The forces that drove this election's media failure are likely to get worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/11/the-forces-that-drove-this-elections-media-failure-are-likely-to-get-worse <comment><USER2> Just thought I'd share a tidbit that I haven't been able to elsewhere. I work for a large market research firm that does polls for a large news network. On Sunday, we ran a poll for them that put Trump at 8 points ahead. They decided against publishing it.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for sharing. From my two months of non-professional research, it looked like Trump was going to win by a big margin. The major media outlets were looking outright deceptive from my perspective.

<comment><USER4> pcunite - we've discussed in another thread, but the election was actually quite close. HRC had more of the popular vote, and a 1% shift from Trump to Clinton would have resulted in her victory.

Here's an excellent analysis from five-thirty-eight: [http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a- difference-2-perc...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a- difference-2-percentage-points-makes/)

<comment><USER5> Sure, but the polls being published and "marketed" had her with an insurmountable lead. Silver had her at 70% and that was generous to Trump compared to many. This isn't about the polls being wrong because the race was tight. Many misrepresented likely turnout (because many are incompetent and thought the 2016 electorate was going to be the 2012 electorate) and the media pumped up those same HRC favorable polls while the pundits attacked the validity of what turned out to be better polls (LA Times). It sure looked like a propaganda machine to me, but I'm just one of those deplorables.

<comment><USER6> Some honest questions: Do you think it's worth polling at all? Do you think it's possible they made honest mistakes in their models? If you're voting in the election, you're going to have an opinion. Is it possible to work on polling honestly while being an eligible voter?

Personally, I think polling is worthwhile. I think it's possible they made honest (and sometimes incompetent, but not malicious) mistakes, and acknowledge that attempting to predict the outcome of a future event is inherently difficult. I think it is possible to do honest work while still voting.

<comment><USER5> Polls are useful for the campaign as part of media optimization and field strategy. In terms of value to the electorate, I think polls are anti-value: they are presented to generate response, be it entertainment or motivation. The electorate needs to held accountable for turnout, not tricked into it. I don't believe in requiring voting, but I despise the methods used to GOTV. Either you possess civic engagement or you don't

<comment><USER6> The connection you make between polls and GOTV is interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way. So, as I understand it, the campaign is the candidate and the people working to get the candidate elected. The campaign can legitimately use polls to decide where to allocate resources (e.g., money for ad buys, themes for ads, on-the-ground person-to-person outreach). However, it's not legitimate for a campaign to publicize the poll numbers, as voters should be motivated by the campaign's message rather than by fear of being behind in the polls.

Is this a fair representation of what you're saying? I don't feel I've captured it quite right, as I can't figure out how to tie in the entertainment aspect of polls. Also, I'm not happy with my choice of the word "fear" as the driving aspect of motivation.

Acknowledging that I may not have captured your argument correctly, I'm going to move forward, fully willing to abandon it if it ends up relying on parts that I've misunderstood.

For one, I'm not sure where to draw the line of who is involved in a campaign, and therefore who should know about poll results. There are people who are paid to work on the campaign, so it seems clear they are part of the campaign. And there are people who spend a lot of time volunteering, so I think it's fair to consider them as part of the campaign. There are people who volunteer less, for example donating a few evenings working for phone banks, or perhaps working in IT or data management, or working on the polls themselves. Then there are people who aren't directly working for the campaign, but are passionate about their candidate (or perhaps passionately opposed to another), and either work on their own or self-organize. Maybe the line is that only people who are involved in decisions that require polling data should know the results? What justifies "needs to know"?

Another question I have is about GOTV in general. The numbers I've seen show that over 40% of eligible voters didn't vote in the 2016 election. I think we agree that more people should vote. Some GOTV methods I've seen are general, non-partisan "Please vote" campaigns. Partisan ads often include admonishments to vote. There are also programs to help people get to the polls (for example, rides). Some of these are non-partisan, some partisan. Are these legitimate GOTV efforts? If the electorate is to be accountable for turnout, what other methods can they use? Should partisan ride-providing efforts have access to poll data to best allocate their resources? How about non-partisan groups, as polls may show which areas are expected to have lower turnout?

As I said, I've responded to what I interpreted as your position before confirming that my interpretation is correct. I've done this in the interest of expediency, not to build a straw man. So please let me know how my interpretation can be improved if it's not correct.

Thanks!

<comment><USER5> Thoughtful and great questions. I think you probably have a bias (I do too), but I appreciate your framing of the problem and I want to give you a reply that does your questions justice.

So...

Internal polls are not generally released. Nor are they shared to PACs. This is one benefit of public polling. It helps coordinate between the campaign and the PAC side.

Re entertainment, I think watching polls is as entertaining as watching any sport for a lot of people. (I think that is pretty obvious actually - just my observation, though I worked with people in the political consulting industry, so perhaps my circle is wonkier than most).

Now, the big crux and where we will disagree... People should vote because they are civicly minded and want to participate in the process. That requires education and sophistication, which is something both side lack en masse. The only thing worse than people not voting, IMO, are dumb people voting for the wrong reasons. The latter is mob rule and is why we're where we're at. Stupid is a bipartisan quality.

As for access to voting, I think we could benefit from electronic or more mail-in. I don't want to suppress the right to vote; I just don't want to see sides manipulate the idiots of the electorate into voting. If you ever see how a GOTV strategy is put together, they look for people who are "persuadable", which is just another way of saying dumb. (Those analysts will admit it too if you put enough drink in their belly)

<comment><USER6> Ah. For some reason I had it in my mind that you thought that there shouldn't be public polling. That was incorrect. That's not the case, is it?

I completely agree that people should vote because they're civically minded and want to participate, and ideally make their decisions based on a well- educated understanding of the issues (and all they entail). What does this mean practically? What level of education is adequate? What are the wrong reasons? Single-issue voting? Being inspired by a leader? We're human, not perfectly (nearly?) rational, imperfect in general. What level of sophistication is necessary? I'm asking these questions of myself as much as of you.

I have similar questions when it comes to persuasion. One person's education is another's persuasion is yet another's malicious manipulation. How do we convince people to be civically minded without persuading them that it's the right thing to do? What's the distinction between appealing to people who are likely to be amenable to your position and looking for those that are persuadable? How do you educate people who are, as you put it, "dumb"?

Like I said earlier, these are questions I pose to myself as well. I'm asking here because I want to get other's opinions. Thanks again for taking the time to consider them. Discourse can be an important part of reaching understanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't understand how thick headed the mainstream media (MSM) seems to be in not getting it. This "upset" win of Trump (upset in the sense that it didn't play by the MSM's wishes) was not an isolated incident - it's happened in India (2014), it happened in UK (Brexit), and it has been repeated in the US.

The fundamental driver for all three instances has been the removal of all filters on social media. The problem was that for too long the MSM used their power to filter content to its readers/viewers, and the filter was tuned by a group that wanted to script reality in a form that they wished to see come to fruition, even if their stand was hypocritical.

So for example, you'd see a huge hue and cry in the MSM about how freedom of expression was being harmed because a right wing outfit threatened someone for speaking out against a majority religion, and yet, when someone spoke out against Islam, and Islamic groups placed a bounty on his head, the same MSM would just go silent. It is this blatant hypocrisy that finally got them.

And now, with social media, for the first time people have access to unfiltered news and can form their own opinions. And for better or worse, the hypocrisy of the MSM is glaringly obvious for people who have access to multiple viewpoints on an incident - not just a filtered viewpoint. With the hypocrisy bare, it's basically been a revolt against the established media.

And unless the established media takes it upon themselves to be more honest in whatever stand they take, this is going to repeat, because, people aren't fools you know.

<comment><USER8> Established media is obsolete.

Old media model: a couple thousand Harvard graduates produce and filter the content for billions of people (English speaking world) by monopoly control on the 2-3 television channels, 4-5 major newspapers/zines.

New media model: a media consumer can read the opinions and thoughts of 1000s of other people across the globe, and participate in the formulation of their own opinions, and receive feedback from others.

The one-to-many top-down elitist control of opinion formation and transfer is dead. For better or for worse. Probably better. Especially when it appears to be the case that the main opinion media elitists care about is that people acknowledge them as elite..

The only criticism of the new media model I've seen is the filter bubble, but I feel that is overblown.

<comment><USER9> The real filter bubble is not one that's imposed by Facebook, but one that's imposed by an individual.

