deeper read into it, the situation is confusing -- some models have hardware PS2 support, others do emulation, and then it was completely dropped whilst "PS2 Classics" (recompiled or via emulation) were released on the PS3 as pay for downloads.

<comment><USER3> If you watched the announcement I think you can get a sense that Sony has learned a lot from their past. You can tell that they cared about the people that they made this product for.

Something really striking about this whole Xbox One vs PS4 thing is how one sided the enthusiasm is (in favor of the PS4). It's all the more striking when you consider that the gaming community is one of the most passionate, fickle, and hardest-to-please bunch of people there are.

I think Sony really listened to what people really wanted and made something with those things in mind.

Just gauging the reactions from across the internet and from across my diverse group of friends, the PS4 is being received so incredibly well and the sentiment towards the Xbox One is exactly the opposite.

<comment><USER4> > the PS4 is being received so incredibly well and the sentiment towards the > Xbox One is exactly the opposite.

It's probably because Sony hasn't said anything yet about their used game policy. I would seriously doubt they don't get publishers get their way on the Sony console as well just as they did on the Xboxone. Unless they want to shoot themselves in the foot and lose publishers support.

<comment><USER5> Go look at the number one thread in r/gaming right now.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming)

[http://imgur.com/ymUneDP](http://imgur.com/ymUneDP)

<comment><USER6> Sony may have won out of the established competitors but the Oculus Rift will be coming out this generation too. Given the support it has so far I don't doubt that it will become a major competitor, so it's too early to say Sony 'won'.

<comment><USER7> As far as I know, the Oculus Rift isn't really a competitor in that it's not a console. It's not stand-alone. Doesn't it require a gaming PC to actually power the display? In that sense, it's not the Oculus Rift that's a new competitor, it's that the old competitor (PC gaming) has just gotten a new innovation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Remember how PS 3 let users load their own Linux then a year or two later they sent out a firmware update that turned it off. Like imagine buying a car then the dealership sends a rep over and takes the nice stereo out and installs a cheaper model...but doesn't give you a refund, or a choice. And this stood up in court?

<comment><USER9> > Remember how PS 3 let users load their own Linux then a year or two later > they sent out a firmware update that turned it off.

It's unfortunate that the attention span of most users is as short. Aside from the Linux issue, the PS3 was decidedly hostile towards small game companies for a very long time (ridiculous development system costs, year long approval process etc.).

<comment><USER10> Source? I don't know of any small company that actually paid for devkits either from Sony or MS. Year long approval would cost hundreds thousand that small companies are not likely to afford.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> PS4 more like an appstore, the war of consoles has already been won. Congratulations Sony.

Companies like Halfbrick, Rovio, Firemint, Pixelbite and many many more were made by an open market on mobile. I am excited to see what games will pop up on PS4. They already had better indie exclusives like Joe Danger, Fat Princess and more. Good times ahead for gaming on the PS4.

What I don't get is being open appstores attracts developers and sells more hardware and subsequently more games. Why would Microsoft shut that down? Bigger economies always sell more.

<comment><USER12> Microsoft has a very long history of screwing up once they get on top. They're great when they're the underdog doing the chasing, they tend to catch up over time. Once they finally build a great product, you can almost always count on them royally screwing it up. Then the process starts all over again.

<comment><USER7> It tends to be Microsoft dumping money into something to gain their top status, then once they try to make a profit on it they mess up. Their profit maximization formula doesn't seem to have a field for "will this lose customers?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is another symptom that the marketing logic of consoles is off the rails. Consoles were closed devices because that's how console users could be made to pay for console hardware - through game prices.

For a couple decades, the economics of this worked just fine. Until just recently, developing for a console market of a few tens of millions was far more lucrative than writing for any "open" games market. But now, with billions of smartphones, which amounts to a crushing ratio of 2.x _orders of magnitude_ over consoles, games for smart mobile devices are making a serious dent - enough so that Microsoft led with their "old people" passive media features for Xbox One.

It is an open question if the console economy can be sustained. Can enough be sold to make a viable market for game publishers? Hardcore gamers have PC gaming to fall back upon, so they will not save the consoles. The "living room PC" was always a loser, and it is hard to see how mixing that in with a console is now going to be a winner.

