Facebook moderators in America - ajay-d https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona <comment><AUTHOR> I always wondered why they don't have a system where the videos or images are shown first filtered, like blurred, and then at the discretion of the operator, they can take "several levels of blurring" off until they see the original image. That way, for some images/videos/ you can tell if it's violent/inappropriate right away, and the operator may see "less" of whatever is disturbing for them.

I've also wondered how they deal with long videos that may seem correct for the first minutes, but the real inappropriate content is interlaced for a few frames in-between or later in the video.

<comment><USER2> It's low-value work. Facebook doesn't value these people enough to employ them so they likely don't have access to properly engineered tools.

<comment><USER3> What makes you think that? How can you say that with such confidence? Are you letting your pre-existing negative feelings color your assumptions about what people actually think at the company?

I used to work there, and I built tools for these workers. Every one of the other engineers that I knew had nothing but respect for them, and everybody recognized that it was important work.

<comment><USER4> So important their bathroom breaks are timed, they get inadequate counseling, and they get paid $28k a year!

<comment><USER5> You have to remember that those are policies put in place by the contracting company, not Facebook or the engineers that make the tools that these people use.

<comment><USER6> And yet if Facebook really valued these contractors as much as their regular employees, they would be hired as regular employees and not contractors. The fact such crucial staff are contractors shows how much Facebook values them.

<comment><USER5> Yeah I don't disagree, ultimately though, it's a scaling problem. It's unrealistic to hire thousands of people in a high churn context. Cognizant, Accenture, et al are companies designed to do that and they do it well.

<comment><USER7> If they were treated better and had access to better tools, it might not be such a "high-churn context."

Facebook makes literally billions of dollars, they could easily pay more and provide better support to these people. They simply do not wish to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember when "user generated content" was a common phrase. It was great, users generate the content for the site and you just have to provide a platform for it. It seemed like a positive thing.

Not it seems clear that if you open yourself to host something for your users you also need to be prepared to accept that you're going to be hosting the worst of humanity, exposing others to it, including people who work for you.

It seems like such an extreme contrast from what it seemed like user content could be and what it is.

<comment><USER9> This isn't particularly surprising to anyone who has been online for a while - sometimes you'd see gruesome stuff even on forums, and then you also had the culture on sites like 4chan.

Moderation isn't something that one could really escape from even about 20 years ago, just now we're more cognizant of the effects of poor moderation and users are more aware of how people behave when moderators/admins are pushed to the boundaries of the set rules.

<comment><USER10> The the scale of the platform is the differentiator. If you're moderating a few hundred or thousand people on a forum, especially a site with a constrained vision and purpose, you're simply not encountering content and behavior like this on a regular basis, if ever.

Now, look at facebook. Billions of users. No constrained vision or purpose to being there; if you're human, you're a customer, and human behavior can be pretty gross at the fringes. And maybe most importantly; they can't just Ban whatever people or content they want, due to both a profit motive and public outrage due to their preeminent position.

This isn't a problem that has already existed, because the problem is with the Scale, not with the Behavior.

<comment><USER11> > if you're human, you're a customer

No. If you're human, you're a product. Can't have the product spoiled, now, can we?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I get a certain amount of secrecy for their own protection, but this:

> They are pressured not to discuss the emotional toll that their job takes on > them, even with loved ones, leading to increased feelings of isolation and > anxiety.

Just doesn't make any sense. Not only does it not protect the moderators, I can't even figure out what the cynical corporate interest would be.

<comment><USER8> I'm guessing these moderators are outsourced through another company and that allows for a lot of unreasonable policies.

I think it is generally understood that if you outsource you can get another company to enforce policies you'd otherwise be embarrassed by / legally responsible for if they worked direct for the company. So if something goes wrong "oh that wasn't us, we told that crazy outsourced company not to do it". The other company doesn't care as they're not selling a product and it doesn't hurt them.

I worked for an outsourced customer service company when I was in college. The policies for their in house service and outsourced were explicitly different but customers were exactly the same. This was no mystery to anyone in the company. Policies for the outsourced companies were much much less generous to the customers. So much so at one point they retroactively changed their warranty policy that was enforced by outsourced customer service. In house stuck to the original rules, outsourced declared X, Y, Z wasn't covered. When they got caught after a year of saving money they declared that the company they outsourced service to did it wrong. Then after a time they'd switch back....

<comment><USER13> I actually know a Facebook moderator who lives in Austin. I found it very interesting that they do a lot of moderating of illegal political content in countries that have strict rules about it. She works directly for Facebook and gets the same perks as the other employees in ATX.

<comment><USER14> Whoa. Are you implying that Facebook employees in Austin are helping, say, the Chinese government censor pro-democracy groups?

I'm not sure the employee's perks (or lack thereof) are the biggest story there.

<comment><USER8> Could be more benign such as a country that has rules about no political adds between X and Y times.

Still your question is valid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would be impressed if Zuck and Sheryl decided to spend a day per year doing this job.

I suspect that as a billionaire and the CXO of one of the largest companies of the world, you can get disconnected from the details.

It would be valuable for them to see a different reality of their platform.

<comment><USER16> Zuck has been around long enough to have experienced goatse, rotten.com and all the other shock sites; back then, I'd argue, it was easier to find and be 'accidentally' exposed to than today.

But, that's the odd experience. Having to deal with new levels of depravity every day is different.

Anyway, what do you believe would change if Zuck did it for a day? They need moderators, as long as the technology for detecting it automatically isn't good enough yet. He knows it's a problem.

<comment><USER17> >Anyway, what do you believe would change if Zuck did it for a day?...He knows it's a problem.

Well for starters he might stop outsourcing the work through a contractor who pays its employees 1/8 what the average Facebook employee is paid. Maybe the powers that be accept and acknowledge these low/underpaid contractors are developing PTSD like symptoms and are clearly not getting services internally much less the financial compensation to get such services externally...not to mention the contractual arrangement which seems to keep the contractors from seeking help externally.

<comment><USER18> Companies like Facebook pay local market rates.

People that work at FB in London also don't average a $240k average Silicon Valley compensation.

<comment><USER17> I don't think the point OP is making is about Zuckerberg spending a day doing the work of one of these positions is to determine the fair market wage of this position in Arizona...

After all what is the local market rate for a job that has shown the tendency to trigger PTSD without sufficient benefits to treat said PTSD? You would hope at least enough to cover PTSD treatments...Would you continue to use Facebook or allow your kids to use Facebook if there was a good chance of them developing PTSD symptoms? Would you take a job where there was a good chance you would develop PTSD and the job wouldn't cover it and didn't pay enough for you to cover it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those used to shock sites from 10-20 years ago, this is very different, I'm not going to link to anything but the disturbing content is on a few whole new levels.

I can't even imagine doing this job. This should be 100% automated with only 0.01% error rate for the first-pass filter (e.g. before it reaches humans).

They are willing to spare their users the horrors but not their own employees/contractors...

<comment><USER20> Facebook tried the automated system by using employees to train the machine. It failed.

They returned to non Facebook employed humans doing the moderation

<comment><USER21> One thing I hope they're doing is advanced detection of duplicate inappropriate content - e.g. by splitting a confirmed properly blocked video into frames and identifying matching videos based on frames matching (or even key parts of frames).

You'd still have to investigate/review partial matches, but something like that could cut down a lot on duplicate effort and could auto-identify a lot of things that would need manual review.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Remember that Reddit quarantines /watchpeopledie

These mods may randomly see gang videos (go look for them if you want to see how tough you are) on any day.

Viewing them would make many people I know retch, worse than if they saw a gory horror movie.

And then some ideas, if presented without an antidote (creationism, flat earth, conspiracies) will subvert the people watching it.

And then comes the worst part - the damage to society itself.

If violent images are removed, depending on what people in Facebook and their friends, consider safe- then they are also deciding what is newsworthy.

And Facebook mods are not in a position to decide if an image of burning child, will stop a war or awaken the conscience of a people.

All they know is that it breaks "rule 4- death: graphic wounding, no gore."

