A Selection Of Thoughts From Actual Women (regarding GoGaRuCo) - <AUTHOR> http://hackety.org/2009/04/29/aSelectionOfThoughtsFromActualWomen.html

<comment><USER3> How about a thought from an actual man? Me.

I've flipped through the slides and if I'd been in that presentation I would have had a very low opinion of the speaker. Not because I've got a problem with pornography, but because his presentation shows a complete lack of judgment.

If you are making a public presentation you need to realize that your standards are not shared by everyone in the audience so you need to tailor your presentation to them. There were probably plenty of people happy to see softcore pornography that day, some people who wished it had been hardcore, and others who felt uncomfortable. There's not an obvious male/female mapping to those categories.

Suppose it hadn't been pornography, but had been slides making fun of Christianity, or slides showing graphic depictions of surgery, or jokes aimed at a minority based on skin color. You can imagine the audience splitting into groups that were happy with that, unhappy and indifferent.

But why split your audience? They were there to hear about CouchDB, not to understand the speaker's personal beliefs or preferences.

In addition to having a low opinion of the speaker, I would have been uncomfortable with the images knowing that others in the audience were likely offended and didn't say anything.

And lastly, his metaphor is broken. So CouchDB performs like a porn star? Good to know. To me performing like a porn star means pretending to do something and not doing the real thing. I guess CouchDB is some sort of phony database that looks good at first glance but is just faking it.

<comment><USER4> Interesting comment quoted here: <http://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2009/04/28/how- to-be-edgy/>

_It's not about whether it's porn or not porn. Those commenting on people's supposed hypersensitivity to nudity or bodies are completely missing the point. It's about presenting women as 'the other,' not 'us.' It would have been just as offensive if all the women shown were domineering mothers in aprons, shaking their fingers and threatening with rolling pins._

<comment><USER5> It wasn't about women (to me) - I would have had the same reaction if it was gay porn. Or if it was a talk on security and featured photos of real life cops and criminals breaking the law. I'm sure it's a great database, but the visual baggage wound up being a major distraction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Titillation is certainly good marketing, but frankly, if you can't find a way to make your presentation interesting that doesn't include thonged asses, your presentation isn't interesting."

I found this the best summary.

<comment><USER7> I think it goes just a bit further than this, but not a lot. He tried to play off of the "rock star" persona that surrounds the Rails community in an over the top and humorous way. He failed, miserably.

Those he was satirizing thought it was great, and those who should have appreciated the satire were offended. It showed a complete lapse of judgment, and frankly professional taste.

But the amount of hype this whole drama has received is yet another mark against the Rails community. Maybe Zed was more right than everyone thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The one thing I do have to say is:

> What about a presentation about writing code on deadline: "Delivering Like a > Birth Mom." Or how about graphic images of up-close breastfeeding in a talk > titled "Nursing Your Projects Along."

I don't think this would upset many male attendees, nor would it upset me. That doesn't necessarily mean that "Perform like a pornstar" was ok, but this analogy doesn't really hold. I think most guys would find the birthing/nursing metaphors funny, and I don't think you'd see any complaints afterward. Unless, of course, it was a guy who gave the talk.

<comment><USER9> I think she's alluding that _a lot_ of guys, when they see a mother breast feeding in public will roll their eyes in disgust, "does she really have to do that here?" Hence the big Facebook controversy a few months back - is it appropriate to post breast-feeding pics on the site?

I don't have an answer to that, but I understand how I might feel uncomfortable if I had to watch a presentation about breast-feeding for 30 minutes when I was expecting something on CouchDB. Swap that out for something potentially more inflammatory and you get the disaster we see now.

<comment><USER10> >> "a lot of guys, when they see a mother breast feeding in public will roll their eyes in disgust"

Seriously? In US I assume?

I'm in the UK and have never had such an impression. Old people seem to sometimes get offended at such things, but certainly not the general population.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, it's a US thing and it happens exactly as quoted. And it actually gets the same reaction from both men and women.

The exceptions are men and women who have realized that it isn't easy to control infants and a good mother will do what has to be done. Not so disgusting from my point of view (and I'm a guy in my 20's with no kids).

<comment><USER10> Can't think of many things more natural than a woman feeding her baby.

<comment><USER8> Lots of things are natural that you wouldn't want to see.

I personally have no problems with breastfeeding, and I'm dubious of the "omg Americans flip out when they see it" implications above, but "naturalness" is not not really the reason something is ok to do in public or not.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps it's more related to the religiousness of the US?

<comment><USER9> Kinda, but I think it's more of a question of "tact" from a US'ians point of view. There's a high priority placed on politeness (real or not), service, and ultimately obedience. While this conservatism may have it's roots in religion, the attitude permeates through the rest of the culture.

The US is a country of immigrants, and if you look at the history - <USER2> groups tend to be pretty dang religious. Pilgrims and Puritans, Africans embraced Christianity with zeal because of their circumstances. Later waves: Irish & Italian Catholics, German Protestants, European Jews; all very religious. And modern immigrant groups, Latin Americans, Koreans, Indians, etc. can all be quite conservative. Religion and culture intertwine because people tend to hang out with their own in the beginning - and the place to find them is usually at a church/temple/whatev. I guess it's like the old lunch table theory, you'll prefer to hang out with people that you think are more like you.

[edit] And to extrapolate this to the current topic, the presenter's greatest sin in the eyes of many US'ians is not his gratuitous use of sexual imagery to convey a point, but his complete lack of tact when doing so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Danny O'Brien has picked out a great quote on this issue:

> "It's not about whether it's porn or not porn. Those commenting on people's > supposed hypersensitivity to nudity or bodies are completely missing the > point. It's about presenting women as 'the other,' not 'us.' It would have > been just as offensive if all the women shown were domineering mothers in > aprons, shaking their fingers and threatening with rolling pins."

<http://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2009/04/28/how-to-be-edgy/>

</comment><comment><USER13> I really don't see why people make this into a gender thing. Because there were more women in the photographs than men?

The speaker showed very poor taste. Such illustrations are totally inappropriate for a public presentation. But this has nothing to do with gender, so I don't see why women were more offended than men.

</comment><comment><USER14> You know, the Drupal community is always looking for talented developers and to date I've yet to see any pr0n embedded in a presentation I've attended. Just sayin...

</comment><comment><USER15> Why is there so much drama in the Ruby community?

<comment><USER16> Because it's a scene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I do not think the presentation was particularly offensive; but he tried to be funny and failed. He should have apologized and move on. But he didn't and that is what caused all this. Just poor judgment followed by poor damage control.

</comment><comment><USER18> Again _why blows the discussion out of the water, sets it down and makes everyone in the room feel like a child for his foresight and wisdom.

Thanks _why.

<comment><USER19> He has foresight and wisdom in spades but this is just an objective list of quotes :)

<comment><USER20> What use is a good quote, when you can't change it?

Really: Selecting the 'objective information' is still judgement.

<comment><USER19> I meant his choice of quotes is objective. The quotes themselves are not objective. That said, he seems to have quoted pretty much all of the women who've said anything about it. A great move, but not exactly collating the Bible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I get why the presentation/presenter was ineffective for some audiences. I get that there are various assorted prudes that need to be marketed to. I don't get why everyone has to have an opinion about it.

Has no one heard the term "booth babe" before? Been to car show? Turned on the television and seen a beer commercial? Watched a race car driver endorse a domain name registrar? Sure it sucks that marketing and sex are intertwined. Read this: [http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/04...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/04/spent- sex-evolution-and-consumer-behavior.html)

Then can we please shut up and get back to coding?

<comment><USER22> What do car shows and beer commercials have to do with intellectual discourse?

yeah, base advertising works. on the other hand, if going to work was like being in a car commercial i doubt we'd produce anything constructive.

