Lessons from the Long Depression - <AUTHOR> http://www.coppolacomment.com/2019/04/lessons-from-long-depression.html <comment><USER3> The author refers to creating economic opportunities as making watering holes. In the Florida everglades, each alligator makes a watering hole in the flat, hard limestone ground. I don't know how big the holes are. About 20 feet across and 6 feet deep? The alligator mostly lives in it for several years. The hole fills with water when it rains, and tends to stay full of water during the dry season. This is a huge benefit to all animals around it. And of course, the alligator benefits by occasionally eating one of the visitors, but fewer than you might think. But even with the alligator eating, making the watering hole is a huge net benefit to the ecosystem as a whole.

I think the question boils down to, "How can the government encourage the creation of new job-creating watering holes, instead of pushing policies which increase the rent of existing watering holes?"

<comment><USER4> Why is it the government's job to encourage the creation of job creating watering holes? Why can't it just curtail rent seeking? It's much easier to identify bad behavior as you see it than encourage good behavior of a yet unknown form.

<comment><USER3> I agree that if the government only discouraged rent seeking, that would be an improvement. The article shows how the government is encouraging rent seeking.

<comment><USER5> 'Rent seeking' is a straw man. Of course everybody searches for opportunities yielding rent. Nobody wants to set up a business to see its profits competed away in 2 years. They'd prefer long term stable profits.

The real problem instead is unearned rent extraction. Lot of rent which is unethically taken away from workers and business is given to the extractors at the expense of those workers and businesses who provide it. Largely through taxes on labor, but also through increased prices.

There is no such thing as passive income without work. It's just that the profit is collected by someone else than who provided the labor.

Example 1. open source community building free stuff resulting in near trillion dollar valuations of cloud providers.

Example 2. taxes collected from labor (income and sales taxes) used for public works and new infrastructure resulting in increase of land and real estate value in vicinity of the new construction. Common with a new subway or highway systems.

Example 3. Communication, Pharma industry and other network systems. Any innovation funded by public money or other individuals can only benefit those who already operate the network infrastructure, because of the impossibility to compete with these established monopolies. Especially when regulations are set up to protect the incumbents from new entrants to their markets.

These cases illustrate not only redistribution of value from those who provide it to those who sit on it. It also shows that the goods these people helped to create then become even more expensive for them. The more of it they produce, the more expensive it gets - higher living rents, more expensive drugs, more expensive railroad services, etc.

This phenomenon is called the paradox of progress and poverty. You get it every time you set up the society in a way where the profits are extracted from the laborers and redistributed to the rentiers.

Blame the system I guess. Don't tax the workers, tax the rentiers collecting their results.

<comment><USER6> It seems like natural resources are a counterexample to your "no passive income" rule? In Alaska and Norway, the profits go into government funds that benefit everyone. Even if it were possible, would you want all the money to go to oil workers? They didn't create the oil.

<comment><USER5> I don't see how natural resources alone would make a passive income. Energy has to be exerted to extract the resource. By human labor or by machine. Then the extraction operation needs protection. If they left an oil well unprotected in Alaska forest somewhere then soon bandits would take over it and collect the profits. Nowadays this is resolved by private ownership of land which is maintained and provided by the government. Then of course the payment for this protection for exclusive rights of use needs to be paid to said government. Simply by collecting a land tax priced at a percentage of market value of that land. Workers and business collect profits due to their labor and government collects the natural resource rents. Any excess the government collects in the tax can be then reinvested into public works or paid as a dividend to citizens. Like in Alaska and Norway.

<comment><USER6> There is certainly work involved, but it's passive income to the citizens, who didn't work for it and aren't the ones guarding it. I agree that it's fine. (I am in favor of basic income.)

But I'm wondering, how do you think we distinguish between good and bad income streams? You seemed to be making a moral distinction.

<comment><USER5> Well people actually guard it indirectly. They could at any time randomly decide to go on a rampage and start taking over other people's property. Which actually happens when things boil over, eg. during revolutions. So they should be paid for remaining calm and keeping order.

I don't think we need to make the distinction between good and bad incomes. However we as a society should be concerned about giving somebody certain privileges without getting any compensation for it. That makes the society inherently unequal, because one group of people is forced to provide the privileges or services for another group of people.

Eg. people born in generation 2 are forced to accept and maintain private property privileges on land for those born in generation 1 even though they were never invited to discussions of land distribution in gen 1.

Simply stated, the infinite-length land rights are unethical to people in later generations. Continuous payment system would be ethical.

This alone could then help resolve other issues in other monopoly related problems as people would have more options to decide how to allocate their life, as you well know it is the case of basic income and when people are not stifled by excess taxes and excess rent payments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reading this sort of things is getting gradually more grating for me to read.

We organise ourselves in a system where: "a world in which goods and services are so cheap to produce that less and less capital is required for investment, and so easy to produce that less and less labour is required to produce them" is not a _life-transforming utopia_ , but a catastrophe. The author constantly points this, points how growth in the "long stagnation" never materialised into better conditions and a better standard of living, and how that didn't change until war came.

Yet he never ceases to operate in the same system and to try to find the answers _within_ the system. It never even crosses his thought that... perhaps the fundamental tenets of the system should be changed, or at the very least questionable. All he does is find convoluted ways of patching the a broken system _from within the system_.

<comment><USER8> "We organise ourselves in a system where: "a world in which goods and services are so cheap to produce that less and less capital is required for investment, and so easy to produce that less and less labour is required to produce them" is not a life-transforming utopia, but a catastrophe."

I understand - and sympathize with - your reaction.

However I have a suspicion that the authors stance is correct and, indeed, there is something catastrophic involved. If not due to the circumstances, then to our response to the circumstances (which, as you say, would _seem_ to be heavenly).

If, however, you place stock in the notion that (most) humans find happiness and meaning and fulfillment in completing meaningful and valuable work, I think it starts to make sense.

 _You and I_ might have the personal makeup - or find ourselves in a stage of generational or familial development - to find meaning and joy in a post- scarcity, post "work", nuanced and refined existence. I like to think I do.

But I can imagine not having that makeup and while I might not be able to point to "the absence of scarcity" or "not having meaningful work" as my affliction, I think without a doubt _something_ would be afflicting me.

<comment><USER9> We can find meaningful work for everyone; we cannot necessarily find remunerative work for everyone. We have the economic capacity to provide remunerative work for everyone, but make-work is (almost by definition) not meaningful, especially when it is overtly designated as such. We probably don't have the economic capacity to provide everyone with the opportunity to find their own meaningful work and we certainly don't have the political will. Solving that conundrum is equal parts opportunity and crisis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The other part of the Long Depression that's frequently glossed over is the substitution effect. While prices _in aggregate_ declined, some prices declined extremely rapidly while others (thanks to Baumol's Cost Disease) declined slowly or not at all. The resulting cost differential led to a fundamental change in the _structure_ of society and its values.

What represents wealth in an agrarian society? Land, livestock, horses, slaves, servants, leisure time, and social connections. Many of these goods _increased_ in price during the Gilded Age, or became impossible to obtain. No more homesteading the West, no more slave plantations, independent ranchers & farmers were driven out of business by the meatpacking & agribusiness industries, the domestic servant class largely disappeared.

But what happened, eventually, is that these definitions of wealth became marginalized in favor of ownership of new luxury goods. What represented wealth in the 1950s? Having an expensive car. Owning a house in the suburbs with electricity & running water, and a washing machine, dishwasher, and vacuum cleaner. Flying on jets. None of these even existed during the Gilded Age.

It's possible we'll see a similar resolution to the current crisis, where the expensive and un-automatable pillars of a middle-class existence - <USER2> care, education, housing - simply get marginalized as a backward remnant of a previous era, and new status symbols - perhaps control of virtual currencies, prowess in computer games, neural net uplinks, bionic implants - take their place.