<comment><USER22> The only one that got to me was Funkytown. I've got to imagine if they increased pay and hunted through those users, they could find people that can withstand sifting through this stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Every moderator I spoke with took great pride in their work, and talked > about the job with profound seriousness. They wished only that Facebook > employees would think of them as peers, and to treat them with something > resembling equality.

> "If we weren't there doing that job, Facebook would be so ugly," Li says. > "We're seeing all that stuff on their behalf. And hell yeah, we make some > wrong calls. But people don't know that there's actually human beings behind > those seats."

Some respect and acknowledgement, and more than $15/hour, seems like it would be a good start.

<comment><USER24> > Some respect and acknowledgement, and more than $15/hour, seems like it > would be a good start.

If it isn't already the case in the US, psychologically hazardous jobs should come with wage premiums.

<comment><USER23> It is most definitely not already the case in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Question: is there a legal prerogative for Facebook to proactively moderate content in the US?

Don't get me wrong: the article is incredibly hard to read. When humans become untethered from social mores, they are capable of shocking and evil behavior.

But...can't people mostly police this themselves? If I had a "friend" posting video of a dog being stabbed, I wouldn't be their friend for much longer. It seems that the result would be relatively small cesspools of highly antisocial behavior. Cesspools which will continue to exist regardless of any moderating effort.

Alternative to moderation: introduce "public content ratings" for the content users post _publicly_. Machines automatically assess content and rate the user based on the maturity level of their public discussion. I would be "teen- mature" because I sometimes say "shit" online and perhaps another user would be "highly mature - disturbing violence and sexual content". Their ratings would weight groups.

Then, it's up to me to decide who I associate with online.

Caveat: nothing is a panacea. We're all trying to figure out how to handle the fact that we gave every maniac a megaphone to the masses.

<comment><USER26> If HN can't do without moderators why do you think Facebook could?

<comment><USER25> I don't think Facebook can do without mods entirely. Maybe they don't have enough mods or strict enough rules. I honestly don't know.

But Facebook has a more user-curated thread, whereas HN is public. In a sense, I am my own mod on FB.

FWIW...I definitely don't use FB on a regular basis. Haven't since Oct 2017.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is it just me, or do should we expect that some small population will be naturally equipped to deal with this job? We don't expect everyone to want to be a soldier or medical doctor. These people deal with situations that would make most people throw up. If you can't handle an hour of browsing 4chan, maybe you should know that content moderation is not a good fit for you.

<comment><USER28> which might be a good argument for gigification of these types of content moderation positions since the machine learning tech simply isn't there yet and might never be in some cases.

Someone with a strong constitution/stomach (i.e. the people who can browse 4chan while eating) might find this work relatively leisurely/tame for decent pay and flexible hours if adapted to a gig-economy model. I mean, there's a whole class of sick fucks who watch the stuff on reddit's /r/watchpeopledie for no compensation.

Might end up with less mental health problems if this type of desensitized personality was leveraged for this nasty-but-necessary job instead of recruiting from naive 19-year-old kids or whoever in between retail jobs and exploiting them in atrocious work conditions until they get PTSD.

<comment><USER29> "relatively leisurely/tame for decent pay and flexible hours"

Uhh, this doesn't sound at all like the stories of driving Uber that I've heard.

I don't think any of the people in the article would be doing this job if they had other options that paid as well, so I don't exactly see how your idea would improve their lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > When I ask about the risks of contractors developing PTSD, a counselor I'll > call Logan tells me about a different psychological phenomenon: "post- > traumatic growth," an effect whereby some trauma victims emerge from the > experience feeling stronger than before.

Wow. Wow. Is this really a thing, excusing forced trauma by claiming it makes people better?

<comment><USER31> People respond in varying manners to traumatic stress. Post traumatic growth is simply the other extreme.

For example, some people take traumatic stress at really poorly (PTSD). Some people develop a world outlook to the tune of "well no matter what happens life is looking up from here" (post traumatic growth).

The counselor is looking at the glass half full. You kind of need to be a glass half full person to persist in that line of work.

<comment><USER32> PTSD is not an issue of attitude while your description of post traumatic growth is nothing but attitude. The two are incomparable.

The actual benefit of what you describe as growth is quite low to offset clinical PTSD which affects life quite a lot.

<comment><USER33> PTSD isn't universal. Not everybody that experiences trauma will develop PTSD. So it's not a matter of "you have PTSD but at least your outlook on life has improved."* Rather, sometimes with some people, trauma won't induce PTSD but _will_ cause post-traumatic growth. Research suggests there is a correlation between PTSD and post-traumatic growth, but it's not a hard and fast rule.

Furthermore there are many factors in play. The nature of the trauma and the predisposition of the person experiencing the trauma both seem to play a big role in whether or not post-traumatic growth is likely to occur. People with social support networks or spirituality are more likely to experience post- traumatic growth. Perhaps for related reasons, trauma that is systematic or collective (such as being a prisoner of war) is more likely to induce post- traumatic growth than trauma which is personal or individual (e.g. sexual assault.)

(Furthermore, no matter how distasteful the possibility may seem, it is possible that post-traumatic growth _can_ take people past whatever their baseline was prior to the inducement of PTSD.)

<comment><USER32> The point is, people with PTSD suffer and their lives are influenced significantly. They have harder time to keep jobs due to symptoms, their relationships are influenced as they are harder to be around, they are more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs, they generally need help.

Other people experiencing post-traumatic growth does not offset all that. It does not make for losses and answer to "is it overall beneficial for people to go through that" is still no.

Counselor answer suggests yes and that is what people take issue with. Whether one can have PTSD and post traumatic growth at the same time is different question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If I think this is unacceptable[1] and I'm skeptical of the nebulous "AI will do this job in the future" claims, are there conclusions to be drawn other than "UGC isn't sustainable on a global, public platform"? That is, are there serious alternative options, or anybody working on ideas in this space?

I think it's readily apparent that "just show everything" doesn't work if you want to attract a mainstream audience, but I'm reluctant to just give up on the global public platform that FB was originally idealized as.

[1] I think I'd still find it unacceptable if the moderators were being paid 6 figures, had extensive 1:1 counseling, or any other perks - selling mental health for money is something I'm happy saying a utopian society wouldn't include.

<comment><USER35> The public platform needs to be decentralized. We need a social protocol where the data lives in the protocol and not in some corporate server where it is subject to their whims.

We currently live in a dystopia where your Twitter or Facebook could be banned at their whim leaving you a digital outcast.

<comment><USER36> That's pretty much the opposite problem of what the GP is asking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It looks like Facebook has responded to this article here: [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/02/commitment-to- content-r...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/02/commitment-to-content- reviewers/) .

<comment><USER38> what a joke this response is. Article mentions A, B and C. with pictures and first hand anecdotes. FB press release issue a statement that they have contracts that do not allow for A, B and C.

They don't even try anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This job sounds more horrific than a crime scene cleaner. 4500 foot soldiers to clean up a billion users. Murder rape assault fraud. Burn it all with brimstone.

<comment><USER40> Are you saying that there aren't enough people cleaning up or that cleaning up should be done differently?

<comment><USER39> I honestly don't know how moderators work and i actually don't use facebook. But 1,750,000,000 / 4500 is about around 380,000 users per moderator. I think they need 5 armys of moderators instead of just a brigade trying to find the worst. They need to step in with private messages or public posts to keep the discussion from going rancid fast. I see it as being logisticaly impossible unfortunately but to keep discussions from going to that depth of evil they need to step up moderatoon pressure a couple orders of magnitude. I've said things here that moderators told me it isn't allowed (actually said things here that were hurtful and unnecessary blanket statements) and I gripe to myself and limp back. If this pressure isn't there yc would turn into kuro5hin in short order. I've seen discussion groups fall into the toxic slime pit more than a few times never to return. I think at least facebook groups can self moderate i have been told. I really doubt good behavior can be coded into a forum.

Now that pit is billions of people not thousands. I have little hope it's going to ever get better. Is this the destiny of all internet discussions? I worry about this a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A huge amount of content moderation has been offshored to the Philippines, where salaries are considerably less than $15/hour. Combination of access to good internet connections, modern office space, an English speaking workforce, and low salary levels.