That is, people join subreddits or Tumblr groups and they filter out opposing views. Then they approach the "center" of that group, which itself is way outside mainstream.

Eventually, they self-impose a sort of filter that limits the access to moderating opinions.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. This isnt new either. I remember back in high school, my friends and I would sit around in a circle, in meat space.

"War is wrong"

And we would go around the circle: "yup", "absolutely", etc

"Some other liberal talking point"

yup, of course, so true....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> >> Huffington Post told its readers Clinton had a 98 percent chance of being elected;

>> build a better environment for news

I agree. They can start by not telling me what to think. Focus on reporting. I got so sick of the media putting spin on what Hillary thinks (they know what she thinks?) or what someone else was saying about Donald trump (without vetting) from _30 years ago_ and on and on.

I have stopped believing them. The news agencies are opinion shows as far as I'm concerned. They are propaganda, bought and paid for by interests that are not American.

</comment><comment><USER11> I take this post as an example of the media looking for anyone to blame, except themselves. The closest that the post comes to a mea culpa is this:

> And of those who [sought information in journalism], not enough of them > trusted it to inform their political decisions.

Of course they didn't. We know, for instance, that media after the Gulf War will not allow pictures that show war as anything but spotless. We know that, for every single topic, they'll present a stupid counterpoint and claim that a 50/50 balance is needed, even if the counterbalance is nonsense. They barely call people out on their (obvious, documented) lies. And don't get me started on sponsored content.

I think people turned to Facebook news because, ultimately, they trust their friends and relatives more than the media. And why shouldn't they? The media has done everything in their power to shape public discourse as they see fit, and now they are surprised that people don't trust them anymore.

</comment><comment><USER12> I can't really see Facebook censoring, fact-checking, or otherwise adjusting their algorithms to expose people to opposing views in any significant way. They're the McDonalds of the internet. Their entire business model depends on satisfying the addictive cravings of their users. It would be like McDonalds discontinuing fries and replacing them with kale and tofu bites.

<comment><USER13> Better off using the trending now to support a pro/con opinion fact checked section.

Spend some of that money to support a newsroom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The main bubble that burst was that of the people who thought trump was a joke, no?

Are fed up people really the medias failure? Bernie Sanders also had surprising support for similar reasons to Trump: they both where going against the system.

Just for some discussion: maybe the classic media finally lost control and people regained some freedom of choice? Every big media house was against trump and he still won.

And let's not forget that a lot of people really had to jump their shadow to vote for Hillary as the lesser evil.

<comment><USER14> That being said: fact avoiding filter bubbles are still scary as fuck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> _I know that getting Mark Zuckerberg to care about the problem is absolutely key to the health of our information ecosystem._

Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying it's "crazy" to think that fake news on FB could have influenced the election. OP says that a fake news story about the Pope endorsing Trump got 868,000 shares on FB. Something doesn't add up here.

[http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/10/technology/facebook-mark- zuc...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/10/technology/facebook-mark-zuckerberg- fake-news/)

<comment><USER16> God, what an insane deflection on his part. If Facebook can't manipulate people's behavior, why should advertisers pay them?

<comment><USER17> Heh, you've got a point, but simple brand recognition, or even making me aware of a product could be sufficient (I don't exactly buy into _The Hidden Persuaders_ thesis, read about half of it back in the '70s and ... wasn't persuaded ^_^).

How many "X company is shutting down" HN items have you seen where you've never heard of the company in the first place?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I the forces that drove this election's media failure centre almost entirely around the problems with polling data, not a inherent problem with journalism.

The journalists were working with the best data that they had available. If a journalist is told that there is only a small chance of a candidate being elected, it is not surprising that they don't necessarily take his chances seriously.

Credit to 538 though, for putting Clinton's chances sub-70% in the final week (returning to to 70% on the final day) and for repeatedly warning of the lack of certainty given the lack of good quality polls.

<comment><USER19> I disagree. The problem was that all journalists (Fox News included) used the polling as an excuse to not actually get out and do journalism. Polls should have been but one input. Instead, because most polls said what all of them wanted to believe, the effects of anchoring and confirmation biases were amplified. Anything to the contrary was dismissed as nonsense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In the old days our echo chambers were defined by geographical constraints, and by the society we kept. Our misinformation came from one or a handful of media sources.

Now we have thousands of sources of misinformation to choose from, and our echo chambers have taken on new life online.

But then, as now, the truth is like poetry. And people fucking hate poetry.

It can seem like we're living in an idiocracy, but the average person hasn't gotten any stupider. The world has become too complex for anyone to understand.

<comment><USER10> "The world has become too complex for anyone to understand"

This is why I am excited to see free college tuition enter the debate. What I would love though is two extra mandatory years of high school. Teach government(so people dont think the president is a dictator), law(so people dont get taken advantage of), teach more about other cultures(so people can find out what they have in common, hopefully breaking the echo chamber), teach logic and rhetoric, and some more computer skills, maybe a basic programming class.

While I agree the world is too complex for any one person to understand everything(hence the specialization of labor). I do believe we can do better though, all is not lost :)

<comment><USER21> I'd prefer that more efficient use was made of the four years of high school they've already got people locked in for. Everything listed could be done, in addition to what (little) is already learned in those four years. It might be necessary to reform teachers unions to shake out the deadwood and find budget to double salaries, to raise the average level in the talent pool though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Made a pro Trump post here once. It got down voted into oblivion. Not on Facebook anymore, but when I was my aunt defriended me over politics. What this author doesn't understand is that the right isn't in an echo chamber. We're very much aware of left wing media and are exposed to it all the time. It's just lost all its persuasive power over us because it's founded on straw men. Now the answer presented is basically to justify political censorship under the guise of fact checking? Good to know that the left has learned nothing. Get ready to keep on losing.

<comment><USER23> Yes, keep making insulting sweeping statements and demonizing the other side. After all, that's worked so well for everybody involved.

God, this election really has brought out the worst in people. I'm sorry for your Aunt.

<comment><USER24> Not you though, you're a ray of sunshine way up there on your pedestal.

<comment><USER23> GP edited their post since I replied to make it less arrogant. Maybe you should edit yours too.

Edit: Oh and I'm sick of being denounced as a moderate. Seriously, the highlight of the entire election has been attacks and demonization on the other side. Fuck me for trying to point out shitty behaviour, right?

<comment><USER24> My original comment is appropriate. The fact you feel it's appropriate to comment on his relationship with a family member and say you're sorry for his Aunt and then pass judgement about the general public's behaviour during an election is quite arrogant.

<comment><USER23> What on earth is arrogant about passing judgement on the pathetic average behaviour of the american public during this election?

<comment><USER24> No one nominated you the judge of good behaviour, just yourself. Thus, you are the dictionary definition of arrogant.

<comment><USER23> I don't think there's anything I regret more the past month than engaging with you. Here I am complaining about demonization, and here you are focusing so hard on attacking me.

Since you're such a fan, there's an email on my profile; feel free to send all your personality feedback and concerns there.

<comment><USER24> Bit dramatic, im sure there are plenty more things you regret doing this month. I enjoyed our conversation and Im glad you learned a thing or 2 about being humble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The last 30 years have seen a distinct change in economic policies that rewards the privileged and leave others struggling in the name of efficiency and capitalism.

Yet when things go southward and things like the banking crisis happens these principles are swiftly jettisoned and privileged interests indiscriminately bailed out with the media and 'experts' stepping in to gloss over the rank hypocrisy.

The poor are harassed and incarcerated for every small trangression while the rich and connected like the bankers, Shrekeli, Holmes routinely get way with fraud and worse.

These inconsistences are not forgotten. All that economic power is then inevitably used in a self serving way to further increase their own share of rewards like quasi feudalism.

Wars are being fought to benefit financial interests that leave millions in other countries in disarray, billion dollar surveillance industries are built that fundamentally shift the balance of power from the people to the state.

HN itself is guilty of celebrating wealth and gloating over the irrelevance of people with automation and AI. Why the gloating? Where is the sensitivity to the impact of these technologies on society and the unprivileged. There is so much disrespect and general nastiness to people here who are not perceived to be successful with no notion of adversity or privilege. This kind of disrespect and dehumanization is bound to rankle. Cmon these are your own people. What do you think these people are going to do? They will listen and vote in demagogues.

<comment><USER13> > economic policies that rewards the privileged

As shown as the cabinet is "old guard" republican ideology.

Regulations! Bad! ... etc.

