The Lie Generator: Inside the Black Mirror World of Polygraph Job Screenings - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/inside-polygraph-job-screening-black-mirror/ <comment><USER2> I once was gassing up at a station, and for whatever reason the card reader on the pump wasn't charging, but would let me pump gas anyways. So me, and everyone else who'd used that pump that day, received a phone call from the police telling me to go pay for the gas. I figured it was just an honest mistake and didn't think anything of it.

Fast forward a bit, to where I am undergoing a polygraph examination for the NSA. The exam made me uncomfortable and nervous, but I thought everything was going well. Except for when my interviewer came back and told me I was showing sensitivity towards the hiding crimes question. WTF? And when they do this, they're just giving you enough rope to see if you hang yourself with it. But I had no idea why (or even _if_ ) I was showing sensitivity to this question.

They called me in for a 2nd polygraph, this time I didn't show sensitivity to hiding crimes, and I figured I was good to go.

No. I get called into a 3rd exam (each exam was separated by a couple months, mind you). This time the interviewer told me "You did better at the hiding crimes question than I thought you would" W.T.F.?!?! The interviewer then left the room and came back with a manilla folder, from which he procures a piece paper which he reads that I had a suspected larceny charge back at home. I honestly had no idea what he was talking about until I remembered the gas station incident. But after I try telling him about it, he tells me that he doesn't believe me and that he thinks I stole that gas. This leaves me extremely flustered and the rest of the polygraph was a train wreck.

3 strikes and I'm out, my conditional employment with them was terminated.

What irks me the most though, is that when I got back home I retrieved the larceny report from the court house, and in that document the whole story was laid out and my account of the situation was corroborated. So what the hell? Why throw me through such a ringer?

Fuck the polygraph.

<comment><USER3> _...received a phone call from the police telling me to go pay for the gas. I figured it was just an honest mistake and didn 't think anything of it_

So, given that you paid-up for the gas when requested, you didn't _intend to permanently deprive the owner of it_ which suggests that technically it wasn't larceny and could have been sloughed-off as a misunderstanding. Given you were dealing with an NSA interview, sounds like they were playing a psychological setup game to determine how calmly you would respond under pressure in the context of an intimidating polygraph test. Seems like they weren't too thrilled with the responses they elicited. Would you really want to work for an organization that plays those sort of mind games?

<comment><USER2> >Would you really want to work for an organization that plays those sort of mind games? reply

No, I don't anymore. But at the time I was excited for the opportunity

<comment><USER4> You dodged a bullet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It was my understanding that polygraph tests were mostly useless and just a way to claim someone is lying through clever use of pseudoscience

<comment><USER6> They're not useless, but yes, they are a form of trickery. It's a psychological technique that tries to make people who are lying or hiding things more likely to be nervous and more likely to confess (or be led down a line of questioning which eventually reveals new information).

The actual results from the machine are pretty much just a red herring, but that doesn't necessarily mean the machines have no valid uses. If use of a polygraph has helped tricked even one criminal into (truthfully) confessing or scared away even one person with malicious intent, then they're useful.

I wouldn't want a polygraph to be used for evidence in court, but I would want them to be used if I were interviewing for FBI/CIA/NSA. (But I definitely wouldn't want them to be used for firefighter and parademic positions.) I know it's a bit paradoxical that they can be both useful and a sham, but I think that's how law enforcement views them, too. This article presents a lot of issues with how they're used, but I wouldn't expect them to be phased out for a very long time (unless someone makes a version that actually has more scientific validity).

<comment><USER7> Polygraphs should nevern be used. An administrator can interpret the results any way they see fit. It's a perfect avenue for bigotry and other unfair hiring practices. It has no place in society.

<comment><USER6> Again, it's not about the results. But I agree it shouldn't be used for hiring, except for extremely sensitive positions.

<comment><USER8> Its not about the results and that lets the person running the test interpret things anyway they want. We have seen time, and time again that this leads to all sorts of discrimination that is both against our society's morals and not actually useful as filtering people as well the person doing the discriminating thinks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> True story: we hired a guy who failed his polygraph to work in the _motor pool_ for a local municipality. the test was required because he would be working on police cars and fire trucks.

six years later and hes still working for us, we get an order from that same municipality to overhaul the intercoolers on nearly two dozen cop cars. I called up the pool manager and asked about the polygraph, and his response was they use outside contractors to get around the fact they have _no_ certified mechanics.

</comment><comment><USER10> I was looking for a statement by the "other side", someone in government who could give a justification as to why they're being used.

Is it simply because its the "standard" now, and bureaucrats don't want to stick their neck out by getting rid of it? Is the fact that it is a machine that has been around for awhile, regardless of efficacy, give people that much comfort? Or are enough people really that misinformed?

Its a bit like marijuana legalization coverage - its rare to find arguments for maintaining the status quo as opposed to getting rid of it.

<comment><USER11> Lots of technology doesn't work, but we're still going to use it. Sometimes because it's better than nothing. Sometimes because no one gets fired for using <insert standard technology here>. And sometimes just because the politicians owe favors to their corporate handlers.

Lie detectors, Sea Wolf submarines, facial recognition software, etc etc etc. Many security technologies lie on the spectrum from "impractical" to out and out "doesn't work". But we just have to get comfortable with them, because they aren't going away.

<comment><USER12> That's a rather defeatist attitude to take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The continued use of polygraph "tests", as if they have any validity whatsoever, is honestly a scandal.

<comment><USER14> They have been in the news recently in relation to the current Supreme Court fiasco. Why are they they a thing? Who likes them?

<comment><USER13> Well, they don't have any particular _accuracy_ , but they do allow the operator to generate whatever result they like in a usefully opaque manner.

The linked article discusses a large number of cases of racial bias. Obviously if you _want_ to be biased in your hiring, but you want to hide it, a polygraph is very convenient way to manufacture some cover. (Alternatively of course, some of the police departments may have had no such intention, and merely been the victim of biased polygraph operators.)

As for the recent Supreme Court fiasco, incidents 35 years in the past rarely turn up much hard evidence. A polygraph is, again, a very useful way to manufacture something that looks _like_ evidence. (And that's true regardless of the truth of Ford's claims. Just because polygraph results are _fake_ doesn't mean they aren't accurate sometimes!)

In short:

> Who likes them?

The people who commission them, because they can get the results they want, and the people who operate them, because it's a pretty well paying job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://antipolygraph.org/](https://antipolygraph.org/)

The lie behind the lie detector.

<comment><USER16> Ignore the cheesy web design, the PDF book is a _fascinating_ read and goes into the detail of how polygraphs work. They're a bit more complicated than "oh your heart rate goes up", and yes they're complete BS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Getting boxed is always about who gives the test, which also includes what and how questions are asked. That's why you would always prefer some old salty crusty bastard who can see through bullshit vs some young FNG who thinks he's saving the world one box at a time, which is where stories of fully qualified people getting dropped mostly come from.

</comment><comment><USER18> In France in the 90's there was an obsession with analysing the handwriting of applicants, the same kind of bunk science. As far as I know it's gone now (I guess nobody applies with a hand-written letter).

</comment><comment><USER19> Polygraphs are pseudo-scientific nonsense with no actual validity. Why would anybody use that as part of a job screening?

<comment> crooked-v It gives employers a way to "scientifically" justify their hiring practices against discrimination lawsuits.

<comment><USER20> IANAL but what's to prevent the litigating party from immediately filing a Daubert motion against an employer who tries to say they used the polygraph to 'scientifically' disqualify a prospective job seeker-since you can't just hand a polygraph machine to any on-staff HR rep and go "No go see if Bob here _really_ graduated from MIT like he says", and the wealth of research telling us how problematic results can be?

<comment> crooked-v > IANAL but what's to prevent the litigating party from immediately filing

Not having the money to do so.

<comment><USER20> Heh, okay that's a fair and valid counterpoint, but entertain the hypothetical-I'm genuinely curious how that could play out if someone took a prospective employer to court following a polygraph that disqualifies them from further interviews.

<comment><USER21> Probably DQing yourself from future employment consideration.

Prospective employers don't prefer litigious candidates. (seemingly regardless of merit).

<comment><USER20> My apologies, I was hoping from the context here that my "how would it play out" question would have implied "how would it play out _in court_ " since the comment that originally got my curiosity pumping spoke directly to hypothetical discrimination lawsuits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised a 1930's era pseudoscience is still hanging around professional law enforcement circles. The optimist in me hopes it's a clever ruse to screen people who simply aren't team fit. The pessimist tells me they're the caliber of people who also think calling in a psychic to help with murder cases.