<comment><USER22> in fact, here's a good quote for that:

> "Victoria Wang: DHH's attitude seems to say that the more we lower ourselves > to the most base level of marketing scum in the name of entertainment, the > better, even if at the end of the day there are no more women, or anyone > worth knowing, in the room. It kind of makes me want to never touch Rails > code again."

<comment><USER23> "It kind of makes me want to never touch Rails code again"

Don't.

It is a free world out there and there's a _lot_ of competing frameworks and languages. I seriously doubt _any_ framework or language designer sets out to have "more women in the room" and neither should they.

DHH made his code available for anyone else to use _if they wanted to_. That doesn't mean he abdicated his values or thought process to to what the rest of the world dictates.

He is not an _elected_ leader, who you expect to at least pretend to share your values. He happens to occupy a leadership position because he _contributes code_. Contributing code shouldn't have to imply political correctness in thought and speech.

I think all these complainants should really walk away from Rails (vs blog about it or whine about it day after day after day ) if they are so offended that DHH (or other people) don't share their prejudices on how the world should think.

Just. Walk. Away.

And how many people will do that (as compared to running a torches and pitchforks type campaign on blogs and twitter)?

Not many I would think.

And how much difference would it make to Rails if they did walk away? I have no idea though I think, maybe not much.

All this looks increasingly like a storm in a teacup.

<comment><USER24> I can only hope that this one comment will not come to represent the prevailing attitude in the Rails universe. Because "if the Rails community behaves too erratically for your taste, you can just walk away" is _not_ a sentence I can afford to say to a prospective client who wants a website.

Clients want to hear "your site is built on a platform that is managed by a friendly, responsive team, with a long history, that is dedicated to recruiting an ever-growing, diverse community of developers and designers who can be hired to maintain your site over the next decade". Anything else is poison.

Yeah, nobody is forcing the Rails community to be polite. It's an open-source project. Nobody is going to get fired. But it's up to the community to decide how big it's going to be at equilibrium, and whether or not it will contain any customers who have money.

<comment><USER23> @mechanical fish,

""if the Rails community behaves too erratically for your taste, you can just walk away" is not a sentence I can afford to say to a prospective client who wants a website."

Fair Enough. But

(a)no Open Source community in the world has any guarantee on not "behaving erratically" in the future. All OS guarantees is that if the community goes in a direction different from what you think appropriate, you still have the code. So your client still only has _that_ to fall back on in the ultimate analysis.

(b)"Clients want to hear "your site is built on a platform that is managed by a friendly, responsive team, with a long history, that is dedicated to recruiting an ever-growing, diverse community of developers and designers who can be recruited to maintain your site over the next decade".

I agree. But it is not necessarily the project founders concern that _your_ clients hear what you want them to hear. he could just be sharing some code with no worries about what anyone says or does.

(c) Just to be clear, I speak for _me_ , not "the community".

I just think it is unfair of people to demand that the presenter apologize just beacuse some people chose to be "offended". To me, this line of argument is similair to those put forward aginats the Mohammed Cartoons.

I also think it is unfair of people to project _their_ notions of what "leadership" should be on to DHH and then complain he doesn't meet _those_ standards. This is an Open Source project. If you are dissatisfied with the leadership, step up and lead.

Fwiw, I don't think the presentation was a very cool one. I just support the presenters right to make his presentation in any manner he see fit (and the audience's right to walk away ). I am just wary of some claims of moral superiority.

<comment><USER24> _If you are dissatisfied with the leadership, step up and lead._

What do you think that process would look like in its first few days, if not like this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Where are all the comments about evolution, biology and women as programmers? This group of HN commenters really bothers me -- the armchair biologists who declare that women keep away from programming and startups because evolution rather than socialization tells them to.

I have a pretty strong opinion that runs counter to that one, so I want to see a response from this group! Here we have a lot of women talking about how macho-ism and the locker room mentality makes them less comfortable. How does this fit in with the question, "Why are there so few women developing software?"

<comment><USER10> >> "Why are there so few women developing software?"

You don't need permission to develop software you know... Just go ahead and do it. If you get good enough at it and make some cool stuff, people will hire you.

<comment><USER25> My question isn't clear -- a better question is, "Why do so few women want to develop software?"

I think it has a lot to do with the software-development culture. And I think that the comments that these women made back up that position. Software development -- especially in startups -- has developed a "macho" culture. And that's a shame because it excludes.

<comment><USER10> I disagree completely. I think women don't want to develop software because they in general like doing other things. The sexes are hard wired totally differently.

How many girls spend their 13-16 years hunched over a home computer hacking away?

Personally, I don't think there's any issue with the culture. It's a matter of what girls like doing, and what boys like doing. At early ages. We shouldn't try to 'fix' things that aren't broken.

My daughter loves dancing dressing up and singing. My son likes playing cars and power rangers. Those aren't learnt things, they're instincts people are born with.

<comment><USER25> I'm not certain how dancing or playing with cars is anything but cultural. I mean, aren't these products of years of culture, including the gender roles assigned to them? What makes dancing girly and cars boyish?

"The sexes are hard wired totally differently."

The thing is, I can get behind this statement. If you zoom out further, and say, "Boys are different from girls." you can even say, "duh".

I'm pragmatic; I would accept biological evidence suggesting that men are more biologically inclined to be programmers. But how likely is it that that gap reflects the gender ratio that we see in software developers today?

It's possible, but I think it's unlikely.

I think that a much LARGER force is the perpetuation through behaviors like this presentation that developing software is a "boys only" club. If women want to play, they have to "man up". Creating a female-unfriendly culture is still gender discrimination, even though there's no one person doing it.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely not IMHO. It's a product of evolution. Caring vs hunting etc

<comment><USER26> How can you argue that working as a programmer is more a hunter role than a gatherer/care giver role?

Lack of role models at the young age is a more likely cause imo. Who do young girls in the 12+ age group have to look up to in our industry or in pop culture? In the comedy "Big Bang Theory" about 4 male Nerds, the female lead character is the dumb blonde next door.

<comment><USER10> Programming, especially at the start, is a very solitary thing usually. You sit hunched over a computer bashing out code. That really suits some people and not others - in generalities, I'd say it suits Men more than Women.

Just like a hunter, you're alone, competing with several other lone programmers/hunters.

I'd say roles that Women excel at in Tech are PR, design, managing communities, etc where art, communication and caring are more important.

In general Women are far better at communication than men IMHO.

<comment><USER27> LOL. since this topic is making HN worse than reddit anyway, I'll post a video link. Your comments remind me of David Wain's speech in this episode of Wainy Days:

[http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Wainy_Days/Season_1/6AWomansTou...](http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Wainy_Days/Season_1/6AWomansTouch_393.aspx)

<comment><USER10> Sorry... I forgot it's un-politically correct to point out obvious differences between people. Just like there can be no losers at sports day any more...

[http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro- ho...](http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-homens.html)

<http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/heshe.html>

[http://library.thinkquest.org/26812/gather/cgi- bin/messages/...](http://library.thinkquest.org/26812/gather/cgi- bin/messages/4.html)

If you'd rather pretend we're exactly the same, up to you :)

<comment><USER27> That's not the point I was making but it would be impolite of me to make a "woosh" post two days in a row.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Could one problem with the discussion be that people talk about different things?

a) was the presentation very tasteful and/or funny? (most would probably agree that it wasn't)

b) was it an unforgivable affront against women? (some think no, and end up defending the presentation even though they might not even have liked it much).

I must admit I have troubles understanding some things, like the thong picture making a woman feel unwelcome.