<comment><USER11> So while I concur with your thesis, that events like this can motivate fundamental changes in the structure of a society and its values, I'm going to nitpick the "why", as I think the context of how these changes are forced is at the heart of understanding their nature.

As such, I think your enumeration isn't quite accurate. Prior definitions of wealth only became impossible to obtain if you didn't have enough money. You cite land, certain notables in our own government owe much of their empire to land (real estate.) While there certainly is a transferrance of many technological goods via progress, key pillars such as social connections and leisure time continue to be significant carriers of value, and as you say, potentially become more difficult to obtain.

If health care, education, housing, become marginalized, I don't believe it's as an anachronism, but out of unavailability, and new social signifiers will inevitably emerge out of our very animal nature, but within our new price range, and not out of lack of want for "more traditional luxuries". (to cite anecdata, the number of peers who are at peace with their housing/commute/work life situations, increasing inversely corresponding to pay)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Honestly the problem doesn't appear to be very complicated.

Basically people primarily buy stocks (maybe housing too?) not for the income they produce but for the price gains of the stock itself.

The goal of the central bank is to meet it's inflation target by injecting money into the economy via policies like QE. The stocks rise in price as intended and therefore the yield decreased. What was not expected is that the stock owners do not care about the low yield because the capital gains caused by QE outweigh the comparatively low dividend payments (in some cases none at all).

So why not tax capital gains more and dividend payments less?

Capital gains happen whenever anyone (central bank or other investors) buys stocks for more than you bought, the profits are not bounded by the success of the company.

Dividend payments however always have to be paid out by the company based on how much profit it made and therefore they are independent of the share price. A stock with low yields is unattractive and therefore gets sold to buy a stock with higher yields.

<comment><USER13> RE: _The goal of the central bank is to meet it 's inflation target by injecting money into the economy via policies like QE._

Not really. QE was a semi-emergency move. The hope was that managing interest rates _alone_ would be sufficient, but it turned out not to be for deep slumps. QE creates a lot of nasty side-effects and draws criticism to the Central Bank they'd rather not have. I think the chairman once said the job of stimuluses outside of interest rates was or should be Congress's job, not them. But Congress bungles it with debt and reverse Keynesian timing due to political and tax squabbles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's a log way from being the whole story, then or now. In the 1870s ok unemployment was high at 25%, but the rate of growth of the population had only just dipped below 30% per decade. Job growth was actually also booming, just not as much.

Similarly if we take a global view over the last few decades, China added hundreds of millions of people to the labour force. It's been the period of the greatest reduction in poverty ever. That's got to count for something.

EDIT In fact enormous wealth has been created, and it's not all been concentrated in the top 1%. The bottom 30% or so globally has also benefited massively. It just hasn't really benefited mid range workers in the West, but let's not pretend the last few decades have been a disaster, or even particularly bad in the grand scheme of things.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. And the post-civil war south adds a bunch of confounding factors that make comparison hard.

In the 1870s there were a lot of newly free blacks who were saying "fuck sharecropping, fuck being scared of the klan, I'm gonna work in a factory up north" and they weren't moving north with jobs already lined up.

<comment><USER15> Wow. So do you see an analagous relationship between the freed blacks entering the American labor market in the late nineteenth century and the Chinese peasants entering the global labor market in the last 4 decades?

<comment><USER16> It's not that far off. In both cases, it involved agricultural laborers in a mass migration to jobs in newly opened factories that were building stuff for mostly far off other people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "..for production costs to fall, either there must be fewer people earning wages, or wages must be lower."

Prices can go down without production or labor costs falling. Equipment is frequently capitalized. The approach that CFOs take to applying both the payments (interest) and depreciation are valves they can turn to modulate the P&L. This is totally disconnected from supply, demand and pricing.

Moreover, the margins earned can be very high at the beginning of a product cycle and therefore, still robust enough to justify the investment and labor costs even when prices have dropped.

Finally, in many cases, the lower prices induce more demand. Average selling price drops, demand grows, offsetting the price decrease.

This is all modus operandi for the display, semiconductor and computing industries, among others.

<comment><USER18> I think you will agree that high tech industries fall into the higher end of the bifurcated labor market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The paragraph starting "Some people regard this sort of deflation as benign." is a lead in to some interesting observations and raises classic questions about what 'success' means in an economy.

Consider a case of demand deflation where farmers decide they don't need anything any more, stop growing crops in excess of what is needed to feed themselves and sit on productive land like stone toads. I think there would be near-absolute consensus that the situation was very bad.

The same situation but with coal and oil swapped for farmland would be different. I happen to think that would still be a bad outcome, but there is a pretty sizeable environmental lobby that wants exactly that and would call it good. Assuming it happened over a bit of time so that alternatives could be bought on line.

There is a key question here - who exactly should have the power to deny an economy access to primary resources (particularly those linked to land ownership)? Under what circumstances is that acceptable and unacceptable? That is the mechanical underlying issue for why bad employment numbers correlate to bad outcomes.

At the end of the day, reflecting on these issues makes me think we just need a land tax based on an assessed value of land + mineral wealth underneath the land. Something large enough that families have to repurchase their land once a generation. That is the only idea I have that is even a little consistent with property rights. The issue with dropping demand isn't that people are unemployed - I _like_ being unemployed in the classic not-looking-for-work sense. The problem is that people are willing to work and don't have enough to live comfortably but are unable to get raw resources to do so.

The correct solution is to acknowledge that land is maybe the only resource that a human can't fabricate through hard work and then construct a gentle system of rewards and incentives to make sure that resources are deployed.

<comment><USER20> >stop growing crops in excess of what is needed to feed themselves and sit on productive land like stone toads.

I see some of the same problems in housing. It seems every homeowner wants the value of their house to increase, and many times will lobby in such a manner that causes their home prices to increase significantly by limiting development. I've had people argue with me on Reddit that home values _must_ continually increase or people will stop making homes?! The insanity required to believe that has become endemic in our society.

<comment><USER15> I had the exact same thoughts watching this: [https://youtu.be/A5xKz5AcuXE](https://youtu.be/A5xKz5AcuXE)

Right around 4:20 he actually argues that real estate investment is a bad thing.

What really blows my mind is that the production value of this video far surpasses that of the average Reddit comment, though the argument is essentially the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _However, the well-off don't like paying taxes to support the unemployed and the low-paid, so they use their electoral muscle to pressure governments to cut welfare bills. As welfare bills are cut, poverty rises among the unemployed and poorly paid. Governments may adopt draconian measures to force the unemployed into work, even at starvation wages, and to quash civil unrest._

The opposite has happened. In spite of low taxes, entitlement spending keeps rising, such as dissablty, healthcare, education, and housing. Who is paying for it? Bondholders. Other countries are unable to sell so much debt so cheaply and thus have to resort to austerity.

<comment><USER22> At the US federal level that's largely only true for entitlement spending for the elderly which is spread across large swaths of the economic spectrum.

The trend of the last 40 years or so has been relative cuts to entitlements to the poor specifically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> If only we could price in negative externalities, we would see a very different supply/demand point. Since this is completely antithetical to the current socio-economic powers and mores, I'm confident that true costs of consumption and thus production will never be charged to the culpable.

</comment><comment><USER24> (2013)

A lot of this essay is about "right now", which at the time was November 2013.

<comment><USER25> Yes - and conditions are not the same. You might say we still have high underemployment, but we certainly don't have high unemployment in the USA today.

<comment><USER26> > we certainly don't have high unemployment in the USA today

When you take into account labor participation it's not such a clear cut picture. [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_force_in_the_United_Stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_force_in_the_United_States)</comment></comment></comment>


Surprise B.ag wants to celebrate your birthday 12 times a year - <AUTHOR> http://surpriseb.ag/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys! This is my latest weekend project... I was hoping to get your feedback and comments about it...