<comment><USER14> _But now, with billions of smartphones, which amounts to a crushing ratio of 2.x orders of magnitude over consoles, games for smart mobile devices are making a serious dent - enough so that Microsoft led with their "old people" passive media features for Xbox One._

Do you have any evidence for this "serious dent" that smartphone gaming is having on the industry?

I don't see how the smartphone game market overlaps with the same market that is purchasing an Xbox 360 or PS3. If anything, it overlaps the handheld market, but the Nintendo 3DS is still selling very well despite competing with smartphones for people's gaming dollars.

For the "gaming" market (ie. people who play more than the occasional round of Solitaire or Angry Birds), smartphones are still underwhelming. Even take the Madden and CoD crowd that many gaming enthusiasts disparage. Why would they care about lackluster smartphone games?

If anything the smartphone market aligns with those who bought a Wii for Wii Sports and then hardly used the thing much longer other than maybe as a Netflix device. But that was never a long-term market anyways.

Plus, the smartphone gaming market seems to have a pricing issue where everyone expects games to be either free or $1. Can you imagine a game on the Google Play store costing $30+ dollars as they do for a 3DS or Vita? Let along $60 for a PS4 or Xbone One title?

<comment><USER13> First, you are right that smart mobile devices have the most direct impact on handhelds which were a niche within a niche already.

Second, I can't imagine a game on Google Play costing $30, never mind $60. Can you imagine a world without $30 games?

Third, those $30-60 games are only possible inside the closed console market. In this context, the idea of indy games on consoles is just strange: It is contrary to the way the console market works.

The point is that if smart mobile devices on one side, and gaming PCs on the other side peel away enough of the market, 8th generation consoles will continue the decline in unit volume that happened in the 7th generation, and lead to the end of console gaming.

You are comparing high end FPS games against casual games. When, in reality, console games are divided between dozens of genres. If everything else - fighting games, strategy games, CRPGs, simulation games, etc. are all fine on handsets and/or tablets, it's the end of consoles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We still don't have any real details, mind. This could be anything from a fully open app store model to Steam's arbitrarily selective approval.

<comment><USER16> When they say they will allow X it means they will allow exactly X and no more, so I'm sure there will be approval. But developers may get to keep ~70% instead of ~30%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's hard to say how this will work out, but compared to Microsoft who has seemed to expend a tremendous amount of effort crapping all over indie game devs it's hard to see this as anything other than very promising.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if this is actually a good idea? Seems similar to one of the major things that led to the "Video Game Crash of 1983"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_cras...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983#Loss_of_publishing_control)

<comment><USER19> Isn't it essentially the situation we've had with Xbox Live Indie Games and most of the games in Apple's/Google's app stores?

There's a tremendous amount of trash on those marketplaces. I haven't seen any indications that it would lead to a crash.

<comment><USER18> Probably not a crash for the market as a whole, but certainly not a good idea for a company who's console is struggling against the competition.

<comment><USER20> One of the major reasons I'm ditching the Xbox (I owned an Xbox and own two Xbox 360s) is because of the PS4's much clearer focus on supporting indie games.

And yes, I realize for every The Witness or Braid there will be 20 or more pieces of crap, but this isn't 1982 where we are trying to figure out what to buy based solely on cover art. We have the Internet, the stuff worth paying attention to will be filtered up to the masses with or without Sony's explicit help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yes, but what about the SDK costs? I believe special development hardware was required for PS3 development which had/has a cost of around $10k. If Sony is offering similar pricing for the PS4 SDK then what's the point of indie publishing?

<comment><USER16> IIRC Sony gives free SDKs to indie stars. The full process is:

1\. Develop/release indie game on Windows.

2\. Sell a lot of copies (relatively speaking).

3\. Sony gives you free SDK.

4\. Release indie game on PS3/4.

5\. For your second game (e.g. Transistor, The Witness) you can develop for PS4 in parallel with Windows because you already have the SDK.

<comment><USER22> That's not the PSVita process. I have a hunch this'll be a lot closer to the Vita process than that.

<comment><USER23> Can you enlighten us to the Vita process?

I've dabbled with iOS games but found it a tad boring as I love games with proper controls so the possibilities of this excite me.