I have not seen this documentary, but compared to the verge article, I think a major difference is that the filmmakers did not get cooperation from Facebook or the third-party content moderation company. In fact their photos were posted and employees were told to stay away from them.

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywe7gb/the-companies- clea...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywe7gb/the-companies-cleaning-the- deepest-darkest-parts-of-social-media)

</comment><comment><USER20> This sounds about right

>dark humor and camaraderie

Yes. No one can know what happens if you start moderating, except unusually inquisitive users or other mods.

> believing conspiracy theories

Not all ideas are equal - and not all brains/people are equipped to deal with them equally.

Your mod team will soon get polarized or even subverted if faced with the kind of crazy work these facebooks mods have to do.

If you are actual community mod, life is slightly better, since there's more context.

</comment><comment><USER23> See also this upcoming book by Dr. Sarah T. Roberts, the product of several years of research.

[https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Screen-Content-Moderation- Shad...](https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Screen-Content-Moderation- Shadows/dp/0300235887)

Here's a presentation Dr. Roberts' gave at conference last week on the topic too:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mdMtukvtxc#t=15m50s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mdMtukvtxc#t=15m50s)

(Until recently at least, most of this content moderation work was done by contractors overseas, largely in the Phillipines. Can you imagine what the working conditions are like there?)

<comment><USER42> The presentation you linked to by Sarah Roberts was very interesting to say the least. Highly recommended. She adds a lot of information about the condition of content moderators in other countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> If I was running a marketing team or PR firm working on this problem I'd keep pushing the nonsense of AI magically solving everything someday. The actual nuts and bolts of content is pretty horrific, and they are obviously going to want to hide this reality.

At least pay these people more than a dishwasher, please.

</comment><comment><USER44> Yep. And this is what you get when collectively "We" demand moderation. Its the other side of the fence... Usenet was the unmoderated wasteland, and Facebook is a the moderated hell-landscape of "ok not ok".

<comment><USER45> Usenet still exists and is moderated in a similar way against exploitative content in partnership with The Internet Watch Foundation ([https://www.iwf.org.uk](https://www.iwf.org.uk)), depending on your provider. Giganews, the largest Usenet provider and owner of other affiliated providers, is a member of the IWF: [https://www.iwf.org.uk/member/giganews- inc](https://www.iwf.org.uk/member/giganews-inc).

<comment><USER44> But due to its decentralized system, subscribing to a block list from IWF is just that. Its the equivalent of a spamblock list.

<comment><USER45> Not really. Usenet providers voluntarily subscribe to the list for you, leaving you without the choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The only thing remarkable here is that these people are not hired by Facebook directly. Someone needs to ask Zuck why he thinks these hires aren't worthy of catered lunch and @fb.com emails.

<comment><USER47> Then there would be the risk that the rest of fb's employees might be exposed to the reality of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Oh so "in the future" she will be able to watch it without sound or to pause the video?

Seriously, who thought blocking this is a good idea? Do you really need to see an entire video to see it is against the rules? It will also save (a lot of) time

"Oh but then they can just do a shallow evaluation of the video" yeah I don't think that is the case with most of the videos.

</comment><comment><USER49> I wonder how far we are from automating this with image recognition. The interesting thing is policy aspect to the learning problem, does an post/image/video violate a collective set of rules? They are certainly building a huge enough labelled dataset of images, decisions, and policies. I wouldn't be surprised if this went automated in 5-10 years!

</comment><comment><USER50> Wow, that was eye-opening. Maybe a suggestion would be to have certain filters. Anyone below the age of 18 wouldn't be able to view posts by groups/people that have been flagged as "NSFW" posters? I know Tumblr implemented a similar idea a while ago.

</comment><comment><USER51> >If we weren't there doing that job, Facebook would be so ugly

It would be 4chan, minus the anonymity.

<comment><USER52> That would be many times worse than all the chans combined, imagine a chan exclusively used by middle aged mothers where anyone you talk to is doxable at the click of a button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> These contractors work from different agencies. Sometimes they become full- time if they don't end up quitting their job. To make things worse, toxic culture like work place harassment is something they also experience

</comment><comment> throwaway-1283 I feel like selling moderation tools would be a huge biz for any co with UGC...

<comment><USER5> Yes, it already is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> What's going to happen next: FB will quietly layoff all US moderators after moving the operations offshore.

</comment><comment><USER55> Interesting that the moderators were provided by Cognizant - essentially a software outsourcing company.

</comment><comment><USER52> The monolithic social network model just does not scale, this is exactly what we need federation for.

<comment><USER4> How does federation solve the problem of underpaid moderators?

<comment><USER52> Underpaid moderators are a side effect, not the main issue. If the network were federated each node wouldn't grow to such an unmanagable size, at least not without other nodes severing ties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This part is scary:

 _The moderators told me it's a place where the conspiracy videos and memes that they see each day gradually lead them to embrace fringe views. One auditor walks the floor promoting the idea that the Earth is flat. A former employee told me he has begun to question certain aspects of the Holocaust. Another former employee, who told me he has mapped every escape route out of his house and sleeps with a gun at his side, said: "I no longer believe 9 /11 was a terrorist attack."_

I have a hope that people will eventually develop immunity to conspiracy theories after falling for enough of them and eventually seeing them disproved. But with things like pizzagate/Qanon it seems some people just keep going deeper.

<comment><USER57> When it comes to neuroplasticity and change, all it takes is time. If you spend more in the shoes of those flagged for moderation than their opposites, maybe its inevitable that you attain a form of Stockholm syndrome.

<comment><USER58> It's a bit cultlike. Also add isolation from family/friends, and tight control of what you can and can't do, and having no trusted person (therapist there works for the comapny).

It doesn't surprise me that it can lead to similar outcomes, as being in a cult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I think that's called "censors"

</comment><comment><USER12> The internet is one great big libertarian experiment. It illustrates all of the creativity, and all of the depravity, that result when you just put millions of people together and tell them to do whatever they want without consequences.

</comment><comment><USER60> This is a great opportunity to encourage everyone to delete your facebook & Instagram.

<comment><USER5> Also stop using Google, Twitter, YouTube, etc etc because they all work similarly.

<comment><USER60> Agreed, duckduckgo ftw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> If seeing it makes you cry it seems like you should be looking for a new job.

There is a portion of population that would be generally unfazed by the content, it would be best for everyone if they worked these jobs.

<comment><USER62> You really think the people being paid $28k a year to watch videos of literal murder haven't thought that maybe they'd rather have a different job?

<comment><USER63> Tons of people watch these kinds of videos by choice over on /r/watchpeopledie (Warning: Very NSFW Subreddit if the name of it doesn't make that immediately obvious. Contains many videos of accidental deaths and murders, including those of children.)

I'm sure some of them are jobless and would love to be paid $28k a year to do something they already do as a bit of a hobby.

<comment><USER64> That's sick. What you just described is someone who is unhealthy, not a person who needs a full time job to further indulge in something deviant.

<comment><USER61> Even if we concede that they have some dysfunction why is it an issue they do this sort of work?

It's like having someone with poor sense of smell take out the garbage.

<comment><USER62> > It's like having someone with poor sense of smell take out the garbage.

No, it's like having someone a poor sense of smell detect which things smell and which things don't.

Not to mention, having them do this work is taking advantage of a dysfunction rather than helping to address it. In fact it would be likely to make the dysfunction worse.

<comment><USER61> >No, it's like having someone a poor sense of smell detect which things smell and which things don't.

I'd guess most can identify murder and gore films even if they don't mind them. They're pretty obvious.

I don't understand why taking advantage of this "dysfunction" is a bad thing.

<comment><USER64> So watching the destruction of human life and/or incredible suffering of other people is not problematic to you? If someone has a dysfunction is it not cruel to take advantage of the dysfunction, whatever benefit might be derived by others? Seems like the very definition of dehumanizing rather than caring whether or not your fellow man is thriving.

<comment><USER61> I'm not saying force these people to work, simply that they're people who lean more to the callous side of the emotional spectrum and they're better suited for this kind of work.