The idea is simple: Surprise Bag is a subscription service, thats sends you a surprise bag once a month. You never know what you're gonna get.. But its always gonna be something cool!

<comment><USER2> Can I send the surprise gifts to a friend?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, not just yet... But - That's definitely a feature we're planning to add soon!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Web Dev Certificate or CS Degree? - <AUTHOR> I live in Seattle, http://webdev.seattleu.edu/ Seattle university is offering 1 year Web development certificate teaching CSS3 HTML5 and JS . Should I pursue this? is it worth to find a career as  a web developer or should I just go to school get my CS degree and become a programmer?<p>I basically have 2 and half years left of schooling to get a BA in CS but this seems like a short route only a year and I can get a job as a web developer? <comment><USER2> > I basically have 2 and half years left of schooling to get a BA in CS

Have patience and finish the degree. A degree isn't required but it will generally open more doors, especially for your first job (i.e. when you have no, or little, actual experience) and it sounds like you're already about halfway done (i.e. it's worth the extra year and a half).

</comment><comment><USER3> I was in a similar position as you (except instead of pursuing a web development certificate I was debating dropping out entirely, after having success with a side project and various development jobs).

Although I would have done just fine if I dropped school, I'm happy that I stuck with it. I feel now that I have a much deeper understanding of computing, especially after taking advanced algorithm analysis courses, AI, and more.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a hiring manager I would definitely prefer a person with a CS degree without CSS3, HTML5 and JS knowledge to a person with web dev certification but without degree. All these stuff is quite easy to learn in a month or two, in case of right CS background.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do you want to study computer science?

The degree could potentially open up new areas of work for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes but I'm more interested in Web development you know?

<comment><USER6> It's worth sticking it out and having the degree. Technologies change, fundamental concepts in Computer Science don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, neither. Make a web application that interests you no matter how small, or large. You'll learn more there than either a cert. or CS degree can give you.</comment>


Simple wins - <AUTHOR> http://jchrisa.net/drl/_design/sofa/_show/post/Simple-Wins

<comment><USER2> One of the points this article made that I like, and argued for in the other thread was

"what matters is fast enough"

people love saying X is too slow etc, the only thing that matters is the ability for X to perform up to your requirements, if you need a million concurrent users then yes access will be the wrong tech. but to say X is too slow, you must specify exactly what it is too slow for.

<comment><USER3> I agree wholeheartedly, although I have to make the pointy-headed objection that fast and scalable are two different things. You can have a system which scales wonderfully and still takes unacceptable time for pages to render -- if so, you fail. You can also have a system which can't push over 100k page views in a day but renders snappily for those lucky folks -- and if your business model can win on 100k page views a day then you're doing pretty well for yourself now aren't you.

Please, God, send me scaling problems. I want my hardest problem in life to be too many people trying to give me money. (Is it just me or does the "My framework scales better than yours!" argument always rage in inverse proportion to the amount of money at stake per page view? I've seriously never heard it "Whoops, we had this great app people were paying real money for but we outgrew our old framework and needed a rewrite." Probably because the solution would be "Hire somebody to do it while sipping iced teas on a beach in Tahiti.")

I also think people need to be beaten around the head with the YSlow presentations until they get the point: 80% of the user perceptible delay happens on the front end. It does not matter whether you are running Rails or a CGI script written in hand-coded assembly -- stupid little things on the front-end like whether you gzipped your HTML or combined and minified your assets matter more in terms of user-perceived speed. But instead of adapting to that measurable, objective truth of our profession (where best practices are literally along the lines of "There is one line in your Apache configuration which will make HTML gzipped. Make sure it is on.") we waste time dickering over "shootouts" to see which backend gets to wait on IO or wait on rendering 100 ms faster.

Some days we're like the surgeons who scorn checklists because checklists are too easy to possibly save half of the lives lost during surgery.

<comment><USER4> It's just like "street racers" who badmouth each other's cars because it has this, or doesn't have that. We programmers also succumb to primate instincts that subconsciously have us perpetrate verbal aggression on one another.

However, it is worthy to note that real racers spend their time honing their skills or gathering resources in preparation for actual races. It has been noted that some of the best street racers drive like grannies most of the time, because they're saving all their resources for when it really matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I resent being called "smelly". And I _WISH_ I was 15 again ;)

>> "But what none of these detractors seem to understand (except for the script-kiddies) is that the important thing about this demo is the web. CouchDB is part of the web, and serves web applications natively."

Yeah ok, CouchDB includes a web server :/ why is that a good thing? Less scaling options when things are bundled together like that.

>> "The second set of detractors say realtime applications shouldn't go to disk, because it's slow and a lot of data. To them I say "disk is free"."

The only reason a real time messaging system should go to disk, is if persistent logs are required. And in that instance, when you scale, it most certainly is not free.

>> "Call me when performance matters."

Here's a little story. I built the predecessor to Mibbit using php and mysql. It took a long time. It didn't scale so well. I knew using a db was a stupid idea, but I wanted to see just how stupid. I started using shared memory, semaphores, message queues etc instead. It scaled a bit better, but still lame.

In the end I decided to scrap it, and rewrite it from scratch in something I _knew_ would scale. It now does about 2 billion messages a month or something.

You should think about scaling from the outset. Having to scrap _everything_ and change language/architecture/etc is kindof a pain. Just because there's some "new" "so hot right now!!!" language/framework/etc out there, it's probably totally the wrong tool for the job.

The traffic going back and forth from the browser to the demo CouchDB chat couldn't have been less efficient if it tried - it was sending all 50 recent lines of chat _every_ _single_ _time_. I don't know if that's easily fixed, probably not. Maybe you'd have to delve into CouchDB code :/

I hate this trend of "Less code.. more ease for the developer.." etc. Focus on the user and what they want, and how you can best give it to them. Not what's least lines of code/easiest for you.

<comment><USER6> _Yeah ok, CouchDB includes a web server :/ why is that a good thing?_

It's not just a good thing, it's a central element of the design. CouchDB is just a ReST based service and ReST servers mediate access to web resources.

<comment><USER7> ReST makes sense for public APIs.

It's a highly inefficient approach for a database that is only accessed over internal links by your application.

And no, you don't want to let the general public connect directly to your database. CouchApp is the most idiotic idea I've read about in a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1\. If you're going to write a "demo app", why not write one that is in the niche that you are targeting. I understand messaging is not it.

2\. "The second set of detractors say realtime applications shouldn't go to disk, because it's slow and a lot of data. To them I say "disk is free"" I think in many applications it's safe to say that disk space is free, but disk access time certainly isn't, especially if you're syncing transactions to disk on commit.

3\. "Call me when performance matters." You can write nifty apps with little code in many languages/frameworks. The question is, what happens if the shit hits the fan?

4\. Hacker News load probably isn't that high. It's certainly not the same as the "slashdot effect".

5\. "the important thing about this demo is the web ... your applications can be deployed anywhere there's a CouchDB." - I really don't understand this point. The same applies to AMP or Tomcat+Mysql+Java. If it's there you can deploy it. What's P2P about it? I can write Java code that speaks to other Java code on another Tomcat server, and it's not even particularly hard, as there are frameworks for it. I don't like Java, but then again, I don't like JavaScript either.

6\. "Actually, there isn't much complexity to hide as CouchDB is simple on the inside as well." As a user, I don't care. The point of systems programming is for engineers to sit down and write hi-performance C/C++ code that will then be used by thousands of developers to run billions of transactions for several years. If the engineers spend an extra month to make it 10% faster, then it's worth it, because it will be used by so-many people for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER9> A lot of thoughtful responses by Chris to reactions to his Toast CouchDB-based chat app.

His summary of why he developed Toast: "Toast is a showcase of how simple a real-time chat system can be, when you leverage CouchDB's _changes API."