<comment><USER22> It's rather similar to mobile development:

[http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/PlayStation+Vita/news.as...](http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/PlayStation+Vita/news.asp?c=50745)

I haven't personally done it (though I'm considering trying it for a small-ish project) so I can't speak to how many hassles there are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> apa-sl emmm, OK but Nintendo has already did that on Nintendo Wii U - inde dev can publish their game (after Nintendo's approval) without coping with any big publisher. It is funny how Nintendo is super innovative but often overlook (similar as Opera on the browsers market).

<comment><USER24> The Wii U didn't innovate on this: Sony has been allowing developers to self publish on the PS3 and PS Vita for some time now[1]. This is just a continuation of that policy into the next generation. Much of the news coming out of E3 for Sony has been "we're not changing our policies, unlike our competitor".

[1]: [http://us.playstation.com/develop/](http://us.playstation.com/develop/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Depending on how open this is, this could conceivably make Ouya obsolete.

<comment><USER26> imo the Ouya is pretty much obsolete. Current gen smartphones are more powerful and coupled with an HDMI cable and a bluetooth controller (from the PS3 for example) offer the same thing plus are portable.

Ouya is all about its own Store and ecosystem, games built for their system/controller etc and also its low price point. I still think it will have a hard time.

<comment><USER27> Current gen smartphones are 3x more expensive once you add a game controller. That's a pretty massive difference in market.

<comment><USER26> true, but the ouya target demographic likely has a smartphone anyway. Most of the mass market will probably never hear about the Ouya.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm so enjoying this... It's going to be a blood bath for Xbox One. If we include the fact that the Xbox will be spying on you in the living room and most likely giving the data to the NSA it's obvious what we should all purchase.

I's rather not have the NSA recording my living room.

</comment><comment><USER29> Online play seems to require Playstation Plus however. It seems they've followed Microsoft in this matter. So if your game is online, it could get interesting. Though from what I understand playstation plus gives steam level discounts to gamers on a console.

<comment><USER30> Indeed. It's not quite as cheap as steam (75% off), but if you keep your subscription up you'll get a bunch of free games that puts the subscription into "great deal" territory.

I was on the fence about it for a long time, but after the second time my console died and lost all my game saves, I wanted the cloud save feature. It ends up that since I bought the PS Plus subscription, I actually haven't bought any games. I'm a infrequent gamer - I play games, but not every day. My back catalog of good games is pretty big, so there's a lot of good stuff that comes through the freebie channel.

[http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/06/10/playstation- plus-e...](http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/06/10/playstation- plus-e3-2013-sale-free-machinarium-uncharted-3-xcom-more/). If you scroll down you see the discounts on purchases.

This month they gave out Uncharted 3, XCom, LBP Karting (I bought it when it was $10 for PS+ subscribers), and Deus Ex Human Revolution. Previously they've had Ratchet and Clank, Spec Ops: The Line, Sleeping Dogs, and a bunch of other big studio titles. If you bought just the titles for this month you'd spend at least $50, even at the cheapest retailers online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In a time when the freedom on internet is top news and highly controversial, he who sells freedom is in a lucrative business.

If Sony does maintains significant advantage on the freedom of its users, they will crush Microsoft. It's not even going to be funny.

</comment><comment><USER32> Will they be shipping something like XNA? Will they be using C# or other managed languages at engine level?

</comment><comment><USER33> Is getting a devkit getting any easier / cheaper? Apple got to where it was by opening up the ios development to everyone and not requiring an arcane process to become an approved developer.

<comment><USER34> > not requiring an arcane process

Xcode?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It'll be interesting to see what kind of restrictions they'll have on account access, networking, DLC and so forth.

Sony is infamous for saying things like this, then screwing people with the details.

</comment><comment><USER36> Welp, I know what console I'm buying next. I haven't purchased a gaming console since the very first PS2s that hit eBay before xmas that year, but I think it's once again time.

</comment><comment><USER37> yeah, you still have to hope it will be easy to program this stuff. and let's see the technical details on that too.

</comment><comment><USER38> Relevant. "We're Indie, we like Microsoft. Too Controversial?"

[http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JamesSilva/20130523/192832/Were_I...](http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JamesSilva/20130523/192832/Were_Indie_we_like_Microsoft_Too_Controversial.php)

<comment><USER22> That the guy who has been getting what amounts to fairly special treatment since the jump (with The Dishwasher) likes the guys who created his meal ticket is not terribly surprising.

(Not saying he's wrong to feel that way, but his biases are stark.)</comment></comment>