What you see as dysfunction, their apathy when viewing bad content, is their normal state of being.

<comment><USER65> Rather than argue I'd like to suggest two questions for consideration?

Why do you think some folk are drawn to habitually view such content?

What other things do you think satisfy that impulse?

<comment><USER33> > _" Why do you think some folk are drawn to habitually view such content?"_

It's paradoxically unusual but at the same time incredibly relatable. Everybody dies, so there will be broad spectrum curiosity for the subject, inhibited only by natural squeamishness.

Years ago when highschools still had shop classes, the teacher showed my class a binder full of color photographs of what a lathe accident looks like. The lesson was that lathes aren't toys. I'd never seen anything like those pictures before. They were disgusting, and fascinating. Probably psychologically damaging, but not as damaging as getting caught in a lathe. Did I mention the pictures were fascinating? For most people, seeing that sort of thing is rare. Some people are drawn to novelty, particularly when they can relate to it. Very little in life is as relatable as death; death is even more universally relatable than eating.

Is the suppression of squeamishness a form of mental illness, or a form of psychological damage? I think it definitely can be. But I'm far from convinced it _necessarily_ is.

<comment><USER65> Almost everyone has a degree of morbid curiosity, or there wouldn't be a market for horror movies and true crime media. But my question was specifically about why that would develop into a habitual preference for specifically gruesome ends. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess /watchpeopledie hasn't recently been taken over by video of people in comas flatlining.

<comment><USER33> > But my question was specifically about why that would develop into a > habitual preference for specifically gruesome ends.

Because their squeamishness is suppressed to an extent that is unusual among the general public, and what remains is the now uninhibited fascination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Meh. Sounds like a run of the mill shitty job. You can destroy your body laying bricks and unloading trucks or you can destroy your mental health doing something like this. Of course they're not paid well enough to compensate for the long term damage. Nobody ever is.

There's all sorts of shit you might have to put up with in a shitty job, the work, the environment the customers. This job is shitty but some people are bothered less by this particular kind of shitty than they are by by angry customers yelling at you or laying bricks in the Arizona weather. Sure you might have to see some really screwed up shit among the sea of nip-slips and racial slurs but you get to do it in an air conditioned office without killing your body like the guys in the Amazon warehouse. Some people prefer that.

Different people have different degrees to which they'll tolerate the various ways shitty jobs are shitty. At least one person the author interviewed said "well, it sucks less than Walmart". Back at the point in my life when I was doing shitty jobs I would have preferred brick laying or custodial work but I wouldn't have turned down this job if I needed it. Of course it's terrible for you and turnover is high but all the equally shitty jobs are this way. There really is no winning in the "minimum wage or thereabouts" income bracket.

Edit: Since apparently this opinion is unpopular can anyone tell me why this particular implementation of shitty job is worse than all the other implementations?

<comment><USER62> Disregarding for a second that you're dismissing this entirely without having done so much of one minute of the job yourself...

A lot of manual labour jobs are protected by unions, which establish safety standards, limits to shift length and healthcare to help employees when they need it. Sounds like these employees could do with the same.

<comment><USER31> >A lot of manual labour jobs are protected by unions, which establish safety standards, limits to shift length and healthcare to help employees when they need it. Sounds like these employees could do with the same.

I'm not comparing to those jobs. The union dishwasher in some public university cafeteria gets time off, healthcare, etc, etc. that makes his or her job much less shitty than the infinite-term temp that works beside them. I'm comparing to the temp.

You can make a job better/worse by adding/subtracting pay, benefits or working conditions. If I could get tech pay and benefits for construction work I'd be doing construction.

If we're gonna compare this job to others then we should compare to other jobs that are "equally shitty" not jobs that are similar but actually compensated more highly if you roll the benefits into total comp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I would never be able to to do that job.

Not because of the exposure to "bad things" like the article pushes, but because I've always felt totally fine (even bored) looking at that stuff, and I don't agree with censoring it.

It's just "meh", another day of reality on Earth; the Internet is just a mirror held up next to it.

Will we ever collectively realize this? It seems younger crowds are more normalized to this stuff because they grew up on the Internet. But add in the hypersensitivity in today's public social network sphere, and we're all freaking out over anything even potentially flammable.

<comment><USER67> I think you're on the far side of the "desensitization" process. It's not entirely normal to have a flat emotional response to everything, including images of human suffering.

<comment><USER66> Certainly a good point. I'd add that when it comes to suffering, I certainly feel discontent with that happening:

In the article, the example of a stabbing video is given. I would strongly feel the need for retribution or justice for that victim. Same for all content that shows someone being hurt.

I guess what I mean is that it's wrong to try and purge all this stuff as if it just doesn't exist. This is real content, real people, being hurt in reality. I'd feel disgusting trying to censor it, not disgusted by the content.

<comment><USER68> Is not publicizing (in a system like Facebook, _designed_ to proactively promote and spread attention-grabbing content to any audience it can) the same thing as censorship?

In other words - I sympathize with the hard-ACLU/EFF stance on free speech. But there's a difference between government censorship and societal moderation - the latter has _always_ existed, and the scale and automation of modern platforms in publicizing content that normally wouldn't spread so far is what's new.

Should people be aware of bad things that happen in the world? Absolutely. Is broadening the audience for disturbing videos the right way to raise awareness? Maybe not.

And if folks really feel such content needs to be published, they still have more options and reach than they did in years past even if "mainstream" places like Facebook moderate them. Granted this last point is getting a bit trickier, as people go after registrars and web hosts themselves for political reasons occasionally (i.e. if this was Cloudflare we were talking about I'd be in full agreement with you - then again Cloudflare doesn't run a recommendation service that automatically causes new unexpected content to appear in front of billions of people).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Maybe Facebook just let all videos be posted, except when it's illegal (the video, not the act). Pretty much the only thing that would fall in that category would be child porn.

I'm not sure I really understand why big companies feel it's their job to censor the world. Just let the floodgates open: allow violence, allow porn, allow whatever else. Who cares? And maybe this might actually good for people to see. I feel like we are leaving in this outrage culture that wants to censor everything. It's not healthy for individuals or society.

<comment><USER8> Including allowing the very first thing mentioned in the article?

<comment><USER70> The alternative is paying people to moderate it all day every day. With the mental damage this causes to people who are desperate for a job.

Just blocking it yourself seems like a better solution. You dont have to be fair in what you block yourself and (surprise surprise) you dont need to watch it in the first place.

<comment><USER8> "Just blocking it yourself seems like a better solution. You dont have to be fair in what you block yourself and (surprise surprise) you dont need to watch it in the first place."

How does that work if nobody watches it, how do you know what to block?

<comment><USER70> Close a video if its a shaky video of some guys with machetes. You dont have to figure out how it ends.

You only have to watch it through if you have to make sure its actually gore. Which an individual different to an employee doesnt have to.

Or simply automatically collect reports and if a high enough percentage of views vs reports comes in it put it nsfw.

<comment><USER8> "You only have to watch it through if you have to make sure its actually gore."

I'm not sure that is any different than what the article describes.

<comment><USER71> >She knows that section 13 of the Facebook community standards prohibits videos that depict the murder of one or more people

>It's a place where employees can be fired for making just a few errors a week

As I understand it, an employee has to make sure its extremely likely that it is a murder. She is told she can pause it by the psychiatrist, not to close it. You as an individual dont need to find out. Just close it immediately if you assume its gore.

<comment><USER65> Not everyone processes things the same way as you and many people (children, poorly educated folk) don't necessarily have the self-awareness to make such decisions reliably. And we both know there are people who delight in propagating such material and causing discomfort to others. Perhaps consider that the problem is not as simple as it appears to you.

<comment><USER70> >Perhaps consider that the problem is not as simple as it appears to you.

I dont think its a simple problem. It is one without an optimal solution. I just think the downsides of having the stuff around are preferable to having people ruining their mental health out of financial desperation.