</comment><comment><USER10> _the upshot is that my old Mac Mini was able to sustain 4 hours at the top slot on Hacker News without load exceeding 0.3_

I thought everyone had learned to not run anything on Mac Minis (and take backups) after the Magnolia incident: [http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/02/16/what-really- happened-a...](http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/02/16/what-really-happened-at- magnolia-and-lessons-learned/)

<comment><USER11> CouchDB can replicate for backup, but either way this test app isn't a "service" that people will care about if the hardware fails. (Software failure can provide lessons, though, since this is a demo of said software.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a wonderful blog post.

Simple is damn important. Usually simple is also equivalent with fast.

<comment><USER5> Wrong IMHO. Simple for the developer, is often equivalent with 'inefficient' for the user.

<comment><USER12> I don't think so. Most modern webapps or user interfaces strives for simplicity rather than just piling feature upon feature on top of each other. HN is a great example of this.

Efficiency can often be won by choosing the simple data structure or algorithm. There are numerous examples of the simple choice beating the complex one for all imaginable problem instances (although the advanced datastructure is faster in asymptotic behaviour). Another very important modern player is the cache. Simple and small often wins because it has better cache behaviour.

Note that I am not advocating for "outright dumb". "Outright dumb" is when your search of 100.000 elements is done via a linked list. Fortunately, such blunders can often be corrected with a bit of code that does not impair the readability of the whole thing.</comment></comment></comment>


Crude Nation: What Happened to Venezeula - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulmusgrave.info/2017/01/17/crude-nation-raul-gallegos-review/ <comment><USER2> A great companion to this article is the Planet Money episode on Venezuela's collapse [0]. It's only 20 minutes long and combines anecdotes with a basic bird's eye view in NPR's typical fashion.

 _Venezuela didn 't save its oil money. It used it to subsidize goods and services for the people, but in some unusual ways. Another choice: instead of making stuff at home, Venezuela imported almost everything it could. The government also kept tight control on the exchange rate between Venezuelan bolivars and U.S. dollars._

[0]: [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/10/21/498867764/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/10/21/498867764/episode-731-how- venezuela-imploded)</comment>


A persistent noise of unknown origin - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/world/canada/windsor-hum.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=7&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2018%2F02%2F19%2Fworld%2Fcanada%2Fwindsor-hum.html&eventName=Watching-article-click <comment><AUTHOR> Also this Vice News piece on same phenomenon: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhXaM_r80_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhXaM_r80_c)</comment>


App Container and the Open Container Project - <AUTHOR> https://coreos.com/blog/app-container-and-the-open-container-project/

<comment><USER2> This is really good news. Competition is good but competition within compatible standards is much better for everyone, specially for us the user.

<comment><USER2> > work with any container runtime (like Docker, rkt, Kurma, or Jetpack)

Just noticed how they are not linking Docker, I guess there are still some frictions :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I hope this does not play out as the vm specs did before. I still cant get OVF to work consistently across any of the supported hypervisors</comment>


"Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/1999/06/15/brin_main/ <comment><AUTHOR> The general point about Science Fiction deviating from the usual Fate-Destiny- Prophecy-ChosenOne narratives described in Campbell's "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" finally nailed down my personal vague aversion for most stories of this kind, and thereby most fantasy stories.

This is doubly annoying for Star Wars because a space faring, millennia old, galaxy spanning civilization should have a proper grasp of science and apply that to find out more about the Force and its seemingly eternal yet pointless light/dark struggle.

And if some age old conspiracy wants to keep it that way, a story line about challenging the status quo would be more interesting than one about the hero- pawns who, in the long run, change nothing. Though maybe there is something like that in the expanded universe?

I prefer instead: "An upstart belief in progress, egalitarianism, positive-sum games — and the slim but real possibility of decent human institutions."

</comment><comment><USER2> Author David Brin: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brin)</comment>


Why we chose Vue.js - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2016/10/20/why-we-chose-vue/ <comment><USER2> I do very little web these days, mostly working on backend data processing, network I/O and distributed comms.

A bit over a year ago, I wanted a real-time web UI to visualize some of the data I had on server-side, which I was trying to do using SignalR. I went back through some of the popular frameworks, with a pretty simple mindset of "Can I read the 'getting started', and get something basic working in about 15 minutes?".

I ended up choosing Vue, mainly because it used simple objects for models and I could literally just pass stuff I got from SignalR directly into it and have it show up. Almost everything else I tried had some type of wrapper/proxy around the data, which meant you had to run through some mapping exercise to get models working. I was close to deciding on Mithril, but when I found vue it just clicked with me way more. I actually really wanted to do React, but Vue was just so much more approachable that I couldn't justify spending the extra time learning React.

The real test however came months later, when I went to modify and add more functionality to my simple debug UI. I was able to pick it up nearly instantly, and even made some fairly substantial changes.

Contrast to my experience with say, Ember. We have a big app written in Ember, and every time I try to do even what I think should be a simple change (after not touching it for months), it takes me 5 times longer than I thought, and I end up spending most of the time fighting with it before realizing I forgot one of the 5 places you have to modify to reference an additional dependency, or some other equally trivial but infuriating detail.

You can learn the basics of Vue in minutes, and be quite adept within hours of it. That's something not a lot of frameworks can claim, and it's a seriously underrated benefit.

<comment><USER3> I have almost the same experience as you. I am maintaining big Ember app and have exactly the same problems as you described with it.I am interested in Vue lately also because it's so lightweight, easy, well structured, documentation is excellent, ecosystem around it is excellent and i have so much more freedom than in Ember. Author really cares about it, issues on github shows that, only 50 open and 3000 closed.

<comment><USER4> Interestingly enough, maintaining and developing Vue.js is now the author's full time job! Check out his patreon here: [https://www.patreon.com/evanyou](https://www.patreon.com/evanyou)

<comment><USER5> Holy cow this is impressive. How do you think he came to this achievement? Was he marketing himself really well? I honestly would love to know what it takes!

Context: I'm currently developing a new web-based remote desktop tool in Rust and I'm still on the fence as to whether or not to release it open source.

It's a port of some work I did on Gate One that ultimately couldn't be released due to the limitations of X11 permissions in multi-user environments (too insecure).

What's funny is that I'm looking at using Vue for the client!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who went through the complete frontend hype-trains (jquery, backbone, angular, ember, react, all in production): Vue.js 2.0 with single file components is exactly what everyone looks for desperately.

\- performance: faster than react now

\- learning curve: a few hours from scratch

\- getting started: cli-tool for initial scaffold & configuration

\- components: simple .vue files with a <template/>,

I can quickly edit the template to alter my component's DOM structure, style it with scoped css, and change its dynamic behavior in the script tag. Like the suite of Jade/Coffee/Stylus? Adding a lang attribute to each tag and you are good to go. Awesome stuff.

<comment><USER36> Wait, Vue doesn't need to be transpiled to JS like JSX? I'm equally hating configuring webpack. It's lack of documentation isn't helping either.

<comment><USER37> Why aren't you using create-react-app?

<comment><USER38> Why should you?

I mean, it is really handy to have a tool to save you from the initial setup and all that boilerplate code _when you already know how it works_.

But not knowing how the different pieces fit together will bite you when things start to fail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I know that Gitlab is written in pretty traditional Rails' style and takes advantage of turbolinks. Did you run into any difficulties adding a framework that likes to "own the page" like most single page app frameworks do? I've found these can often end up fighting with turbolinks and similar libraries.

<comment><USER40> @wadentandy, Yes that is still something we are figuring out the best way. For a major feature (like issue boards), because we won't use Vue for everything, we load those files on a per page basis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The company I work for has an app built with Angular 1.x (the backend is .NET). We started sensing that Angular was not best choice, especially when working with 3rd party components. There are other factors to, but they have been already mentioned in other comments. Long story short, we had enough of wrapping everything in _$timeout_ and started looking at alternatives.