<comment><USER29> _I must admit I have troubles understanding some things, like the thong picture making a woman feel unwelcome._

I am not a woman, but some of the comments on that site made me understand. Perhaps you would too, Imagine the conference was attended by only 6 guys and all the others were females, the one giving the presentation is female, and the pictures on the presentation are of men depicted sexually. Now imagine that some of these females might have the opinion that males inherently are inferior intellectually than females. Now imagine that this minority situation continues in the work place and these men are seen as a strange oddity by the females. It wouldn't feel nice to have a presentation which sort of harnesses the feelings of these females.

<comment><USER28> "Now imagine that some of these females might have the opinion that males inherently are inferior intellectually than females."

With what justification do you add that to the story? And if that would have been the case, wouldn't that be the problem, rather than the pictures?

I can imagine a minority situation feeling strange and uncomfortable, but it seems a bit unfair to blame the men for that - as a man, the only way to tilt the gender balance would be to not attend the conference.

<comment><USER29> I don't think the controversy is about the gender balance. From my understanding it seems to be about antagonising these females.

I added the inferiority thing to show that these females might feel they are undermined and might perhaps feel some sense of discrimination. From my understanding basically it is a power possession issue. They might feel that they are not on equal standing with their male counterparts and that such presentation only serve to legitimise and create a culture of harnessing such perceived or real inequality by further creating a sense that this presentation is only aimed at guys as most of the pictures were of females.

I mean how would you feel if all those pictures were of men rather than women, it would just be weird.

<comment><USER28> But it happens every day, I remember advertisements going both ways. I don't watch much TV, but already a couple of years ago there was the Coke advert with the well trained building worker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think next year, a woman should give a presentation at a Rails/Ruby conference that had nothing but slides of penises for visual aids (or muscled men in seductive poses and scant clothing).

I'm sure a metaphor could be worked in that would fit a stack of penises.

Then see what the community has to say about that presentation.

Because I think that's the biggest problem here, they aren't considering what it would've been like if the presentation had contained something that extremely marginalized them in the same way this woman felt. The community is saying "Whatever, boobs are fine. Fuck professionalism.", but they are only considering it in the context of what they saw and what they are comfortable with.

And from what I've seen, the Ruby community is championed by a bunch of self- important douchebags. And because of them, I'll probably never become interested enough to learn Ruby. It's that huge a turn off, I don't want to associated with that. Level of success/fame/money is unimportant because by that same metric, Bill Gates is an awesome guy and Microsoft one of the coolest companies around.

<comment><USER31> The original presentation was not "nothing but slides of vaginas for visual aids". It was a normal tech presentation, but with LOLCAT FAIL replaced by ugly porn stars, and EPIC WIN replaced by pretty porn stars.

If the same presentation were made, but with LOLCAT FAIL -> ugly man in seductive pose, EPIC WIN -> muscled man, I doubt many men would be offended. I certainly would not be.

In my opinion, women (at least the ones who complain about such things) are simply less tolerant of edgy material than most hackers.

Also, the original presentation showed no full nudity. I don't think your comparison to a "stack of penises" is apt.

<comment><USER30> But it's not really about the degree of nudity, but the degree of uncomfortableness felt by the audience. That's what DHH, the presenter, and you are getting wrong. You are arguing about the wrong thing. It's not so much about the content of the slides, but how that content made that lone woman feel in a room full of men.

<comment><USER31> My main point is that most men (particularly most hacker men) would probably not have chosen to be offended under the same circumstances. I certainly would not have. I believe the mainstream of hacker man is simply very tolerant of differences.

Several people here and elsewhere have come up with "what if the shoe were on the other foot" examples (stacks of penises, breastfeeding, images of surgery, etc). In each case, I had varying reactions from "clever" to "confusing" to "meh" (1). In no case would I choose to be offended.

(1) I laughed at "Deliver like a Birth Mother." I'd probably be confused by images of good and bad breastfeeding technique.

<comment><USER32> >> would probably not have chosen to be offended under the same circumstances.

It is easy not to be offended when you are in the majority!

Let's try yet another empathy experiment--although I suspect empathy cannot be taught. Imagine going to a professional conference where you are the minority. For example, if you're white, imagine everyone else is black or vice versa. Now imagine the presentation is filled with slides portraying your race in a demeaning or comical way.

When you say this made you uncomfortable, the community leaders say "get over it."

How welcome do you feel? Are you going to tell me with a straight face your answer would be "very welcome!"

<comment><USER31> Or how about I'm an academic, and also a political conservative/libertarian. That's an extreme minority.

If someone includes an anti-conservative joke on a slide (which has happened), I'm not offended. I have better things to worry about than bad (and sometimes good, but offensive) jokes in a presentation.

<comment><USER32> Rather than switch to a different example that is not outwardly visible nor nearly so divisive, please answer the original question. Do you feel "very welcome" in the given scenario?

<comment><USER31> I switched to that example because it is real. But no, I don't think I'd be offended by a racist joke in a set of slides. For instance, comparing one database to a short white basketball player and another database to Shaq?

In this case, there isn't even a sexist joke. The slides say nothing in particular about women. All they did was compare one database to a fat woman dressed as wonder woman and another to a beautiful woman in a bikini. What statement does this make about women?

<comment><USER33> "What statement does this make about women?"

Your example implies that white people are bad at basketball, just as the slides imply that _fat_ women are unattractive. But implicitly, the standard of comparison makes a statement, too. It makes the statement that women are sex objects who should be judged only on their most superficial characteristics. Men can be judged on their ability to play basketball but when it comes to women, the only standard of value is how sexually attractive they are.

<comment><USER31> The presentation doesn't make the statement that _women_ should be judged by their sexual attractiveness. It makes the statement that _porn stars_ should be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> WOW it seems really surprising to me that some pr0n images on some presentation has got 124 comments from people. This doesn't seem good for HN. I think it will be better to talk about some technical issue than this.

Anybody downvoting this, can you just clearly explain to me why what I have stated needs downvoting ( or why I am wrong ... please !! )

</comment><comment><USER22> this is an interesting one. i didn't realize that people voted without seeing the content. i guess they were just voting for topics or titles?

> "I voted for it, actually, because CouchDB is one of those things that's the > new hotness and I haven't had a chance to play with it, and besides, he > wouldn't actually put porn in the slides. Right? […] I'm a minority in this > community. I know that, and generally I can ignore it and go along thinking > it's a meritocracy of ideas and code. Then I encounter a woman's thonged > rear on the screen at a conference, 20 feet tall, and I remember, oh yeah, > people like me don't belong here. To most of these men around me, I am, at > best, an oddity, and at worst, a sexual target. I feel a little less safe."

<comment><USER28> There was no porn in the slides. (Edit: to be more specific, the "thong" picture on the front page was the most explicit one of the slides, and that looks more like an ad out of a women's magazine, maybe for underwear or perfume. Might be a better place to look for roots of sexism.).

<comment><USER29> _maybe for underwear or perfume. Might be a better place to look for roots of sexism_

How is presenting underwear for women on a woman sexism?

<comment><USER28> The offending image of the presentation was a female torso with underwear, that looked like a typical advertisement for underwear. If you say that is sexism, how can you at the same time say the same picture in a women's magazine is not sexism? I just wanted to point out that women consume that kind of images on a daily basis and never seem to freak out about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me of the Janet Jackson superbowl debacle. The attitude to sex in the US is just bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER35> The root of the problem? Broken funny bone.

This is something that sounded funny in the head of the presenter, but he didn't have the comedic chops to carry it off. Just like that Giles Bowkett "lynch him" brouhaha.

Matt is a good man, but a very bad comedian.

I left a lengthier comment on _why's post.