I also believe that the reliability would go up with time, people are able to learn quite a lot.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Two Seattle-Area Brothers Made Dwarf Fortress - <AUTHOR> http://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/enormous-dwarf-2610456/ <comment><USER2> > The brothers find most of their data online, but it is only because of Dwarf > Fortress that you can find the density of saguaro cactus wood on the > Internet. When Tarn and Zach couldn't find the number, a fan ordered cactus > wood from a dealer, empirically determined the density using liquid > displacement tests, and relayed back the results, which ended up in the > game.

I suspect this author reads HN :) If anyone was curious, the thread where Saguaro wood's solid density was determined can be found here:

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=80022.0](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=80022.0)

> NEW: The guesstimate of 300 kg/m^3 for Saguaro density in the V2 raws was > probably wrong. I have a 6g piece of Saguaro wood with a volume of > approximately 14 cm^3, which indicates that the density of Saguaro wood is > approximately 430 kg/m^3. This number appears very reasonable when compared > to all the other densities I have researched. I have more ~1 ft pieces of > Saguaro rib wood than I know what to do with right now and I'm more than > willing to ship them to people willing to do further research on the matter, > or those who wish to duplicate my experiments.

In fact, there are two approximately 1" saguaro wood cubes sitting on my desk directly in front of me at this very moment.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dwarf Fortress is a truly unique game and really worth putting in the effort to learn simply due to the stories it generates as you play - and it is amazing how the stories emerge from the ASCII symbols.

Here's an example of a story that happened to me. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/1mb0cw/the_s...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/1mb0cw/the_sad_story_of_m%C3%B4som/) Note: this story is in NO way embellished by me. Everything described there was actually fully simulated within the game.

<comment><USER4> I think the story of "Boatmurdered" is my favorite. A friend described it as "pee-your-pants funny".

[http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress- Boatmurdered/](http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Boatmurdered/)

<comment><USER2> Roomcarnage has a rather compelling story as well -

[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=139393.0](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=139393.0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find the UI of Dwarf Fortress completely impenetrable, but am fascinated by the level of depth and granularity in the systems underlying the game.

If anyone is interested in the game, I recommend grabbing the Lazy Newb Pack[0] which comes with a few utilities that will make your experience slightly less infuriating.

[0] [http://lazynewbpack.com/](http://lazynewbpack.com/)

<comment><USER6> Much like Eve, I prefer to read about others exploits than try and have my own.

<comment><USER7> Funny thing about Eve is that once you start playing it you realize it's... actually pretty "normal".

It's like the Australian Outback, you hear so many terrifying stories that you just assume every single thing in that place wants to kill you, but plenty of things live there.

Just like in Eve, your life in space will be pretty standard fare 99% of the time, even moving out to nullsec can be actually quite a... dare I say, mundane affair.

But it's that 1%... oh man, that 1%. The feuds, the rivalries, the deception, the betrayal.

It's almost like CCP are playing a cosmic version of Dwarf Fortress and the capsuleers are their dwarves.

<comment><USER8> What terrifying stories have you heard about the Australian Outback?

Having lived a large proportion of my life in what would be described as rural Australia, if not quite the Outback, I can't really think of anything that is actively trying to kill people.

People die because they were unlucky (trod on a poisonous snake perhaps) or they were stupid (traveling somewhere without adequate water and/or informing others of their whereabouts).

Snakes aren't actually trying to kill you, nor spiders, nor dingoes (unless you're a really small baby maybe), nor feral camels, nor kangaroos, nor the emus. The only think I can think of that maybe actively wants to kill you are the crocs, because they're top predator and have to eat. Also the vast majority of human deaths from croc attacks are also down to stupidity (swimming at night in a known crocodile area, for example). Even so, the crocs are in the north and I wouldn't necessarily call that the Outback either.

Anyway, genuinely curious about the terrifying stories and all the things trying to kill humans.

<comment><USER9> > I can't really think of anything that is actively trying to kill people.

[... proceeds to list a bunch of animals that kill people ...]

<comment><USER8> The point was that none of these animals actually want to kill people, which was stated in the parent post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a dedicated gamer who has found countless hours of enjoyment from games like Minecraft and Crusader Kings 2. But in my attempts to play Dwarf Fortress, I felt like I was being trolled. Like the entire thing was some 'in' joke and by spending hours attempting to figure out the UI, I was the butt of said joke. I find time to play games like CK2 despite the poor UI and serious time commitments, but I'm a grown man with a job and I don't have time to play a game with what is quite possibly the worst UI in gaming history.

<comment><USER11> I have tried the game multiple times but have not had the patience to stick with it.

I am glad that it exists, though. I want to live in the kind of world where two brothers are happy to devote the majority of their life to a project like this.

Maybe it's the same impulse that drove the Voynich manuscript's creation.

<comment><USER12> Although they're out of date now, captain duck's tutorials on youtube demystify the entire thing a great deal. And most of the core concepts haven't changed much since he made the tutorials.

Believe it or not once you "get" the interface it's really not all that bad. There's one or two incredibly annoying intracacies - but get the lazy newb pack with dwarf therapist and you'll be in for an easier time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If this piques your interest and you have a few hours to kill, you might enjoy reading the Roomcarnage saga: [http://imgur.com/a/xhQHE/layout/horizontal#0](http://imgur.com/a/xhQHE/layout/horizontal#0)

Briefly, it's a very experienced DF player trying to conquer a frozen volcano who has written up his exploits in narrative form. Fun read and will give you a good idea of what DF is allabout.

<comment><USER14> Or, much earlier in Dwarf Fortress's history is possibly the most famous DF story, the epic saga of Boatmurdered: [http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress- Boatmurdered/Introductio...](http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress- Boatmurdered/Introduction/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess this is the article that makes me realize I'm out of touch. I was super excited to see what kind of small castle they built, how they did it with just two people, and I also had lots of legal questions about building castles. Oh well, this looks neat too!

Edit: was expecting something like this, for those of you now interested in home-castle-building-stories: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280764/Farmer- told-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280764/Farmer-told-MUST- pull-castle-built-secretly-haystacks-loses-year-planning-row.html)

<comment><USER16> This is what I thought it'd be, too, only I mis-read fortress as forest and thought about a really cool park-like area with tiny trees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So: Dwarf Fortress in a forest with an aquifer down in the soil.

It takes a year to build a wooden hall large enough for most of the workshops, on one side of the river, while on the other side digging out a collapse to drop soil into the acquifer. A lovely wooden bridge and wooden tile road is the meeting area to keep the dwarves happy while they have no stone.

The dwarf with the only pickaxe falls into the watery pit under the collapse and drowns. I have to wait half a year to trade for another while the dwarves live on fish and berries in their hall. They are haunted by the ghost of the miner, as there is no stone for for a engraved slab in the graveyard. Cherry blossoms litter the ground, and blow into the half-finished excavation.

A crafter is possessed and wants stone, the one thing we don't have. What little the drwarves traded for had to go to other uses. A great pile of wooden crafts is building up. Just as well there are no elven neighbors. The crafter becomes melancholy, and wanders about the fisherdwarves, watching them. Sometimes he stands in the middle of the river.

After trading a new pick, the next miner knocks out the remaining support, and the collapse happens. But, alas, the aquifer is two levels thick! Only one level is smushed dry with the collapsed soil. We trade for rock, build a new structure in the now open watery pit. Two dwarves fall in that season during the construction, adding more drowned victims and wailing ghosts.

The construction of stone walls in the pit is knocked down at the cost of yet another dwarf - yet it isn't enough to breach the aquifer. Woe. The pit is now littered with rock and bodies and materials.

There is only one other thing to do; build a stack of wooden pumps, stairs, landings down into the pit, and an aquaduct to the river. Pump it dry and send in dwarfs to build walls and lock away the water.

All of this and still not at the point of the exercise - to raise a great hollow tower of stone over the river and a deep pit of stairs beneath, and tear down the hall of wood for charcoal. So it continues.

</comment><comment><USER18> Some other interesting articles form the past:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance- of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf- fortress.html?_r=0)

[http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131954/interview_the_m...](http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131954/interview_the_making_of_dwarf_.php)

I have played quite a bit of the game and it is amazing despite its insane and sometimes frustrating UI.