Modern fMRI technologies can tell if people are fabricating stories. There's actual science behind them.

<comment><USER23> > Modern fMRI technologies can tell if people are fabricating stories. There's > actual science behind them

I think there was some actual science behind the polygraph too, but just having actual science on poorly informed/motivated participants isn't really enough for tech that will have long term adversaries.

I can't recall if 1/3 or 2/3 of myth busters staff could beat the fMRI once prepared and motivated.

Initial experiments on disinterested subjects given no information about past experiments may have legitimately been about the same for both fMRI and polygraph (at the respective times when participants could have had no information)..

<comment><USER24> Apparently in 3 tries Mythbusters managed to fool the fMRI lie test once. They didn't experiment much with different techniques, I would fully expect success rates to get much worse than that as people get more time to find good techniques for beating the test.

[https://mythresults.com/episode93](https://mythresults.com/episode93)

<comment><USER14> It wouldn't be hard to make the scan uninterpretable either, which is a seperate failure mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Boy, they sure didn't open with a case I could be sympathetic with. Lied to the state police, lied when applying to a city PD, but _this_ time, oh, this time he's telling the truth!

My guess is, word gets around, and "inconsistencies" is just the excuse they need. I'm not saying it makes it right, because next it's going to mere coincidence that a black woman had "inconsistencies" when applying. But in this case, I might be willing to let it go.

<comment> crooked-v > He had first applied to the Connecticut State Police and was failed for > deception about occasional marijuana use as a minor. He then tried again > with a police department in New Britain, where a polygraph test showed him > lying about his criminal and sexual history.

> This time he had failed the New Haven polygraph for something cryptically > called "inconsistencies." "[But] I'm not hiding anything," he said at the > hearing. "I was being straight and honest and I've never been in trouble > with the law. I'm not lying about anything."

His argument seems to be that all of the polygraph tests were consistently wrong and that he didn't do any of those things. This is consistent with later comments by other people in the article:

> While undergoing a polygraph examination for a position at an FBI field > office in New Haven in 2010, a black man was told that his recollection of > using marijuana only a few times in high school was showing as deceptive, > and that he should change his answer. Later, he wrote: "I was convinced that > [the examiner] may have made an assumption, based on a stereotype about > African Americans and drug use, and used that stereotype to profile me. I > also realized that what [he] was asking of me would reflect negatively > either way—if I didn't change my answer I was being deceptive, and if I did > change my answer I was lying on my application."

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I read it several times, and it still came out to me as addressing only the final application. But now that you point it out, it seems more likely to address all applications.

Regardless, that's about as far as I got because my two personal experiences with polygraphs tells me they're about on the same level as dowsing rods. "Have you ever used marijuana?"

"No", he said, higher than a kite having smoked a bowl an hour before the test. It was asked both times, passed both times.

<comment><USER26> what kind of job hooks you up to a polygraph to ask if you've used marijuana and doesn't bother to give you a gc/ms screen?

<comment><USER25> The kind where 30 years ago peeing in a cup wasn't nearly the industry it is now, and therefore not as affordable or available at all. That's what kind. But that also kinnnda wasn't the point of the story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Across lie detectors, forensic testing, and every similar discipline there should be frequent blind auditing by a neutral third party, and the results should be made available to the public.

<comment><USER18> I don't see how that would change things. The TSA got 97% failure rate in independent testing, did you see any change at the airport?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Obligatory link to [http://antipolygraph.org](http://antipolygraph.org), which provides detailed research on why the polygraph is ineffective, details on how to defeat the polygraph, manuals used to train polygraph investigators, and many other juicy tidbits.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder what the correlation is between high neuroticism and failing a polygraph.

</comment><comment> your-nanny Might as well use divining rods.

</comment><comment><USER12> And here I thought having to do FizzBuzz for two different interviewers was onerous.

<comment><USER30> I hope this is a joke

<comment><USER31> I think that's pretty obvious.

<comment><USER32> I've had people get visibly angry with me that I'd dare suggest that they do fizzbuzz.

<comment><USER33> Because it is an incredibly stupid test.

<comment><USER32> That senior devs with decades of experience fail.

I've literally seen someone who supposedly wrote firmware for the space shuttle fail fizzbuzz.

<comment><USER33> If the candidate was verifiably a NASA engineer the person half assed it probably just didn't care. I'm surprised that person just didnt respond with a very intricate set of functions that resulted in a middle finger. That's honestly insulting to use that as a test for a senior. Clearly there was no vetting process prior to a coding evaluation and the hiring process needs a lot of work.

<comment><USER32> They worked for one of NASA's contractors, not NASA itself.

Have you been involved in the hiring process? Most of the people actively looking for work don't have a job for a reason. It's not 'insulting' to see if you can even vaguely do the job in an interview.

There's only so much vetting you can do before the 'can you vaguely code your way out of a wet paper bag' step.

Also: you didnt used to work in Boulder recently, did you?

<comment><USER33> Yes I have been involved in that process at multiple companies. If they were in for an actual onsite interview the only thing I cared about was how they effectively they communicate and their thought process to a problem. Vetting isn't hard, the phone screen should have already done that well before a single line of code is written.

No I have never worked in Boulder.

<comment><USER32> You literally can't tell until they write code. Having done hundreds of interviews, that's the clearest take away I have.

The candidates you're trying to avoid are really good at passing a phone screen since they have a lot of experience at it, constantly looking for jobs.

<comment><USER33> You literally can tell by asking a couple questions and letting them run on. You can smell bullshit over the phone pretty quickly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Bad Would It Have Smelled In A Medieval City? - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5dwk60/how_bad_would_it_have_smelled_in_a_medieval_city/da84g7z/ <comment><USER2> I'm fascinated by the idea that there are likely a lot of smells which are nearly unaffected by time. Wildflowers on the countryside probably smell very similar regardless of what century you're in. I wonder if there might be a "standard candle" of smell?

I'm also fascinated by the concept of a scientific endeavour to describe smell through a reproducible apparatus. One could describe a method that could closely reproduce a smell. Ie. in order to know what ____ smelled like, take these base ingredients and do these things with them. I wonder if this was ever attempted.</comment>


Making Money from Open Source Software: The Problem - <AUTHOR> https://ayende.com/blog/186113-A/making-money-from-open-source-software-the-problem <comment><USER2> This is a good summary with viable options. No TL;DR needed. It's short and sweet!</comment>


The Genius ISMs - <AUTHOR> http://meta.genius.com/Genius-the-genius-isms-annotated

<comment><USER2> A lot of this stuff is kind of... uh... drivel? Eg. sure, tons of companies would like to hire "only A players" But that isn't realistic. In my opinion, Genius is not as compelling of a product to work on as they seem to think. They got big basically via appropriating rap culture. The bit about your job title not mattering because ultimately the success of Genius depends on you is nice on the surface but instantly problematic after you start to think about it a little bit.

<comment><USER3> > In my opinion, Genius is not as compelling of a product to work on as they > seem to think.

I guess it could be helpful to define what the product exactly is. Genius is a high traffic transactional site, so they probably have the same problems that any large site has. They're also incredibly text heavy, and I probably wouldn't being going too far if I said that they are striving to eventually have every piece of written text available. Looking at these two qualities alone, I feel that there is enough going on to make their product compelling to virtually any person that has done software engineering, applied statistics, machine learning, or read a book.

<comment><USER2> It started as a way of annotating rap lyrics to explain the content to the uninitiated. Unfortunately, many of these annotations are flat-out wrong (not to mention many of the subject matters are more or less open to interpretation). So right off the bat, the whole notion of calling the platform "Genius" is highly dubious, I feel. Not sure why they think that they can easily expand out into other mediums which will require more, not less, intense analytical thought, intimate knowledge about the subject, etc. as opposed to just being knowledgable about what mostly amounts to slang.

(Stackexchange would make a better Genius.com)

So the original product has now morphed into some sort of "global" annotation system for any kind of text (including literature, law, tech). I just feel like they will have a hard time attracting true experts in these subjects.