I get away with off-color humor in my talks in the "Ruby Community" all the time and nobody's bitched. Maybe it's cuz I've got breasts! Or, more likely, it's because I know how to gauge the audience & carry it off.

Alas.

The true problem will never get addressed.

</comment><comment><USER16> Honestly I don't care if women are offended by this or not, but it's awfully embarrassing to me as a man, and as a computer programmer. Sigh.

<comment><USER36> " ... but it's awfully embarrassing to me as a man, and as a computer programmer. "

Why? Matt's not you, doesn't speak for you, doesn't claim to represent you. Or would any reasonable adult think that.

One person did something, others have their reactions. Let them sort it out.

<comment><USER16> You've never sat in an audience and felt uncomfortable/embarrassed when the presenter or speaker started making a fool of himself?

What the fuck are you, some kind of robot? You're full of shit.

<comment><USER36> "[A]wfully embarrassing to me as a man, and as a computer programmer" is quite different from "felt uncomfortable/embarrassed when the presenter or speaker started making a fool of himself".

I can feel basic empathy for someone's situation without it being "embarrassing to me as a man."

And thanks for the gratuitous vulgarity, it really added to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Do you that one speech from Joe Spolsky? Where he shows _one_ slide with a scarcely dressed women on it to make a point about attention? If I remember correctly he held that speech on a prior Rails Con.

I guess that was an "inspiration" for Matt, wasn't it?

</comment><comment><USER38> A great impartial commentary on this entire situation.

<comment><USER3> How is commentary from women (subgroup of entire population) who chose to comment (selection bias) impartial?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I've noticed a very unpleasant trend in some of the complaints (both here and in similar discussions). A couple of examples:

 _Ruby (and Rails in particular) loves the rock star image...It's also a significant barrier to adoption for people who aren't already a part of this culture, and don't find it appealing._

 _As a young women in tech, ... I would be extremely uncomfortable in a classroom of thirty young men and me if an instructor used sex as a metaphor for teaching._

In short, "I'm a girl, I don't like the existing culture, it should change to accommodate me."

I could make a similar statement about the culture I'm currently working in:

 _As a macho libertarian hacker type, I would be extremely uncomfortable in an extreme liberal, PC-gone-wild culture which glorifies east coast pseudointellectual preening. Therefore, the culture of modern universities should change._

Most communities have a preexisting culture, and you are not a good fit for all of them. But demanding that a culture change to be more palatable for you is the height of arrogance. I don't demand that academic culture change, I just fit in as best I can. Sooner or later I'll probably move on to a place where I fit in better.

[edit: I've been refreshing the page, this post seems to be getting a lot of both upmods and downmods. I'd be curious to hear responses.]

<comment><USER39> _Most communities have a preexisting culture, and you are not a good fit for all of them. But demanding that a culture change to be more palatable for you is the height of arrogance._

I grew up in a culture where people of colour were not welcome. Others fought and actually died so that I could write about Ruby and programming and have people include me or argue with me on the basis of my ideas and not my skin colour. In my own lifetime, I have witnesses the exact same struggle over sexual orientation.

If giving one's life to change the world in this manner is "the height of arrogance," I welcome it.

<http://members.shaw.ca/cartermyths/Pics/jamesmeredith.jpg>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbbcjn4d1cE>

<comment><USER31> As I already clarified, I'm not defending active discrimination. I'm simply claiming you need a stronger argument than "As an X, I'm offended, so the world should change."

Acting like a rock star != discrimination against women. Women may disproportionately dislike geeks acting like rock stars, but that doesn't make it discrimination.

It is simply wrong to compare actively harming a group of people (segregation) to a group of people disproportionately disliking a certain culture.

<comment><USER39> I don't know any rock stars. Is objectifying women a necessary component of acting like a rock star? When someone is described as a "Rock Star" developer, does this mean that soft-core porn is an inevitable metaphor for their work?

I don't know how to debate whether acting like a rock star is discriminatory against women, because I don't know what "acting like a rock star" means. I do know that a certain presentation offended a non-trivial number of people and did so in a manner that was entirely unrelated to its technical content.

Asking that this sort of thing be avoided is rather specific and says nothing about rock stars or any random thing that may irk any random person.

Why don't we discuss the specific incident rather that (a) trying to generalize it, and then (b) disputing the argument on the basis of an invalid generalization?

<comment><USER31> I'm using "rock star behavior" to describe the macho culture found in the RoR community.

Lets talk about the specific incident. Some people were offended by a joke. The joke did not say that women were unwelcome or say anything about women specifically. It did not say or do anything to negatively affect women.

Women may have disproportionately disliked the joke and the culture which it exemplifies. That's all. That's simply a complaint that "I and people like me don't like this, therefore the world should change." I believe my generalization is fair, certainly more fair than your comparison to _active legal discrimination_.

<comment><USER39> _Lets talk about the specific incident. Some people were offended by a joke. The joke did not say that women were unwelcome or say anything about women specifically. It did not say or do anything to negatively affect women... Women may have disproportionately disliked the joke and the culture which it exemplifies. That's all. That's simply a complaint that "I and people like me don't like this, therefore the world should change." I believe my generalization is fair, certainly more fair than your comparison to active legal discrimination._

You know, your statement pretty much sums up your perspective on the issue and quite frankly, I see no reason to dissect it. I think there is enough in this thread for people to read what you have just written and decide for themselves what to think of your point of view.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


KDE Plasma 5 - <AUTHOR> http://kde.org/announcements/plasma5.0/

<comment><USER2> Looks awesome. Congrats and thanks to everyone working on this.</comment>


Amazon has made a change to the way it sells books, which may hurt publishers - happy-go-lucky https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/19/15596050/amazon-buy-box-publishing-controversy <comment><AUTHOR> This article reads like a poorly researched PR piece for the publishing industry.

They're not really saying anywhere.the books by third party sellers are fake. Then they must have come from the publisher legitimately one way or the other and hence the publisher must have been paid. The only difference is how much he was paid. It's likely some country branch of the publisher cut a deal to unload some books for cheap to a distributor and that's coming back to Amazon. So the publishing executive in that market made lot's of revenue in his scorecard at the cost of cannibalizing Amazon account seller's business.

This sort of thing is quite common and perfectly legal.

<comment><USER2> Unless you're buying a relatively new book, book buying on Amazon is an incredibly painful experience. I've given up almost altogether. There are a number of outright fakes, but the main problem is the _massive_ number of really crappy print-on-demand OCR/scanned books.

The only way I do continue to buy books on Amazon if they're sold by Amazon and fulfilled by Amazon, which it sounds like that will generally be less findable. It simply isn't worth the trouble. I have no sympathy for the publishers - I have no problem at all buying used books - but there is more to the story.

<comment><USER3> A few years ago, I started losing trust in Amazon as what was once a straight forward transaction began to look more and more like an algorithmic semi-scam. I would look for some item and the featured results would be 20% or more than the same item in some duplicated form.

For many years Amazon's business model was to generate revenue off of straight forward sales transactions. Today it has shifted to rents and extractions. Prime is perhaps a good first example. Using it complicates transactions and Amazon can arbitrage the eligibility and price of items to extract additional revenues on the fly.

However, textbooks are the prime of example of Amazon's new more extractive business practices. It's not just that Amazon wholeheartedly adopted the text book industry's obscene pricing models rather than disrupting them. Nor is it just that Amazon has extended the obscene pricing to rent out ebook versions of textbooks. No, the best expression of Amazon's newly found extractive business practices is in the availability and pricing of used older editions of textbooks on its platform. In the old days, Amazon was a steady source for fairly inexpensive obsolescent editions of current textbooks. Once Amazon seriously entered the textbook business, that seems to have changed and bargains available with deliberate search have disappeared.