</comment><comment><USER19> Dwarf Fortress is truly an inspiring project, not only because of how amazingly fun and engrossing the game is if you can get into it (granted, it's not for everyone), but also because of the sheer amount of dedication and love that is put into it by Tarn and Zach Adams.

<comment> lloyd-christmas Along with the community. They donate $60k per year which is incredibly impressive given its size.

<comment><USER20> I'm torn between "That's better than the $30k it was the last time we discussed this years ago, which was itself better than $0" and "If one produces something as staggeringly joy-bringing as Dwarf Fortress, one can fairly easily avoid being a starving artist by applying single-digit hours of worksmanlike execution on monetization."

<comment> lloyd-christmas This has been their performance:

      2015:     $60603.43
      2014:     $66765.31
      2013:     $48999.11
      2012:     $57854.88
      2011:     $42294.19
      2010:     $54501.15
      2009:     $32516.44
      2008:     $32318.46
      2007:     $19052.28

That's pretty damn good for such a cult game. I'm not sure there's really any better way to monetize it than rely on donations.

<comment><USER20> I'm going to give a very boring answer with regards to monetization strategy: they should sell licenses to Dwarf Fortress, or Dwarf Fortress Supporter Edition, which is distinguished from DF Vanilla by saying that it's the supporter edition and maybe some cosmetic change somewhere.

I would price it at $19, where it would be towards the top-end of indie games on Steam; by the standards of people _who enjoy Dwarf Fortress_ , Dwarf Fortress ROFLstomps the depth and quality of any other $19 entertainment option.

I would then immediately solicit inclusion in a Humble Bundle, in the expectation that Humble Bundle would leap at the chance. One could envision a rougelike or Df-alike bundle; I anticipate that Humble Bundle would give DF top billing in whatever deal was negotiated. I would model that Humble Bundle as doing > $800k in sales, of which DF's take would be > ~$80k. Throw in "and we'll use Humble as our exclusive e-commerce provider for 12 months" since I think it is fairly clear that the authors don't want to be in the e-commerce business; that gives Humble ~10% of their gross revenue for next year.

Stage 3 of the master plan: get the game onto Steam. This might require $X,000 worth of production-ready art and video assets to satisfy Steam's requirements; $X,000 will not be a material amount of money to Dwarf Fortress, LLC.

The above unsolicited opinions are coming from a place of love for small software businesses generally and Dwarf Fortress in particular. Strike the earth.

<comment><USER21> I think this analysis assumes that Dwarf Fortress has reached only a small fraction of its total addressable market (that is, the space of players who can enjoy DF without large improvements to new player onboarding). Any fixed- price offering risks cannibalizing Patreon subscriptions, whose expected LTV is probably _much greater_ than $19.

Their chosen tradeoff makes more sense if you think of it as "subscriptions versus one-offs" instead of "sales versus donations".

<comment><USER22> Even given that I stopped playing and probably will never find the time to touch DF again (unless singularity) I would still buy that Supporter Edition.

And thanks patio11 for that plan, sounds fascinating, as always.

<comment><USER21> I guess I saw his proposal as more about customer acquisition; those of us who already know and love the game can send Tarn $19 any time we want, right here: [http://www.bay12games.com/support.html](http://www.bay12games.com/support.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I always play Dwarf Fortress when I am waiting in the airport and there's always someone near me who thinks I'm "computer hacking".

<comment><USER24> Whoa, how do you play without a numeric keypad. I can't even begin to play without it due to muscle memory...

<comment><USER23> My laptop has a numeric keypad actually (Dell inspiron 15). And yes I can't imagine playing without it.

<comment><USER25> I bought a USB numpad for my T60 laptop so I could play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> (inspired by the other Elite thread)

Is there something like a Dwarf Fortress in Space? I know about FTL, but there you have too much control over the crew.

Like FTL but with Dwarf Fortress like gameplay. "And then my ship got invaded by alien mind slugs and everybody want insane" or "The mourning captain shut himself up in the bridge and shortly afterwards we flew into a sun" or "We transported a herd of alien-cows which resulted in a stempede through the canteen".

<comment><USER27> Sometimes I really wish the FTL crew did have some semblance of intelligence. It's so easy to miss a small detail that leads to the death of a crew member simply because they can't be bothered to go through a door to save themselves.

I currently think of the game as a ship AI simulator. You, the player, are the AI of the ship. The crew members, upon boarding the ship, are injected with some form of mind-control tech that provides total obedience. Therefore, the crew have no free will. They will do whatever you command, even if it'll lead to their deaths.

A bonus to support the theory is the mind-control module you can get installed on your ship. This module takes control over an enemy crew member by hacking into that ship's mind-control tech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I had no idea that this game is essentially their life's work. Playing that looks like the equivalent of reading raw Matrix code.

<comment><USER29> I don't see code, anymore. I just see dwarves, goblins... cats...

But really, the graphics aren't that bad. No worse than any other roguelike.

<comment><USER30> I was actually pretty impressed by Dwarf Fortress's use of the extended ASCII set (or whatever the technical name is). Most of the non-creature symbols were easy enough to guess based on appearances.

<comment><USER31> And for animals, it's mostly the first letter of the animal's name, colored like the animal, and upper- or lower-case based on the animal's size.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've had so many hours of entertainment playing Dwarf Fortress I usually donate $10-$20 every major release. Well worth it if you can get past the UI.

</comment><comment><USER33> If you like Dwarf Fortress, you might like a game called: Factorio

<comment><USER34> I played both. They're nothing alike at all.

<comment><USER35> They're nothing alike, but I find they scratch a very similar itch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Tarn's dissertation "Flat Chains in Banach Spaces" is truly awesome, if you have enough domain knowledge to understand what it's talking about. I love those guys.

<comment><USER37> I enjoy math, but I'm nowhere near experienced enough to follow that paper. There wouldn't happen to be an annotated version or some kind of summary of it, would there? I've always wanted to know what it was about.

<comment><USER36> He tries to explain it at the end of this interview: [http://www.bay12games.com/media/df_talk_8_transcript.html](http://www.bay12games.com/media/df_talk_8_transcript.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Given the game's huge following, they should pledge to open source the code before they die so the saga can continue. :) If they don't make money from direct sales, why not open source the game now?

<comment><USER39> A copy of their source code is supposedly on file with the Library of Congress, but I can't find proof of this as I search right now.

<comment><USER40> This is the usual practice for registering copyrights, but I don't think you need to send the whole source.

<comment><USER39> The first 25 pages of dwarf fortress code is probably really interesting actually;

VIOLENCE_COEFFICIENT = 2.4

CIVILIZATION_HEGEMONIZATION_TENDENCY = 1.8232

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Anyone read The O'Reilly book about this and can comment on it? I've been wanting to try this game but really don't want to spend the overhead time just digging through learning on my own.

[http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Dwarf-Fortress- complex...](http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Dwarf-Fortress- complex/dp/1449314945)

</comment><comment><USER42> Truly awe-inspiring and inspirational work. Over a decade spent working on that one game. A bit over two years ago I started working on my own similar type of game (a Dwarf-Fortress-like or DF-like if you will) and it's given me so much appreciation for the insanity that is game development. The sheer amount of time it takes to build out a system with so much depth is incredible. I've probably been working an average of 8-10 hours a week for 2 years and I have but a fraction of the functionality. Dwarf Fortress stands as a bastion of inspiration I can look to any time I feel like quitting.

</comment><comment><USER43> Just spent a bit of time working around some problems to get Dwarf Fortress and the Lazy Newb Pack installed on Ubuntu 16.04.

It's a bit more complicated than running it on Windows _, but still works just fine:[https://tutorialinux.com/install-dwarf-fortress- ubuntu-16-04...](https://tutorialinux.com/install-dwarf-fortress- ubuntu-16-04/)

Enjoy!

_If I had a nickel for every time I've said that...

</comment><comment><USER44> Man I really like playing DF I just can't get myself installing X(quartz) for it on OSX so right now I am lacking a machine to run it on.

<comment><USER29> It should be possible to run without X. Set print-mode to text, it's supposed to work in a terminal.