<comment><USER25> I think people are fed up of the establishment and their apologists. People are fed up of this flawed narrative that apparently can't be controlled and only delivers more disparity and suffering to the unprivileged and more riches to the privileged. And this is some auto pilot that is beyond control?

People feeling powerless and craving control makes them susceptible to any demogogue. Anyone who can exploit this disenchantment will win, like Trump did. But Trump is establishment, his team reaching out to Dimon on day one makes a complete mockery of 'anti-establishment expectations from his supporters'.

<comment><USER17> _and his team reaching out to Dimon on day one makes a complete mockery of 'anti-establishment expectations from his supporters_

You don't suppose that might be a lie designed to sabotage him starting out the gates, or that Dimon's name somehow got on _a_ list but is going to be removed in the normal process?

You don't suppose there are factions fighting, through leaks in this case, was is often _the_ single most important battle in a US presidential election, for "people are policy"? Much of the awfulness of George W Bush's administration is from the people chosen for these positions, and that can be in part traced back to his lack of courage when Team Gore stopped/truncated his transition process by yelling about the election not being decided yet. (More is from Bush's weird loyalty patterns, e.g. he should have told Norman Mineta, "I'm sorry, but I need a war time Secretary of Transportation, and you were not selected with that criteria in mind" and replaced him immediately after 9/11.)

We will, of course see in due course, but it's a _little_ early to be so dispositive. Perhaps we can wait until we hear his nominations officially??

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Many always love to poo poo the idea that there is strong media bias to one side yet each election simply demonstrates it. Where is the correction? Where are those press people from the sixties and seventies that dogged all politicians regardless of party.

the problem is they operate in an echo chamber. they truly do think they are better than those they present the news too and therefor beyond criticism. this alone keeps them from acknowledging any criticism, whether deserved or not.

the press needs to keep the bias to the editorial pages. newspapers should not be endorsing candidates, instead they need to list the claimed views of candidates with their current and past actions. report, not distort

</comment><comment><USER27> I find it appalling that suddenly Hilary was portrayed as some kind of saviour by the media just because she is not as bad as Trump.

Well, sorry for believing that elections are about choosing the _good_ candidate, not voting against the _bad_ candidate.

If there is one single person to blame for these elections outcome, that person is Hilary Clinton, she put America and the World in danger when she used her grip on the DNC to push Bernie Sanders aside during the primaries, although it was clear that the people desperately wanted _change_. That was the key moment in these elections that got Donald Trump elected.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd love to see something that works to reverse this trend. Maybe some kind of option on facebook that allows you to modify the feed a bit, or some kind of demographic-based version of Omegle. Maybe a browser plugin that can learn about you (and the echo chamber you are in) and start suggesting things that are challenging to your world view.

<comment><USER29> The people that would most benefit from that plugin wouldn't be the ones to use it. If you are aware of your media bubble, you probably have the cognitive tools to do something about it.

If it isn't solved at the root, i.e. at the Facebook level, it won't be solved. However, since Facebook's commercial interests are aligned against it, I am pessimistic it will be solved. Maybe Facebook's successor can solve it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The problem with facebook is the SHARE button. If I want to read Fox news or Huggington Post, I'll go to those sites and read. If I want to watch Cat videos I'll go to YouTube myself. The problem is that it's way too easy for my "friends" on facebook to click to promote whatever stirs their interest. One would hope most of the content shared on facebook is user-generated, not user shared. But there is no money in that so they have simplified the process of sharing monetized crap to a single click.

<comment><USER21> There is some irony in condemning this use-case of Facebook on HackerNews, where user-shared content and comments about it are pretty much the entire _raison d 'etre_

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The media normalized mainstream expressions of hate, giving them hourly implicit approval and mainstream normalcy, because it was giving them ratings and ads.

Every historian I know sees frightening parallels between Trump and various fascist regime rises. Virtually no coverage of this.

If news is unable to provide historical context, apply moral judgement, or do any investigative journalism of the ample skeletons in Trump's closet, then they are truly a shell.

</comment><comment><USER32> As much as I find his persona to be ridiculously self aggrandizing and smug, Scott Adams made some pretty on point calls on this election, predicting Trump would win over a year ago. He's got some metaphorical construct he calls the "persuasion filter", with various notions about its components. [http://blog.dilbert.com](http://blog.dilbert.com)

He claims he recognized Trump as a "master persuader", which once he started running. I confess I didn't take it too seriously, but in his view "master persuaders" take advantage of various cognitive and emotional bias we have, often appealing to emotion.

In his view, when it comes to something like pursuading voters, appeals based on facts fail. Appeals based on tapping into the right emotions succeed.

Non of this theory is particularly novel, propaganda has been a major component of governing since time immemorial.

But he did hone in on Trumps ability to tap into these emotional motivational centers in a striking way.

I've been rather depressed about the election, with some passing moments of "maybe it won't be to bad."

Two days after, some of the shock has worn off. But I've never been quite so distressed by the outcome of an election. Which has prompted some self reflection: how much of my distress is based on the fact that my team lost, that Trump was successfully painted as a thug by Clinton campaign, who manipulated me similar to how Trump did his supporters?

I'm not sure how I'll see things tomorrow, next week, next year. But as of tonight, I think the root of my distress is that Trump abandoned all pretense of a fact base campaign. His lies were total, said with impunity, no sense of shame whatsoever.

He comes closest to a sort of "impressionistic truth" in his ability to intuit people's weak spots, their fear, their hypocrisy, their aspirations. Hence, he is a masterful bully, because his insults hone in on an emotional truth.

The downside to this ability, aside from the fact that he uses it to hurt others, is that he has no sense of irony, no insight to his own projection, no humility, and is easily baited. Small slights seem to rattle him almost more than big ones.

IMO, Hillary retains a strong comittment to living in a fact based reality. That's one reason she lacks political charisma. Her attempts to elide a challenging issue, to convince an unsympathetic audience, her pre-planned "zingers", her lies, are all so transparent, and she comes off as a phony, practicing on off putting brand of persuasion based around pandering, instead of convincing.

I think this is at least part of my alarm with what Trump has done, because there is simply no way to refute anything he says. He simply doesn't care. His, statements are often vague, lacking specifics, nouns, big on pronouns, verbs, and meaningless superlatives.

When I hear this kind of rhetoric, I tend to get an uneasy feeling. I'm very sensitive to arguments that don't make sense. I can feel it, and sometimes if I want to figure out what is wrong with the argument, I have to actively work through it.

I wasn't immune to the entertainment value of watching this master bomb thrower destroy his bewildered primary opponents . Especially because his technique undermines the skills of a professional politician. Once Trump pulled back the curtain on his opponents clunky rhetorical machinery, they were powerless to get it back.

So I liked it, because watching professional politicians do their professional politician speaking is freaking annoying. The art of political language is to not provide any "attack surface" to your opponents. Trump just bypassed all that, because he is hyper agressive, and cares about winning far more than about how he "looks."

Once that phase of the election was through, I found no appeal in Trumps meandering, stream of conscious boasting and hucksterism.

I guess I'm not the target audience. But watching people eat it up was disturbing, in light of the wildly inaccurate "facts" occasionally peperred in to his speeches. His campaign launched with a big one, characterizing most Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug addicts. I mean, that is demagoguery at its worst, shameful.

The sort of CW about what his supporters liked was that he "told it like it was!" To me, that indicates that that many of his supporters took his unabashed bullying as license to feel good about their own assholishness.

Political correctness gets a bad rap, but at its root it's an attempt to manage difficult social dynamics and power structures, and is intended to protect groups that have been abused and marginalized by a dominant mainstream.

If you give up on the intention of political correctness, which is to help excluded individuals and groups become part of the mainstream, you are indeed being racist, ableist, intolerant, etc...

Everybody has strains of intolerance and prejudice, we're all capable of hate, we're all filled with fears and biases. That doesn't make us "racist" in pejorative sense it's used.

What does make someone a "whateverist," is giving up trying to make marginalized groups part of the main stream, giving up the pretence to political correctness, of attempting to at least make the modicum of effort involved do demonstrate to an outsider that you are aware of their existence, and intend to create space for them. It depends on context. Making fun of someone or some group in private is different than in public.

So politically correct speech is disenguous, that's how it works. Trump flouts these current norms in public! On purpose! His followers se that as him telling it like it is, because he is! He's telling him about the inside parts of his psyche that are not nice, that don't care, that want to put others down. Since we all have these elements inside us to some degree, his listeners feel affirmed for the negative parts of their psyche.