There really was a change of mindset with Amazon Prime. It was a manifestation of a business cultural value that all customers are not equal as individuals. Maybe it is possible to position an ecommerce site as an upscale brand while still selling Schenzhen's spinners and iPhone cases and unlisted electronics of dubious safety for $0.01.

As I've lost trust in Amazon, I've started using Ebay for online purchases. Ebay is orders of magnitude more transparent. Transparency is a good way to create trust. It helps that Ebay's business model is not grossly misaligned with my wallet. It helps that the marker of trust is between buyer and seller rather than stars based on customer reviews. A seller with 10,000 transactions and 99% positive rating is a better indicator of an item's quality than 4 stars based on twenty reviews.

<comment><USER4> How is ebay better? The only counterfeit item I have bought on either site was a dell laptop charger on ebay a few years ago. It used to overheat and stopped working after only a few weeks use. Another time a product was never shipped and I had to go through the paypal dispute resolution process which worked fine if a little slowly. I'd have thought ebay would suffer from the same problems as amazon with counterfeit products and fake reviews and then it also has the whole shill bids problem. I moved over to amazon for almost all my online shopping and so far have not had a problem though I appreciate that may just be luck on my part.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure how / what these folks who keep apparently getting scammed are buying, but I have ~200 books purchased in my history with 3/4 of them most likely used, and none have been fakes.

I constantly buy / add to my wishlist older hardcover books I'm interested in reading and will come back and check when the used price is low and buy either Like New / Very Good / Good and have been satisfied with the results. Nothing like getting a 800+ page hardcover book with barely any use delivered to your door for 6-10$.

If one is worried about quality don't by anything used that is less than Very Good IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They offer no conclusion on how sellers can materialize thousands of copies of a book out of thin air.

"Not a single cent goes to the publisher" can only be true if they are selling illegal copies printed somewhere else, which I imagine would be extremely easy to spot. If they are buying 1) "slightly used" books, the publisher and author have already been paid, 2) "not for resale" copies, why on earth would the publisher print _thousands_ of promotional copies? Such nonsense.

<comment><USER7> Illegal copies are also a rampant problem on Amazon, though, so this increases the odds that the big Buy Button ships you a counterfeit.

[https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844030960333152256](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844030960333152256)

[https://www.ft.com/content/5dba91b0-e1c7-11e6-8405-9e5580d6e...](https://www.ft.com/content/5dba91b0-e1c7-11e6-8405-9e5580d6e5fb)

[https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no- starch...](https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch.html)

<comment><USER8> We've had at least 5 books counterfeited on Amazon. In each case the counterfeit inventory replaced our inventory and owned the Buy button.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a long article that confuses the issue. The root of the problem, if it even exists, is that some sellers sell bootleg copies on Amazon. That is what the article should be about rather than the buy box.

<comment><USER10> Do you have any evidence of this kind of copyright violation for books on Amazon? I can imagine it does happen, but if it happens at any sort of significant scale (say more than e-book piracy) the publishers or the author of this publisher-friendly article would have mentioned it.

<comment><USER9> I don't, but the article posits that there are thousands of copies of a title sold that don't come from a publisher, so it is implied. They also mention promotional copies but that is no large quantity.

<comment><USER8> at least 1500 copies in our case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > the big five publishers theorized that third-party sellers might be selling > some of the free promotional copies… which have no such marking on their > covers and often end up sold to bookstores like the Strand.

If these promotional copies already being sold by other bookstores then what's the problem? If they shouldn't be sold then the publishers should clearly mark them as not for sale.

> Others have suggested that they might be buying books with minor cosmetic > damage from warehouses…

Presumably these slightly damaged books were originally printed and sold by the publishers too, so what's the problem?

<comment><USER12> > Presumably these slightly damaged books were originally printed and sold by > the publishers

Frequently, those copies are fraudulently written off as destroyed at the cost of the publisher; the publisher didn't make their money off the sale.

> If these promotional copies already being sold by other bookstores then > what's the problem?

Being sold in a mom&pop bookstore is a very different case than being sold through the biggest internet retailer.

> If they shouldn't be sold then the publishers should clearly mark them as > not for sale.

Sometimes it's the authors who get the promotional copies and attempt to give them out to fans or friendly distributors as a method of marketing; some of whom are dishonest about their reasons for asking for promotional copies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This was a terrible article. The complaints have nothing to do with the buy box. I can think of three ways that "publishers aren't getting paid" could be true:

1) Books are stolen

2) Books are counterfeit

3) Books were purchased through "unauthorized" channels, e.g. free review copies

None of these is a problem with the Amazon buy box. We don't complain that "Samsung doesn't get paid when people buy Samsing TVs at Best Buy" and I don't see how this is any different.

I think Amazon is guilty of a lot of shady practices that harm businesses (like co-mingling potentially counterfeit _Fulfillment by Amazon_ inventory with _Ships From and Sold by Amazon.com_ inventory). But this article makes no sense.

<comment><USER14> > 3) Books were purchased through "unauthorized" channels, e.g. free review > copies

I don't see anything wrong with someone reselling a free review copy of a physical book. If you don't want people reselling free review copies, then don't give them out in the first place.

Also, I've heard from multiple authors that issue #2 is definitely still a problem at Amazon.

<comment><USER13> Oh I absolutely agree, nothing wrong with people selling review copies. My point was that review copies for sale is an entirely separate issue from which seller wins the Amazon Buy Box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The only thing that seems off is the Buy Box Winner being out of stock. If they're out of stock, some other seller should be the Buy Box Winner. Otherwise it misleadingly looks like everyone is out of stock for that title—which is bad for buyers, bad for sellers, and bad for Amazon.

<comment><USER16> Indeed.

This seems somewhat similar to the issue that often the buy box seller does not ship to the buyer country (but some other seller, e.g. Amazon, would ship).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Soooo... publishers should start labeling their promotional copies as "not for resale" and problem solved?

At least from what the article describes, it really does seem that simple.

And this doesn't even appear to have anything to do with Amazon specifically -- the article even states these promotional copies "often end up sold to bookstores like the Strand".

<comment><USER8> Counterfeiting is the real problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm wondering if part of the anxiety is about the used market spilling over into new - a distinction which to most is about the way a book looks and feels rather than its commercial provenance. Nothing really stops a book dealer to list a used book as new if it sufficiently looks like one. And as long as they have enough reputation clout on Amazon, they will short-circuit the publishers' sales chain and win the Buy Box.

<comment><USER19> > Nothing really stops a book dealer to list a used book as new if it > sufficiently looks like one.

Nothing stops them from _listing_ as new even if it doesn't look like one. Its not like anyone is examining the copy in person before buying on Amazon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Man Booker Prize nominees routinely sell as few as 3,000 copies.

This was really surprising to me. They link to this article.

[http://www.npr.org/2015/09/19/441459103/when-it-comes-to- boo...](http://www.npr.org/2015/09/19/441459103/when-it-comes-to-book-sales- what-counts-as-success-might-surprise-you)

</comment><comment><USER21> This _only_ seems to hurt publishers (and maybe consumers, depending on how the Buy Box algorithm is implemented/designed). This also happens to be a boon for third-party resellers.

My grandpa is actually one such possible beneficiary of this (though I don't think he would normally be the default for various reasons). In his retirement, he volunteers with a fundraising organization that supports his county's library by reselling donated books; cheaper books are usually sold by the bag in "book sales" (held adjacent to the library itself), but my grandpa's specialty is actually the Amazon storefront, through which the more expensive books are sold. Since there's no acquisition cost (they're donated), each book can be sold at prices way lower than they could be by for-profit sellers while still pulling in the same or similar net income.