I'm not sure if that code works on OS X, but if it doesn't, you can still run it on a server. The interface won't be perfect, though, and you'll need to remap some keybindings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The article repeatedly stresses how "influential" DF was, and it bothers me a bit. Dwarf Fortress is one of the greatest achievements in video game history because of its unparalleled complexity, but it's pretty much a niche game. It wasn't, I think, very influential at all. There are many adjectives we can use to describe this work. Monumental springs to mind. But not influential.

<comment><USER46> It influenced Minecraft.

<comment><USER45> Did it? How so? It has almost no mechanics in common apart from procedural terrain generation.</comment></comment></comment>


IPhone fantasies, Android phones realities: Android outsells it - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/iphone-fantasies-android-phones-realities-7000004154/

<comment><USER2> Google pulled off what Microsoft couldn't with Windows Mobile. They made it the "Windows" of smartphones.</comment>


Hack OF The Week : Octopress - <AUTHOR> http://gotchacode.blogspot.com/2012/09/hack-of-week-octopress.html

<comment><USER2> He keeps calling it octopress, even though that's a blogging engine.

The software is called octogit, and I submitted a pull request to make it not store your password in plaintext months ago that I believe still hasn't been merged.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the silly mistake on my part. Post is now corrected!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The HN title is still incorrect, Octopress is that awesome blogging engine (check it out), Octogit the GitHub command line extension. Also, for the Gists check out gist (needs SSL patch) or jist on GH.</comment>


HeatsBox: enjoy a warm meal anywhere and anytime - <AUTHOR> http://www.heatsbox.com/ <comment><USER2> and the chinese versions: [http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Lunch-Box-USB- Warmer-BAG-...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Lunch-Box-USB-Warmer-BAG- Food-Container-Warming-Bags-CP224/32332031488.html)

[http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Portable-USB-Lunchbox- Lunch-B...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Portable-USB-Lunchbox-Lunch-Box- Bento-Warming-Heating-Bag-Food-Warmer-Heater-Brand-Convenient-Work- Tableware/32704765113.html)</comment>


How to hail a London cabbie using Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2010/aug/04/twitter-london-cabs

<comment><USER2> It is me, or does that article not talk about any of the actual uses of this valuable data they've collected?

It is an interesting idea, might be useful here in Manchester (UK) where in the city centre (and possibly only one weekends) black cabs aren't allowed to pick people up from anywhere, only from the designated taxi ranks.

This service means that you can still get a cab directly to you. Not sure why it's limited to black cabs though, surely ordinary taxis would be suited to this just as well.</comment>


Is Dirt the New Prozac?  - <AUTHOR> http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/raw-data-is-dirt-the-new-prozac <comment><USER2> Okay, interesting in a not-quite-proven-yet way, but

 _"You can also ingest mycobacteria either through water sources or through eating plants—lettuce that you pick from the garden, or carrots," Lowry says._

Uh seriously, don't go off eating unwashed products even from your own garden unless you are totally confident there are no parasites in your area. If you follow his advice where I live, you might end up with a nasty case of rat lungworm disease.</comment>


Norway mass murderer Breivik was 'already damaged by the age of two' - <AUTHOR> http://www.tv2.no/a/8241631 <comment><USER2> I've seen this story a thousand times. Someone is abused in some manner, becomes an abuser, and the cycle repeats.

I struggle with reconciling these cases because there's two drastically different perspectives you can look at it from:

1\. Brevik is a mass murderer and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

2\. Brevik is a victim who was never given a fair shot at life to begin with. He was moulded into the horrible person he became.

What is the point of transition where we stop treating someone like a victim and begin treating them like a criminal? How many serious offenders have been raised in such a damaging way that you could argue they're not exactly responsible for any of the awful things they ended up doing?

It brings doubt to how we handle serious criminals in modern times.

<comment><USER3> Does it really matter that much? Even if you were to say he's not responsible, you can't let him out on the streets.

One of the goals of the justice system is to protect society from criminals by removing them from it, temporarily or permanently.

<comment><USER4> Agree, but justice systems are different:

Some countries (like ex-USSR) also practice _punishing_ for a crime in prison -- further humiliating and abusing convicted person. Don't know if there's a reason (if ever were), but some people argue that it helps to reduce future crimes by other people ("don't do that, or you'll get to prison, you know what they do there"). Can't tell if it's supported by statistics.

In other countries, like Norway, justice systems are the other way around -- besides removing criminals from society, they also bear a job to re- socializing criminals -- treating them humane and helping them to find a job after the prison.

These other responsibilities affect answer to your question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "As the trial for Breivik's bomb-and-shooting rampage that killed 77 people entered its second week, the far-right fanatic told a court that he was the victim of a "racist" plot to discredit his ideology. He said no one would have questioned his sanity if he were a "bearded jihadist." "

[https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2012/04/23/breivi...](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2012/04/23/breivik- claims-racist-plot-to-cast-him-as-insane)

[http://bridge.georgetown.edu/mental-illness-a-key-factor- in-...](http://bridge.georgetown.edu/mental-illness-a-key-factor-in-terror/)

</comment><comment><USER6> What worries me about this is the detailed nature of this account. Surely every one of us has had quite a few painful years: imagine if it had all been recorded in dry, bureaucratic detail.

I'm reminded of the story about æroplanes and the mythical average pilot: just as no pilot is actually average (and, in the original story, that's why cockpits designed for the average were bad for everyone), might it not be that none of us is statistically normal, and thus _every_ one of us is thus _abnormal_ , and hence dangerous to the bureaucratic state?

None of this is meant to minimise Brevik's horrific crime, of course. But I'm worried about this level of detail being available for anyone on the planet. I don't know what the solution is: obviously, it's now possible to record lots of details about anyone, and just as obviously, it's possible for those details to be made available. That implies that those details _will_ be made available, and so we as a society must come to terms with that.

Still, it's a bit chilling that a State can track a man down to that level of detail.

</comment><comment><USER7> You eventually realize that it's next to impossible to hate someone when, if you were born into their situation, with their genetics, their environment, their condition, you would very likely have done the same exact thing. There's a tragic amount of predetermination in life.

<comment><USER8> Studies show that there is a large correlation between genetics and life outcome.

i.e. when treated badly, most people will end up bad, some won't. When treated well, most people will end up good, some won't.

There are people who are pre-disposed to do bad things, no matter what. There are people who are pre-disposed to do good things, no matter what.

See the stories about Romanian orphans for how a bad system can turn most people into functioning sociopaths:

[http://www.livescience.com/21778-early-neglect-alters- kids-b...](http://www.livescience.com/21778-early-neglect-alters-kids- brains.html)

Yet some still turn out OK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Am I the only one to cry out bullshit! The guy is a terrorist, period. He deserves to pay for what he did. I survived a genocide and you don't see me go around and kill people.

<comment><USER10> No one is saying his childhood absolves him of any responsibility. The article is merely looking at his upbringing. It's apples and oranges where you compare genocide to child abuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's remarkable there was any awareness of his predicament at all. All too often it seems that society is only sensitive to the more obvious forms of abuse (sexual and physical). Yet I suspect psychological abuse is far, far worse. I bet if you looked deeply into the lives of U.S. school shooters you'd find a similar story.

The real lesson here is: _if you 're a borderline woman, do NOT have children_. If you do, give them up for adoption. We as a society should be ready and willing to forcibly separate children from borderline parents.

<comment><USER12> > We as a society should be ready and willing to forcibly separate children > from borderline parents.

Who gets to decide if someone is "borderline"? How do we know that the people making this decision are not borderline themselves?

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to impose morality on others that is not vulnerable to the same problems that it's trying to fix.

<comment><USER13> We don't seem to have a problem imposing the morality of "don't kill people" and "don't steal stuff." Is this fundamentally different?

<comment><USER14> Have a look at how Australian Aborigines feel about their separation from parents because of contemporary morals.

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

<comment><USER13> A tragedy, but not an answer to my question. Is there a fundamental difference between this and putting people away for murder, or is it just a matter of making sure we get it right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This reads scarily like how my ex is with our boy. I hope that the proper care he gets 1/2 time at my house keeps him from going nuts

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow reading the account of his childhood was very eye-opening.