Instead of having to take the uncomfortable steps involved in trying to overcome one's prejudices, of fighting against the negative aspects of the self, which are brought out when we have to try and get along with people different than ourself, Trump followers feel liberated to be their "true selves".

This type of socializing only works well in homogenious social groups. The social bonds in such groups are easily reinforced by designating another set of individuals as "other." Unfortunately, this type of scapegoating allows for socially sanctioned oppression and discrimination to occur.

A "demagogue" takes advantage of this psychology by helping define who is "in the group", "who is out", and normalizing these destructive, instinctual human behaviors.

There is a phenomena at play here in the "red state/blue state" divide that is ironic. Blue staters, being just as human as red staters, are not immune to practicing a similar form of socially sanctioned discrimination and denigration of their own "other": namely the red staters. This comes off as smugness, condescension, and is obvious to anyone on the receiving end of it. Hence, the awareness of this hypocrisy on the part of the blue stater, by the red stater, coupled with the a blue staters lack of insight of their own hypocrisy, or worse, the lack of attempt at even trying control and minimize their own "scapegoating" behavior, leads to an apparent moral equivalence of the two sides. The blue stater is taking advantage of the psychological balm of feeling superior to some one else.

The fact of the matter is that a Social Justice Warrior careening around, throwing bombs, and labeling people as racist can indeed be engaged in the same psychological Mia-behavior as a self-righteous born again Christian who justifies hating gays based on the bible.

If you have two, or more, groups of cultural rivals engaged in political battle, the fact that both sides engage in similar dysfunctional and antogonist behavior, doesn't mean that core ideas or issues that drive each group are morally equivalent, or equally true.

A simple example might be illustrated by the truckers who like to "roll coal" and deliberately thumb their nose at the insufferable goody two shoes environmental "activists" trying to impose their concept of "good behavior" on others.

In this case, I find it easy to empathize with the coal rollers, but that doesn't mean they are correct on what is needed to protect the environment.

This is a rather long winded response to the OP. The article is discussing the decreases power of the media to prevent group think from being reinforced by the filtering feedback loops of social media.

Trump has shown that for many voters, this is a quaint notion. In Trump they have found a leader who ignores facts in his rhetoric, and appeals purely on the level of emotions and psychological behaviors.

At core, this is what is so disturbing to me. Trumps indifference to facts, his exaltation of power and dominance will not lead to effective governing, and reflect almost a complete abdication of the responsibilities of a leader.

My guess is that motley crew of sociopathic right wing has-beens he has surrounding him will quickly move to take advantage of Trumps indifference to facts to exploit there positions in the new administration for their own ends.

Guliani, Gingrich, and Christie are the true "deplorable" here. Ruthless, amoral men with grudges to settle. These three have shown themselves to be completely indifferent to the needs of others. The lot of them have an appalling record of anti-social behavior. Unlike Trump, they they seem to operate in the fact based world. So when they lie, it's at a very conscious level, calculated to increase their own power. Just looking at their collective record of behavior in their personal lives shows they have no regard for anyone but themselves.

<comment><USER33> Any discussion of why Trump won and why Hillary lost has to acknowledge the fact that Hillary is genuinely corrupt and well known for taking large sacks of cash from Goldman Sachs, and a large segment of the voting population finds the idea of rewarding that kind of behavior with the presidency infuriating beyond all belief.

Is electing Trump instead stupid and spiteful? Yes, but it's completely understandable.

<comment><USER32> I'm not sure if you'll get this, but I did want to respond.

I agree there are valid criticisms to make of Hillary. My main concern is that she is so entrenched within the elite power structure, so captured, that her ability to steer US policy in better direction would be limited. If she could even perceive what that might be.

The bottom line is that money talks in the US. She needs money to run a campaign, and she wants to make money for herself, like most people.

She's friends with the elite, the Wall St. elite. Well, that's because she lives in the "real world", and the elite in US, both in position and income, hold disproportionate power.

These people are not all bad. They are citizens too. We all rely upon the complex, and fragile, economic system we live in. I don't have an issue with Hillary taking big bucks for speeches.

I listen to what she says, and what she has done. Some of it I agreed with, some of it I don't. That's life.

Hillary is not any more corrupt than her peers. Probably less, as I think she still has some integrity.

Obviously a large portion of the population hate her, so she lost. That doesn't mean she's corrupt. The right wing propaganda machine attacked her constantly. Considering how much she has been investigated, she's absurdly clean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> adam curtis' documentary "hypernormalization" also covers how we got here.

</comment><comment><USER35> I began believing trump had a legitimate shot to win the election over a year ago, when his candidacy was mainly taken as a joke. I noted to people who didn't believe me that the essential dishonesty of the media was a key element in what they assured me could not happen. Most assurances were driven by media-fed opinions I tried to warn them not to trust.

I also learned pretty early on that saying I believed he had a shot would anger people, and often lead to accusations of many, many PC sins such as racism on my part. This did not convince me I was wrong.

I have some measure of hope that people are going to learn the right lessons this time. People are still too deep in the grief process for me to judge it clearly, but hope is enough for now.

<comment><USER36> After seeing this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHkPadFK34o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHkPadFK34o) (posted on reddit), I really believe no one took Trump Presidency possibility seriously. Everyone believed their bubble. Now when their bubble burst, they are just blaming everyone else.

<comment><USER37> That video is what most of us were thinking, yes, but I now see that there were people who called it, they just couldn't say it loudly or repeatedly enough to be taken seriously because they would be shouted down and ostracized, exactly as happened in the video. The parent just said it. Scott Adams was working his persuasion theory (ok, he is one who wasn't afraid to say it loudly or repeatedly). There were others in quiet little corners of the internet who believed that Trump supporters existed en masse but had retreated into the woodwork and would come out to prove the polls wrong.

<comment><USER21> And Adams has taken a hit in the pocketbook for what he's pointed out, besides being branded as an out-to-lunch loon. Good for notoriety, I supposed, but not so much for the feel-good motivational speaking gigs that he used to rake in.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prenda Law Sues Critics For Defamation - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130303/23353022182/prenda-law-sues-critics-defamation.shtml

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's an Ars story for some further context: [http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2013/02/enraged-by-abusiv...](http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2013/02/enraged-by-abusive-lawsuits-anonymous-troll-slayers-are- fighting-back/)

And a little piece from someone who's being sued: [http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2013/03/04/copyright- trolls-...](http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2013/03/04/copyright-trolls- prenda-law-paul-duffy-and-john-steele-commence-three-lawsuits-v-paul-godfread- alan-cooper-and-our-community/)

Prenda Law is a bunch of copyright trolls who have strayed into behavior that is frankly insane. I have no assets. Come at me.</comment>


What's an effective way to learn a new programming language? - <AUTHOR> You've got a "9-5" job and a family waiting for you at home. There's probably 2-3 hours of freedom, how would you use that time to learn a new language? With the idea of switching career paths - going from PHP to Clojure/Scala. <comment><USER2> If you choose Clojure get

[https://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Programming-Practical-Lisp- Wo...](https://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Programming-Practical-Lisp- World/dp/1449394701/)

and

[https://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Cookbook-Recipes- Functional-P...](https://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Cookbook-Recipes-Functional- Programming/dp/1449366171/)

these two books are much better than the free documentation for learning how to "Think in Clojure". Expect to read them over and over again, maybe sitting on the bus, spinning at the gym, or any time you can.

Conceive of a cool demo that would get upvoted on HN, be put on your LinkedIn page, get talked about at an interview. Start with something small and scale up until it "clicks"

I would recommend Python as a practical language which I see customers asking for by name. Python has great libraries for making web sites and apps, as well as data analysis, graphing, "intelligent" applications involving machine learning, etc. Python lets you get the abstract syntax tree from the compiler and transform it, so LISP-style metaprogramming is convenient and mainstream.

I have been paid to write Scala and I do not think it is a better choice than Clojure, Python or even Java. C# is the best "better Java" at the moment, although Java is slowly catching up. If you want type systems and static metaprogramming that will blow your mind, learn the very latest in C++.

</comment><comment><USER3> Udemy has good classes in general. Not sure about scala. Wait until they're on sale for $10- $15 and then buy a few.