It sounds like the Buy Box algorithm factors in whether a book is consistently in stock, however, which is problematic for him (since nearly all his sales are one-off), and it probably doesn't include non-new products. It's still potentially beneficial if he gets, say, a pallet of new college textbooks or something (which hasn't happened yet AFAIK, but hey, one can dream, right?).

</comment><comment><USER22> Indie publisher here. I am also a board member of the Independent Book Publishers Association, which has come out against the new Buy Box policy.

The big question on everyone's mind is where the new third-party books are coming from. Here are my personal views:

* Many publishers suspect that the books are not actually new, but rather are used from various sources and are being sold as new. However, there hasn't been any proof that this is a widespread phenomenon. OTOH, there is practically no barrier to a seller making a "new" claim for a used book. The main disincentive is Amazon might punish them if it's discovered or enough readers complain.

* Review copies are being sold as new. I know two publishers who have received complaints about this from readers who purchased a "new" book from Amazon, only to discover that it was marked as an ARC or not for resale.

* Third-party sellers are getting their hands on overstock or returns from retailers that were supposed to be pulped or destroyed. I have heard of two businesses that have operated in this realm, but both appear to be legitimately purchasing overstock as opposed to buying copies that should have been destroyed.

* Third-party sellers are accessing wholesale channels intended for retailers or libraries. These sales are legit, but publishers get less money from them. See the Createspace thread below (first two pages) for a discussion of one case.

* Some of the new books are pirated. This is my personal view that is not widely shared, but I believe this is going to be a big problem going forward, based not only on two documented cases this year (Dave Burgess' pirated copy of "Teach Like a Pirate" and Bill Pollock's "Python for Kids", see links below) but also because it's such a widespread phenomenon elsewhere on Amazon. It's a matter of time before pirates discover it's open season for books, and more and more will rush in using cheap short-run digital or print on demand to own the buy box.

There may be other sources as well. If the books are used and are being sold as such, it's accessed through a wholesaler, or it's overstock sourced legitimately, that's not an issue. But publishers should be concerned if used books and review copies are being sold as new, or pirates are eating their lunch.

1\. [https://twitter.com/burgessdave/status/849039943561134080](https://twitter.com/burgessdave/status/849039943561134080)

2\. [https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844030960333152256](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844030960333152256)

3\. [https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/message/76847#76...](https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/message/76847#76847)

ETA: Wholesale channels bullet and "new" claims details

<comment><USER23> * Used books means the publisher (and author) got paid. It is an issue between the buyer and seller (and Amazon as the broker).

* Why are the publisher producing so many review copies that this is even possible? And why isn't "review copy" plastered on every page? Why doesn't it have a different ISBN number (or no ISBN at all)? This just screams of publisher incompetence.

* Selling legitimate overstock is not a problem. Additionally the publisher (and author) got paid. Selling "destroyed" books is, again, the publisher being incompetent. Typically a publisher will have the first page or front cover returned to prove it was destroyed.

* Fake books are a legitimate problem, but the articles goes out of its way to say that that isn't happening multiple times.

Outside of fake books, most of these other theories read more like conspiracy and don't make rational sense on the face of it.

<comment><USER8> * I have no issue with people selling used books. As with any good, if you own it you should be able to resell it.

* Publishers send out review copies to get reviews. I used to mark our review copies but reviewers don't like that. For some, their compensation from whatever source they write for for _is_ the book they review.

* There are numerous entities in the publishing supply chain and always the potential for holes or bad actors.

* We've had five books sold as fakes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't know if this is only new for books or new in the US or if I somehow hit a trial of this feature, but I've had this buying a music CD from Amazon UK. I hit the usual default "Buy" button in the buy box and the CD was shipped from a third-party seller in another country.

Kind of annoying as it was a Father's Day gift (so the order must have been about a year ago) and the unexpected international shipping meant it didn't arrive until after the day itself. I'm pretty sure there'd been no indication of this on the sale page.

</comment><comment><USER25> Yes, lately I have bought books at Amazon that were not originals. Even now they sell print outs of ebook only books. Really annoying, takes more time now to make sure you get proper ones.

</comment><comment><USER26> Isn't selling used goods, but not clearly labelling them as such, potentially illegal in some jurisdictions?

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if this affects createspace books. I don't see how it would, but then maybe I'm missing an angle.

</comment><comment><USER28> Publishers' lament. Good riddance.

<comment><USER29> Exactly... in a world where you can self publish both print and electronic versions of books... are publishers adding enough value to justify protection of their profits?

<comment><USER30> They're adding a lot of value. Part of my novel-buying process on Amazon is checking the publisher, specifically because self-published books have such awful writing.

<comment><USER28> You didn't like "The Martian", did you?

<comment><USER30> No, I didn't, but in that case the problem wasn't the horrible writing I complain about above. "The Martian" has much better writing than the general run of self-published novels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This clickbait title explains nothing.

</comment><comment><USER32> Seems like a natural progression in the survival of the fittest sense.

</comment><comment><USER33> clickbait title intensifies.</comment>


Ajit Pai wants to raise rural broadband speeds from 10Mbps to 25Mbps - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/ajit-pai-wants-to-raise-rural-broadband-speeds-from-10mbps-to-25mbps/ <comment><USER2> The business case is quite obvious here: with net neutrality in place, the carriers could not make a lot of money on their circuits, because they could not differentiate, and charge publishers. But now they can, so it suddenly makes a lot of sense to deploy more internet to rural areas. But.. packaging it as an FCC policy change, and thus being able to apply public funds toward that deployment is even better! Screw the public on multiple fronts:

\- charge content publishers for bandwidth used by their customers (the cost of which content publishers will pass on)

\- charge end-users for 'premium' services

\- charge some end-users extra for overages (yes all family members are streaming Netflix separately..)

\- use tax dollars to deploy more bandwidth - even though all service providers have been doing that throughout the 90s and 2000s while growing wildly.

And this is how consumers will pay multiple times for the same content. Ever wondered why Netflix is suddenly raising prices, and Youtube is introducing paid memberships?

EDIT: formatting

</comment><comment><USER3> Hope it doesn't affect my gigabit fiber here in northwest Kansas.</comment>


Blood tests show 14% of people are now immune to Covid-19 in one town in Germany - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/09/999015/blood-tests-show-15-of-people-are-now-immune-to-covid-19-in-one-town-in-germany <comment><AUTHOR> \- Original: [https://www.land.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/zwis...](https://www.land.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/zwischenergebnis_covid19_case_study_gangelt_0.pdf)

\- CFR .37%

\- 2% of the individuals currently had SARS-CoV-2 determined by PCR method

</comment><comment><USER2> Interesting that a "hotspot" with multiple large events during the initial outbreak is still only at ~14% percent infected. This would seem to indicate that there's a ways to go before a real peak.</comment>


Buffett: Raising minimum wage 'would almost certainly reduce employment' - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/buffett-raising-minimum-wage-would-almost-certainly-reduce-employment-2015-05-25?dist=beforebell <comment><USER2> No shit.

But, over the long term, raise the standard of living for the lowest wage earners will both increase economic activity and increase employment. It's disingenuous to pretend that low wages benefit minimum wage earners.

</comment><comment><USER3> Then why don't we cut it in half, and then gradually cut it to zero?

Seriously, why aren't leaders who are against raising the minimum wage proudly storming Washington to get it cut in half?

If you're for the number of jobs that the current minimum wage supports, then isn't it your duty to your fellow man to do what you can to cut his wages in half, so that someone else can step out of unemployment?