After some consideration, we were left with choosing between Vue.js and React. Coming from Angular the biggest plus was two-way-binding, Vue.js had a slight advantage. We then converted a "module" (not in JS jargon) using both frameworks.

In our experience, when switching from Angular 1.x to Vue.js, there's a sense of not changing much (we were still "declaring" logic in the templates) but nonetheless doing things better, simpler and faster. The React version needed a bit more time investment (we had no prior experience in our team; a colleague from another project helped us a bit by showing us how he implemented a project using React). In the end we chose React due to the wonderful combination between it and TypeScript. We suddenly had no more string templates and refactoring was a breeze (there are, of course other benefits as well).

What I'm trying to say is that, if you have Angular 1.x experience it's easier to switch Vue. I had fun porting the "module" to Vue and would have happily worked with it if the team had not chosen React. I consider "mixins" to be one of its killer features (would have made a lot of things easier with our app). Having said that, I don't consider React that hard to grasp and don't regret that the team picket it over Vue. As long as you remember the lifecycle, programming with it can be fun and easy. The React/TypeScript combination compensates for the lack of mixins and two-way-binding (I know, MobX, but I'm talking about the "vanilla" versions).

<comment><USER42> We had a similar experience in our office. We chose Vue.js and we are all very pleased with the results. Vue is simple enough to understand and be productive in in a reasonable amount of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I hate web dev.

Yet I'm loving the experience of working with VueJS. I think alot of people feel this way. The library is just that simple and straightforward.

<comment><USER44> Exactly how i feel. They maintain project perfectly as well. Issues are tackled with utmost urgency. This is what angularjs was supposed to be. VueJS is perfect (as much as software can be perfect).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> > He pointed out that when a major software company releases a their secret > sauce, there is going to be hype. Devs think to themselves,'That company > writes JS differently than me, and they are prominent and successful. Is > their way of writing JS better than mine? And therefore must I adopt it?'

Ahaha. No, believe me I'll not. That's ironic coming from GitLab. I mean I love that company but their front-end sucks big time and it's slow as a snail.

<comment><USER46> Honest question, how do you know that it's the frontend that's slow and not the backend?

<comment><USER47> You only need to look at a DevTools timeline to see that it's the front-end which is slow: [https://www.webpagetest.org/result/161021_08_XZF/](https://www.webpagetest.org/result/161021_08_XZF/)

600KB of CSS, 800KB of JS... That's fine on your MBP over WiFi but on most pages it locks up the main thread on my phone for a good 5-10 seconds.

<comment><USER40> Hi wldlyinaccurate, thanks for your comment. There are a lot of frontend performance things we are focusing on for the next release. [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab- ce/issues/23213](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/23213).

<comment><USER47> Cool, I'm glad to see there's a meta issue to track this stuff now. Couple of questions:

Is there a strategy to tackle the CSS and JS bloat?

Is performance something the front-end endboss folk consider important enough to delay feature releases?

Are you monitoring performance with a tool like SpeedCurve?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I as well gravitate toward Vue.js for its simplicity, but I wonder if React's mind share and community size "trump" simplicity. For example, if you're hiring for a front-end position, you'll probably get more candidates familiar and experts in React over Vue.js.

<comment><USER49> The thing is that most React developers don't actually think React is that complex at all.

<comment><USER50> I think react has a steep initial learning curve but once you grasp the concepts it's not complicated. It is more verbose than vue though and requires more setup and boilerplate to get started.

<comment><USER51> React is very simple. You need to understand only its basic life cycle. Rest is just JavaScript.

<comment><USER52> I disagree as soon as you write more than a single nested child/parent component, that requires a different way of thinking (should I use state or props?). And that you can't "just uses react". You kind of have to use redux (or similar) as well as a bunch of other stuff.

<comment><USER53> People keep saying you 'have to use redux' but I think that's hugely misleading to a large section of potential React users who don't need the highly complex state management that redux facilitates, and could get by just fine with setState+props.

I'd hope that people who are being exposed to this idea at least also get the chance to read 'You Might Not Need Redux': [https://medium.com/@dan_abramov/you-might-not-need-redux- be4...](https://medium.com/@dan_abramov/you-might-not-need-redux-be46360cf367)

<comment><USER54> Amen to that. Seems like everybody is cargo culting Redux but really you can get pretty far with just React plus some wrapper components to hold state.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So true:

' I talk to a lot of JavaScript devs and I find it really interesting that the ones who spend the most time in Angular tend to not know JavaScript nearly as well. I don't want that to be me or our devs. Why should we write "not JavaScript?" '

</comment><comment><USER56> Vue.js is the most beginner friendly to write a complex web application.

<comment><USER57> Vue is inspired and similar to polymer - this is what I like about it. If i wouldn't be able to pick polymer i would probably go with Vue, but I picked web standards + bigger ecosystem over vue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Just pick _something_ , internet and build a good structure _on top of it_. All this jquery-level bikeshedding is nice for your ad widgets and minimalistic web apps, but it won't help me replace proper GUI toolkits. And sadly, that seems to be in demand...

I'll cope with your ill-designed template language (heck, if I can cope with HTML, I can cope with anything) or your JS async abstraction du jour (promises, async await, that * crap), just give me something on the level of Tk or Swing. I feel like all we got in the last decade beyond e.g. Seaside is a bit less flicker and some more useless animations (looking at you, Material Design buttons).

<comment><USER59> >>> if I can cope with HTML, I can cope with anything

Just curious, what do you find so terrible about HTML?

<comment><USER58> HTML's horrors are highly context sensitive. One of its most generic sins is the poor support for hypertext. Various predecessors did a better job at this (Hyper-G, HyTime). Anchor- and URI-based hyperlinks are a rather insufficient solution, and I think the web would've benefitted from a more extensive and extensible architecture.

Speaking of extensible, HTML has the "class" attribute. Awesome. Something better would've spared us a lot of template languages in the first place. Not looking at you, XSLT.

And when we deviate too much from both HTML's and its ancestor SGML's original purposes, the syntax gets really ugly. Explicit end tags make sense if the beginning of your document's <chapter> is more than a terminal's length out of sight, but when used in something you build UI elements out of (or where content isn't immediately there), the verbosity hurts. Never mind the general XML problem of sub-tags vs. attributes.

At least the amount of different standards is getting better. Parsing still is way more complicated than it needs be.

And let's not even start with the lateness and insufficiency of CSS.

As bad as it was as a hypertext markup language, it's even worse as core structure for this weird NeWs-like quasi-PostScript we're squeezing HTML/CSS/JS into, for lack of a better alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Vue.js seems like a great fit between the DOM manipulation of jQuery and the opinionated approach of AngularJS. Thanks for sharing. Going to experiment with Vue.js right away.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm in the process of learning React, so I don't have any strong opinions of my own yet. I've read through the Vue.js "Getting Started" docs and it does look very intuitive/simply. However, what motivates me to learn React is the fact that I can build an app once and then use React Native to create an iOS and Android app. I'm assuming this isn't a requirement for Jacob and the Gitlab team but I'm wondering if his decision would be the same if he had to support native apps as well?

</comment><comment><USER62> Can anyone compare Vue with Knockout? In the early days of Angular etc I saw a lot of people saying they chose Knockout, and were much happier than with one of the heavier frameworks. I found its simplicity very appealing too, but it seems clear now that it's not a mainstream choice. It feels to me like a dead end. The last time I looked (a year ago?) the semi-official data mapping extension had lost its maintainer. So is Vue another shot at the same approach? What are the important differences?

<comment><USER63> [https://vuejs.org/guide/comparison.html#Knockout](https://vuejs.org/guide/comparison.html#Knockout)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Are any companies switching from React to Vue? I'd be interested in hearing about that.