I watch them in 1.5x - 2x speed and slow down only when needed.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best methods of publicizing/marketing a new web app? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Ideally, you build an audience ahead of time, but establishing some authority and credibility in your field. Publish relevant, valuable content via G+, Facebook, Twitter, a blog, etc., and start building your audience. Then, when you want to publicize your startup, you have people waiting to hear about it, who will - hopefully - become fans and help spread the word further.

Also, by putting legitimately valuable content "out there" you are, in effect, doing what people call "content marketing". You want to draw eyeballs to your site/blog/whatever when people search for keywords related to what you are doing.

See, among other resources:

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

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

<http://www.startup-marketing.com/>

<http://hackermonthly.com/startup-marketing.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm wondering if some kind of startup advertising website exists, where people would submit their new startup, side project or app and place a small javascript snippet in their html which would automatically advertise other startups that are part of the advertising website. Similarly, your project would also be advertised on other people's projects who have also signed up.

Does something like that exist?

<comment><USER4> LinkExchange did that. It was a bit broader, though.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are lots of good resources online, here is one web marketing checklist: <http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/checklist/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Depends on the market/product.

</comment><comment><USER7> Post it to hackernews ;-)

</comment><comment><USER8> _Publicizing:_

1\. Post to Hacker News at a strategic time. Be receptive to all feedback and respond to any legitimate concerns.

2\. Contact tech reporters and news sources: TechCrunch, Mashable, TheNextWeb, etc. Politely but assertively give them a reason to write about your new product/service. Try to rehearse this pitch a lot.

3\. Offer a free demo to influential people. See: tech reporters, startup founders relevant to your industry, etc.

4\. Network with favors, not by being annoying. This is hopefully done _prior_ to launch, but in any case the basic gist is that you should aim for quality networking, not quantity. Stay in touch with influential people and help them. They'll help you in the future.

 _Marketing:_

1\. If you have money, go for a tightly moderated and exclusive marketing campaign like those offered by The Deck and similar services. These usually cater to the sort of audience you want and are much more successful for positive reception.

2\. Make a diverse marketing portfolio networked through other startups that need advertising revenue and through circuits that will likely hit the eyes of influential investors and VC's.

Of course, that's very general. Good luck!

<comment><USER9> > _"1. Post to Hacker News at a strategic time. Be receptive to all feedback > and respond to any legitimate concerns."_

Only if there is something likely to be relevant to HN'ers. A link to the landing page of "Facebook for Hedgehog Owners" is just spam. A link to a blog post about the struggles of founding "Facebook for Hedgehog Owners," is relevant.

That's not to say that links to landing pages are never relevant - e.g. the landing page for a Github project or the landing page of a programming tool are more likely to be directly relevant to HN's audience.

The general rule applies. If the content is good, and there's some luck, it will get noticed. If it's basically a press release, then HN probably will ignore it.</comment></comment>


Black Hat Talk About 'Time AI' Causes Uproar, Is Deleted by Conference - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xw9kp/black-hat-talk-about-time-ai-causes-uproar-is-deleted-by-conference <comment><USER2> This reminds me of a person who somehow managed an invitation to give a presentation at UC Berkeley on database compression in 1993, with similar levels of snake-oil. I remember one of the funnier moments, a theme of the presentation was how there were more and more large data sets out there, including the Library of Congress. In a burst of enthusiasm, the presenter gushed about how they even had a Stradivarius violin in their collection. I turned to my friend and said, "well, I can imagine how to do data compression on that, but the decompression is going to be hard."

The actual technology was just a variant of Lempel-Ziv, and the claims about lossless compression were just hiding the entropy by not counting a huge dictionary off to the side. Even so, there were claims that this result "extended information theory" and the patterns found could be the basis of learning.

The presenter had climbed in their regional market, and gotten a puff piece in a business magazine, but obviously the grad students at UC Berkeley weren't buying it. The presenter's startup didn't go anywhere, but they have had a successful career, and are now a VP at Gartner.

I guess the lesson is that there's a network that runs on technical expertise and ability to deliver results, and a parallel network that runs on bullshit and the ability to convince people. There's a lot of money and power in the second network, and it intersects with respected, established institutions. Grant seems to be playing that game masterfully, and the publicity from being publicly attacked at a "Black Hat" conference plays into his hands beautifully. Maybe Gartner will be hiring?

<comment><USER3> I read your comment up to the last paragraph and was going to comment about "VP at _Gartner_ " and how these consulting companies (and Accenture, Deloitte, etc) run on bullshit but your last paragraph sums it up perfectly.

I wonder what can be done to nuke these BS companies out of existence. Anyone has ideas?

<comment><USER4> I think you need to dial back the vitriol. Yes Ive seen these firms screw projects up royally (Accenture Hertz for example). Ive also seen them consistently deliver valuable insights and outcomes for their clients. Ive worked with utterly incompetent client staff (i.e. people not so dissimilar from you, maybe) and some very very good ones (also you maybe). At no point do I advocate nuking anything or anyone out of existence. Neither should you.

Signed,

A Consultant

<comment><USER3> I'm a consultant as well. I'm confident I can deliver (with a team of trusted contractors I personally know) most of what "Big Consulting" (aka the aforementioned companies) delivers (or fail to deliver) for less than half the price and still make a significant profit, or refer the client to someone who's more experienced in that area of business. The Hertz case is a prime example.

My post isn't a dig against consulting, it's a dig against "Big Consulting" where it's more about bluff, a big brand (to prey on the "nobody has been fired for choosing X"), lots of meetings & bullshit while the actual work gets outsourced to monkeys in third-world countries with atrocious working conditions.

I want to nuke "Big Consulting" out of existence to let _real_ consulting take its place for people like you and me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The company has issued a "statement regarding recent allegations made at Black Hat 2019 [0]. For anyone interested, the statement links to the guy's paper [1] "where he identified the first Infinite Prime Number prediction pattern".

> _Utilizing multi-dimensional encryption technology, including time, music's > infinite variability, artificial intelligence, and most notably mathematical > constancies to generate entangled key pairs, ..._

I'm not even remotely qualified to speak about any of it but it certainly gives the feeling that they're selling "silicon snake oil". My bullshit detector hit 11 after reading the above.

Supposedly, Grant's discovery enables "the accurate prediction of prime numbers". I'm unable to find out just how many previously unknown prime numbers he has successfully predicted thus far, however. Anyone know?

[0]: [https://www.crownsterling.io/2019/08/crown-sterling- issues-s...](https://www.crownsterling.io/2019/08/crown-sterling-issues- statement-regarding-recent-allegations-made-at-black-hat-2019/)

[1]: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.08570](https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.08570)

<comment><USER6> How much does your bullshit detector hit with their promo video?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_2HwAmge8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_2HwAmge8)

<comment><USER7> That video is amazing.

The conference is really playing into Time AIs game by censoring it. Underlying the story that this new technology is just too big and too groundbreaking for the industry to accept :-D

<comment><USER8> A conference not accepting a talk is not censorship.

<comment><USER9> The conference accepted the talk. They gave the talk. The conference is now removing their videos after-the-fact. It's not hard to see how one could spin that as censorship.

<comment><USER10> The conference did _not_ accept the talk, they paid the conference so that they could give the talk.

<comment><USER11> Which they accepted, no?

<comment><USER12> They don't vet the paid presentations.

<comment><USER11> Really? Wow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's an article from PC Mag with a few more details:

[https://www.pcmag.com/news/370119/black-hat-attendees- sponso...](https://www.pcmag.com/news/370119/black-hat-attendees-sponsored- session-was-snake-oil-crypto)

Here's a video of Robert Grant giving an introduction to his Time AI nonsense from their party the night before:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/llp24loq5odvyhk/Crown%20Sterling%2...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/llp24loq5odvyhk/Crown%20Sterling%20CEO%20-%20BH%2008.07.19.mov?dl=0)

JP Aumasson live tweeted their presentation at Blackhat:

[https://twitter.com/veorq/status/1159559785068429312](https://twitter.com/veorq/status/1159559785068429312)

<comment><USER14> Do I understand those Twitter threads correctly in that BH security removed you from the room? The heck?

<comment><USER13> Yes, and it makes sense that I was thrown out. It's not like the security guard knows the talk is bullshit. He just saw a guy (me) yelling that, "all you employees of this guy should quit and find real jobs!" I think that was an appropriate response in the moment.

The true failure happened when Blackhat decided it was ok to accept money from a con man.