And for that matter, why don't we have a maximum wage?</comment>


In Defense of D&D - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepeppercat.com/dungeons-dragons/

<comment><USER2> I played d&d and R d&d, the latter is the one where you actually dress up and fight other people with rubber swords. When I tell people at the office they still laugh at me about that. But frankly, I don't really care - those were the best times ever!

</comment><comment><USER3> brilliant</comment>


The 'Affordable Housing' Fraud (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell100115.php3 <comment><USER2> Housing is also expensive in SF because of height restrictions on the buildings. It's funny that such a progressive city is always looking for reasons why housing is so expensive, but refuse to believe it's one if their own laws.</comment>


Increased intelligence is a myth so far (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3950413/ <comment><USER2> I've been interested in brain training and nootropics for a very long time. The conclusion I've come to is intelligence is pretty much fixed, current psychopharmaceuticals are of very, very, very limited usefulness, and most of the differences in intelligence we see between people are caused by genetic factors not education or rearing. This was immensely disappointing for me - I'd literally give everything I own to be moved up a few standard deviations, but it does seem to be the case. I'll be the first in line for any effective enhancement, but we do not have them now. The most likely approaches for increasing the intelligence of humans are things like embryo selection and genetic engineering of embryos - biotechnology can only do so much after your brain is done growing.

Iterated embryo selection looks like it will lead to humans smarter than any human who has ever lived - perhaps they will be clever enough to figure out how to upgrade an old fogey like me. As an aside, I'm not sure people understand how ridiculously cheap iterated embryo selection will be provided some very conservative advances in biotech, ethical mores will be unlikely to suppress it - even if international treaties are put in place.

<comment><USER3> Looks like you've been reading Bostrom. I was actually annoyed about the amount of time he spent on the whole notion of genetically engineering smarter humans. I think his intent was to rigorously prove that even if technology for some reason halted and all progress in machine learning ended along with moore's law we'd still reach super intelligence. From that standpoint I get it as a philosopher to create a bulletproof argument. But I think it's very unlikely that it will happen that way. It's already far more practical to teach Watson to read better than genetically engineer a new Einstein. Also I don't think there's an iq 200 set of genes, there's probably trade offs that would prevent this a brain has a given number of neurons and they operate at a slow speed so this is like trying to breed a better horse when cars are obviously on the horizon and will be followed by jets.

<comment><USER2> >The most likely approaches for increasing the intelligence _of humans_

I agree, given the gestation time of a human, AI may well come first. Even if we perfected iterated embryo selection today, 18 years is a lot of time and perhaps AI would be developed before the super geniuses reach peak productivity.

>Also I don't think there's an iq 200 set of genes, there's probably trade offs that would prevent this a brain has a given number of neurons and they operate at a slow speed so this is like trying to breed a better horse when cars are obviously on the horizon and will be followed by jets.

Everything I'm reading is saying the genes for IQ, as with most traits, are additive. And it really is as easy as putting as many high-IQ-associated genes into one genome as possible.

<comment><USER4> Bear in mind that that each of the "high-IQ-associated genes" (alleles) is responsible for the synthesis of a polypeptide, and that the phenotypes produced by their interactions can be extremely difficult to predict.

I believe the studies you have in mind, one of which appeared on HN last week, find that high IQ is not associated with any small set of highly unusual alleles (i.e. "freak mutations"). This isn't to say that genetically engineering a person to have a high IQ is as simple as "putting as many high- IQ-associated genes into one genome as possible." It could be the case that certain specific interactions between the products of these alleles prove deleterious to the individual with respect to intelligence or other traits.

I agree that some of the sentiment on HN about the mutability of intelligence is wishful thinking, but our understanding of genomics and the genetic component of intelligence is still very much incomplete.

<comment><USER2> I'm getting this from Hsu. He seems to think this will not be an issue: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3421](http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3421)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The idea of intelligence has always made me leery. I have a little brother who placed second in a state competition (musical instrument) for kids who almost doubled him in age before his tenth birthday. People like to say he's a genius, but only my family knows the truth: two hours of piano a day, four on weekends, since before he was even in kindergarten. I don't really believe in intelligence.

<comment><USER6> The Polgár sister's story backs you in that:

"Polgár and her two older sisters, Grandmaster Susan and International Master Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age.[11] "Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klára educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist subject."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r)

<comment><USER7> Which begs the question, when people are willing to commit their children to this kind of super-intensive training regimen at such an early age, why on Earth are they doing it for games or music and not something (if you will excuse a crass way of saying it) _useful_?

Imagine a physicist or mathematician or engineer tutored in their discipline from age five! And imagine if those were as _common_ as the little kids one sees dutifully going to piano practice every afternoon. The world would look very different.

<comment><USER8> Quite a lot of physics and mathematics is _less_ useful than playing the piano, since it is equally lacking in practical application and doesn't even give other people pleasure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a species (or society) do we have clear objectives in mind when we seek to 'increase intelligence'? Is it higher productivity? more progress? enhanced capability? faster learning? Aren't there lots of low hanging fruit that we haven't taken yet? First, shouldn't we try to eliminate the things that are known to cause decreases in intelligence? Or, do we not know what those are?

Also, having been around a lot of 'highly intelligent' people, I have found that many are still not very effective. Most still make bad choices, have poor judgement, adhere to dogma, can't think laterally or fluidly, lack curiosity, lack discipline, lack self-reflection, etc. Is it possible for a 'smart' individual to easily get better at those things?

<comment><USER10> > _Aren 't there lots of low hanging fruit that we haven't taken yet? It seems > like it'd be easier to eliminate the things that are known to cause > decreases in intelligence, first. Or, do we not know what those are?_

Yes, these issues have been researched, and are continually being addressed (though one might argue they should be given much more attention than is currently the case). Some examples of causes of decreased intelligence include malnutrition (sometimes caused by parasites), and heavy metal poisoning (often lead and/or arsenic in well-water).[1][2][3]

> _Also, having been around a lot of 'highly intelligent' people, I have found > that many are still not very effective. Most still make bad choices, have > poor judgement, adhere to dogma, can't think laterally or fluidly, lack > curiosity, lack discipline, etc. Is it possible for a 'smart' individual to > get better at those things?_

If you are interested in these issues, I suggest that you read some of Phillip Tetlock's work on judgement and prediction; I have found it tremendously interesting and helpful, though I have often been taken aback when re- examining my own faults through the lens of his work.[4] From what I have read, you are already at a tremendous intellectual advantage, as you are examining meta-cognition issues, which can help you improve your cognition, and understand your limitations.

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

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

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

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_E._Tetlock)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I feel like the whole argument is based on "your true IQ is the highest score you'll ever receive on a test", which is a statement that by definition would make improvements in IQ impossible.[0]

I still don't understand why, if everybody in the control group only change around the error ratio and the test group on average advances beyond the error ratio, that doesn't show an improvement. According to the authors what _would_ show an improvement?

[0] they don't say this outright in the paper, but the SAT discussion clearly allude to this form of thinking. They don't even entertain the idea that practice might be the reason for a large increase in a persons SAT score, but rather say, the highest score is representative.

<comment><USER12> > I feel like the whole argument is based on "your true IQ is the highest > score you'll ever receive on a test", which is a statement that by > definition would make improvements in IQ impossible.

I am no statistician, but I think there is more to the argument than that. My take is that Haier is saying that IQ is not a ratio scale, and you cannot gauge the significance of a result by treating it as if it is.

Nevertheless, I get the impression he is trying to stretch the importance of this observation. He writes 'Nonetheless, the main point is that to make the _most compelling_ argument that intelligence increases after an intervention, a ratio scale of intelligence is required' (my emphasis), which raises the question of whether there is not a not-quite-so-compelling argument to be made without such a metric.

