What Was TON And Why It Is Over - <AUTHOR> https://telegra.ph/What-Was-TON-And-Why-It-Is-Over-05-12 <comment><USER2> His analogy is pretty poor IMO. A more realistic analogy is: imagine if a group of people got together and bought a plot of land to mine gold. Then imagine these people told all of their friends that they had a gold mine and were willing to split the output of the gold mine with all of their friends for just $10k/piece.

Now imagine the government said: hey, you don't even know if there's gold on that land, but you're promising your investors that there is. And not only are they telling us we can't sell part of our non-existent gold to our friends, we can't sell it to people ANYWHERE.

Sound completely unfair? Government overstep? We aren't allowed to sell people something that doesn't exist?

<comment><USER3> You're describing "prospecting", or (less charitably) "wildcatting", which is a legitimate business.

> We aren't allowed to sell people something that doesn't exist?

You're allowed to sell rights to things that might exist in the future.

If someone puts a ton of money into something stupid that's pretty clearly not going to pay off proportional to the expense, that's on them.

> you're promising your investors [a return]

This is somewhat different from your first paragraph. Overselling your confidence in the financial outcome of a bet is (usually obvious) fraud, but that's a different problem from selling a stake in a risky endeavor.

Not defending Telegram's stupid shitcoin, but trying to get the Government to stop this (whatever your probably loosely-held idea of "this" is) is probably not a good idea.

<comment><USER4> And now we have come full circle. The government does indeed permit wildcatting or prospecting, but it requires that all investors are accredited. The same is true for TON and other bitcoins -- the govt is not trying to forbid them, but merely require the normal level of investor vetting that is in place across the rest of the economy.

<comment><USER3> "Other bitcoins" doesn't parse - did you mean "other shitcoins"? Bitcoin is a specific product, and shitcoins are a disjoint category.

The government only requires people to be accredited for "ICO"s, not currency/utility "coins" like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

As an aside, I believe the "accredited investor" category is mostly a subsidy of rich people. Exclude peasants from investing in the good high-return stuff and you can demand higher capital premiums.

<comment><USER5> Kleenex is a specific product too, but is often used as a generic term. "Bitcoin" might not be commonly used that way but it parses just fine to me.

<comment><USER6> Buggy parser; you wouldn't call paper towels or wet wipes Kleenex, right? Because that's what you're insinuating by calling other cryptocurrencies 'Bitcoin'.

<comment><USER7> If someone told me to pass the Kleenex where only paper towels are, my hypothetical self with hypothetical knowledge about the intricacies of paper products, I would probably roll my eyes and internally go "those aren't Kleenex at all, they're not even tissues, don't they know the difference between long fiber and short fiber cellulose based paper products GAWD!" But in an effort to not seem insufferable, and because I know exactly what they meant, I would just pass the paper towel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I highly recommend that people read the full SEC complaint: [https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2019/comp- pr2019-2...](https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2019/comp- pr2019-212.pdf)

It's pretty obvious that Telegram was simply planning to pump and then dump a bunch of worthless tokens on retail investors.

<comment><USER9> Even if you believe Telegram was competent and well intentioned the SEC's argument here seems clear and reasonable:

 _Grams are securities because the Initial Purchasers and subsequent investors expect to profit from Telegram's work ... Grams are not a currency because, among other things, there are not any products or services that can be purchased with Grams._

<comment><USER10> But how is that different than any other Initial Coin Offering?

<comment><USER11> All the other ICOs are also scams.

<comment><USER12> Is ethereum a scam? How about MakerDAO?

<comment><USER13> Actually, I'm really wondering how all these cryptocurrencies are legal. Algorand also started by selling its initial coins, how is that legal?

<comment><USER11> Almost no token sales are done legally. Ethereum's token sale wouldn't be legal if it was done today but Ethereum is so large that regulators effectively grandfathered it under the "sufficiently decentralized" doctrine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> this is a disingenuous post. The crux of the SEC effort against them is because they created this chain and token during the 2017 gold rush (actually in 2018 but obviously the 2017 bull run is what sparked the interest) and very clearly were trying to cash in. When you create what by all accounts is a security specifically for investment and asset appreciation but don't register it as a security with the SEC, they get a little unhappy. Reading back through some of the articles before this when the SEC intervened Telegram had raised 1.7 billion dollars off this. When you make a few billion off an unregistered security offering, people are going to sit up and take notice.

Regardless of your feelings on the SEC, crypto, et al, it's pretty obvious why the SEC intervened and to see this eventual outcome.

<comment><USER15> > Reading back through some of the articles before this when the SEC > intervened Telegram had raised 1.7 billion dollars off this.

I think I understand the "more in sadness than in anger" tone of the post better now too. They did fine for themselves didn't they.

<comment><USER11> Not really. They have to return $1.2B (either in cash or equity) and their burn rate is high. Now they have to find a new business model before the runway runs out.

<comment><USER16> So they get to keep half a billion and never had to offer anything of value?

<comment><USER17> The amount they get to keep cake from accredited investors, so I don't really feel any sympathy there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Previously: "SEC halts Telegram's $1.7B token offering" (7 months ago, 201 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21228415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21228415)

 _"We allege that the defendants have failed to provide investors with information regarding Grams and Telegram's business operations, financial condition, risk factors, and management that the securities laws require."_

 _"Telegram seeks to obtain the benefits of a public offering without complying with the long-established disclosure responsibilities designed to protect the investing public."_

</comment><comment><USER19> When reading this article, I got an impression that US government banned Telegram from issuing certain securities, but after reading comments and links I come to the conclusion it's not the case and actually US government just said "it's a security, so you have to follow our securities procedures". Granted, those are not very fun, but that's not what Telegram complaint is - it looks like they tried to sneak a fast one and it didn't work. Well done Telegram marketing for temporarily misleading me, I guess.

<comment><USER20> Yes, their article is very one sided.

Through why they ended up in the situations they did why other didn't is a bit more complex then what either you or they wrote I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What do they have to hide?

Filing for a US initial public offering requires much writing and some audits, but it's not inherently difficult. Thousands of marginal companies have done IPOs. That's where penny stocks come from. The SEC doesn't evaluate your business model. All they insist is that _you don 't lie._

Now, if you want to list on an exchange, have your IPO underwritten by a major financial firm, and get institutional investors to buy your stock, there's more to do. But those aren't SEC requirements. You can IPO without them and peddle your own shares.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2018/34-83723.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/rules/other/2018/34-83723.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER22> As a long time Telegram fan - albeit less than before - I'm happy to see this go:

Why do everyone have to try to create another blockchain?

Why can't companies just be honest enough to either name a price up front or make a freemium model or something?

Hopefully this will cause them to reconsider payments like old WhatsApp or something else that aligns with the interests of the users?

Edit: add second part of a broken sentence. Also: the niche that WhatsApp used to hold (paid, reasonable price, good ux, no ads or spying) still isn't too crowded.

Signal is important and I am happy to recommend it but there's a lot of room still for others who want to enter the small communities/group-of-friends messaging space. The best alternatives I have found so far are: MeWe (pretty close to Google+, but with a business model that isn't based on selling data or ads), Telegram and of course still WhatsApp if you can stomach it.

<comment><USER23> > Why do everyone have to try to create another blockchain?

Because people will give you a billion dollars for it.

<comment><USER22> > Because people will give you a billion dollars for it.

Hopefully we see the end of that now. Or at least the beginning of the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Eleven paragraphs to say, "I'm taking my ball and going home!"

When the SEC shuts down your unregistered securities offering, saying you saw the project as a literal gold mine is maybe a poor choice of analogy.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how Telegram will subsist and how it's going to generate money for the longer term.

Since it stores all messages and media by default (except secret chats) on its cloud, the infrastructure costs will keep going up at some pace with time.

It was only a few weeks ago that Telegram announced that it has 400 million monthly active users.

How long can Pavel Durov's wealth keep it alive and how much of his wealth will he continue to commit to the platform as time passes? The platform is surely synonymous with him (at least from his perspective), and there are millions of people who need it and trust it (it's the only app that large groups of protestors in Hong Kong could safely use).

<comment><USER26> They will convert TON investments to equity investments. Which is probably what Silicon Valley VCs wanted in the first place. Now Durov holds 100% of equity.