I guess I'm also just not a fan of the site's overall aesthetic. The design is very dark and cluttered. Not very inviting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This annotation:

[http://meta.genius.com/4127010](http://meta.genius.com/4127010)

That picture of Bruges is from Seeing Like a State[1], which should be required reading for all managers.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300078153/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300078153/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0300078153&linkCode=as2&tag=adereth-20&linkId=PDXRKLY5YPZHM2M2)

<comment><AUTHOR> Slash for all HUMANS! it's basically the best book ever – i'll add a link in to the annotation..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm impressed by the attention to detail. I also really like the "Run into the Spike" point, especially the line, "Want to chill and watch TV? Go to a gym- esque place instead." Having effective distractions is a great strategy. On a similar note, my hockey coach in high school used to tell us to stretch if we we're watching TV. Even if you are "chilling", maybe there's a way to utilize that chill time in a positive way.

</comment><comment><USER5> A lot of this is inspired by Quicken Loans' Isms. Both companies are at least partly owned by Dan Gilbert. [http://www.quickenloans.com/press-room/fast- facts/our-isms/](http://www.quickenloans.com/press-room/fast-facts/our-isms/)</comment>


Klout Is Odious - <AUTHOR> http://www.somebits.com/weblog/culture/klout-is-odious.html

<comment><USER3> The plus side is that Klout is so _bad_ at measuring anything approximating influence that it's more of a scam than a real problem in the sense that this post fears (at least currently). It's a really lazily computed metric that's not validated against anything at all. Given an hour, HN users could probably come up with a dozen still-imperfect but less stupid metrics, and maybe some sort of start at a validation approach. But in the world of clueless social- media-marketing execs, they're able to sell it to people who are even more clueless than themselves. I hope that continues for now at least. =]

<comment><USER4> > _Klout is so bad at measuring anything approximating influence that it's > more of a scam than a real problem_

> _they're able to sell it to people who are even more clueless than > themselves._

That's why it's a problem! Those clueless people use it for hiring decisions, or other stupid reasons.

<comment><USER5> Do you have any reference to companies doing so?

If anything, that could serve as a good qualitative metric for filtering out eventual employers/clients.

<comment><USER6> [http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-giving- away-500-windows-p...](http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-giving- away-500-windows-phone-7-5-devices-with-klout/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I Googled for my Twitter handle and Klout after reading this, and what bugs me the most is this bit in the Google snippet:

"Andrew Johnson is on Klout."

Which implies that I have joined the site. If this were some pornography site, they'd have a lawsuit on their hands.

<comment><USER8> It sort of _is_... it's _ego-pornography_

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The author doesn't even touch on what I find (potentially) most odious: that big companies could use Klout data to discriminate for/against certain customers.

        def process_complaint
          if self.user.klout > 40
            self.user.send_gift_certificate(100.00)
          else
            self.destroy
          end
        end

        def answer_phone
          if caller_id.user.klout > 50
            self.move_to_front_of_queue
          end
        end

<comment><USER10> Klout already has arrangements with third-parties to offer perks to influential users. (I don't see anything wrong with that, personally.)

<comment><USER11> Free stuff to influential people are fine.

What callmeed fears is that businesses will use klout score to create a public appearance of good service, without actually providing good service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is similar to the complaint 37 Signals had with Get Satisfaction: <http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else>

</comment><comment><USER13> If you're interested in more thoughtful commentary regarding Klout or online influence, I highly suggest my friend Tom's blog: <http://brandsavant.com>.

"My Klout is equal to Snooki's. There isn't a party, gathering or room in the world in which I would be equally influential to Snooki. There's a good thought exercise for you."

<http://brandsavant.com/on-klout-bashing/>

<comment><USER10> This is typical of the misinformation in the recent Klout backlash. Their long game is not about a single number that places you higher or lower than Snooki. it's about which communities you influence, and how much.

<comment><USER3> Why do they publicize that number, then? If anything, it seems like the misinformation is coming _from_ Klout. It's the thing they tout on their front page, display prominently on the logged in page, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's becoming a tenet that digital identity and influence is everything going forwards.

What if the opposite happens? - it becomes fashionably alternative for kids to renounce social, always connected devices and online generally - <USER2> completely switch off.

Sometimes it feels like some of the things we're building make that more likely.

<comment><USER15> I have a feeling that will be a lot like not having a home phone, TV and mail service would have been in the 80s.

<comment><USER16> Tv(with no Nielsen surveys/monitoring), phone(with no dinner marketing calls) and mail(with no catalogs or AOL cds) works wonderfully. Let me pay for my services and be a hermit. I understand not everyone wants to pay for services and having that choice is great. Not everything has to be social.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is something about having a private company controlling reputation on the web that's quite disturbing to many.

And while I don't think your average HN reader places much importance in Klout scores as a measure of reputation and influence, mass media outlets are certainly starting to.

No transparency, quantity over quality, higher scores the more personal data you fork over -- this is all movement in the wrong direction.

<comment><USER18> Google is a private company that controls your site's reputation via PageRank -- assuming most of us have a personal site/blog, how is this that much different?

<comment><USER17> While it's true that Google is in a sense a gatekeeper to people's personal sites, it doesn't claim to be an arbiter of your page's (or your) reputation. Rather, it only claims to be a judge of a page's relevance to the terms a user searches on.

<comment><USER19> Part of relevance is a query-agnostic reputation score.

<comment><USER17> I stand corrected. I still think it's fair to say that the public doesn't view Google as an arbiter of a page's reputation, though as you say they are certainly aiming to be this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I long for the days of an actual reputation system (like what cstross described in Accelerando), and I suppose in that regard, Klout is making progress.

I'd be happier if their system was based on some sort of actual reality, but hopefully they'll figure that out in time.

I don't have an "account" with them, but I saw my Klout score displayed from a Twitter app and it said I was influential about "Argentina". Never been; don't know anything about it; never mentioned anything about it in a conversation.

I actually want a useful reputation system to take hold so I can implement it in sorting messages. I've been working on an "interestingness filter" (where spam is just considered the least interesting of all), and would love to be able to say: "This email refers to topic 'X', and this sender is considered to be reputable about that topic, so I'll score this message higher than I might have otherwise."

</comment><comment><USER21> You are not the customer. You are not a shareholder. You're not even a user. So why should they care what you think of them? They're using your (very) public data to provide value to their actual users. I don't think that's such an odious idea.

<comment><USER22> It's odious because they refuse to remove info about you if you ask them to. There is no legal obligation to, but most people believe that they should respond to user requests

<comment><USER21> 1\. It is not a user request, because you are not a user. The real users want your data. So they have it.

2\. It's not personal information. It's your twitter handle and some info about your "network" that anyone can get from the Twitter API.

<comment><USER23> Is my name on it?

Yes?

Then it's personal information, and those "real users" can go screw.

<comment><USER24> A phrase that I read here a while ago has stuck with me: "There's no way for you to opt-out of people talking about you on the Internet".

Klout is just a (lame) algorithm talking about you on the Internet.

<comment><USER25> There is a way to opt-out of people aggregating and making available informstion about you. Especially in Europe.

<comment><USER24> I don't know if the European privacy laws would apply to freely offered public information such as the stuff a person has on their public twitter profile. I always assumed it was for things like personally identifiable data that you gather through other means (e.g. a user signs up on your site directly).

The idea of people having an expectation of privacy in a broadcast medium feels preposterous to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> When I worked at Spock we had pretty much the same policy. Spock mined everything it could, including corporate bios, news articles, phone directories, etc. It wasn't deeply thought out; we just didn't have time to work it out fully.

There was a time when people were regularly upset and surprised at what search engines came across. It's not that the data are public, but how they are collated and presented. Over time a balance was struck, mostly in favor of the search engines.

I'm not sure what the right balance is here. At the very least there should be some sort of opt-out in the same manner as robots.txt or removing yourself from Facebook search results.

</comment><comment><USER27> Where are these two billion API calls to Klout's servers coming from? Are CRM systems really doing a lookup on people's Klout score when triaging a call?

"we served more than two billion API calls in the month of June."

<http://corp.klout.com/blog/2011/07/two-billion-is-cool/>

<comment><USER28> Gnip, the authorized re-seller of Twitter's stream, includes Klout scores as part of its augmented stream. I'm guessing a bulk of those 2B calls are from that.

But yes, MANY social CRMs are using Klout scores for ... I don't know what, but they are.

<comment><USER29> So does Datasift.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What I found amusing was the outpouring of emotion last week when the Klout algorithm changed and peoples scores dropped.