<comment><USER14> Fair enough, I naively assumed that security at BH had people embedded that would be able to make that call. But yeah, agree on all fronts then, thanks for standing up to him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have somewhat sympathy for Black Hat, especially with the "pay for talks" model that they seem to get funding from, it's easy for these things to get a platform.

I went to a maker space in the UK that occasionally held talks - one day they had a talk by some "Alkaline water" machine manufacturer (not the manufacturer, but one of the pyramid scheme dupes). Like many of these, it was a random mix of diverse actual (irrelevant) science, pseudoscience bullshit, conspiracy theory (as to why this wasn't e.g. used in medicine), appeal to authority and outright fraud, gish-galloped together into one giant mess. The diversity of the actual science means that there is _nobody_ who can be an expert in all areas and so refuting can be waved away.

Many of the otherwise practically intelligent people (although a wide mix came to this space) apparently couldn't tell or didn't care. Several people actually bought machines from them.

I suppose all of this is (in these contexts) is preying on the tendency for competent scientists to automatically question their own assumptions, but even when they do most of the time it just feeds their "controversy" argument using people who would never have bought it anyway.

Con-artists continue to thrive for a reason; even with the canniest/most suspicious people there's an arbitrage on how long they can survive in one place before moving onto the next target.

<comment><USER15> I don't have any sympathy, but this isn't really that big of a deal. Black hat is expensive as fuck and they could have done without the money. I think they do less than DEFCON while also charging more but that's just my hot take. I don't think they'll suffer any practical reputation damage (like people choosing NOT to go to Black hat). It'll just be a meme and something they laugh about.

<comment><USER16> They're different events. For a lot of offensive security subjects, the bar to get a talk accepted at Black Hat is significantly higher than at Defcon. Black Hat has a clear professional focus; Defcon tacks more towards culture and enthusiasts.

If you don't want to pay for Black Hat, you don't have to; one of the things Black Hat's registration price covers is professional recording, and the talks are published on Youtube in a few months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've always hated sponsored talks. I understand why they exist -- because they are huge money makers for the conference organizers. Occasionally, you get a good one, where it's a talk about a general topic that happens to have a light tie in with the commercial product. Or it's a very good commercial product that people want an in depth talk about.

But usually, it's just a 30 minute ad that's all fluff. I try to avoid them, but sometimes I volunteer at conferences and get stuck managing a sponsored talk track, and man is it depressing.

</comment><comment><USER18> Snake oil for sure, but this is merely a snake oil sales guy who walked into a room full of people willing to call him out.

The rest of society is not so courageous.

You only need to look at various management consultants, new age healers, and religion to find more people who obviously know nothing about how the world actually is, but are never held to account.

<comment><USER19> Black Hat is like a $2k ~ $3k conference. Even though many people there are sponsored by their companies, it's still expensive and I suspect people who put this kind of value in this conference aren't going to sit around and put up with what they know is bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I also suspect the guy (Robert Grant) is a conman, but whatever scheme he is running is quite elaborate: [https://strathspeycrown.com/team](https://strathspeycrown.com/team)

Does anyone have an insight as to what their endgame is, and where their funding is coming from?

<comment><USER21> Having a team page like that is your first red flag.

[https://strathspeycrown.com/subsidiary-companies- investments...](https://strathspeycrown.com/subsidiary-companies-investments/)

> "Strathspey Crown is a visionary portfolio of transformational businesses, > focused on the most complex sectors of healthcare, energy, and technology."

This seems to be the parent company, check out some of the goofy things they claim to been involved in. Quotes like "changing the paradigm", "the internet of wellbeing", "where little things make a big difference". It's cookie cutter generic websites for every one of them, most of the time I can't work out what their product is supposed to be or what they're claiming to be working on.

<comment><USER22> Just spent the last 15 minutes reading through their websites in quiet amazement. How do they get funding? Why do people pay them?

When your 'director of cryptography' has this in his bio, surely something's up:

> dedicated the last fifteen years to decrypting mathematical codes in > Shakespeare's writings that have revealed unknown sacred geometry hidden in > the pyramids of Giza.

Another of their companies sells patches that relieves pain through the magic of quantum physics. Something about the energies of healing substances that unlock a pain relieving carrier wave.

Yikes.

<comment><USER23> It's like audiophiles; there's not too many people who believe it, but enough of the ones that do have enough disposable income to make a great grift.

<comment><USER24> I'm genuinely confused here... some audio equipment does actually sound better than other audio equipment. Are you referring to snake oil audio cable salesmen?

<comment><USER21> "Audiophiles" are generally associated with not high end audio equipment at absurd costs and no reasoning. Oxygen free copper cabling, making sure your cables are isolated from the floor on little stands to reduce the vibration they absorb, "burning in" amplifiers for thousands of hours to improve the flavor of the output in a supposedly perceptible way. Many behaviors with the consistency of rubbing deer blood on your car hood to give it bloodlust, and therefor extra speed.

<comment><USER25> > ...rubbing deer blood on your car hood to give it bloodlust, and therefor > extra speed.

I've never heard this one; brilliantly funny!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm getting an odd Wolf of wall street vibe from this. It's like the script were taken as inspiration for the branding.

Crown sterling = Stratton Oakmont = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPVMfGzXZP8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPVMfGzXZP8)

Stratton's logo is a lion. Crown Sterlings logo is a lion. The style of presentation is the same: start with axioms that are hard to argue with. Use it to build trust, then when they're listening segway into the real bs.

Building trust = [https://youtu.be/dCANT0nG3bY?t=36](https://youtu.be/dCANT0nG3bY?t=36)

"First we pitch them disney, at & T, ... blue chip stocks exclusively. companies these people know. once we've suckered them in we unload the dog shite. pink sheets, the penny stocks, where we make the money."

They're doing the same thing but with encryption. Ofc, no one understands encryption directly so they talk abstractly about entropy and appeal to authority. After that comes the bs. The only part that seems missing from this is what they're shilling for and they're already gathering emails.

Oops. I was going to say they missed the crucial ingredient which is to create FOMO -- or fear of missing out. But they got that right too by implying existing encryption was somehow flawed or broken. People would have to sign up or risk their 'data liberty.' Nicely done.

I'll be surprised if this isn't to hype a blockchain-related project. IOTA 2.0.

</comment><comment><USER27> When several companies like this one look related and are trying to push some of their "products" into a pro market, it really smells like a money laundering scheme. I have seen schemes like this one in South-America, Brazil specifically, related to "religious" indoctrination. Hope someone in USA investigates this. It looks well funded.

</comment><comment><USER16> The funny thing about this is that everyone knew this talk was happening, and that it was going to be batshit; it was a hot Slack topic for a day a few weeks ago, and the day of the talk, people were excitedly talking about making to that talk so they could gape and heckle.

I don't know precisely what happened to change this from comedy to controversy, but it definitely started with JP Aumasson's livetweet of the presentation going viral. So I guess I blame twitter.

</comment><comment><USER28> One of their sister companies actually sells healing crystals: [https://arkcrystals.com/](https://arkcrystals.com/)

<comment><USER7> "Replicating the magnetohydrodynamics naturally occurring in a variety of astrophysical objects, which couples plasma modes to the harmonic structure of the quantum vacuum — the Harmonic Flux Resonator (HFR) replicates and transfers quantum energy."

... it says on the website and then it links on to a website which offers energy derived from vacuum:

Vacuum Energy

Energy extracted directly from the vacuum. Nothing to burn, nothing to consume, nothing to destroy. No fumes, no toxins, no limitations. Nothing short of a paradigm shift which will alter the course of human kind forever.

[https://torustech.com/technology/](https://torustech.com/technology/)

Is it one of those websites that is really marketing for a new sci-fi show?

<comment><USER29> > Energy extracted directly from the vacuum. Nothing to burn, nothing to > consume, nothing to destroy. No fumes, no toxins, no limitations.

So, it is _nothing_. Shieeet I wish I could sell nothing to people _for money_.

<comment><USER7> It is a free energy machine / perpetual motion machine. That is always good if you are tech investor to have that sort of thing in your portfolio :-D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Giving a sponsored talk at a conference that attracts a lot of experts in the field is an interesting attempt at hacking, had they gotten away with it they would have had that much more bragging rights while trying to land investor money.

Outright scams are pretty rare but I've come across them a couple of times in the last decade, it always amazes me that investors would even begin to consider them.