Think WhatsApp back in a day before Facebook acquisition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've found David Gerard's periodic updates to be useful (on this and other cryptocurrency nonsense/scams/etc). His latest one about Telegram is: [https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/04/14/news- cooking...](https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/04/14/news-cooking-mama- and-blockchain-the-halvening-and-bitcoin-cash-simple-assurance-of-future- litigation-kraken-craig-wright/) Link to the "telegram" tag on his blog: [https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/tag/telegram/](https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/tag/telegram/)

<comment><USER28> Looks like the Matt Levine of crypto, even down to the "Things happen" section.

<comment><USER27> He's definitely copying Matt Levine's style.

<comment><USER29> I blatantly am!

Posting has slowed lately because I'm finding myself _busier_ during lockdown - loved one is ill (not Covid thankfully), so the day is: day job, do all the house stuff, take care of kid and wife, collapse and sleep, repeat - but I gotta write something about the end of the TON story ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > Unfortunately, we – the 96% of the world's population living elsewhere – are > dependent on decision makers elected by the 4% living in the US.

Calling your bluff on this one. Other world powers are available if that's really your argument.

It turns out that if you want customers in the US, then yes you have to follow US law.

<comment><USER31> This seems like one of those situations where the world benefits from one country doing the homework and moving to protect its citizens. I mean, if another country wants to okay pump and dump scam coins, or bogus medicine, or unsafe cars, they're free to do that. Otherwise, others might as well benefit from SEC, FDA, and NHTSA results unless overridden locally, no? Sure, US agencies not perfect, captured even sometimes, but pretty sure tiny Elbonia doesn't have the resources to vet securities, drugs, or cars.

<comment><USER32> While broadly true, other countries regulators need to be active and keep the American regulators in check.

The entire episode with FAA and Boeing 737-MAX makes it clear that while Ethiopian regulator can not do airworthiness certification of such a complex plane they can definitely ground the fleet faster than FAA wanted to do.

It is unlikely that FAA would have grounded the fleet until all other major bodies had done so and put it under a lot of pressure to also do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The graphic at the top and the first few paragraphs come off as extremely patronizing, if not propagandistic. Then he goes off on a rant about sovereignty to cover for TON's lack of legitimacy.

Not a good look for Telegram, and good riddance to TON. I realize this blockchain garbage is probably never going to die but it is good to see the real world doing what it does best.

</comment><comment><USER34> To all the people says that they should have just followed security laws, you don't understand the purpose of TON and GRAM. It CAN NOT work if it is a security. The Idea was that Telegram user have a wallet and can store/send GRAMs to each-other Donate/tip and buy stuff. This is not possible/allowed with securities. You can only buy/sell securities form/to regulated exchanges. It completely destroys it's whole use-case.

Anyway they could still do it with some kind of distributed token generation, similar to mining so tokens are generated by the users and not sold. But this obviously would not make the investors happy because they get nothing then.

<comment><USER35> Then don't use a metaphor of a gold mine. If you compare TON to shares of a gold mine (what they did in the linked blog) then clearly it is a security.

<comment><USER34> Ofc it is a security. I just pointed out why they tried to avoid it. Not because they where to lazy to do the paperwork like half the people in here suggest.

<comment><USER36> so you're saying "it's a security, but it shouldn't be treated as security because security law forbids <enter activity here>", which means you want to break the law.

they tried to break the law so it's not allowed. i don't see a problem here

<comment><USER34> No, absolutely not. I made none if these statements at all. Read it again pls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Imagine that several people put their money together to build a gold mine.

This is what's wrong about what they're trying to do.

TON is selling tokenized access to the supposed gold mine. The gold is the TON product which is just a chat software.

I'm glad regulators ban it. It's a scam.

You need to look at the gold, the business. The BNB Binance token could be a better token. At least, their business has better prospect. I would stay away from these tokens. They're just security masquerading as crypto. They're likely scams.

</comment><comment><USER38> Maybe I don't get it but the gov didn't ban TON. It banned the sale of said tokens. Nothing stops them from further developing the tech with VC money.

<comment><USER11> That's how you know it's not about the technology; it's all about getting rich quick. Once that has been taken away they lost interest in developing TON.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It looks as if Durov wants to distance himself and Telegram from the cryptocurrency subproject, in connection with the latest claims of regulatory authorities.

</comment><comment><USER40> Just wait until governments actually start attacking cryptocurrencies. They're dumb and slow but when they finally catch on, the game is up.

All these stupid glorified link lists have never been backed by anything other than speculation and eventually market forces will always win.

<comment><USER41> > Just wait until governments actually start attacking cryptocurrencies.

> eventually market forces will always win.

How is government intervention an example of market forces winning out?

<comment><USER40> Regulation is an essential market force. Level playing fields and all that.

It often over extends, misses the target and/or doesn't address root causes which is why you hear a lot of hate.

When enough people in the right positions become incentivized to act, you'll see change.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It was "banned" because they did not register the offering, not because the "people did not want the gold for themselves", in their childish analogy.

</comment><comment><USER43> Admins, please fix this clickbait title. Compare to the TechCrunch story that's titled "Telegram abandons its TON blockchain platform".

</comment><comment><USER44> I don't exactly understand how US court could forbid Telegram anything. Yeah- yeah, there is an "explanation", but I have hard time buying into it. USA can have far more power than it should, but by no means it's all-powerful, there is a ton of shit in the world that USA may not like, but it exists anyway and even manages to have USA-based customers through some shady as fuck, absolutely nonsensical, but still somehow legal schemes.

So I'm reading this as "our plan has failed for whatever reason, so now we are getting rid of it, while pretending that it is a very hard decision for us and somebody else entirely is to blame".

</comment><comment><USER45> The key word is "our" in "our best engineers". If it is "theirs", it is not decentralized, it does belong to them. It is faster and more efficient exactly because of that. This is the same mistake all private blockchain creators do, they don't understand the connection between mining and decentralization. Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralized only because of highly inefficient mining.

The key difference between decentralized and centralized is a judge can jail a person (durov) or bankrupt a company (telegram), but she can't do any of these things to a protocol (bitcoin).

</comment><comment><USER46> If they really cared about decentralization, they would still release the protocol and software even if they cannot profit from it. I'm tired of greedy cryptocurrency advocates putting on airs of social responsibility.

<comment><USER11> It's on Github; did you look for it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> OK so they built this great blockchain and you can't continue but where is the link to the source?

[0] [https://test.ton.org/](https://test.ton.org/)

</comment><comment><USER48> I like Telegram as an app and service but have reasonable doubt of how it's gonna be sustainable. WhatsApp had 400m MAU and $1m monthly cost in 2013 before acquisition, Telegram reached same MAU recently and avg cost is 4x or more. Founder had about $300m when forced to exit VK. If my math is right, he can't really keep running this all free much longer.

</comment><comment><USER49> So... why not just leave that feature out of the US versions in the app store and everything is fine. Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER50> _Perhaps even more paradoxically, the US court declared that Grams couldn 't be distributed not only in the United States, but globally. Why? Because, it said, a US citizen might find some way of accessing the TON platform after it launched. So, to prevent this, Grams shouldn't be allowed to be distributed anywhere in the world – even if every other country on the planet seemed to be perfectly fine with TON._

<comment><USER41> > Perhaps even more paradoxically, the US court declared that Grams couldn't > be distributed not only in the United States, but globally. Why? Because, it > said, a US citizen might find some way of accessing the TON platform after > it launched. So, to prevent this, Grams shouldn't be allowed to be > distributed anywhere in the world – even if every other country on the > planet seemed to be perfectly fine with TON.

Why would telegram ask the court to clarify that the injunction applied globally if telegram believed the court did not have jurisdiction to enforce such a global order?

> In the ongoing enforcement action SEC v. Telegram Group, Inc. and TON > Issuer, Inc., Judge P. Kevin Castel has denied an application by Telegram > and TON Issuer (collectively, "Telegram") that, if granted, would have > allowed Telegram to distribute its cryptocurrency, Grams, to non-US based > purchasers. Telegram's application asked the court to limit the scope of the > court's recently issued preliminary injunction. The injunction prohibited > Telegram from distributing Grams, reasoning that the initial purchasers > would likely resell the Grams in a public market that could include US > persons. Telegram sought clarification that the order did not prohibit the > distribution to foreign initial purchasers. The court rejected Telegram's > request, reiterating its finding that Telegram's distribution, even if made > only to foreign initial purchasers, would likely result in a distribution > back to the US.

[https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/insights/publications/2020/04...](https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/insights/publications/2020/04/court- confirms-telegram-injunction-covers-non-us-purchasers/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Very odd outcome considering they didn't do much different from Ethereum or EOS, both of which seem fine nowadays.