For starters, I should say I've never hurt anyone willingly, not in any serious way at least, nor for any length of time. Secondly, my parents are happily married as were their parents, my home life was mostly fine. My dad is an emotional black hole but I love him.

What I found strikingly similar to Anders was his emotional reaction to people, being distant, few friends, fake smiles that I usually have to try very hard to make them be believable. He obviously got hurt by people in his life and learned to depend on himself to keep his ego intact, and that's my experience as well.

I have a deep desire to be normal but I know i'm not. Up until about 9 or 10 I was a pretty normal kid, but then my family moved across the country. I knew nobody in the new town. Before the move I had a best friend, several other friends and I had a pretty happy childhood overall. I'm convinced I had ADD because I was extremely hyper-active and my primary outlet in my new school was to draw, most of my worksheets until about middle school were filled with random doodles. I day-dreamed constantly, I was always behind on work because I could rarely focus on doing any one thing for more than a few minutes.

So in my new school, I had an extremely hard time making any friends. I have one I would consider a close friend, though the older we get the more distant we seem to become. So all the ADD-fueled mannerisms that I thrived on before moving, that my old friends accepted me in spite of them, all worked against me at the new school. I didn't fit in anywhere at my new, much larger school. I never really got into fights or was overly picked on, but I always felt rejected just for being me.

DUring high school at a job, one of my bosses told me once "You're a really serious guy, you know that", because I seldom showed any emotion. At the time I took it as a compliment. I'm much more emotive these days, but the damage to my personality has been done. I live alone, haven't had a girlfriend in over a year and I generally have very little contact with people outside of work, and only at work. I really seldom desire any, though I do love to be in small company as long as i'm not the center of attention. My old childhood friends really are strangers to me now, I tried to reconnect with most of them but the person I was back then isn't the person I am today.

I guess I just wanted some more insight into this. I certainly don't mean anyone harm, but everytime I see a psychological profile of a serial killer, I always see a part of them in me, the desire for time alone and the lack of adherance to most social norms and the general distance with people both physically and emotionally. My neighbors I'm pretty sure are afraid of me simply because I seldom have any guests and I keep to myself for the most part, especially after my last girlfriend moved out over a year ago. I really don't know any of my neighbors very well at all even though I've lived here over 5 years.

I want to be a normal, people enjoying person, I have that drive in me, but something stops me. Not sure why I posted, but there are a lot of wise people who post here so I'm curious what input they might have (good or bad).

</comment><comment><USER17> This all could have been prevented with a Government regulated IUD program.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sucks I can't really read the article because some-custom scrolling or scripts are breaking the vim-fx FF plugin and the normal-scrolling doesn't even move the page.

<comment><USER19> Firefox or Chrome?

If Chrome, give vimium a try. I have no such issues with Chromium 57.0.2987.98 + vimium + ublock origin + umatrix. The only scripts running are served from '*.tv2.no', but even with blocking those the article loads fine, albiet without images.

vimium: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogba...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vimium/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb)

umatrix: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/umatrix/ogfcmafjal...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/umatrix/ogfcmafjalglgifnmanfmnieipoejdcf)

ublock: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock- origin/cjpa...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock- origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm)

<comment><USER20> > _FF_

FireFox

<comment><USER21> Is Firefox (note that the latter f is lowercase) really such a long word that it needs to be abbreviated?

<comment><USER20> n</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Build a Business, win $100,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/12/08/no-more-excuses-how-to-make-an-extra-100000-in-the-next-6-months/

<comment><USER2> The winner will be an info product which bids their 97% margins down to 0% or negative margins by buying AdWords ads to juice volume.

What do I win?

<comment><USER3> Pretty good idea. To go full circle, the info product should be "How to Win the $100k shopify contest!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It should be noted that you "must" be selling something through a Shopify store in order to be eligible.

Perhaps the title of this post should be "Build a Business using Shopify, win $100,000".

<comment><USER5> Sell the most, based on your 2 best revenue-generating months, using Shopify in 6 months and win $100k.

To get started, maybe start by going through eBay auctions and buying warehouse and manufacturer contact lists that will send you demo items for free!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Actually, I think it's called 'let's put together a promotion that includes both shopify and 4hourworkweek and create a lot of talk about both'.

That being said, $125k is a lot of money, and kudos to them for encouraging startups. Sparkfun is dolling out $100k in a couple weeks. Perhaps this is the new marketing engine of web 3.14159?

</comment><comment><USER7> Finally, a business contest that chooses a winner based on revenue!

I'm amazed other contests don't use this simplest of objective measures to pick a winner.

<comment><USER3> Note comment above (using adwords to churn with 0% margin, but winning the contest for the $100k). Profit might be a better indicator, but obviously much harder to measure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did some computation here... In order for Shopify to break-even with his $100K, they need 4,167 ($100,000 / $24 per month membership fee ) new registered paid stores.

After that 2 months contest, MAYBE some of them will bail out with the membership.

At the end, this contest is a very good marketing strategy to pull-in new customer.

Nice job Shopify.

<comment><USER9> divide by 6 (the contest is six months, not 2). That means 833 people for six months, some of whom will become successful and keep doing it. Then there's a 2% transaction fee for the entry level shop. Then, some will choose premium plans.

If they even get 100 successful new businesses (that last two years and end up on the 60/month plan), they've paid it back with interest - the unsuccessful startups are just a little extra. (And, they get people who will use the service as customers and tell their friends!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> US only, of course.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll repost here what I wrote for Tim's blog:

When putting together the contest we really wanted to make it a contest for anyone, anywhere in the world. Throughout the planning I spent more hours on the phone with lawyers than I'd care to admit to anyone. Unfortunately, as time when on, it became clear that it would be impossible to hold the contest anywhere outside the US without fundamentally altering the original concept.

Without going into too much detail, the crux of the matter is the classification of the contest as a game of chance versus a game of skill. Apparently, being good at selling stuff online is considered chance by many agencies and therefore would be governed by Lottery laws, as silly as this sounds.

That being said, you can still participate in this contest wherever you are. The prize money is significant, but don't forget the spirit of the contest: to give a kick in the pants to all those people who have wanted to start businesses but haven't. The real prize is having a business of your own at the end of the six months. You'll still have all the same resources and guides as everyone else: support from the Shopify team, help and guidance from Tim and other experts, and more control over your financial independence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd love to start a store but I'm drawing a blank on what to sell or especially where to find it. Looks like the drop shipping and importing world is a mine field.

Anyone have any pointers to get a rookie started?

</comment><comment><USER12> Really a great way to promote Shopify. I wonder how much they paid for this (prize money aside). I'll hand Ferriss one thing, the man knows how to get eyeballs on a product and get people excited about it.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm currently building a business. I wouldn't do it for just a chance at $100,000. It takes a lot more to get real entrepreneurs to build a real business.</comment>


Ongoing issues at Owlet shows how not to deal with an infrastructure breakdown - <AUTHOR> https://owletcare.com/pages/status <comment><USER2> I agree there are better ways to manage this, for example, giving more timely updates, using less corporate speak like "inconvenience" and just saying we screwed up, here is what we are doing to make it right.

Hopefully everyone learns something from this, sounds like some version control and/or quality issues that need to be addressed on the tech side of the house and on the business side some lessons in how to speak to large groups of consumers.

The video was a good idea overall, calling it an inconvenience to users was not, that in my experience just pisses people off because they feel like you are trying to skirt responsibility. Also the video could be viewed as partially contradictory, first saying his didn't work too but then saying the primary means to get that data is the local hub. I get his point from a technical side, but a consumer won't differentiate the device and app, to consumers they bought a solution and that solution failed for a period of time when the bulk of users would be using it (overnight).

IMO this is just growing pains for any business, the ones that learn, get better and succeed, the ones that don't, fail and go out of business.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> See more ongoing lessons of how not to deal with your user base:

[https://m.facebook.com/OwletBabyMonitors/](https://m.facebook.com/OwletBabyMonitors/)

[https://mobile.twitter.com/owletbabycare](https://mobile.twitter.com/owletbabycare)</comment>