<comment><USER56> Our company migrated to vue.js, 4 months ago. Our complex app is messy with JSX, router, and new dev can't keep up with code. Now we start every new app with Vue.js. The gap between junior dev and senior dev comes closer. They can collaborate with less bugs, less problems and less time to develop.

<comment><USER25> New React projects are today much simpler, thanks to new libraries to manage state like Mobx, or efficient starter kits. So without denying the benefits you encounter with the migration to Vue.js, I think that a full rewrite of you React app in "modern React" would have been a good thing too.

<comment><USER65> And how long until the next "modern React" will land? That's what drove me away from React.

<comment><USER25> Before, React projects evolved because they have to. They became too complex, to clumsy, etc. But now ? React is stable, the way to develop apps is well known, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Same here, using Vuejs, glad more people are using it.

It's amazing that a one-person-project(well, it's more than one person now but the core part is really just one guy) can develop such a beautiful system that actually feel better than angular2 and reactjs and who knows how many are behind those two projects.

<comment><USER67> Honest question: How large are the teams that back(ed) Angular, React, jQuery, etc?

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> It (v2) is quite fast too [http://www.stefankrause.net/wp/?p=316](http://www.stefankrause.net/wp/?p=316)

</comment><comment><USER69> > I'd say Vue.js is like socialism: you are in definitely in charge, but > Vue.js is always within reach, a sturdy, but flexible safety net ready

I think he means social democracy

</comment><comment><USER70> Side-project wise, we use Vue on StyleCI ([https://styleci.io](https://styleci.io)) and over the next few months we'll also be using it on Cachet ([https://cachethq.io](https://cachethq.io)).

My experience started at work where we used it on an internal project. The ease of use was insane, we had something reactive and easy to work on in no more than 10 minutes. React has always had too big of a learning curve for us, so it'd have been a vanilla JS/jQuery mess if we hadn't found Vue.

We're now using it on almost any project we start (they're all very UI driven).

I met Evan You at Laracon earlier in the year, he's an awesome dude and has put a lot of thought into everything Vue. Thanks again for making Vue! :)

</comment><comment><USER71> I had a look at Vue after a long time and then weex a react native alternative using Vue.js instead of Reactjs. Backed by Alibaba and actively developed it looked really good. But a look at issues made me a bit afraid to use it. The primary language used for discussion, suggestions etc is chinese. Documentation however is available in english.

[https://alibaba.github.io/weex/](https://alibaba.github.io/weex/)

</comment><comment><USER72> vue is awesome.

I wish there were an equivalent to something like ember-fastboot for out-of- the-box server side rendering, though. (server-side rendering for those who care about progressive enhancement in the browser, not isomorphism).

<comment><USER73> Vuejs 2.0 does server side rendering, afaik.

<comment><USER72> it does, but that isn't my complaint: there isn't an official, opinionated way to do it - something that syncs vue-router to express and serves. it's a common enough problem that fastboot solved it for ember, and I wish vue had the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Fun fact: There's a Vue-based HN clone: [https://vue- hn.now.sh/top](https://vue-hn.now.sh/top)

I just realized that it's more dynamic than I thought when I saw two stories switch positions on the page. How cool!

</comment><comment><USER75> These discussions almost never mention cycle.js. I haven't done front end in a couple of years but whenever I read something from the author of the framework, I'm pretty impressed and the choices they made seem very promising.

</comment><comment><USER76> Is there anyone that's used Vue and knockout that would like to share the strengths/weaknesses of each? The both seem quite similar so I'd like to know if I missing out on anything by not switching.

<comment><USER63> [https://vuejs.org/guide/comparison.html#Knockout](https://vuejs.org/guide/comparison.html#Knockout)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I tried Vue.js a few months ago and liked it a lot. But now, I need to rewrite my apps and I decided to go the Cordova road with Ionic 2, because Ionic 2 is, imho, unparalleled in its quality.

Ionic 2 uses Angular 2 and I wished there was some Ionic 2 + Vue.js bindings. However, after working with it for a bit, I found that Angular 2 is actually quite simple with the benefit of using TypeScript out of the box.

Before you dismiss Angular 2, give it a try. It's fundamentally different from Angular 1: easier to learn, less complex, faster results.

<comment><USER78> Have you looked at Weex[1]? It's what Ionic is to Angular, the only difference is that Weex and Vue has an official collaboration and Weex has been embraced by Vue's developers - something that Ionic hasn't yet been by the Angular team as far as I'm aware.

Note though that the collaboration is still very young between these two, but I believe we'll see some great things in 2017 from this collaboration!

[1]: [https://alibaba.github.io/weex/](https://alibaba.github.io/weex/)

<comment><USER77> Yes, I did and I don't like it very much. Docs are partially in Chinese, almost no examples. Compare this to Ionic 2, which is very close to native elements, including animations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> My team and I are considering switching from Knockout.js to Vue.js. Has anyone here made that (or a similar) transition and do you know of some pros / cons, battle stories, etc.?

<comment><USER32> you'll probably see less disconnect from Knockout to Vue than pretty much any other modern js ui approach... even ng1 to ng2 is a really big break. I happen to like React's approach more, as it's more pure to JS (even with JSX) than augmented DOM, or template engines are imho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> It would nice if they shared the 30 -> 1 line change.

<comment><USER81> I'm guessing those 30 lines were for manipulating the DOM or getting the data from form elements. In Vue similarly like in Angular you don't need to write code for that, because the data is 2-way bound. You just do something like this.data = ... and you're done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> I like the ideas of the choo framework [https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/choo](https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/choo) it's very close to vanilla js, which makes it less of a lock-in, while still bringing lessons learned and practices from redux/elm-architecture.

I am currently using it (the 4.0 branch) in a project and enjoying it.

</comment><comment><USER83> How does Vue.js handle high latency issues? With Angular 1.x I've always had issues where the GUI will "flash" while the HTML is loading and the angular.js has not yet finished loading on a slow connection (so you might briefly see all of these {{message1}} {{message2}} etc on the page). I'm curious how Vue.js handles that case or if it has the same problem.

<comment><USER84> ng-cloak is your friend..

<comment><USER83> I guess but it feels like such an anti pattern. I have to tag every thing that uses the template system with ng-cloak and that assumes the angular css loads before the HTML which can still not be guaranteed it's just more likely.

The worst part is many default values could be displayed but now we're hiding sometimes large junks when for the best UX you should show as much of the page as possible.

Ultimately just not a fan of any template engine that relies on being fast enough to hide and replace values in the raw HTML.

<comment><USER85> To reduce the need for ng-cloak, use ng-bind

instead of

{{value}}

It is preferable to use ngBind instead of {{ expression }} if a template is momentarily displayed by the browser in its raw state before Angular compiles it. Since ngBind is an element attribute, it makes the bindings invisible to the user while the page is loading.

<comment><USER83> Interesting, I forgot about ng-bind (honestly it's a pattern I _never_ see on the web). That is, for sure, the superior pattern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> We _just_ started using React, primarily for it's server side rendering support in .NET with Reactjs.net. Works really well and the React mindset feels great.

Coming from Angular 1 though, Vue has a lot of appeal. Is there any support for SSR in .Net, or anything in the pipeline? I've not been able to find anything.

</comment><comment><USER87> Is there a normalized performance suite that compares the popular front-end frameworks?

I understand if performance is of utter most importance, you may not want to use a framework layer. However there are tons of other benefits associated with using a framework.

</comment><comment><USER88> I'd like to discuss the following comparison in: [https://vuejs.org/guide/comparison.html#Angular-2](https://vuejs.org/guide/comparison.html#Angular-2)

> Vue 2.0 seems to be ahead of Angular 2 according to this 3rd party > benchmark. ( [http://stefankrause.net/js-frameworks- > benchmark4/webdriver-t...](http://stefankrause.net/js-frameworks- > benchmark4/webdriver-ts/table.html) )

The latest benchmark provided is actually:

[https://rawgit.com/krausest/js-framework- benchmark/master/we...](https://rawgit.com/krausest/js-framework- benchmark/master/webdriver-ts/table.html)

But, Angular 2 is v2.1.1 now, released 2016-10-20. Someone should update: [https://github.com/krausest/js-framework- benchmark](https://github.com/krausest/js-framework-benchmark)

However, as they say, "In terms of performance, both frameworks are exceptionally fast and there isn't enough data from real world use cases to make a verdict."