I think it would have been different if they were to release their coin first, ask questions later.

</comment><comment><USER52> > blockchain platform called TON and a cryptocurrency we were going to name > Gram

And no one in marketing said anything about naming your platform and curency after units of mass. How come no one raised the SEO issue?

<comment><USER11> Telegram has hundreds of millions of existing users; they don't need SEO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Is KiK still fighting SEC? This can't be good news for them as well.

</comment><comment><USER35> If you sell shares in a gold mine it is a security. All SEC wanted is for TON to be treated like a security, which is exactly what shares in a gold mine are.

</comment><comment><USER54> The opening image looks like the start of a scam: [https://telegra.ph/file/c6f281b62b5909d0c5bad.png](https://telegra.ph/file/c6f281b62b5909d0c5bad.png)

Group of faceless people against a scenic vista, arms around and supporting each other, under the flag of the "product", facing a gold mine that apparently self-produces gold and a sun that just so happens to be shining light on all that wonderful gold... with a dog(?) chasing a golden butterfly.

I've never used telegram before but I think the CEO should distance himself a bit more.

</comment><comment><USER55> Why Durov have decided to subject to US jurisdiction? Afaik many ICO had put restrictions on accessing tokens by US citizens?

</comment><comment><USER56> Considering that conventional currencies represent real goods, what thing of value is represented by these crypto currencies.

</comment><comment><USER57> This was inevitable after the SEC got involved.

</comment><comment><USER58> Their first mistake was being subject to US jurisdiction.

<comment><USER58> No, that's wrong. It seems like they didn't get good legal advice, and/or changed their business plan without ongoing legal advice.

That is, if they knew that they'd be violating US securities and/or money laundering law, they should have avoided US jurisdiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> just another crypto pyramid scheme

</comment><comment><USER60> ...and nothing of value was lost.

</comment><comment><USER61> So do people get refunds...?

<comment><USER62> Do people who get scammed in telegram's fakecoin get-rich-quick IPO channels deserve refunds, let alone any funds at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> This is good for the environment.

<comment><USER11> Wasn't TON using proof of stake?

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> They are basically blocking USD competitors. This makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Update: The SEC statement makes more sense than my original comment :)

<comment><USER65> Libra is allowed to exist though. Or I suppose it doesn't compete with USD as it will be tied to fiat?

<comment><USER64> This is only my guess, but it should be so much easier to control and regulate Facebook's product rather than Telegram's, right?</comment></comment></comment>


'Tennessine': Element 117 officially named - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2016-11-tennessine-element.html <comment><AUTHOR> And element 118 is now named "Oganesson": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oganesson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oganesson)

oh look at that '-on' prefix!</comment>


The year 2040 is looking very scary for the world's richest countries - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/588072/the-demographic-problem-you-really-need-to-worry-about/ <comment><USER2> These days you can get welfare for being "allergic" to electricity and subsidized holistic "medicine". At some point the system will implode long before 2040.

<comment><USER3> Or medecine will be disrupt...</comment></comment>


Show HN: Offline First Todo App Made with PouchDB and ServiceWorkers - <AUTHOR> https://cherrypc.com/todo/index.html <comment><USER2> When you mean "offline first", it's actually "no online storage at all", right ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's really "Offline Only" I suppose, though it's a small matter to make it sync with a remote CouchDB.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've updated this app to implement Service Workers and made a few other changes to improve usability.

It's a simple demo using PouchDB/jQuery/Bootstrap to create a feature rich, single page, offline first app.</comment>


We will be able to live to 1,000 - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm <comment><USER2> We might or might not defeat the diseases of aging anytime soon, but if you want to help the people who are trying to make it happen, consider donating to the SENS Foundation (money goes directly to research):

<http://www.sens.org/>

Sadly, because aging isn't considered a disease by the FDA and other regulatory bodies, there is actually very little research being done on it if you take into consideration the fact that it kills more people than anything else in the rich countries (100-150k/day, usually after a long period of suffering).

If you want to learn more about what they are doing and why they think their engineering approach has a chance of success, check out Aubrey's book (the paperback version contains a new chapter, afaik):

[http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation- Breakthrough...](http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation- Breakthroughs-Lifetime/dp/0312367066)

It contains a lot of biology, but should be understandable to the lay person.

And if all you want is a really quick intro, check out his TED talk (it's a bit old now (2005), but the general concepts have stayed mostly the same despite recent progress):

[http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_ag...](http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html)

or the talk that he gave at Google (2007):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEyguiO4UW0>

<comment><USER3> Before donating you should ask yourself whether Aubrey de Grey is a crackpot or not. I'm not sure myself. Can somebody shed some light on this?

<comment><USER4> He's looking for cures to issues that are real problems. If you fix any of the problems, even partially, they show great promise for helping older people to be decrepit, even if they don't actually extend lifespan. His hope is curing these types of damage will cause humans to functionally stop aging, but _curing these types of damage are useful in and of themselves_ :

Cell loss, tissue atrophy

Nuclear [epi]mutations

Mutant mitochondria

Death-resistant cells

Tissue stiffening

Extracellular aggregates (Cleaning crap out of our bodies that shouldn't be there and isn't in cells)

Intracellular aggregates (Cleaning crap out of cells that shouldn't be there and is in cells)

<comment><USER5> In fact, the SENS foundation is ignoring some of those - because medical research is already attacking them as problems in their own right.

<comment><USER2> Yep, SENS isn't duplicating already existing research. If you support them, you are supporting research that might not take place otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I donate to research, I like to see what the "partial failure result" is.

One of the neat thing about sens research is that if you happen to even get one or two of the parts of damage fixable or even moderated, then you have a much less inactive old age period, even if no actual longevity is gained.

I find _decrepit_ old age to be one of the biggest issues of our time (who cares if grandma is 80 if she can move like she's 50; the issue society faces today with the elderly is one of them not being able to take care of themselves).

Additionally, with the aging of Europe and Japan, prolonging the useful life of the workforce is a big worry.

<comment><USER6> _prolonging the useful life of the workforce is a big worry_

Not in my world. The world where we are at the tail end of the largest recession in two or three generations, with danger of double-dip; we have lots and lots of surplus productive capacity, productivity just keeps going up, and unemployment is between 10% and 25% in the US depending on how you count it.

<comment><USER7> Think about how much more efficient and productive an economy could be if the oldest members didn't have to retire due to old age?

More poignant to the current recession-- imagine how much better things would be now if people who lived through the great depression were still around (in large numbers) and running for office.

<comment><USER8> Think about how impossible it would be for the young to get a job if they had to compete against people who had been doing a job for 50, 100, 500 years.

<comment><USER7> How many jobs actually exist for more than 100 years?

Also, just like we've seen in the last 200 years, people's education requirements would continue to grow. If you live to 1000, maybe the first 50 years of your life are spent as a student.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When my intro to genetics teacher in college explained to us how aging in cells worked, he told us that one of his professors had explained to him that a "cure" for aging was about 10 years away. But that had been more than ten years earlier. My professor said that he had recently talked to that same professor again. The new ETA: about 10 years.

This is one of those problems that seems easy to solve in principle, but the details are nasty. Frankly, I think there's a reason complicated life evolved so that it would age. The standard reason given is that eventually errors in replication accumulate and cancer results. I.e. we age to avoid cancer. But that is a ridiculous reason. There is a chance we might die of cancer if we grow too old, so we trade that possibility of death by cancer for a certainty of death by aging? It just doesn't make evolutionary sense.

I have a feeling that whatever the real reason for aging is, it will take us a long, long time before we find a way around it.

<comment><USER10> I think part of it might be that evolution only cares about how successful you are in passing on your genes. Why do salmon die after mating (its due to exhaustion)? There isn't really any reason they have too, but they successfully passed on there genes so there is little evolutionary pressure on what happens afterward.

I think it is the same for aging. There isn't really a reason for aging, it just happens because there is less evolutionary pressure once humans pass the age when they normally procreate.

Of course I don't have any qualifications and this is just my hypothesis so take it as you will.

<comment><USER11> I believe the predominant evolutionary theory actually does have an explanation - sexual reproduction serves to produce offspring that are different from their parents and have a better shot of being adapted to a constantly changing environment on average (particularly relevant to parasites/diseases). These children still carry their parents' genes, though, so it is in the parents' best genetic interests to die once the kids are self- sufficient so as to avoid out-competing their own offspring.