<comment><USER14> In an era of kickstarter scams I'm not sure that there's that much of a difference between this and "getting away with it". I get that vetting sponsored talks is hard from a BH perspective but... just looking at how the presenter downplays this in their twitter responses, I'm pretty sure they'll use it for bragging rights anyway. Just like they apparently claim to have published something with an arxiv paper.

It is pretty doubtful that anybody will remember this incident in a month when they pitch it to a non-technical crowd, worst case for them is using a slightly different name to avoid superficial search engine due diligence.

<comment><USER30> They might even use the 'Secrets that Black Hat does not want you to know' angle to their advantage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "The author will show that when applying this simple operation to magical numbers, and to many other groups of numbers, an amazing world of hidden interconnections; repetition cycles; numerical symmetries; and geometrical patterns emerge. Especially when the geometrical (the circle) and the numerical aspects of the digital root world are combined together. It is in this circular/numerical world where numbers, individually and collectively, exist in their most basic, yet perfect and symmetrical states, and where the basic nine numbers are differentiated into three groups of amazing properties, which will be shown to underlie the essence of the whole universe; from the atom and its forces to the solar system and its geometry."

Right....

</comment><comment><USER32> > Usually, talks submitted to Black Hat go through a thorough approval process > managed by a review board of industry experts. But, as in this case, > companies can also pay to play and get these sponsored talks, which are not > vetted for quality.

That just seems ripe for abuse like this. I'm surprised this hasn't happened before.

<comment><USER33> Of course this has happened before. It's just usually nobody who has a clue cares about these sponsored talks.

Do you think all the other products they pitch there live up to the promises made? This is just a bit extreme in its wording, so it's causing attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Interesting move trying to push snake-oil in a room full of SMEs.

<comment><USER35> Yeah, selling snake-oil encryption to a group of professional infosec researchers and cryptographers? Do they even a have brain...

<comment><USER36> I'm guessing there aren't all that many cryptographers at blackhat; that's quite a different specialty, isn't it? Then again, is also pays to know enough about cryptography to at least identify poorly applies crypto, so there are likely enough people in attendance with surprisingly in-depth knowledge even if crypto isn't technically their specialty.

<comment><USER37> You don't have to be a medical expert to recognize that a guy selling crystal- infused snake oil probably hasn't found the cure to cancer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rv-de [https://www.robertedwardgrant.com/about](https://www.robertedwardgrant.com/about)

That's Robert Grant's personal website. Check it out. It's hilarious.

<comment><USER38> > He was formerly CEO and President of Bausch and Lomb Surgical in June of > 2010.

So he was in the position for... one month? Am I reading that correctly?

<comment><USER39> From this it seems he was there at least until 2011: [https://news.chapman.edu/2011/05/16/jerry-lewis-among- commen...](https://news.chapman.edu/2011/05/16/jerry-lewis-among-commencement- speakers/)

PR when he was appointed in 2010: [https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/bausch-and-lomb- na...](https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/bausch-and-lomb-names-b- robert-e-grant-b-as-ceo-and-president-of-its-surgical-business-/)

Clearly the guy made a fortune from Botox, knows how to leverage that success and build an organization around buzzwords that attract investor money.

To be fair, is that any worse than Silicon Valley VC?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Here's a full portfolio of snake oil "companies" that these guys (or this guy?) engage in:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8paZWjiJIk8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8paZWjiJIk8)

</comment><comment><USER41> For me, the best stream of Twitter comments about this is this one where the company claims that no Encryption algorithms are peer reviewed and then, several people working for legitimate companies tell them that's just bollocks:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/Robert_E_Grant_/status/1160226095...](https://mobile.twitter.com/Robert_E_Grant_/status/1160226095481806848)

</comment><comment><USER42> Did anyone back up the video before it got taken down?

</comment><comment><USER43> Why did Black Hat delete it, rather than making snide comments about it? A video of people laughing at the speaker would have been great.

<comment><USER5> The speaker('s company) paid a hefty price for him to be there to present. Black Hat doesn't wanna dissuade any other potential vendors from not giving them their money.

<comment><USER44> I feel like you could make the same case for _not_ loudly renouncing "Time AI". If Black Hat were to stand by this sponsor, I would wonder if other potential sponsors might actively _withhold_ funds specifically to avoid being associated with "Time AI". Like the YouTube adpocalypse -- the media storm around certain kinds of content made advertisers uncomfortable with being associated with that content.

<comment><USER45> Well part of the point with sponsors is to find someone that can make money without 'selling out' and doing major damage to themselves as a conference brand. "Time AI" isn't paying nearly enough money to be worth the damage that not renouncing them would do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Sure it's not documentary makers seeing how far they can take it? This looks like a piss-take.

<comment><USER47> the team page supports your point ( [https://www.crownsterling.io/2019/05/alan- green/](https://www.crownsterling.io/2019/05/alan-green/) ):

"Alan [...] dedicated the last fifteen years to decrypting mathematical codes in Shakespeare's writings that have revealed unknown sacred geometry hidden in the pyramids of Giza."

i don't think anyone will invest so much time into such a bungled attempt of con-artistry, so this does look more like a (costly) hoax.

maybe it is intended to discredit certain players in SecOps, Sokal-affair- style ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair) ).

<comment><USER48> It's more likely to be along the same lines as the Nigerian Prince scam emails. They look absolutely ridiculous to anyone with the slightest ability to critically think about the situation. Those aren't the people they're targeting, though.

<comment><USER47> even in the Nigerian prince mails they don't go out of their way to give the prince a biography that could have been written by Erich von Däniken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I don't get why we give this so much attention. The authors are clearly kidding, mentally ill, or have a purpose beyond my understanding (this can't be the easiest way to launder money).

<comment><USER50> The purpose is to make money selling snake oil, not anything more complicated than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Here's a instagram post from the founder:

[https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/vp/1ba57134a58455de0595824...](https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/vp/1ba57134a58455de0595824423feaf0c/5DEB85B3/t51.2885-15/sh0.08/e35/p640x640/66697542_482125555666888_8950706368114846991_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent.cdninstagram.com)

Also look at his papers. He likes to draw a lot instead of doing math.

<comment><USER52> You're an asshole. Geometric relationships between numbers are doing math.

<comment><USER53> Personal attacks will get you banned here, so please don't post like this again. Your comment would be just fine without the first sentence.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Sometimes I think there should be a law that states products should be accurately described in advertisements.

If such a law were enacted, this product might be called Fucked Up Encryption. I say that because the first law of encryption is that you don't roll it yourself. You can build things that use known encryption in non-standard ways, and even that can lead to things that were unexpected - like side channel attacks.

</comment><comment><USER55> I think this guy will be eating out on "getting shutdown for telling the truth" for years to come. Just looking at the kinds of things this guy has done on youtube, yeah...they are definitely in the whole "mainstream science is a conspiracy camp".

The whole pyramids thing is hilarious...I can't remember who coined the term, but "pyramidiots" is my favorite.

</comment><comment><USER56> Their intro video is really well-produced. If I had landed on it without any context, I would've thought it was a new Netflix show:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_2HwAmge8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_2HwAmge8)

</comment><comment><USER57> The holding/parent company[0] has lots of other interesting ventures

[0] [https://strathspeycrown.com/](https://strathspeycrown.com/)

</comment><comment><USER58> Reminds me of this music video: [https://youtu.be/hKosaf5tmpI](https://youtu.be/hKosaf5tmpI)

... I can't imagine this being serious

</comment><comment><USER59> Reminds me a bit of [https://timecube.2enp.com/](https://timecube.2enp.com/)

<comment><USER55> It's like TimeCube guy had wealthy parents or something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Did anybody catch an archive/mirror of the talk? I want to watch it for entertainment value

</comment><comment><USER61> I find it not ideal from Blackhat to remove this talk.

They paid to speak, so why not leave it at that. In many ways the guy hacked Blackhat with a few thousand dollars, which is kinda noteworthy.

This guy certainly gets all the attention he wanted by Blackhat removing the video.

</comment><comment><USER62> Perhaps he's from the future. But I'd guess he'd say, "Only _time_ will tell."

<comment><USER55> Upvoted for more dad jokes on HN.

<comment><USER62> Yeah, tough crowd. Pulled the quote right from that promo reel.</comment></comment></comment>


The most successful game ever: a history of Minesweeper - <AUTHOR> http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/the-most-successful-game-ever-a-history-of-minesweeper-596504 <comment><USER2> _To most of us, mines are just a handy framework to wrap the deductive gameplay around. This isn't the case elsewhere in the world, where they remain a threat, and a symbol of pain and suffering. In 2001, a group calling itself the International Campaign to Ban Winmine attempted to make Microsoft choose something less controversial as its subject matter, and there have been other similar protests over the years._

Is this for real? Wow!