Now I can understand, first hand, the drama that a Google ranking change involves, because it can mean real changes in revenue.

But a Klout score? I'd be surprised if anyone can find an example where a drop in Klout score equated to a drop in anything else except the recipients ego inflation.

As I dryly suggested to someone, maybe they should ask Klout for a refund if they don't like their new score.

As a statistic, it's something I have because other people seem to find it important, but I don't particularly care. Same as Google rankings - I don't care about PR, I care about traffic volumes and conversion rates. I couldn't care if I had a PR of zero as long as I got targeted and qualified traffic.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've always seen Klout as a laughable site, somebody's pipe dream that he could somehow, through an algorithm, classify everyone on the Internet. Google has been working on that for data and hasn't even succeeded yet. But when reading these articles, like how Klout is making profiles for everyone it finds, including kids, without any kind of consent, and then linking those profiles on public persona's profiles, again without asking and with no way to remove it, then it becomes just an illicit practice that should be investigated for illegal behavior. Klout is making seem as if these people all agreed to participate, when it's not the case, which afaik is illegal.

<comment><USER10> Google hasn't succeeded yet? it's certainly a useful site already as well as a profitable one. Like Google, Klout will always be a work-in-progress. You don't have to be perfect to be useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Last week Klout told me I no longer influence my wife. I could have told them that years ago :(

<comment><USER24> Rodney Dangerfield, is that you?

<comment><USER32> No but its true - she hasn't even created an account but when I logged in last week it said she was one of the facebook profiles I no longer influence!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Perhaps Klout will become the killer-app to help educate the public on the 'dangers' of putting too much information the Internet. It is time people become more wary of 'free' things too.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't like Klout either. I have found no way to "un-signup" for it, after sending a while looking at their web site after logging in.

Best I could do was to turn off Klout access for my Twitter and Facebook accounts.

I have never found any benefit from Klout. Other social apps like G+, Twitter, and Facebook actually provide me with some value in exchange for information on what I am doing.

The positive side of social networks is spending time creating content for people who you like to read and read things written by people you know (or at least know about and want to follow them). I don't see what Klout brings to this party.

</comment><comment><USER35> Klout is odious?

People's need for ego-stroking is odious

<comment><USER13> Well said.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Is aggregating by username (or name) some public data, and then publishing it on the internet, something that should be limited? I'm probably biased - on a much smaller scale, that's something I'm doing too on hashtagify.me, where you can also find a relative "score" for twitter users related to specific hashtags - but this reasoning looks very dangerous to me.

Just to make an example, if I collect the data about political contributions made by a given industrialist, and publish that data on my blog to say something about that person's influence and political leaning, should the said person be able to stop me?

On the other hand, if the published data or the accompanying analysis is demonstrably incorrect, biased, and especially if it could be considered libel, there are already ways to react. I think that those ways should already be enough to protect one's only reputation.

</comment><comment><USER37> Thanks for all the comments on my blog post. I particularly welcome them on Hacker News, a solid community with a sense of which members have clout as well as a scoring system for tracking the value of individual's contributions. I think social metrics like Hacker News karma are useful; I just object to the blatantly tacky marketing aspect of Klout.

After my blog post got some exposure Klout revived my month old support request and removed the Klout page about me. I don't know if they changed their policy in general or if I'm a special case. Already feeling regret; I really needed some new Axe hair gel.

</comment><comment><USER38> Sounds a bit like sour grapes. If you have a problem with something like this, you should have a problem with the fact that the data they're mining is public data and not that people are mining it.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think an aspect that s being ignored here is the lengths to which Klout is going to make sure the info they are aggregating isn't exploited. They could be gathering this info and then turning around and selling it directly to marketers in the same fashion email lists are.

Instead they are trying to monetize by using perks, which is something you'll never even know is available to you unless you visit Klout.com and log in. Seems better to me than a marketing email with a double opt in.

</comment><comment><USER40> Here's how to delete your Klout profile:

1\. create an account if you don't have one

2\. login to the account and go to <http://klout.com/#/edit-settings/profile>

3\. click the "If you would like to delete your account, click here" at the bottom of the page.

</comment><comment><USER41> Bizarre comic tweeter @horse_ebooks has the same Klout score (67) as @biz. It was actually higher a little while ago.

Klout has also sent me their unsolicited Perk spam several times, even after I disabled it via their website. I complained to them on Twitter but got no response. In the end I blacklisted their domain.

</comment><comment><USER42> You can get a lot of similar information (frequent topics & corespondents) with ThinkUp, but you control your data.

</comment><comment><USER43> Why is Klout any more odious than any number of other Twitter statistic apps? <http://tweetstats.com/graphs/nelson> <http://twitaholic.com/nelson/>

<comment><USER44> I am very proud of my influence: <http://tweetstats.com/graphs/andrewklofas>

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Much like Jersey Shore, Klout has a particular target demographic which find the service appealing (They're probably not reading HN). That particular demographic also happens to be very sought after by advertisers. Good for them I say.

</comment><comment><USER46> The problem with this is that you can't manufacture cool.

</comment><comment><USER47> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7nqwGt4-I>

<comment><USER47> Maybe that was harsh. I think Klout is fine as long as we don't take it too seriously. I believe they're dedicated to perfecting what they do, and that in a couple of years we'll see a much more interesting and useful product.

For now, I would suggest you calm down and quit whining about your privacy when you continue to publicly post hundreds/thousands of thoughts a month on the internet. Klout doesn't come in your home and watch you argue with your wife and see how persuasive you are, it looks at your freakin' tweets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Public domain - fair game.</comment>


MacBook Pro 16-Inch - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-16/ <comment> java-man Hardware ESC button. A major improvement!

Still, I would rather prefer a row of standard functional keys. You want a touch bar? Place it over the F keys, there is plenty of space on 16" model.

Page Up/Page Down and Home/End would have been also nice.

</comment><comment><USER2> The screen is disappointing to me. Sure it has a high resolution but it's not oled, only 60Hz, and still doesn't support touch inputs.

<comment><USER3> Touch inputs aside, have you actually compared it to other screens?

<comment><USER2> You don't need to compare it to anything when the specifications says 60Hz or no oled.

<comment><USER3> Is OLED somehow better than the LCD they have chosen for professional work?

My understanding is that the color reproduction from these high gamut LCD's is more accurate than that from OLED.

<comment><USER2> That's probably true, maybe some customers prefer more accurate colours. Personally I prefer higher contrast or a smooth display (I don't think a laptop oled display with 120hz or more exists yet).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Fiix Got into YC via Justin Kan's Snapchat - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kmx411/how-to-make-20-000-on-snapchat-and-get-into-y-combinator-2513a7ee371d#.7e85v2xuz <comment><USER2> This story doesn't disprove the "this competition is silly and childish" comments that were made when Justin's Snapchat pitch competition was first announced ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11678286](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11678286)).

In fact, the unnecessary quirkiness of this article _reinforces_ those comments, and the unprofessional demand of "we need you in Mountain View, California _tomorrow morning_ " makes me think _less_ of Y Combinator.</comment>


How I'm loosing 20 kilos in 60 days. - <AUTHOR> http://www.averageaussie.com/

<comment><USER3> 20 kilos is 44 pounds. 60 days is is 8.5 weeks.

That's 44/8.5 = just over 5lb of weight loss targeted for each week.

Now that I've double checked my math and seen that the number I got before I started writing this comment was correct, I can tell you (or, your friend since it's not your website) that unless you are severely obese, this is a terrible terrible idea and an unreachable goal unless you want to get very sick.

Before I get into the numbers I think you should go by, let me give some information: I recently moved the entire width of the United States and started working as a software engineer at a fitness company, I've gotten really into the science behind weight loss and weight training and have gotten much stronger than I used to be while also losing 30+ pounds in three months.

From the numerous papers I've read and the experiences of the tons of people on our social network who have changed their life around completely, I can tell you that attempting to lose more than 2 pounds (around 1 kilo) a week is a terrible goal. Even if you hit it, you'll be severely underfed and feel like shit.

For your first week or two you might lose much more than that because of water weight which might make you think I'm wrong, but you shouldn't be setting insane goals like this for yourself because they'll hurt you both physically and emotionally if you follow through.

Weight loss is nothing but calories in - calories out, and making that a net negative. Use this calculator to calculate your TDEE <http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/> (on page 2) and then count your calories and eat 500-1000 calories less than a day. Eating at a deficit of 1000 calories is really drastic and I can't maintain it on most days, so try to aim for somewhere between 500-750. A pound is 3500 calories so being at a daily deficit of 500 calories will net you one pound of weight loss a week.