<comment><USER12> W.R.T. humans, the predominant evolutionary theory does have an explanation, and it's exactly what jwegan said. Your scenario is _only_ relevant to organisms who live in niches very far from our own. Humans have always lived in ecosystems large enough that our kids' share of the burden of our claims on resources is infinitesimal, and certainly no comparison to benefit that kids derive from their alive parents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a book by Asimov, Please Explain, that has a list of science questions.

I remember the very last question is about "what point does getting old has?".

He argues that without aging and dying, populations will stop getting better and will stagnate.

It seemed very appropriate to link here, but I couldn't get a link. Other than a Spanish translation :-(.

<comment><USER14> A specific concern I've always had about this idea of indefinite lifespan is that of monoculture. How often have you heard a phrase along the lines of "this is a temporary problem; once the 'old guard' is no longer in charge, society can move forward on issue XYZ"? Make "XYZ" any major social issue we've had in the past thousand years; from fiefdoms to gay rights to democracy.

It's effectively the end of generational cultural change, which might be a good or bad thing, depending on which generation you most identify with.

<comment><USER15> People still die, from accidents and what have you. In terms of multiples of the average death rate, generational change will be exactly the same. But generations are 10+ times as long in this view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That article is from 2004 (from top of page)

 _Last Updated: Friday, 3 December, 2004, 00:01 GMT_

This kind of sensationalism is silly.

<http://xkcd.com/678/>

Falls under: _It has not been conclusively proven impossible._

We don't know what kind of roadblocks there will be for this kind of development, we can't even guess - claims of 10-20 years are beyond silly, they are crazy and ignoring the concept of "what we don't know".

ps. _Can you imagine how overpopulated the world would be?_

 _How we would strip every resource bare?_

</comment><comment><USER17> Can I bet on the opposite side of this? I bet that nobody who is 60 now will live to 1000.

Don't get me wrong, I would like to live to 1000... but I would be pretty surprised if my kids live past 150. I will be surprised if I live to 100. It's sad to think about, but our bodies wear out over time (cosmic rays and whatnot), and we don't have the technology to repair them efficiently yet. People still die from the flu!

<comment><USER6> A fun exercise for a high school class: Get some basic mortality tables off the Internet. Now, tell me -- to first order, of course -- all the causes of death we'd have to eliminate in order for, say, 25% of the population to live to be 1000.

What I really want to know is what common everyday activities we'd all have to give up. I bet motorcycling and scooter-riding are right out, but what about, say, swimming? Horseback riding? In a world where life expectancy is ten times longer, is everything an order of magnitude more dangerous?

<comment> alan-crowe It would be a good idea if safety laws, such as speed limits, where constructed around formula with life expectancy as one of the variables. Plug in 70 years and get out 30mph. Plug in 140 years and get out 25mph.

Since you are going to grow old and die anyway, spending too much time trying to avoid accidental death is self-defeating. Acknowledging this would provide a check on the tendency towards super-safety in public policy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't see how humanity could handle something like mass distribution of a magic treatment that allowed people to live to 1,000. The world would quickly get over crowded, resources would dry up, world wars would follow, and who knows what else.

<comment><USER19> This is silly.

Everyone was worried in the 1970's that the 1990's would have massive overcrowding and famines, but it didn't happen. Instead, the world population growth rate has begun to level off.

Why? In affluent countries, people no longer have children out of necessity, but of desire. In fact, many first-world nations are actually now undergoing population contraction (Japan, much of Europe).

If you eliminate aging across the world, the necessity of children will go away. People will only have children if they want them.

<comment><USER20> If people lived 10x longer than they do now, the birth rate would have to drop _dramatically_ (my rudimentary math would assume that it would require 10% of the amount of births we have now) or you'd risk overcrowding.

We'd end up with government controlling the number of children, possibly even a lottery system. The overcrowding worries of the 70s and 90s were not because of a 1200% increase, rather a 10-20% increase.

<comment><USER21> > If people lived 10x longer than they do now, the birth rate would have to > drop dramatically

And it would, if you knew you'd live that long most wouldn't tie themselves down with kids while they're still young, they'd wait much much longer and go out and live life.

As it stands now, if you don't have kids by the time you're 30 you risk not being able to have them at all and having to suffer though months of fertility treatments and such just to try.

<comment><USER20> The fact is, society would change _drastically_ if this were to happen, so we can speculate all we want :)

People could want kids for a variety of reasons (to pass on their genes, the utility of having children, etc) and you'd have to maintain that you could only have two children max at one point in your life to effectively replace yourselves and not increase the population.

Not to mention if you'd want to have kids 2 or 3 times over, now that they're growth is only a small percentage of your total life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> While I was interning at Google in 2006 I heard the guy speak in one of the Google Talks there. Going to the talk I thought this would just be some outrageous crackpot theory, but he seemed very thoughtful and the approaches he talked about sounded very sensible (although I knew and still know too little about the subject to invalidate his claims).

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if this would change the popular morality of suicide? What if you're 800 years old, and you truly feel that you've had enough? Should you be forced to keep on going, potentially indefinitely?

Or even just knowing when to step aside and let the next (evolved) generation take over? (or will that still naturally just happen, via accidental death or death by lack of resources to live)

</comment><comment><USER24> Just FYI: This article is from 2004.

</comment><comment><USER25> I can't believe no one has called out the bogus math in the article:

"If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent, non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000."

If you assume 1/1000 chance of death in a year, and 1000 years (1000 trials), your probability of living to 1000 is only 37%, not 50%. I don't know if I would trust the scientific analysis of someone who doesn't understand basic binomial probability.

<comment><USER26> You are assuming this based on a mainstream media article. First of all, you have no idea if he knows the right answer and is just dumbing it down for those who don't understand basic binomial probability. Second, the quote says "well under one in 1000", not "one in 1000". The correct value of one in 1415.8 as calculated by Retric in <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1368664> is, in fact, under one in 1000.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> "If you are a reasonably risk-aware teenager today in an affluent, non-violent neighbourhood, you have a risk of dying in the next year of well under one in 1,000, which means that if you stayed that way forever you would have a 50/50 chance of living to over 1,000."

I know there is a shortcut to this but for this to be true you need a constant rate of 1 death in 1415.78389 per year.

1 / (1 - 10 ^ ((log .5) / 981)) = 1415.78389 so (1-1/1415.78389) ^ (1000-19) = .5

</comment><comment><USER28> Just going based on the title here. But if we let people live to 1000, that will deny many people the right to have children. The long term consequences of such a change could be a drastic slow down in technological innovation as the super-elderly are able to accumulate vast sums of wealth. Just think of the advantage you'd have as a 500 y/o over a 25 y/o.

<comment><USER29> Why is childbirth a right? Would you accept a trade of a parent's life for a child's life, perhaps with a time delay?

There's also several financial methods that could be used to prevent undesirable wealth accumulation.

<comment><USER30> You, and nobody else, own your body. I.e., nobody should be able to say you're not allowed to have children.

<comment><USER29> You've simply asserted that, though.

I own my own body, does that mean nobody should be able to say I'm not allowed to, say, defecate? What if I'm positioned directly above them?

Simply being able to do something doesn't make it a right.

(I, and nobody else, own my car. I.e., nobody should be able to say I'm not allowed to max out the speedometer?)

<comment><USER30> You're not allowed to think that way. The committee decided.

<comment><USER29> So are you saying you're just trolling...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's amazing to think that just 500 years ago things were so bad that people awaited death patiently and willingly because they believed life was a punishment rewarded with an afterlife.

Now we're trying to extend the amount of time that we live 10 fold because things are so great right now. I'm not saying either is right, just an observation.

<comment><USER31> Maybe you don't talk to religious folks much, but that attitude hasn't changed all that much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just have to shake my head at this. The only adequate word for this is arrogance. The arrogance to believe that we know enough about the processes of life to extend them indefinitely.

We don't even know what we don't know. How many times have we been at this place in the history of biology, where we honestly believe that we are just "that" close to figuring out the processes of life. We were wrong then, and we are wrong now.

We do not know or understand the over-arching cause of cancer, nor the cause of its radical increase. Similarly with heart disease: after a generation of assurances that the cause is a high-fat diet, the premise itself is being rejected. I could go down the list of major congenital diseases, and tell the same story. Even the most basic assumptions which we have about disease are being overturned. And whatever replaces them will likely be overturned yet again.

<comment><USER2> > We don't even know what we don't know. How many times have we been at this > place in the history of biology, where we honestly believe that we are just > "that" close to figuring out the processes of life. We were wrong then, and > we are wrong now.