FWIW, I don't have a horse in this race as I am on the fence over whether IQ is as fundamental a measure as its proponents insist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's more important to increase effectiveness than intelligence anyway. An IQ 20+ points greater causes reduced credibility, which is why people with IQs over 150 are under-represented in "elite" professions like finance, law, consulting[1]

[1] [http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.com/p/the- inappropriately-e...](http://michaelwferguson.blogspot.com/p/the- inappropriately-excluded-by-michael.html?m=1)

<comment><USER14> For what it's worth, this article makes the exact same math mistakes that the article discusses. I.e. the phrase "an IQ 20+ points greater causes reduced credibility" doesn't even make any sense, since a point isn't a fixed interval.

(I might not have an IQ of 150+, but I can spot the same pattern 30 seconds later.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is a legitimate concern in here about the methodology of testing intelligence-training interventions, but it's not quite clear what exactly the thing is that "is a myth", and I followed a reference at random (Jaeggi et al, 2008) and arrived at a study whose methodology was fine.

(EDIT: Whose methodology passed my cursory inspection but was terrible in a subtle way.)

<comment><USER16> Don't tell Gwern that. [http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#moody-2009-re- jaeggi-2008](http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#moody-2009-re-jaeggi-2008)

<comment><USER15> Huh, good catch. The too-short time limit issue was a methodological issue I had definitely not thought to check for. (Haier doesn't mention it.)

<comment><USER17> There are actually several distinct issues with Jaeggi 2008. The speeding is a concern but it increasing looks like it's not driving the score increase. The passive control group is a big issue (although Jaeggi et al, via Au, are doing their best to fight to the grim end and deny it as long as possible). As is the subsamples using different IQ tests.

Finally, as Haier spends a lot of time explaining, pre-post test gains is fundamentally invalid as a way of proving testing increases the g-factor, because such gains are necessary but not sufficient; an increase in intelligence should show up as a gain, but many non-increases will also show up as a gain because despite the best efforts, IQ tests do not measure solely intelligence.

I'm increasingly understanding that this is as big a problem for n-back as the passive control group inflation. Many attempts to increase intelligence in the past, some where there was no dispute at all that test scores did increase, have failed as soon as a latent variable analysis was applied; I'm not aware of any which passes. All of the interventions had increased scores on only some subtests, and there were no general gains; they had not increased intelligence, only taught a specific subdomain. So our prior is highly against n-back being the exception. Worse, several studies have already tried to apply the latent variable analysis, and they _all_ indicate that n-back flunked. So our already exceedingly skeptical prior gets reinforced by evidence of no effect on intelligence, whatever one subtest like a matrix test might say. (If Au or Jaeggi have addressed this, I have not seen it yet. They prefer to concentrate on the fact that the test scores increase and that you can cast doubt on the active/passive criticism by trying to correlate with whether a study was done in the USA or not, or whether the control group gained enough pre/post.)

You can see some links discussing the topic, including Haier's methodological argument here, in point #3 in [http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta- analysis#analysis](http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis#analysis)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The abstract mostly seems to state "increased intelligence is currently too difficult to measure, so we wouldn't know."

Which is fair. But "is a myth so far" suggests disproof, not proof that it's not currently true. As they repeatedly show, it would be very difficult for them to prove that, since they'd have to usefully measure delta in intelligence.

<comment><USER17> > Which is fair. But "is a myth so far" suggests disproof, not proof that it's > not currently true. As they repeatedly show, it would be very difficult for > them to prove that, since they'd have to usefully measure delta in > intelligence.

The burden of proof should be on anyone who claims to have an intelligence boosting method. The field is littered with hucksters who have claimed to succeeded; this was true in the '60s when Jensen first wrote on it, and it's still true now. It's the cold-fusion of psychology (something which is theoretically possible, would be immensely valuable practically, and has never panned out when examined rigorously).

Anyway, Haier's paper is not intended to be comprehensive, and we can point to some examples of investigating claimed intelligence increases and seeing that they indeed turn in the predicted null effect on intelligence: te Nijenhuis et al 2007, te Nijenhuis et al 2014, etc. See my other comment with link to citations & fulltexts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What is really most concerning about these studies is that the intervention too resembles the metric in order to believe they don't teach to the test. It's like treating depression by teaching people how to lie to psychiatrists. If you're measuring intelligence by performance on little 10-minute puzzles, and you show an improvement by teaching people to solve puzzles, I'm not really impressed. If you show an improvement in puzzles by teaching people guitar, giving them a drug, or sending them to basic training, I'll invest in your company. On the other hand, if you measure intelligence by job performance or some other life measure, and you show an improvement with puzzle games, it doesn't seem quite so unfair.

<comment><USER20> A cartoonish description of cognitive behavioral therapy would be encouraging people to tell different lies to themselves. I think it might be hard to learn to effectively lie to a therapist without accidentally believing some of what you are saying, so I would not be stunned if that ended up having some effectiveness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The article kinda states that being sick can reduce your intelligence.

That to me alone means by staying healthy we stay more intelligent. ie. Get more sleep.

I think the title is quite misleading.

</comment><comment><USER22> It seems more and more apparent that large sections of modern science are quackery. Will we fix this somehow and look back on this era from the future, and wonder about the many millions spent on serious people in white coats who basically produced random noise with a dash of prejudice and a touch of click- bait?

<comment><USER23> To be fair, for most of history large sections of science were quackery. Didn't really stop us from getting here.

<comment><USER24> True, the wrong answer can sometimes make the correct one clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is generally a low quality article.</comment>


Fathom. Simple, Trustworthy Website Analytics. Built with Golang and Preact - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/usefathom/fathom <comment><USER2> We only just had a similar discussion few days ago on Analytics. [1]

And according to issue [2], it does not plan to aggregate any OS, Devices, Locations, Browsers, Res, etc data in the future.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19119868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19119868)

[2] [https://github.com/usefathom/fathom/issues/82](https://github.com/usefathom/fathom/issues/82)</comment>


Ask HN: Best podcasts out there? - <AUTHOR> My current list includes:<p>- Startup - Reply All - Freakonomics Radio - Serial<p>Any good 'uns I missed? Not necessarily tech-related. <comment><USER2> Here's some podcast I listen to.

1\. Joe Rogan Podcast - usually interesting regardless of what you're interested in. Good interviews with athletes, thinkers, actors, comedians, etc.

2\. Sam Harris Waking Up - interesting interviews with experts on a range of topics.

3\. You are not so Smart - great for understanding human psychology, biases, cognitive science, etc.

4\. The Power Hour - Nice for getting insight into aspects of the global energy industry and how it relates to governments.

5\. SWR2 Wissen - in German, but really high quality production in essay format, where they take a topic and dissect it for about 20 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do By Friday

Accidental Tech Podcast

The Flop House

Hello Internet

Road Work

Back to Work

Roderick on the Line

Cortex

Harmontown

Reconcilable Differences</comment>


Why I work remotely (hint: it has nothing to do with productivity) - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/why-i-work-remotely-hint-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-productivity-34ace30f74fc#.3l423m8ny <comment><USER2> While I don't have the ability to work remotely I do have some time to spend with my kids. Nine years ago I left a bank compliance job that sucked every last bit of energy and time out of me to go work at a University in IT. At the time my kids were 8 and 13. Most weeks I work a reasonable number of hours and have some flexibility in time off, time shifting and other ways to take care of them. My oldest is 23 now but still lives at home. I am so grateful she does and we do lots together. My youngest will turn 18 in two weeks and will go away to college next year. I spend every effort I can to be with her this last year. The time goes fast. Don't let it slip away.

Oh my kids tell me that I was a total grump when I worked at the bank. I was so tired all the time I was short tempered.

Give your kids a hug and spend time with them.</comment>