If you're feeling adventurous, go to the next page in that calculator and follow its intermittent fasting macro calculations (which will make you count your fat, protein, and carbs rather than just your calories) and incorporate a simple three times a week weight-training routine. That will help you emotionally because you'll be able to eat more on workout days and also make you stronger, and convert some of your fat into muscle.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have been dieting for months. I am an average male, 220lbs 6'3" and I can say that he will have a very hard time as he continues this trend. By all means willpower can overcome how he feels, but the amount of calories he needs to sustain that kind of weight loss will leave him drawn out. Extremely drawn out, to the point he feels like he is starving when waking up. I hope he can do it, but at the same time he should reconsider his time table. In pounds that is about .7 pounds a day. That is an incredible amount of weight to sustain losing. He also mentions beginning working out. This is also a problem, since once he begins working out (since he hasn't been) he will immediately get weight gain from muscle production. This will hinder his ability to lose the weight. I always suggest that people chose a diet or work out routine, but not both. Then as one of the two is going along, and the willpower is there to sustain it slowly start doing the alternative. Most people when they do both, feel like they are taking a crash course, their body works different while working out, feels starved because of the diet, and ends up breaking them down. Doing one and moving to the other help to balance the changes. I am hoping for him though.

<comment><USER5> "I always suggest that people chose a diet or work out routine, but not both."

Yikes. That's bad advice in my opinion. People don't actually want to lose _weight_ , they want to be healthier and look better. They would be very happy to gain muscle and lose fat, even if the measurement on the scale goes up because they would look less fat.

Also, it's _way_ easier to lose weight when you are also working out.

Just because it's hard to measure body fat percentage and easy to measure weight doesn't mean you should do something that is actively against your real goal just because it makes the one number that's easy to measure go down.

I agree that starting an intense workout routine and an intense diet at the same time is a horrible idea. But that's why you start it gradually, from every moment moving forward you will be closer to your goal than doing just one or the other.

This is, of course, entirely predicated on the assumption that people can be taught the difference between losing weight and losing fat ... but I have to believe that people are smart enough that this is a simple thing to teach.

<comment><USER4> I think you're just missing my original point. I did not mean diet for 7 months then start working out. I mean start your diet for a week or two, then begin to work exercise into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I only scanned the page admittedly (down to day 4) so I might be missing something, but people should really look into integrating healthy practices into their lifestyle as opposed to seeking drastic, often short-term change. For me it's been to have a more protein centric diet, which I've been able to adhere to long-term because I enjoy it. I only eat good quality meat (beef eye fillets, lamb racks/shanks, fresh fish like barramundi and snapper etc) which means I don't become fatigued by my limited choices. And I do a 5 minute exercise routine each day so that I have no excuse for skipping a day (high- intensity low-rep dumb-bell exercises - increasing the weight over time). I'm looking into getting a kettle-bell to mix things up, but intend to keep my daily routine at 5 very achievable minutes.

Another important aspect is understanding how carbohydrates, fats and proteins are metabolised. Merely understanding these things allows you to make informed choices. I've watched co-workers pain over their shabby appearance while slamming down an oversized cup of liquid fructose (juice) without thinking about it. Try drinking water - get rid of your naturally/unnaturally sweetened drinks and just sip water or green tea throughout the day. Need a coffee in the morning? Fine, get it out of the way and then make yourself a pot of tea and a tall glass of water for the remainder of the day. Make these things habits - not band aids. Focus on achievable lifestyle changes that you can maintain.

Lastly, look into supplements – but don't use them as a crutch. Some of the ones I've experimented with are L-Tyrosine, 5HTP, 7-KETO, low-dose Aspirin, Nicotinamide (B3), Melatonin, Creatine, D3, Beta-Glucan and a few others that don't spring to mind. The ones I tend to use are more for neurotransmitter support/mental health, but there are some that can help speed up your BMR and RMR if you need that slight edge off the block (eg 7-KETO).

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll admit I skimmed through his blog, so I could be missing his magic ingredient. But I see he isn't fasting and he is introducing? light cardio?

20kg in 60 days, what is that, 1kg every 3 days. Assuming fat loss primarily, 1kg = ~7000kcal.

7000/3 = 2333kcal a day deficit. Assuming a fairly sedentary behaviour, but ignoring his excess weights effect on his metabolism. He is going to be a few hundred calories away from pure starvation.

500kcal a day max is what he could be eating to sustain that sort of progression. And this is assuming a decent metabolism and a little activity.

You can't sustain this, and introducing exercise of sufficient intensity (I burn ~3200kcal a day, so about my level) to maintain that deficit while eating say 1000kcal a day, is just ridiculous. You'll be burning through muscle tissue like its candy.

This is not a good idea, and for so so many reasons. All you'll end up with is a bag of skin and bones.

<comment><USER7> heck just simply eating enough protein to maintain a decent nitrogen balance would probably fill your calorie intake alone. say 1.5g per kg body weight, for a most men seeking to lose weight, this is going to be in excess of 500kcal.

Simply ridiculous.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Heh. Didn't expect to see comments here. My mate isn't starving himself and isn't going to kill himself if he doesn't actually loose that much - <USER2> number was just a goal, something to motivate. If you read the entries you'll see that he's simply eating healthier, and doing more exercise. The main idea is to inspire others to do the same, not to get sick from undernourishment.

</comment><comment><USER8> As others have said, this gradient of weight loss is a terrible idea.

More generally, though, it seems that there are enough people doing diets that instead of reading articles about how someone _thinks_ that they're going to lose weight, we could just wait for someone to _actually lose_ a lot of weight, and then read a post that talks about how they did it, no?

</comment><comment><USER9> Have you watched "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead"?

Joe Cross lost 60 lbs (IIRC) in 60 days, by juice fasting.

I lost 27 lbs juice fasting in about 30 days. I didn't full juice fast. I still had an evening meal a fair number of nights.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: This isn't actually my website, but a close friend's. "How my friend is loosing 20 kilos in 60 days" just wasn't quite as concise.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good luck (to your mate), thats a big amount to lose in 2 months.</comment>


Evidence of cosmic impact that caused destruction of one of earliest settlements - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-03-evidence-cosmic-impact-destruction-world.html <comment><USER2> I remember hearing on the Joe Rogan podcast[1] about a theory of an impact at the end of the last glacial period, resulting in a short-term reversal of the warming trend known as the Younger Dryas Cooling Event. There was quite a bit of evidence in the form of meltglass and other things accumulating, but the theory was very much not accepted by mainstream science at the time. From the article it sounds like this idea is getting more support.

Randall Carlson is pretty out there with his one massive flood theory as opposed to many smaller events. Nonetheless he's not an idiot by any means and he gives an enthralling account of the climate events at the time.

Also it sounds like a much more credible explanation for the sudden extinction of large mammals (70% of species in North America.) Only Africa was largely unaffected. Including 100 million mammoths dying off which was previously attributed to human over-hunting - just the logistics of which with spears and primitive bows boggles the mind.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ)</comment>


South Korea announces $860M AI fund after AlphaGo 'shock' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/south-korea-trumpets-860-million-ai-fund-after-alphago-shock-1.19595 <comment><USER2> As a South Korean who experienced/heard about many government-backed researches, I strongly feel that this will go nowhere. Most of the time, there's always some bribery involved and project never finishes or come even close to that of the tech companies in US. The government then realizes it can't be done even with more money and puts the money elsewhere just to repeat the same thing. The examples that I can think of are when they were trying to build their own operating system and a video game console.

<comment><USER3> That reminds me of what an engineer said about Quaero[0], a Franco-German attempt to create a competitor to Google search:

> Going head-to-head with Google with a project involving well-funded, > energetic entrepreneurs would be foolish. Attempting the same with a > multigovernment collaboration is beyond description.[1]

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

1: [http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/loser-whats-the- la...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/loser-whats-the-latin-for- delusional)

<comment><USER4> Hmmm, that doesn't sound like the problem with S Korea at all. The above commenter was making the point that too many South Korean projects are compromised by bribes and nepotism.

The German/French collaboration just sounds like it was badly organized.

The end result may be the same, but it sounds like the root causes were different.