Aubrey's point is that we don't need to understand metabolism to repair the damage of aging, just like you can maintain and repair a house or a car without understanding in detail all of the mechanisms that cause damage and failure. You just clean up some of the damage and change some parts periodically so that it never reaches a threshold at which failure is possible.

Our bodies already do this quite well for the first 20-30 years of our lives, but after that, we're in an evolutionary blind spot and long-lived molecules accumulate and eventually make maintenance and repair mechanisms stop working for long enough to lead to pathologies. If we clean up these long-lived molecules, that'll be a very good start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The article claims that to suggest we should NOT defeat aging is ageism and denying people the right to live.

I disagree. Until we find a way to support a population that grows at a rate like that, we would be forced into one of several possible situations, none of which are pleasant:

1: starvation

2: endless war

3: iron-fisted birth regulation, only allowing one new child per legally documented death

3.5: The implications of couples who really want children + a rule saying they can have one, if someone has died

Until the question of resources is answered, granting people the right to live (longer) equates to denying other people either quality of life (starvation/war) or the chance to live at all (birth regulation). Which brings up another interesting question; if everyone alive has a right to life, do those who have not yet been born have a right to live as well?

<comment><USER33> I'm not saying we shouldn't extend our lifespans- I would love to live to see a lot of things come to pass, like leaving our own galaxy- but to blindly proclaim anyone who opposes the goal is ageist is to ignore that the benefits have costs, especially considering we already have population issues looming on the horizon.

Call me utilitarian and get pissed that I might stand in your way of living forever, but we have to consider the bigger picture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This article, and a few others covering exactly the same thing keep getting posted here ever few months. I hope Mr. de Grey is right, and I hope I live long enough to find out. That said, until there's some progress to announce, please stop re-posting this here.

</comment><comment><USER35> Someone smarter than me noted that all predictions of living forever always have one thing in common: it places the time when people start living forever within the lifetime of the predictor.

Aubrey de Grey is 43, and he's predicting that this might be in place in 20 years.

<comment><USER29> Could you care to point out the number of correct predictions that take place well after the point of time they were made?

<comment><USER8> A number of Da Vinci's "inventions" were really just predictions of things that were invented much later (like his helicopter).

<comment><USER29> I think that's setting a low bar for "prediction" next to dated predictions like "In the next x years, we will be able to extend human lifespan by y years every z years."

I don't know that anyone can reasonably object to the theoretical possibility that an individual human life could be sustained indefinitely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Hell, give us another 50 years and I'm sure we'll all have our minds cloned into an army of robot bodies and computer brains for, uh, let's say longevity.

</comment><comment><USER37> I heard some interesting insight recently. I am not sure how correct it is but it suggested that while we have made a lot of progress in living longer (allowing us to be old for longer) we have not made much progress at slowing down the process of aging (making it take longer to get old).

If we want to live long and fruitful lives, how do we slow down aging? I prefer that question over, how do we live until 1,000?

</comment><comment><USER38> Life expectancy has increased a good amount in the past 50 years, raising by ~8.5. That is to say, for the exponentially increasing abilities of modern medicine, we have increased linearly in life expectancy. Maybe there is some breaking point, such as a universal cure for cancers and/or the end of heart disease, but regardless it seems like a huge leap to go from ~78 to ~1000 in life expectancy.

<comment><USER39> Let's say that life expectancy is now increasing at a rate of 2 years per decade. If you want to live to 1000, you just need to increase that to 10 years per decade. You don't have to go from 78 to 1000 all at once.

<comment><USER40> Maintaining two per year for 500 years is more than sufficient.

Personally, I expect false starts in the next couple centuries. The beta testers will be healthy and fit into their hundreds, but those that follow may get to 200-400, then possibly further. There are just too many engineering issues to work out in a single iteration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Is there any practical ways to apply some of this research today? It seems like there must be something out there we can be doing right now to help ward off aging?

Also what is the most promising research being done?

</comment><comment><USER42> instead, let's engineer away our anxieties about not existing.

</comment><comment><USER43> And after living a 1000 years one is going to walk into the central computer, edit their memories and be born again a few millenniums later.

I am a pretty big fan of Arthur C. Clarke.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm pretty sure that beard will need a trim by 3010.

</comment><comment><USER45> Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red/Blue/Green) has this sort of development as a backdrop.

Nothing good comes of it.

<comment><USER4> And Heinlein had tons of novels where it worked out fine.

I don't think we should fund research based on what storytellers wrote to entertain us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Where do I donate to ensure I don't live till 1,000? Nuclear weapon research?

<comment><USER29> I understand you might not want to live that long, but why would you want to take that away from others?

<comment><USER46> Because the world is already overpopulated and we don't currently have any means to spread our virus to a different planet.

<comment><USER29> So your solution to alleviate potential suffering is to induce immediate suffering?

<comment><USER46> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Yesterday my goal was to live 150 years. I am expanding it to 250 now :D

</comment><comment><USER48> Ignoring any claims that the man is a crackpot and any other problems one might have with the science. Does anyone really want to live to 1000? I think you might get a little bored :-/

<comment><USER49> I've always preferred the idea of immortality on the installment plan -- get frozen/stored/whatever, then woken up every couple hundred or couple thousand years, do stuff, go back into freeze/storage/whatever.

Which, at least for me, is less about avoiding death (which doesn't actually scare me all that much) and more about just getting to see what sort of cool stuff the future holds.

<comment><USER50> You will live in a perpetual state of cultural shock. You can't possibly be useful to the society in that situation.

<comment><USER49> Meh. If the technology existed to do that, society would have to find ways to cope with it anyway.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Inside an L.A. OxyContin ring that pushed more than 1M pills - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-oxycontin-part2/ <comment><USER2> I have yet to meet one single person who can logically explain to me why drugs should be 100% illegal. I've heard, "Would you want cocaine available at 7/11?" No, I don't want cocaine available at 7/11.

But if you can already buy any drug on the street, a doctor should be able to prescribe medicinal heroin to an addict and get them into the system to monitor them for treatment, with the end goal of getting them off of drugs. Putting unknown chemicals of varying strength and quality into their vein is what kills addicts. They do not typically OD because they are suicidal, it's because they unknowingly bought an extra strong stamp and then die.

I grew up in Massachusetts, and had a high school graduating class of around 300 people, and 6 people have died of overdoses in the last 10 years. One of the most popular girls in my class died a few months ago. I firmly believe that allowing her (and everyone else) to get her opioids prescribed would at the minimum keep her from overdosing, and let people who care know she has a problem. Dying on a toilet with a needle still in your arm is a terrible, useless way to die.

<comment><USER3> I'm a physician. Unfortunately, most of our overdoses in North America are from prescribed opiates. They are very addictive, and despite best efforts to control and monitor dosing and schedules, these opiates are often either purposefully overdosed (suicide attempts), diverted, or accidentally ingested. My worst memory in pediatrics was a 7 year old who was brain-dead after ingesting only one (!!!) tablet of her grandfather's high-strength Oxy prescription that she thought was Tylenol.

Opiates are bad news, and physicians unfortunately were duped into prescribing way too much for the last ~15 years.

<comment><USER2> I don't follow your logic. A 7 year old swallows drain cleaner, so we should ban drain cleaner? A shame that happened, but irrelevant to the discussion.

You think that by banning opiates no one will get opiates? The methadone clinic two blocks from my apartment, and the people who panhandle around it and the subway station, and the needles I walk past when I cut through the tennis court, do not show the government's laws are solving the problem. As a physician you may see the emotional side, but logically I would love to hear your solutions to the problem.

<comment><USER4> The point of laws is not to make an undesirable behaviors disappear. The point of laws is to discourage undesirable behaviors, and, hopefully, reduce their incidence. There are still thieves and murderers and rapists and pedophiles out there. Yet we don't just throw our hands in despair and claim that we should just remove all laws off the books because some people break the law. True, some people will get opiates even if opiates are banned. However, overall fewer people will get opiates, and overall fewer opiates will be sold.

Logically, I would love to hear your solution to the problem...

<comment><USER2> Yes, my logic is simple: stop trying to ban victimless crimes like drug use. A grown adult wants to inject himself with heroin? Let him. By banning the drug you create a black market, and all of the crimes that entails. The USA tried to ban alcohol, and the bootleggers won. Take all of the money we put into the war on drugs and redirect it to treatment, and tax the shit out of the drugs to pay for our schools.