And Angular 2 Hello World is easier than they make it seem in the comparison:

> starts out with an app that uses ES2015 JavaScript, NPM with 18 > dependencies, 4 files, and over 3,000 words to explain it all - just to say > Hello World.

It's just the following with a lot of documentation that could be simplified:

      mkdir angular-quickstart
      (add package.json)
      npm install
      mkdir app
      (add app.component.js)
      (add app/app.module.js)
      (add app/main.js)
      cd ..
      (add index.html)
      (add styles.css - optional step)
      npm start

Also, it makes the case that Angular2 is "enterprise" because many use TypeScript with it. But, TypeScript is optional in both Vue and Angular2, so people could just as easily make the argument that Vue is "enterprise" because it supports TypeScript.

Finally, it's true that Google uses/develops Angular2, so that's some significant backing. If you want to see who's using Vue:

[https://github.com/vuejs/awesome-vue#projects-using- vuejs](https://github.com/vuejs/awesome-vue#projects-using-vuejs)

That doesn't mean anything on its own, though. It could be just fine to use and expect to continue to be hyped.

<comment><USER89> >But, TypeScript is optional in [..] Angular2,

typescript is not optional. Just look at the official docs. the js version of docs are still incompelte even though 2.1 has been released.

>it's true that Google uses/develops Angular2

Google's major product is adwords. And adwords is built on angular2 dart version. While devs mostly use ts version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> I like Vue. I am using Ractive.js at work. They are both quite similar in terms of their prioritization of ease of use and performance.

</comment><comment><USER91> Has anyone had any experience with vue.js + Dart?

</comment><comment><USER92> Nice readup. There are fine alternatives to react. Another vdom lib that's pretty good and not often mentioned is ractivejs.

</comment><comment><USER93> Not a single link to Vue.js

</comment><comment><USER94> Why? because you're a bunch of hipsters that can't stick to the mainstream technologies =)

As an opensource project, it'd be easier to get contributors if you could just stick with Angular.js, for example.

</comment><comment><USER95> I suppose Vue.js is not very TypeScript friendly?

<comment> dyu- It is very friendly. I've successfully migrated my gwt + vue-0.10 stack to typescript 2.0 + vue 2.0

Shameless plug: [https://github.com/vuets/vuets](https://github.com/vuets/vuets)

It is a micro-lib less than 100 LOC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> Why is it that the first instinct of some developers is to go out and 'choose' a framework? Even before you know the thing you're building is going to be around for awhile, people automatically think they need a framework to do anything these days.

Does it feel good to let someone else make critical decisions for you, instead of thinking for yourself? Can all projects really be distilled down into some javascript framework?

The benefits of using a framework these days are rapidly evaporating as what is trendy today likely won't be in a few years anyways. And the truth is after so many months or years or commits, the benefits of structure of the framework start to fade away as the application becomes more customized and bespoke. All the complexity is in the actual application functionality, not the tiny little savings and poor abstractions that a come with a framework.

I've worked for large tech companies and small alike. It all goes the same way. Some developer who is super opinionated and passionate props up their framework of choice, or does some kind of perfunctory analysis of the "current best" of whatever is available at the time and the rest of the other more submissive developers go along with him. It has more to do with group dynamics than has to do with actual technical merit, or what is best for the product or business.

Then, once the system has become a ball of mud, the "lead" guy leaves. Or he proudly exclaims there's a new hotness in town, and that we need to rewrite our application in this new thing because it's faster, or better, or you get to type less. Or some other such bullshit. He'll then go to give demo's of how fast you can make a simple app that has nothing to do with anything -- like a simple TODO list -- "look how fast it renders!" he'll exclaim (of course forgetting to tell everyone the first page load or stale cache hit is actually worse).

I personally hate giving up the freedom of what abstractions I get to decide on, how to structure my code, how to organize my API's, etc. for a supposed one size fits all solution created by someone I've never even met or talked to, and for code that I haven't reviewed.

If it's a library that's doing something useful and providing a great API, like some 3D graphics, drawing primitives, ML, database engine, etc. that's a different story. That is useful software that actually does stuff. But for "rendering" (I say that lightly because the browser does the rendering and layout, a framework merely is a middle-man) forms and buttons and keeping state of an application? Or telling you how and where to put source files, and name things? That's your job as a developer to come up with these conventions and to build an application that is 1:1 with the problem domain.

</comment><comment><USER97> It's really a shame that Vue doesn't use standards like custom elements.

</comment><comment><USER98> >Why we chose Vue.js

Why?

</comment><comment><USER99> No comparison to React... Yawn.

</comment><comment><USER100> Vue-cli is great too. It just works, creates a really well thought out initial project that can build to a single static html/js/css. Or, it can be turned into a typical express app easily. This makes Vue.js combine well with serverless.

</comment><comment><USER101> It's great to hear a success story. Kudos to the GitLab team.

</comment><comment><USER102> Oh man, I just started learning React... [https://vuejs.org/guide/comparison.html](https://vuejs.org/guide/comparison.html)

<comment><USER32> I find the comparison to React there pretty biased, especially wrt the learning curve... JSX is a cakewalk, and OMG, oh noes, you need to know the current JS language.

<comment><USER103> Well the React guys wrote a lot of it, so..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> Building something fast is a radically different proposition than being able to maintain it with ease. React is mostly aimed at the latter while VueJS at the former. There is no comparison.</comment>


Open Source 'Needs To Ignore' Stallman, says GNU Maintainer - <AUTHOR> http://news.efytimes.com/e1/97274/Open-Source-Needs-To-Ignore-Stallman-says-GNU-Maintainer <comment><USER2> Hilariously written article. Here are some of the most wonderful snippets:

"this is possibly one of the biggest war that as been witnessed ... Paolo Bonzin, who has maintained the Free Software Foundation's GNU grep and GNU sed, has quit from his role." This is just the warmup. It's the beginning of the article, and has a few funny typos to get your juices flowing. My favorite part, is there's just something about the idea of "the biggest war witnessed" being kicked off by these unassuming command line regex utilities that gave me a little thrill.

Two paragraphs later, the article starts the real hit parade. "Bonzini put it bluntly saying, 'To put it somewhat bluntly, ...'" In my writing, I've sometimes found it difficult to properly introduce a quote. I never realized that I could simply repeat the quoted person verbatim. This is a brilliant technique.

Next paragraph, the brilliance continues: "it would be impossible to convince a diverse group such as the group of GNU maintainers to agree on coding standards for C. He wrote in his post, 'It is likely not possible to convince a diverse group such as the group of GNU maintainers to agree on coding standards for C++, for example...'"

The author was so enamored with this technique that he repeated it at the end of the very same quote. "'all Stallman had to offer on the topic was "We still prefer C to C++, because C++ is so ugly" (sic). As a result of this, the GNU coding standards have not seen any update in years and are entirely obsolete." Bonzini blamed that it was Stallman's attitude because of which GNU coding standards have not been updated in years and were entirely obsolete."

I also love the last line of the article. "Well, if the trend continues, it can be a trouble for Stallman and his FSF ..." It rather puts me in mind of a young child, having spoken at unaccustomed length and exhausted their material, who shrugs and ends with, "well, they were in big trouble."

This article was a great Christmas present. Thanks, Hacker News!