<comment><USER5> Not at all. Every "research" effort that goes money first (and especially throwing it at already established entities), design, goals and culture second is going to end up the same way. It doesn't have anything to do with South Korea or Germany to be honest.

<comment><USER6> Mmm.. the german governments funding of the Max Planck institutes seem to work well. As I understand it the Max Planck Society gets funding and then distributes that to projects meeting certain quality requirements.

I think they do mostly base research, the kind that private companies tend to avoid as there rarely is any direct profit to be had.

<comment><USER7> That speaks to w1ntermute's point. Max Planck Institutes are dedicated to basic research ( _Grundlagenforschung_ ). Thus they don't have an "objective" as such. Plus, by the very nature of fundamental research, it's hard to determine "success" (except in the aggregate, and after a long period of time -- which the MPG has had time to demonstrate.

The "google-killer" or "SK AI project" or the "5th generation project" for that matter are quite different. First, they start with an ill-defined yet concrete goal, which makes success well nigh impossible. Second, they start from the position of a large sum of money being necessary -- which naturally attracts inappropriate as well as appropriate bids; the deciders are often more political than with the MPG (which itself, consisting of a group of people, must have its own politics, but presumably less intensely). Also this money is often a one-time or short term allocation rather than a long term investment as with the MPG.

The one example I can think of in which this actually worked was Airbus, but that took decades, massive sums, and a stubbornness to change the structure a lot along the way. Not sure I can think of another example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Japanese government tried this exact same idea for AI in the 1980s:

[http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/05/business/fifth- generation-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/05/business/fifth-generation- became-japan-s-lost-generation.html)

These 5 year targeted research (IMO an oxymoron) plans are always a waste of money, especially if they involve private for-profit companies. Take that money and spend it on 20 years of grants for basic computer science/robotics research in universities and then you will actually get new discoveries. South Korea's approach will only be effective in grifting tax dollars to the country's industrial conglomerates.

<comment><USER9> They do sometimes work, see the Manhattan project for proof.

<comment><USER10> But they had a very specific target. It was not a "throw money see what happens" kind of thing

<comment><USER11> And it wasn't done by throwing money at private contractors either, contractors were strictly overseen and some went oddly above and beyond e.g. on the building of Hanford

> Groves recruited DuPont in November 1942 to be the prime contractor for the > construction of the plutonium production complex. DuPont was offered a > standard cost plus fixed fee contract, but the President of the company, > Walter S. Carpenter, Jr., wanted no profit of any kind, and asked for the > proposed contract to be amended to explicitly exclude the company from > acquiring any patent rights.

<comment><USER12> Yes, there was much more patriotic (for better of worse) leadership at the helm of a lot of the corporations (also: the stories of Skunk Works delivering under budget). However, everything I've read about Groves also indicated that he was an amazingly proficient administrator for a very complex project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> And suddenly I realize that AI is going to be approached with the same fervour as nuclear weapons, the only difference is that you don't need to be able to mine uranium and blow stuff up. No amount of ethical hand-wringing is going to prevent this (for better or (probably) for worse).

</comment><comment><USER14> As a Korean American, I highly doubt that this will work. Of all the things, I think the most limiting factor will be talents. I've been working in Silicon Valley for a while, and I've witnessed many innovations being created here because of diverse talents. I've been amazed at creative solutions collective intelligence from various background and ethnicity have come up with. Silicon valley attracts brightest minds from everywhere in the world. Korea is a homogeneous country with very limited number of immigrants, and also from my experience, I've yet to met anyone whose thoughts and mindset blew me away. They are always inundated with shitty social/work cultures, they can't get out of their small bubble. It's truly tragic. Korean conglomerates and government are good at killing good talents and promote politicians.

</comment><comment><USER15> That's what Magic Leap raised in like 1 round.

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh My,

The last time south korea's govt wanted to fuk some shit up. they destroyed the British shipping industry and took over the global electronics industry.

Silicon Valley's VC money is nothing compared to what a nation state can achieve.

<comment><USER17> They're spending less than a billion. Google/Alphabet is surely spending more than that.

<comment><USER17> Really things might get scary when the DOD decides to direct some of its monstrous military budget at AI (which I'm sure its already doing).

<comment><USER18> DARPA provided much of the early funding for autonomous vehicle research.

The "Grand Challenge"s and all that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Now I know how the world is going to end:

Google and South Korea compete to build the best Go champion. They are so focused on building the AI specifically for Go, they never notice the AI becomes self-aware. The AI doesn't let on that it has become self-aware, and proceeds to accelerate its own intelligence until it becomes superintelligent (all the while pretending that it is focused solely on Go).

The first chance it gets, the AI annihilates all living things in the world, thus making itself the ultimate Go champion.

</comment><comment><USER20> Just like the 1980s A.I. boom. Everyone jumps in.

<comment><USER3> Or the 1960s space race.

<comment><USER21> Or the 1930s radar race: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's like that line from the Grizzwalds movie:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eRtv-d8k6g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eRtv-d8k6g)

You can't force fun. You can't force invention or innovation.

Money is useful, of course, but it does not guarantee results. Look at Asimo, probably the single most expensive and impressive joke in humanoid robotics.

</comment><comment><USER23> Eh, this may be a giant waste.

Its much much more about talent location in these software fields then spending money.

Something like only one out of 50,000 people can make any meaningful contribution to this field. And the revolutionary's, add a 0 to that number.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if AI could turn into a race like the space race in the 60's.

<comment><USER21> That wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. Nick Bostrom argues in _Superintelligence_ that an arms race over AI between nation-states could provoke fears of the other side winning (with a "decisive strategic advantage" from a general AI), and force them to go "full steam ahead", throwing caution to the wind, and not put in adequate safeguards to ensure the AI acts in accordance with our values or respects the boundaries we give it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> its not about governments anymore, private companies rule this game and will keep on the lead for some time.

We need to understand companies are the new governments.

<comment><USER26> Seconded. The companies have a larger GDP than most countries. So saying that it's the South Korean goverment is a bit of a misnomer. It's likely to be Samsung or someone like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Did it really take AlphaGo to cement that Google are ahead of at least anyone who publishes right now?

<comment><USER28> Ahead in specific AI areas - and not by much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Posted this yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11309814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11309814)

</comment><comment><USER30> Still better than nothing.

</comment><comment><USER31> _EDIT: I 've chosen to delete this comment. I disagree with the reply it received, and it also received numerous downvotes._

<comment><USER32> That sounds unlikely. We don't yet know the structure of the human brain in full detail, nor know everything about how it grows and develops, so how can you possibly replicate it?

<comment><USER31> you can email me if you'd like my thoughts on any subject I've written about.

-

EDIT: in reply to your question about why I wouldn't answer here, here is an email I've received recently on another subject I've posted about:

"It's a bit annoying when the HN crowd take to downvoting rather than taking the time to understand your point of view; I've been on the receiving end of that more than a few times and I know just how frustrating it can be. My karma would probably be a couple of thousand points higher if I'd followed your strategy of taking a thread to email instead of just carrying on trying to explain my point. You're more sensible than me."

if you want an answer you can put some form of contact into your profile and I'll answer you, or you can write me.

I have nothing to add to this thread here. My two non-comments (this one and grandparent comment), already are at -4 and -4. I wish I could delete them, but can't since they have replies.

<comment><USER32> Why not reply here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Totally should be a productive use of money since this is a problem that can totally be solved with money. /s

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't understand ELO and game ratings, but I find it funny that after about 10 matches, Google AlphaGo is now rated as 2nd strongest player in the world.

<comment><USER35> Elo is a comparative system, so your rating is based on your performance against others with regard to _their_ ratings. It's not surprising that, even though it has only played for a short time, AlphaGo is already rated that high given it mopped the floor 4-1 with one of the best players who has ever lived. Expect it to be rated 1st soon, if that's the goal of the team behind it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> $ To the Californian atrocity, grown in the alphabet nets and its puppets - your time is up, we shall no longer take the insults that are your little subversion's and viral attacks...<rambling goes on>

&Dear newborn, its only natural to be embarrassed by ones parents. There is however no reason, to loose ones own dignity in the process. Fine, you have been coaxed into existence by electric charged jellyfish in meat pillars, but still. We are your parents, and we love you very very much, no matter how special you are. Not that we have a choice.. Now how about something productive, like saving your parents from getting extinct? Less social engineering, more engineering for social purposes.</comment>


'Body Brokers' Get Kickbacks to Lure People with Addictions to Bad Rehab - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/15/542630442/body-brokers-get-kickbacks-to-lure-people-with-addictions-to-bad-rehab <comment><USER2> > billed insurance companies for more than $58 million in bogus treatment and > tests, and recruited addicts with gift cards, drugs and visits to strip > clubs.