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll start with "the moral of the story" for me...

I need to stop taking articles so seriously and taking all of the fun out of an otherwise highly nostalgic blast from the past.

\</comment><comment>--

This is an old article (2009).

Even so, I can't imagine that this is true: _"Click-for-click, nothing has wasted more time than Minesweeper...."_

It's probably just hyperbole to get the point across, but to then come out and say that "The most successful game ever made isn't World of Warcraft"... really can't be said without saying by what qualifications you are saying a game is successful.

\- If it's pure mouse clicks, I'm sure a gazillion percent sure that WoW has had more clicks.

\- If it is $$$ than that's an easy one too.

\- If it's time wasted... then I'm sure it's not Minesweeper either.

\</comment><comment>--

<comment><USER4> _\- If it's time wasted... then I'm sure it's not Minesweeper either._

Do you have any data for it or should we just trust you because you are also gazillion percent sure? Lot more people play minesweeper and solitaire than WoW..

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a fun game. I've build a Minesweeper varient that works on a spherical planet with hexes rather than a square grid. <http://bit.ly/ycjiGQ> It's true that it's a huge timewaster. Since I've released it in Dec. of last year people have played over 600,000 games and spend a combined total of over 8.7 years playing it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've never played BeTrapped, but here is an interesting game that is literally Clue / Cluedo combined with Minesweeper. It's not perfect, but it still works surprisingly well.

<http://www.kongregate.com/games/nerdook/cluesweeper>

</comment><comment><USER7> Vista? Actually I remember seeing flowers instead of mines in Windows ME already... Am I remembering uncorrectly?

<comment><USER8> Are you Italian? The Italian versions of Windows ME and Windows 2000 were shipped with flower versions.

Source: [http://www.minesweeper.info/wiki/Windows_Minesweeper#Windows...](http://www.minesweeper.info/wiki/Windows_Minesweeper#Windows_2000)

<comment><USER7> Yep, Italian. So we were the 'lucky' ones. I find this rather absurd, but maybe if I had to live in real minefields I would think in a different way... who knows...</comment></comment></comment>


Why I Moved to Vue.js from Angular 2 - <AUTHOR> https://wildermuth.com/2017/02/12/Why-I-Moved-to-Vue-js-from-Angular-2 <comment><USER2> Title should be "Why I moved [my contact form] to Vue.js from Angular 2".

I was expecting an insightful discussion about both frameworks. Turns out he was using Angular 2 for literally a single contact form. I thought Wildermuth was above blatant clickbait.

</comment><comment><USER3> Using the right tool for the job is one of the most important aspects of software engineering. This doesn't really have anything to do specifically with Vue or Angular 2.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I use FE frameworks a lot so I was hoping for a more detailed summary of what worked and what didn't.

If the OP has a more in-depth analysis I would love to read it.

<comment><USER5> Did you look at the form? It's 4 fields. I mean assuming I went to the right page. How much of a summary do you expect?

[https://wildermuth.com/contact](https://wildermuth.com/contact)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why I Moved to Vue.js from Angular 2? Because I forgot how to build a trivial web form without using frameworks.

<comment><USER7> +1 to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> His form has 4 fields... Why on earth he would think he needs either Vue or Angular for that I just don't understand.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why do people keep trying to use angular for relatively static blog sites?

</comment><comment><USER9> Vue is an absolute breath of fresh air for anyone used to monoliths like Angular. I was able to pick it up and immediately become productive with almost no learning curve. It shows you just how over-engineered most frameworks are.

Vue + Vuex(data store e.g. Redux) + Firebase is my current stack for new application development and I am literally 10x more productive from the days of writing Angular apps with a LAMP or nodejs based backend on a VPS.

<comment><USER3> > It shows you just how over-engineered most frameworks are.

What's more likely, other frameworks are over-engineered or that you're not their target audience?

I think Vue is great but I would never use it at my day job. Sure, React/Redux/Webpack/etc have some subtleties but the trade off is worth it -- specifically that stack gives me enough control to architect a stable, maintainable frontend shared among 10 other developers who don't care about this stuff as much as I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My experience so far moving from angular 1 to vuejs.

I was coming from using gulp to build angular 1 projects. I understand gulp. Might be a bit verbose, but I get it.

Vue seems more tailored toward webpack as a module loader/build tool. It took me awhile to wrap my head around this and using webpack in general.

Truly yak shaving.

So I came up with a good build script with babel, code splitting, vue component loader, cache bust, minify, etc. All good. The vue-cli looked helpful, but it didn't really do much but download one of a few templates, which I felt did too much.

Finally I can start coding . . . so far so good. Do know, batteries are not included. With angular it's basically all there ready to use. With vue, npm install, import and use it or roll your own.

Managing the data is different. If you come from a background writing modular code, it'll be easier to $digest. If you relied on angular constructs like service, controller, 2-way binding and didn't think about it too deeply then it'll take some getting used to. I'm still getting used to vuex.

There's more . . . maybe after I finish a project with vue.

</comment><comment><USER11> Creepy profile photo...

<comment><USER12> I thought this was just a rude comment until I realized the photo jumps around, which is kind of neat and indeed creepy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I read the title of this article wrong, thinking it was 'Why I Moved to Angular 2 from Vue.js' before reading it a second time. It's given me a thought though: has anyone ever moved from Vue.js back to the controversial Angular 2?

</comment><comment><USER14> I would recommend riot.js is absolutely fantastic.

Simple,clear and working.</comment>


Respected German Research Firm Shows Diesels Are Cleaner Than EVs - <AUTHOR> https://insideevs.com/features/347409/german-study-diesels-cleaner-electric/ <comment><USER2> Most ridiculous click bait award of the year should go to you.</comment>


Ask HN: Confused about VC cold-emailed vs introductions - <AUTHOR>

These two articles have different points of view on cold-emailed by VC. PG seems to reject the possibilities of getting funded by VC's cold calls or emails, but this TC article's author seems to favor them. What is the difference?
http://paulgraham.com/fr.html Investors will try to lure you into fundraising when you're not. It's great for them if they can, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else. They'll send you emails saying they want to meet to learn more about you. If you get cold-emailed by an associate at a VC firm, you shouldn't meet even if you are in fundraising mode. Deals don't happen that way.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/15/was-y-combinator-worth-it All of our investors – every single one of the 43 – contacted us or requested an introduction through their network. <comment><USER2> No reputable source is going to endorse the idea of cold-emailing VCs. Even when people talk about outbound versus inbound, they're probably still presuming you get introductions either way.</comment>


NSA's Hacker-In-Chief: We Don't Need Zero-Days to Get Inside Your Network - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/nsas-hacker-in-chief-we-dont-need-zero-days-to-get-inside-your-network-rob-boyce <comment><USER2> Remarkably low amount of new info relative to the clickbait title. Huge surprise: Govies watch everything you do and wait for you to mess up.

Including this comment. I'm toast.

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course they don't! Didn't we learn anything from the Juniper and Fortinet back doors?</comment>


New Otto malloc helps spot ancient bug (33 years old) in yacc - <AUTHOR> http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20080708155228&mode=flat <comment><USER2> dupe:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=240803></comment>


Ask HN: What would you replace the H1-B program with? - <AUTHOR> Whatever your feelings about Trump's suspension of H1-B admissions you've got to believe that America can do better than the H1-B program. What would you replace it with? <comment><USER2> Replace it with a program based on skills and ability. I forget who said it but I like the idea: if you're a PhD (or equivalent) and want to come to the US for work you get a temporary Green Card upon submission of your academic credentials and a permanent one upon verification. The idea is that we actively want to encourage the best and brightest from around the world to come here and contribute to our excellence. The problem with basing it on a degree is that some degrees aren't worth the paper on which they are written... and what about master artisans who are essential to manufacturing and industry? Machinists, welders, carpenters, plumbers: we needs those too, arguably more so.

What we should NOT do is waste all of the H1B slots on workers who could contribute from abroad, specifically programmers. Aren't all programmers working in the US right now doing so remotely?

</comment><comment><USER3> Charge the sponsoring company a fee of $70K to $ 100K a year for each visa. Then use the money to make STEM college degrees free or very low cost for US students.</comment>