Banning stealing, rape, and child pornography is _nothing_ like banning drugs. Completely, totally, 100% unrelated and by trying to loop all of them together you disregard logic and sane, rational arguments.

<comment><USER5> The best I can explain it, drugs are like rewiring your brain to need something, like food, water, air, sexual reproduction, etc.

If you go without eating for a day or two, your brain really drives you to find something to eat. Same thing happens with some drugs - within varying degrees.

When I tried to give up smoking cigarettes hundreds of times, my body really felt like it was dying by not having the nicotine around. I eventually got passed it. I haven't had one in 8 years.

The drug laws do nothing more than make addicts bad people. It makes it harder for them to get jobs when they get busted. These guys were just trying to survive - their brains rewired to do that.

They really need to get rid of the drug war. Take that $50 billion a year and spend it on mental health/addiction research - instead of killing a bunch of people on the border. Provide some treatment centers. Let people be anonymous when attending. Get the courts and criminal records out of the equation.

I've known some very smart addicts over the years. The tragedy is they get worse and worse - and they have no way out without getting a very negative stigma attached to them. Some end up unable to get jobs. It all because of our laws.

We would be much better off educating our population honestly on drugs (think of how dishonest the refer madness propaganda was). Keep the drugs available, in clean, reliable doses. Help people addicted get off the drugs. Learn about the cycle. This is much better than the system we have now.

<comment><USER4> These are some great points. In particular, we need to reduce the stigma on addicts, especially those that [try to] recover. Mind you, reducing the stigma is hard, because the stigma doesn't come from a void, or from laws, it comes from the cumulative experience people have with addicts, which are less than great. In another piece from the same story, [http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-oxycontin- everett/](http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-oxycontin-everett/), read on Brandon Smith, who ended up spending all his savings and belongings on drugs, ultimately resorting to robberies. Personally, the first addict I ever met ended up stealing my winter jacket within 3 month of working in the same building, in the middle of a heavy winter. Robbing and stealing are not great ways to build sympathy or trust.

I happen to share the experience to shrugging off nicotine addiction. It was very easy to get hooked [peer pressure played a role], and surprisingly hard to get rid of. In my case, took a few weeks of fighting my body with reason. From what I hear, opioid addiction is stronger, thus I'm having a really really hard time believing that having over-the-counter opioids that anyone can "try a few times" is going to be anything but a major disaster.

The best strategy for most people is to never use opioids. Simply not worth the risk of ruining one's life for a very short time gratification. Given the reality of rebellious teenagers / young adults, I'd much rather have no easy legal path for opioids. Sorry, no opioids in a supermarket locker that you can get by just showing your driver license. On the flip side, I believe we should still crack down hard on dealers, to keep pressure on the supply side.

Which leaves us with the people caught in the opioid trap. While we already fund addiction research, see [https://www.drugabuse.gov/international/research-funding- lan...](https://www.drugabuse.gov/international/research-funding-landing), we probably could do more. We already have rehab clinics where at least some form of palliative care is to be found, though we should seek to make rehab and rehab clinics a better experience. Whether that includes availability of drugs, I frankly haven't seen any relevant research indicating that's a good idea, and I see some evidence [prescription abuse, see the original article] that it is rather dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is peanuts compared what was going on in Florida several years ago [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-06/american-p...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-06/american- pain-the-largest-u-dot-s-dot-pill-mills-rise-and-fall)

> Over 20M pills prescribed, wreaking havoc far beyond just Florida.

Many of the people that were taking these pills have resorted to heroine now that Florida has enacted better oversight

<comment><USER7> That's because once you've gotten deep enough into the hole of opiate dependence, your perspective on heroin shifts drastically.

Suddenly that little green pill that barely gets you off anymore looks a lot less appealing for $1/mg. Especially once you discover how cheap and widely available heroin truly is. A $10 purchase of heroin gets you exponentially more bang for your buck.

It's not a long journey, especially once you've walked half way. You can't regulate or price someone out of an addiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> FTA:

> More than 194,000 people have died since 1999 from overdoses involving > opioid painkillers, including OxyContin.

Wow, that's about 12,000 per year. :(

<comment><USER9> Statements like that immediately make me suspect the integrity of the article. Instead of reporting the actual figures of Oxycontin related overdoses, they bundle it with ALL overdoses over a year (which obviously would be a large enough number). Why didn't they mention the % of overdoses directly related to Oxy ? My assumption is that it would be significantly smaller number which didn't serve the article's purpose. Personally, I don't think its the Pharma's job to track if the pills are illegally prescribed. Just like its not an ISP's job to track if the internet is getting used for illegal downloads. They are absolutely right to assert that they "at all times complied with the law." and any conduct "did not interfere with legitimate patients getting medication". Moral arguments apart, they are simply not in the business of reporting their patients to law enforcement, nor they ever should.

<comment><USER10> > Why didn't they mention the % of overdoses directly related to Oxy ? My > assumption is that it would be significantly smaller number which didn't > serve the article's purpose.

Most likely because the statistics aren't available.

> Moral arguments apart, they are simply not in the business of reporting > their patients to law enforcement, nor they ever should.

Why should they be allowed to be in business at all when their product is so destructive?

<comment><USER11> > Why should they be allowed to be in business at all when their product is so > destructive?

I don't think it's that simple.

If you're going to start doing heroin--which you shouldn't--oxy is a much safer form than street level heroin where you have no idea what you're getting.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman ODed and died because he didn't know what he was getting. Heroin is actually pretty safe, but it destroys your soul and you never really "cure" the addiction. Even still, I'd rather have oxy out there than tar heroin from Mexican drug cartels. And I'd rather spend government resources on something else.

<comment><USER12> _Phillip Seymour Hoffman ODed and died because he didn 't know what he was getting._

Is this true?

<comment><USER13> I've read what happens often is that when heroin addicts relapse they often don't account for the dropped tolerance while they were sober and they start back at the same levels as when they were using and because of that OD. I'm pretty sure I saw that this was what happened with Hoffman.

<comment><USER14> One reason for overdose is that dealers increase the potency of their product by cutting it with Fentanyl, and other synthetic opioids.

These opiates, while easy to produce in a lab, are active in very small amounts (at the microgram level.)

As a result, if a batch of heroin isn't fully mixed, you end up with "hot spots" in some doses, where the fentanyl content is high enough to kill you.

This is how one of the first young women I met at university died. We grew apart, and one day she stopped responding to my text messages. A few days later I found out via Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So you can't buy effective decongestant or other medicine that isn't spiked with caffeine or painkillers because you might try and turn it into a meager amount of a controlled substance, or more likely burn yourself in the process.

But nobody is monitoring when a doctor prescribes tons of opioids. Prescribing something seems like a privilege granted by the state, so clearly it should be the DEA monitoring this, but apparently this article is more keen to blame the salespeople at the manufacturer?!

<comment><USER16> > But nobody is monitoring when a doctor prescribes tons of opioids. > Prescribing something seems like a privilege granted by the state, so > clearly it should be the DEA monitoring this, but apparently this article is > more keen to blame the salespeople at the manufacturer?!

That's exactly what the article describes, though. I feel like you didn't read it. They detail, at length, a system for keeping track of doctors and pharmacies who over-prescribe and over-order Oxycontin.

<comment><USER17> And then proceed to do nearly nothing with that information other than in one or two of the most egregious instances "reducing supply" and "instructing sales people that they shouldn't promote Oxy".

It's almost like they did the bare minimum, enough to have some plausible deniability, but not enough to actually be responsible. Oh, and then only after they knew the doctors were out of business (read "already arrested, charged, sent to trial") did they belatedly say "oh hey, you might want to look at them".

When it would do nothing to harm profit, but so no-one could say "you did nothing".

<comment><USER16> Oh, I totally agree. That's the real shocker in the article, that they had the information necessary to stop a lot of this _years_ ago. I was just pointing out that the above's comment seems to have missed the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's a heroin shooting gallery here staffed by nurses and it proves keeping narcotics illegal is a complete farce. Out front at any given time of the day is a row of dealers openly selling junk to the junkies. Once in a while a new group of dealers will try to violently jack this lucrative business by causing a massive street gang war where countless people end up shot in the crossfire. Should just sell and distribute the drugs legally.

<comment><USER4> I hear this argument a lot in young liberal circles, can't wrap my head around it. In particular given how much well deserved flak the tobacco industry has gotten, industry also driven by addiction. Drugs are addictive, messing up people's rewards path and inducing self-destructive and asocial behavior. Priorities are:

1\. Keep as many innocent people as possible away from drugs.