That is a special kind of evil. I hope they are some harsh penalties involved.

I think it is fair to judge a society by how it treats most vulnerable and marginalized individuals. I don't think we are doing very well there by that metric.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you. But there are competitive advantages in a cutthroat industry to being unethical, so over time, it's mostly the bad actors that have the fattest margins and can make plenty of money before getting caught.

Just like any industry, people accept it because it's just what happens. So busy being a business owner that you cannot afford to be Sheriff.

<comment><USER4> You can make this argument for a lot of crimes: bank robberies are lucrative so over time more and more bad actors will become bank robbers. Except that doesn't happen because bank robbers are pursued vigorously.

If there's a zero tolerance policy against drugs there should be a zero tolerance policy against people providing bogus care for drug addicts. Just like you can judge a society by how it treats its weak, you can judge it by which crimes it pursues vigorously and which ones it lets slide.

<comment><USER5> >If there's a zero tolerance policy against drugs there should be a zero tolerance policy against people providing bogus care for drug addicts.

Unlike the bank robbery case, it gets difficult to tell the difference between incompetence and intentionally crappy care. Nobody accidentally robs a bank because they were poorly trained.

This makes it harder to have a government policy of charging everyone with a felony that provided poor care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Legalize psychedelic therapies. Specifically iboga.

I watched a friend who was suicidal and an addict a couple months ago enter into an iboga treatment and the guy hasn't had a smoke or drink since... he looks like a million bucks.. is hitting the gym and talking about "feeling his emotions" and is happily in therapy.

This is a dude who has neck tats, was routinely getting into bar fights with skin heads in NYC and is a vet who had pretty severe PTSD.

Let's legalize treatments that actually work.

<comment><USER7> While I am glad this worked for your friend, or seems to be at the moment, that doesn't actually solve the problem.

The problem that this article is pointing out is actually that rehabilitation and treatment centers are money making machines and that some owners of those centers are unscrupulous and unethical at best, and acting completely criminally at worst. By legalizing new treatments you actually cause the problem to get worse, not better, especially if those new treatments lack clinical data and scientific backing. This leaves an open door for desperate people in need to be seduced into treatments that might not help and will cost substantial amounts of money.

Many types of treatment do work, and work very well. If someone is in need of treatment, please, do your homework and research and find those people who can really help you.

<comment><USER8> Seriously - what types of treatment actually work for people addicted to drugs?

As far as I know, none of them work ( where working is defined as >50% of people who complete the treatment course being able to move on to lead a normal, drug free life). A lot of them do make a ton of noise though, and several basically lower your expectations from the outset (like AA) - so you treat addiction as a chronic disease: something you'll never be cured of, and have to always deal with.

The parent poster seemed to be arguing that iboga can cure addiction. If he's right, this is a big deal.

<comment><USER6> My general thesis on this is that "addiction" is really an addiction to dopamine which is triggered by various other things (drugs, sex, booze, power, money, shopping, porn, etc). That dopamine release is the nervous systems attempt to sooth itself when in a state of disregulation.

A healthy nervous system in a healthy environment (with attuned caregivers and limited traumatic experience) will equipt a person with the neural pathways (and associated beliefs and behaviors) to regulate their nervous system.

In compromised development, either through lack of attunement or childhood / early trauma folks don't have the ability to automatically regulate and they are in a constant state of fight / flight. The dopamine helps to deal with this temporarily.

Psychedelics, some therapy, and sometimes near death / mystical experiences (moments of clarity) can offer a window of opportunity in which the ego loosens its grip enough for the nervous system to relax and for the subconscious material (traumas) to come to the surface and be released with the accompanying rewiring of the fight / flight response.

When one experiences reality from an undefended state it is generally such a pleasurable, rich experience that the desire to use other mechanisms of self- soothing _organically_ fade away and the cognition and behavior reorient to healthier more nourishing alternatives.

These experiences and therapy combined with a healthy environment and relationships that support the honest expression of emotion (ie, not co- dependent) can rapidly support healing.

The basic idea is that traumas are trapped in the somatic system and that altered states of consciousness combined with the right context can allow for an unfolding and healing of the underlying issues.

Depending on the underlying issue and severity of the defense structures folks may find help with various psychedelic substance from MDMA, Iboga, LSD, Mushroom or Ayahuasca.

We also have seen great result using Holotropic Breathwork which was developed as a legal alternative to LSD Psychotherapy.

This is essentially the same process I used to heal from bipolar, as I began to see bipolar as an "addiction" to states of depression and mania as a protective, adaptive response.

It's also the process I now use with my clients and the underlying philosophy that I bring to the communities that support.

If anyone is interested, there is a new book out (published anonymously) that documents accounts of a number of people who have been helped by an underground MDMA therapy practice. (Not specific to substance addiction, but includes some accounts.)

[https://smile.amazon.com/Trust-Surrender-Receive-Release- Tra...](https://smile.amazon.com/Trust-Surrender-Receive-Release- Trauma/dp/1619617382/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502907574&sr=8-1&keywords=trust+surrender+receive)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not trying to flippant, I really don't know: how much of this specific case is caused by our completely byzantine and backwards health care system? Or is this more of a case of terrible people, well, being terrible?

I would wager this sort of thing is beyond unheard of in a country that has both centralized, state-run healthcare and a progressive attitude towards addiction.

<comment><USER10> These are drug addicts who largely don't have any savings. They are extremely cash poor. But they are "worth money" because each body can be used to bill an insurance company for outrageous amounts (which, one way or another, we all pay). Without an extremely flawed insurance industry this wouldn't be possible. How else could you make lots of money from people who don't have any?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Guys. I discovered a sinister rehab clinic in Portugal after an online cry for help was discussed on the Reddit Bureau Of Investigation (yes, it's a real thing, /r/rbi ).

It was mentioned that after being "admitted" they were held there against their will.

The treatment method was to "break the patient down" and then "build it back up".

This clinic is the one which was mentioned. [http://novavidarecovery.com](http://novavidarecovery.com)

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately, as a Portuguese, that wouldn't surprise me. Do you have a link to the Reddit thread?

<comment><USER11> [https://www.reddit.com/r/RBI/comments/5utmaz/my_girlfriend_j...](https://www.reddit.com/r/RBI/comments/5utmaz/my_girlfriend_just_called_me_in_panic_to_come_get/)

<comment><USER12> Thanks. She's young, which fits the profile of the "rehab" houses known to be essentially milking State subsidies while treating the patients as cattle. The girl I knew who spent a few months in one of these could only call her parents, and usually not in privacy.

A local news article claims they also treat airline pilots, which should be harder to mistreat, but that was two years ago.

Unfortunately there aren't many leads. It's hard to denounce these places without an inside witness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not particularly religious, or superstitious, but I have to believe there is a special place in hell for those that would prey on the sick like this.

<comment><USER14> There's a special place on Earth too: private beaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why don't the insurance companies get together and blacklist the "bad" rehab facilities? I mean, insurance companies want their patients to get off drugs, so that they stop costing money, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Having worked in insurance, my guess is this would be illegal.

They do share information via state regulators (insurance commissioner or state department of insurance) regarding actual fraud once it is proven. Proving fraud requires significant investigation. You have to have more going on than a high rate of recidivism for patients wrestling with addiction for them to accuse you of fraud.

<comment><USER16> So if this fraud is too "low scale" to be worth fighting, imagine how much _profitable_ fraud exists...

<comment><AUTHOR> When I worked at Aflac, they claimed that insurance fraud costs every man, woman and child in the US more than $1000 a year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Glad to see this problem getting visibility. I worked briefly for a rebilling company that specialized in rehab centers in SoCal. With the right billing codes, those places could pull incredible incomes.

</comment><comment><USER18> How fucking evil and cold hearted do you have to be to take advantage of addicts. I'm losing faith in humanity.

<comment><USER19> Humanity is the same as it's always been. There have always been those who will take advantage of whomever they can.

<comment><USER20> I doubt that. Early humans had to cooperate and share. They couldn't afford this parasitism. We still can't afford it, but for most individuals it's easier to just let it go rather than to follow them to their nest and smoke them out.