2\. Help as many junkies recover as possible.

3\. Fuck the dealers.

Legalizing drugs seems to reduce the risk for dealers, now having their posh addiction-driven business at the mall, while increasing the availability of drugs for the untainted population and for the junkies. Are we really that concerned by dealer's quality of life that we willing to tradeoff the lives of our neighbors, friends or even family?

<comment><USER19> > Legalizing drugs seems to reduce the risk for dealers, now having their posh > addiction-driven business at the mall

The margins on legal good are a whole lot less than illegal ones. You'd be putting most dealers out of business overnight by legalizing.

<comment><USER20> I've heard this argument, and it makes sense -- medical morphine costs basically nothing compared to street heroin or oxycontin, so it seems like switching to legal supply of drugs could basically delete the profitability of the trade. Instead of a criminal gang making ~$75 from the sale of an oxy pill, some pharmacy makes $1-2 and society makes some taxes we can use to fund rehabilitation programs.

Question, though -- why does legal pot cost the same as illegal pot used to in places like WA? It seems there is still a large amount of profit to be made from growing and selling pot, although I guess (pretty much by definition) that money is no longer going towards criminal enterprise. Is it just high taxes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is pretty disgusting. The lack of accountability is especially troubling.

For a long time, I believed that we're better off legalizing all drugs and making them available to anyone who wants to buy them. But I've had a change of heart recently.

People simply aren't in control of themselves when they're addicted to these substances. The crooked doctors, the pain clinics, and all the complicit organizations in the supply chain profit, while millions of people lose their human agency to a chemical that alters their mind and transforms them into irrational drug addicts. It is very difficult for them to recover, and very easy to relapse. It is a human tragedy of enormous proportions. It tears apart families, ruins childhoods, and creates poverty. And at its worst, it takes lives.

We have to take care of our people.

<comment><USER22> The key thing to remember when you allow your empathy to command your thinking is that your drug war didn't prevent this. Everything in this story is about illegal activity; all of this is already illegal, as is the importation, manufacture, distribution and abuse of a litany of other drugs that are also still imported, manufactured, distributed and abused by people that can't "control themselves."

So all your drug war has accomplished is to compound the abuse problem with a horrible criminal underclass, a vast and militant law enforcement regime to contend with it and an insidious corruption of people and institutions throughout our society. Despite all of this real damage your drug war doesn't actually save people; millions have been killed through drug abuse and millions are addicted today despite your drug war and the huge amounts of treasure spent to wage it.

Is it conceivably possible to conduct your drug war so vigorously that it actually stops the bulk of this criminal activity and actually saves people from abuse? Yes. It is possible. You're going to need a GULAG system and a near total elimination of your civil rights because you will need to inflict enough misery and suffering on a large enough fraction of the population to generate sufficient fear to make the rest comply. The trade of valuable, easily concealable products in a liberal market economy is impossible to stop without such measures, which is why your drug war will never work, no matter how badly you feel about the tragedy of abusers.

So please, reassert your rational mind; your drug war is doing more harm than good.

<comment><USER21> You make a very fair point.

The drug war _has_ been a total disaster. It's thrown much of Latin America into chaos, with their governments unable to contend with the sophistication and brutality of drug cartels that rake in billions from the most lucrative drug market in the world, the United States. It's also a massive source of revenue for the criminal gangs that plague our cities within our country.

The laughable propaganda from the government has also totally undermined important anti-drug messages. The ridiculous claims about the dangers of weed, for example. The reefer madness stuff. The DEA's insistence on keeping weed Schedule I. It's actually given rise to an equally ridiculous myth: that weed is totally harmless. But more importantly, it's undermined the message against harder drugs. If the government is lying about weed and shrooms, then people will think they're lying about other drugs as well.

If we don't win the cultural battle against drug use being acceptable, then all is lost. You're right that no amount of law enforcement can change that in a liberal democracy. But assuming that battle can be won, this is what I think needs to happen on the legal and military end:

I say legalize weed and other drugs with lower abuse potential; this will immediately destroy the largest segment of the illegal drug market. For hard drugs, stop _imprisoning_ people for possession. Withhold the first arrest for simple possession from the public record, so it doesn't show up on background checks and destroy people's ability to get a job. This will create the public support for what must come next: come down like an iron fist on the weakened organized crime groups that have lost their largest source of revenue. Exploit internal strife caused by dwindling revenues, turn some people into informants, and then put away the rest for a very long time.

The second biggest drug market is cocaine. Almost all of it comes from Colombia. Once the current peace process falls through or fails to stick, the US needs to help Colombia finish off the FARC completely. Unconditional surrender should be the only acceptable outcome. A complete commitment to ending mass coca production in Colombia should then be a condition of their friendly standing with the United States.

<comment><USER22> To what degree has legal alcohol offset the abuse of more powerful drugs? I don't know. I doubt such a thing is credibly calculable. What I am certain of is that it isn't 'enough'; despite legal alcohol, abuse of many other drugs continues to thrive. I don't believe legal marijuana is going to provide a sufficient substitute for more powerful narcotics either.

Marijuana is easy to obtain and cheap almost everywhere in the US, and in some places it's even legal, yet people still abuse a panoply of other drugs. Here one may read a recent story about growing methamphetamine abuse in Colorado, a state that has had legal and extremely high quality marijuana for several years now:

[http://www.cpr.org/news/story/meth-use-colorado-has- police-a...](http://www.cpr.org/news/story/meth-use-colorado-has-police-and- outreach-groups-scrambling)

No, we need to accept the fact that some fraction of us are going to hurt ourselves, whether with liquor, stimulants, hallucinogens, etc., help them as we can, and stop self-inflicting the damage and costs of our doomed attempts to control things that are inherently uncontrollable in a free country.

I don't want any "iron fists" in our justice system on behalf of the "drug war." Those that would ruin themselves with legal drugs are a far smaller problem than the extreme violence, endemic corruption and law enforcement embiggening we've self-inflicted trying to save them from themselves.

I care. I have family members that I grew up with that have ruined their own lives with drugs. But I never forget that every one of them was born after we declared our "drug war" and it didn't do them one damn bit of good.

<comment><USER21> I'm not saying that legalizing weed will divert usage. I'm saying it will deal a severe blow to the finances and internal stability of these drug gangs and massively weaken them for the final blow. It's also not worth banning in the first place, the result of moral panic not rational analysis, and not to mention that it's a lost battle culturally.

Drugs will always be with us, but not like this. We can reverse the tide of destruction. There are entire communities being ravaged by the current heroin and prescription opiate epidemic. I refuse to accept that this is just the price of modernity. America wasn't like this before and it doesn't have to be like this in the future. We can build a better society for our children.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why do we allow people to make a profit selling habit-forming drugs? The system that protects Purdue's profits also creates this horrible incentive.

<comment><USER24> Do you have a way of treating severe pain (such as cancer pain or post- surgical pain) that is not habit-forming?

<comment><USER23> Maybe my comment wasn't clear; I think these drugs are fine, and I think drug- related patents are at least somewhat defensible as a way to fund R&D, but in this case they're really not working very well. There shouldn't be such a huge profit incentive to ruin people's lives like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> These people should be seen as heroes. They are fighting a corrupt, anti- liberty system. Laws that require official permission (papers please!) to buy and use medication. You can get anything you want, from meth to morphine, if you can afford enough medical consultants, or are deemed worthy. If not, or if some medical-related person deems you an addict, enjoy your pain.

Run PSAs, perhaps require a waiver before sale. But people are in pain (both mentally and physically) and opiates are by far the most effective treatment. (Sure, they don't work for everyone, etc. etc.)

This abstinence mindset is as harmful as it is in sex education.</comment>


Digg v1 is coming.. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/digg-v1-ahead-of-relaunch/ Now not only your old favorite movies get a reboot, your old favorite websites do too! <comment><USER2> > As for the voting system that was always at the heart of Digg, the new > owners say that users will continue to be able to vote on stories but that > the algorithm will also take Facebook shares and tweets into accounts > (that's actually a feature Digg planned for its v4 release before it > scrapped it before the launch). Votes on the site, the new team says, will > get priority but it sees shares on other social media sites as "important > signals" that will be "closely monitored" by a team of moderators.

Awesome, now you won't even have to sign up for Digg in order to game the system!