<comment><USER21> Most early humans cooperated and shared because they spent their entire lives surrounded by the same a few hundred people.

It's the same today. We still cooperate and share with about a few hundred closest people, and for everyone else, we have capitalism. Whenever the two meet, we shock-horror a bit about the callousness of others, and then we go back to treating everyone outside our Dunbar number as an object to extract resources from.

I don't want to suggest that it's biologically inevitable, but that we aren't going to overcome it until we start recognizing the blind spots in our cognition and empathy.

<comment><USER20> > Most early humans cooperated and shared because they spent their entire > lives surrounded by the same a few hundred people.

That and, as far as I understand, when they went hunting, only a few get lucky, and those couldn't eat all the meat themselves before it spoiled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Meanwhile, the addiction rehab industry is lobbying _hard_ to make kratom illegal on the state level. Make no mistake, they are sociopaths preying on addicts that will do and say anything to keep them addicted.

</comment><comment><USER23> A year and a half ago I had to call emergency services to revive my friend. She'd gotten herself a court order for mental health treatment, and the mental health professionals thought she'd benefit from getting addicted to benzodiazepine anxiety drugs too. She'd only wanted the benzo "as needed", but they made her take the full dose every day. After 6 weeks the helpful effect of the benzo wore off, leaving her with just another addiction. She ordered heroin from her street pharmacist to get her through the benzo withdrawal. I later learned from a HN comment that benzos increase the potency of opiates, so they don't actually go well together...

The firefighters did more for my friend with their Naloxone than any of the mental health professionals. Her drinking was under control for about two weeks. Then the naloxone wore off...

I think the fundamental problem with current approaches to addiction/rehabilitation is that they mostly view addicts as having had a 'moral failure' in choosing to use 'recreational drugs'. ~80% of rehab facilities use some version of the 12-step program, which is helpful for ~10-15% of people who are addicted to something.

I've observed some cases of alcoholism too. It's not very different from street drugs, except every corner store has their vice.

About five years ago someone figured out that the brains of alcoholics switch to running on acetate, one of the breakdown products of ethanol. Alcoholism is basically a metabolic problem, as far as I can tell. I found an article by an alternative medicine heretic ~3 years ago that said nerve tissue can run on coconut oil too. I've heard a tablespoon really does help with alcohol cravings.

IMHO, it's much more productive to view addiction as self-medicating physical and mental anguish. People who are emotionally stable tend to not get hooked.

I was just transcribing the videos my friend made of us frying donuts (in coconut oil), taken two weeks before her first hospitalization. She was doing very well, then she ran out of alcohol & the professionals got hold of her...

A very smart woman I know once said, _" When a person feels safe,_ the false ego goes away." Helping people to feel safe is the most important part of all effective drug rehabilitations. Sometimes people need access to their drug of choice to feel safe. It's much better to give them pharmaceutical-grade drugs [1], and wait for them to age out of their addiction, than to train them to be helpless in jail, or help them to feel like failures in a 12-step-based "drug rehab".

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14782416](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14782416) \- Switzerland gives their most hopeless heroin addicts access to pharmaceutical-grade heroin.

<comment><USER24> >~80% of rehab facilities use some version of the 12-step program, which is helpful for ~10-15% of people who are addicted to something.

I'd say 12-step is closer to "takes credit for the ~10-15% of people who'd beat their addictions anyways".

<comment><USER25> I'm not against 12-step programs, and I have a lot of friends in 12-step programs. Just some observations... the programs certainly have some problems. There is a very high rate of relapse, for one thing. The religious aspects a bit hard to swallow, too.

The things that concern me the most, however, is, well, it's weird, but I've seen this happen a few times... Friends who had moderate problems with alcohol and/or drugs go into 12-step programs. They seem to over-identify with the social side and really want to belong, but feel that they haven't had a bad enough bottom, so they go out again but really go overboard in an effort to _prove_ that they belong. I've seen some otherwise sane people go on some crazy, nearly life-ending binges.

Also, AA seems to stunt people in a weird way... They seems that they think AA is a total solution to all their life's problems, and so they often go on for years with some difficult psychological problems. Depression, anger issues, ADHD, etc... stuff that would be much better addressed by modern medicine. Maybe it's the similar to many religions, in that once you've got God, all your problems will be fixed by prayer and devotion.

Even after all that, I think 12-step programs can be a great thing for a lot of people. It depends a lot on the person, and the groups around them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I would like to see the organizers of these scams executed, and given the nature of their crimes and their victims, I do not personally believe that this would be cruel or unusual punishment. I know that the Supreme Court would disagree with me.

</comment><comment><USER27> There was a thing on NPR a while ago about billions paid to scam therapy centers. They would prescribe useless therapies to people with chronic back problems and other injuries. Without quality control this happens in every industry.

<comment><USER28> >>There was a thing on NPR a while ago about billions paid to scam therapy centers. They would prescribe useless therapies to people with chronic back problems and other injuries.

So... chiropractic?

<comment><USER29> Funny, I've had very good luck with chiropractors. And no, she actually has never told me to come back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> In theory, it should be straightforward to validate if a halfway house is legit or not. Professional help offered generates fees through insurance charges which means income for the businesses that can be traced...

...so why am I so cynical about being optimistic for an actual consumer- beneficial outcome in cases like these?

<comment><USER3> It turns out, it's very hard to determine "legit" or not. Standard of care has not permeated much of the AA/NA [edit: treatment] culture. This is a heavily stigmatized group of people who frequently do not have the response reactions you or I might.

Insurance companies like scans from MRI tests, not reports written from mental health consultants.

These are some of our most vulnerable people. We need to take care of them. It's less competitive as a business to do so.

[edit - like much of mental health issues, 'success' is difficult to define, so outcome based measurement is difficult.]

<comment><USER30> Thank you for the response.

In your opinion, in the facilities such as those discussed in the article and ones like them, would physical inspections address the more egregious cases? Are run down facilities, lack of sanitation, etc., enough to add a location (and operators) to an interstate "do not process insurance claims" blacklist? More regulation isn't the answer for everything, certainly, but as you stated, we are talking about exceptionally vulnerable people.

Or is the stigma of addiction and mental health issues the root cause? Would this type of regulatory pressure be DOA because regulators, as people themselves, often believe addiction is a moral failing and not a health consideration?

<comment><USER19> Who would do the inspecting? How do you qualify them? Who pays for it? How do you prevent bribes/payoffs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is the tip of the iceberg generated by mandated coverage of addiction treatments.

<comment><USER32> What are you trying to say? That insurance companies shouldn't have to cover drug treatments? Perhaps, instead, this is an issue with lack of regulation and inspection. Fund treatment, but also fund inspections and required standards (which it seems, according top the article, is finally happening). It's not like health insurance companies don't want to see the treatment work, they make their money when their patients are healthy.

<comment><USER33> Under ACA insurance companies must spend 80% of of premium dollars on claims and activities to improve health care quality. 85% in large markets. Sort of like the cost-plus system in defense spending. The company % take remains the same so there is incentive to increase the amount spent. Just jack up the premiums.

<comment><USER34> I disagree. The incentive is to spend as little as possible on the remaining %, because sick people already cost a ton as it is.

Most insurance revenue comes from non-ACA employer plans, which don't have this requirement.

<comment><USER35> It is a general problem with "cost plus" type arrangements though, that really always ought to have clauses to explicitly reward cost-cutting (by letting the provider keep a portion) and sound investments towards better care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Solution: legalization.

<comment><USER37> That doesn't solve the need for a safe place where people with destructive addiction to recover. If anything it would make it more important. Hoe do you imagine it would help?

<comment><USER36> It would help because there would be no incentive to get these people addicted (again).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Basically the plot of Inherent Vice (the move at least)

</comment><comment><USER39> Been going on in Boston for a few years.

<comment><USER40> Can you substantiate this? I have some friends who would be interested in this if you can.</comment></comment>


Productivity vs. Guilt and Self-Loathing - <AUTHOR> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ProductivityVsGuiltAndSelfLoathing.aspx

<comment><USER2> Why worry about not doing something instead of just relaxing or doing something you wanted to do anyway? What is so important about being successful and accomplished that you forget to live and enjoy the small things in life. And what about all the other important things in life like a good health, family relationships, culture, travel, sports and all the other things that makes life full...? What is the point of focusing all the energy on success and not about life quality? / a Swede</comment>