</comment><comment><USER3> Screenshots of the new design: <http://rethinkdigg.com/post/28338474438/v1-preview>

<comment><USER4> You can kind of see it live with the last shot. Here's the link: <http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7s2vzagcl1qgtzil.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I prefer to just call this Digg v5.</comment>


Second earthquake in two days wakes up Bay Area - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/second-earthquake-in-two-days-wakes-up-bay-area/ar-BBSnfoI?OCID=ansmsnnews11 <comment><USER2> LOL, a 3.4 "earthquake".</comment>


The Midwest Approach - Lessons from the CEO of Answers.com - <AUTHOR> http://dylanized.com/the-midwest-approach/

<comment><USER2> I think people tend to get caught up in the hype and fluff of the Bay Area startup scene and worry more about vanity metrics, raising money for "big ideas", and all the bullshit that surrounds our industry. I think ultimately those will be the contributing factors in the demise of SV. There's a lot to be said for the "Midwest approach" (fyi, I am from Indiana originally, now working in SF). 37Signals is the embodiment of what this article calls the midwest way. Bootstrap, focus on profitability, be humble. I get tired of listening to everyone out here talk about raising huge amounts of money for web apps that require huge userbases to monetize or about changing the world with their iPhone apps. It's all bs. Too many people out here, as I like to say, are the type of people who love to smell their own farts. I'd like to see more people work on the "Midwest approach".

<comment><USER3> Having done my time in the Valley, I am now almost allergic to bs-spewing self promotors who are always "killing" whatever "it" is that constitutes their latest pivot. These people are the cockroaches of the Valley, and they especially stick out like a sore thumb when they wash out and move to the midwest.

<comment><USER2> Midwest startup meetups started to be flooded with business guys with an app idea looking for a tech guy to build it for 5% equity and no cash... I hate to use stupid teenage acronyms, but "smh" is appropriate here.

<comment><USER3> At least their subtly isn't outpaced by their guile. Easy enough to steer clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I think this is a great approach to startups and business in general, I also think that Answers.com as a business is quite sad. Any website that makes their money by using more than a quarter of their screen space for advertising I consider to be the scummy salesmen of the internet. Sure, it might end up giving you what you're looking for if you're lucky. But you also get bombarded with much more than you were originally asking for.

<comment><USER5> Do you consider google one of the scummy salesmen of the internet?

<comment><USER4> Not at all. Google's ads are very reasonable, especially in comparison to Answers.com. Google's ads are also clearly ads. Answers.com likes to mix ads with content in the middle of the page.

<comment><USER6> Hi James, [http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp- content/seloads/2012/01/...](http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp- content/seloads/2012/01/ads-on-google-600x517.png) [http://www.torymcbroom.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/01/google...](http://www.torymcbroom.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/01/google-search.png)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4476508>

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it has gotten worse over the years. I suppose in most cases they do probably make up more than 25% of the total page, and easily if you count just above the fold. And yet, for me anyways, they aren't near as obnoxious as the ads on Answers.com and other sites that put banner ads on every corner of the page, and insert text ads between every paragraph. So, I don't know. Maybe it's more than just how much real estate you use, but I think my original point still stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I live in Chicago and I can tell you for a fact that what he describes really is the The Midwest Approach (though I like to call it the Chicago Style because I love this city way too much). We say "show me the money" before all else. We don't get users first and monetize later. We monetize first and stay in business forever.

<comment><USER8> As a Missouri resident, I am going to call dibs on a blog post title of "'Show Me' the Money" :-)

But more seriously, the lack of vision by some investors into the potential of a new idea can be frustrating. However, the expectation of discipline to grow a robust business is an attractive trait of many of the same investors. More base hits than home runs can be a better investment strategy.

<comment><USER7> Right on. I like your Moneyball mentality (your last sentence reminded me of it).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A cute myth by the new CEO. Answers.com was founded in Israel (though by American immigrants) by Bob Rosenschein who was from Pittsburgh.

Until it's purchase, the core operations were in Israel. Answers.com was later sold and moved to the Midwest.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really a myth. David shared how the company started as comparison shopping engine and later bought the Answers.com site. He also talked about their attempts to buy About.com over the last few months.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Synth.fm - <AUTHOR> http://www.synth.fm/

<comment><USER2> Very nice!

Any plans to include alternative drum kits and synth sounds?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :) Yes definitely plan to add more drum kits. Synth sounds are open to everyone really, just whatever people can create!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So cool! I'd love to have an option to download the creations. Amazing demo songs as well, you definitely have a talent!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! There is an export to WAV option for Pro users (accessible from the Loop menu top right of the code). The first 50 signups get a free Pro account, so you can access this now if you register ;)

<comment><USER3> Didn't realize it was hidden! You might want to make it more pronounced, I spent quite a while hunting (even with your directions) and almost gave up.

Great job again!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah there's quite a lot hidden behind the menus just to try to keep the interface uncluttered. Working on a full help section at the moment which will explain how everything works, and where everything is. That should hopefully make things clearer! Thanks for the feedback :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the source posted anywhere? I'm also interested in making live-generated music and it'd be cool to see.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not at the moment, would like to open source the code eventually tho

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My ears are having an orgasm. Demo song 3.

</comment><comment><USER6> registered. this is super cool.</comment>


Why Isn't Functional Programming the Norm? [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyJZzq0v7Z4 <comment><USER2> Good presenter. Critique: I think an awful lot of the time and energy is spend analyzing the market type reasons for each language being popular. But by the time we get to supporting a thesis that OOP is less relevant, or not central, to things like C++ and Java, not enough time and energy to really bring it home. And I'm not sure I'm convinced, although it is an excellent theory.

Here's what I think: The dichotomy exposed in essays like [https://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming- sheep-f...](https://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-from- non-programming-goats/) and The Camel has Two Humps: [http://eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/paper1.pdf](http://eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/paper1.pdf), is real. I see it every day.

I think there is another dichotomy. Many people who can code, can think the way needed to write software (not just fumbling and guessing), and can understand a structural and procedural way of thinking. But a large proportion just cannot understand functional programming. "Poof!". I don't think it's education. I think it's a lack of a particular and obscure innate mathematical ability. And I don't think it's a defect either.

Peoples brains are wired different. Visual vs. verbal. Well FP, certain types of math (say number theory), temporal thinking (threads, race conditions, liveness proofs), are very different kinds of thinking than the basic "recipe- like" procedural coding.

So FP isn't the norm because out of 100 people, perhaps 5 can program. Out of that 5, perhaps 1 really "gets" FP. Maybe one more can force it and get it done.

My experience is watching co-workers try to maintain and manage a simple tool written in a functional language. It made perfect sense to me, but it was a disaster. Folks, some things that are easy-ish for you are just not easy for others. It's not "smart" vs "not-smart". Understand, not everyone is wired up the same way.

And the ability to really get FP is one of those things that is neither easy nor common.

<comment><AUTHOR> In case you didn't see it, this video was re-submitted and a much longer discussion thread ensued:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280429](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21280429)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Behind the scene videos about the design process of VR-OS prototype - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFGweUpAs8I&list=PLe6foHAz-BSagHn80Hq7hcWLNF7b_M5Sd&index=4 <comment><AUTHOR> Since releasing the "demo" video of my VR desktop operating system prototype, I've been spending some time diving deep into some of the design decisions and technical challenges along the way. It's been great capturing this on video to make sure the thinking doesn't get lost over time. Maybe this will be an interesting look at the process of making up a new interface for some here.</comment>


Stretching, Executing, Coasting – and Pacing to Avoid Burnout - <AUTHOR> https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/stretching-executing-coasting/ <comment><USER2> The key difference here (well _a_ key difference) is the coaching. Having a 3rd party who isn't your boss (the competition) or you who looks out for your longer term health and ability is _incredibly_ valuable.

In software, I guess we call that a mentor? But a mentor is much less involved, day-to-day, than a coach is, so I'm not sure the metaphor translates. Could a great (not just good) boss play that role?</comment>


Build your professional profile in a social context - <AUTHOR> http://youcv.com

<comment><USER2> Assuming this is yours and you'd like feedback I have some first thoughts from that page....

Sounds like linkedIn, I never found a use for linkedIn

"youcv helps you to gain visibility in a professional, global and socially connected world" How?

Your about page just takes me to facebook. The link looks like it should take me to a specific facebook page, but it doesn't work, I just end up on my own feed.

A personal thing, but I don't hit sign-ups without more info, especially when they seem to be using FB as the auth method. Is this yet another facebook app?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback, very useful and appreciated</comment></comment>