<comment><USER3> Most likely English is not the author's first language. While they do not contribute much beyond the quotes, at least the article had a modicum of information and was not a complete waste of time. I'm afraid I can't say as much for your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussion, based on the original post from the maintainer (which this article doesn't really add anything to): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4956899>

</comment><comment><USER5> All too often I have been amazed by RMS's foresight, I would say ignore him at ones peril, but by all means temper his advice.

<comment><USER6> Seriously, anyone who claims mobile phones are the work of the devil, and should not be trusted, but will then use someone else's whenever its convenient, is a hypocrite not a visionary.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, my initial comment was about RMS and 'freedom in computing'. The article(s) are more about his ability to lead a team, and in that they may indeed be valid (and at first glance do seem to be). As to the cellular phones, sure they have been empowering to almost everyone in the world (and I esp. think of 3rd world countries), but I think we have yet to see the end game. Hypocrite, maybe, practical yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> google cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3kLx8iX...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3kLx8iXgTHYJ:news.efytimes.com/e1/97274/Open- Source-Needs-To-Ignore-Stallman-says-GNU-Maintainer+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

</comment><comment><USER8> I have been saying this for a while. Fanatics are bad news, regardless of how noble the cause.

<comment><USER9> I'm not sure that it makes sense to compare RMS to (say) suicide bombers. Not all "fanaticism" is equivalent.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure that you can be a fanatic without being a suicide bomber, and that he didn't imply "RMS is like a suicide bomber".

I am prepared to acknowledge that he might well be right in his positions on freedom, but he comes across as a lunatic in most of his talks. I have a problem with this; if what he's saying is important, could we not advance a more charismatic, tactful and effective ambassador?

<comment><USER11> Or get rid of your expectations on what an ideal leader is?

Either way we already have a community of people sharing similar values of open source - I don't think we need a hierarchical leader/follower structure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Link returns 404 :(

<comment><USER13> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:news.ef...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:news.efytimes.com/e1/97274/Open- Source-Needs-To-Ignore-Stallman-says-GNU-Maintainer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> 404.

<comment> micro-ram <http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=97274>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yeah, thats not going to happen. HAHA!</comment>


HTMLDoc – a standard for documenting your HTML - <AUTHOR> http://usehtmldoc.org/ <comment><USER2> isnt the purpose of html to be a means of describing information one wishes to convey? At what point is describing the describing of information in order to describe information no longer a self perpetuating loop? I am likely naive or ignorant but isnt there little to no value, as well, to screen readers / alternate html consumers, in terms of accessibility and such? So, i guess my tl:dr is "why?"

edit: thinking deeper into this - this also conflicts with other bastardizations of html comments, used by some apparatuses (gulp initially comes to mind), which need specific, albeit semantically useless, comments as a "hook" (for lack of a better term) to distribute precompiled stuffs and such. Im not endorsing these prior bastardizations any more than I am condemning this idea, rather just pointing out that as well meaning it may have been to contrive this - to me at least, it reads as more shrapnel in a handgrenade.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your thoughts.

While I certainly believe in self-documenting code where possible, I think there's a place for comments, and also for well structured comments.

I wouldn't recommend going haywire and commenting on every HTML element, attribute, etc., any more than I'd recommend using any other language facility or tool like a sledgehammer.

But that's not to say structured commenting isn't a useful tool for the right situations. I have found the JSDocs in the code-base of Angular and other libraries to be invaluable, on occasions where it wasn't possible to fully convey the meaning in pure code.</comment></comment>


Where to watch Mars Curiosity Landing Online - <AUTHOR> http://spaceindustrynews.com/where-to-view-the-mars-curiosity-landing-online/420/

<comment><USER2> For anybody else interested in the objectives of Curiosity (I wasn't sure so I checked)

The MSL mission has four scientific goals: 1\. Determine whether Mars could ever have supported life 2\. Study the climate of Mars 3\. Study the geology of Mars 4\. Plan for a human mission to Mars

Sweet!

From Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Goals_and_objec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Goals_and_objectives)

<comment><USER3> What would be the objectives of a human mission? I'm wondering if it's mostly an ego thing since the robots can do most of the science stuff.

<comment><USER4> To do it.

And while we're there, science the place up.

There are still some experiments we can only do in person that can't be done with robots. I can imagine experiments relating to terraforming would be high on the list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have an idea of when this will occur? This article says 15:31, but provides no timezone. The wikipedia page says 05:31 UTC. I assumed the article is written by someone at NASA from the author tag "JULY 11, 2012 by WILLIAM in NASA" which suggests they are putting times in ETC...

Edit: Further research shows the JPL saying 'just after ten pm, PST' which is in line with the 05:31 UTC touchdown.

<comment><USER6> Note that it lands on August 6th "GMT" but it lands just after 10PM on the west coast on Sunday the 5th. That's why I'm having a "Welcome to Mars!" party that day. Drinks, snacks, and we'll watch the landing live on big screen TV courtesy of the NASA TV channel.

<comment><USER7> Just after 10PM? Wikipedia gives the landing time as approximately 05:31 UTC August 6th, which is 1:31 AM EDT.

I'd like to be wrong, since I'd like to stay up and watch, but I have work in the morning :(

Also, I expect there will be quite some delay between actual landing and confirmation received by NASA, given Mars' distance from Earth.

<comment><USER6> Aye, sorry that your EDT, in PDT its 10:31 PM, and the 'fun' starts just after 10 (as in I believe the last big retro burn is around 10 and the final descent begins) now the telemetry from that maneuver will let us know if there is a chance it will make it (did you say 3000 "feet" per second or "meters" per second?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am actually quiet sure there cannot be a live video feed. The best we can have is a twitter feed or maybe a live-blog from someone form NASA. I would have absolutely loved a video feed though.</comment>


Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger - <AUTHOR> http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102 <comment><USER2> I'm teaching a high school science class right now called "Are We Alone?" It's a survey class of what kind of objects exist in the Universe, and how we're scientifically attempting to answer the question of whether life exists anywhere other than Earth.

It's going to be fun sharing this with the class today!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We ramped up capacity. Massive traffic! Also, if you are looking for a good article on this from a field expert, we have a Physics Viewpoint on it here: [http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/17](http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/17)

<comment><USER3> I also enjoyed the article on the LIGO site at [http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication- GW150914/index.php](http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication- GW150914/index.php)

Solid coverage without the fluff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> LIGO's mirror: [https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0122/P150914/014/LIGO-P150914%3A...](https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0122/P150914/014/LIGO-P150914%3ADetection_of_GW150914.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's a wonderful data and a well-written paper. Really just remarkable.

They have a few minor events that seem less likely to lead to anything, but to capture a big one like this at the start of 16 days of collection is a gift.

</comment><comment> java-man Thank you for posting a direct link to the paper!

</comment><comment><USER5> B.P. Abbott must be getting a lot of inquiries :)

Edit: Abbott is, when alphabetically arranged, the first name of a long list of authors.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is this paper mirrored anywhere else yet? The Phys. Rev. Letters site appears to be a bit overloaded!

<comment><USER7> Here's the abstract:

On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0×10−21. It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. The signal was observed with a matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 24 and a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203 000 years, equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1σ. The source lies at a luminosity distance of 410+160−180 Mpc corresponding to a redshift z=0.09+0.03−0.04. In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36+5−4M⊙ and 29+4−4M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 62+4−4M⊙, with 3.0+0.5−0.5M⊙c2 radiated in gravitational waves. All uncertainties define 90% credible intervals. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.

<comment><USER8> I dabbled with GR many years ago, so I'd have been surprised if this hadn't turned up sooner or later... but My God, look at that... three earth masses- worth of radiated gravitational energy, I can hardly fathom that.

<comment><USER9> I think that's three solar masses.

<comment><USER8> My bad, you're right — my astonishment has risen by orders of magnitude.

<comment><USER9> Intermediate mass black holes are 100 to 1 million solar masses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> wow, I hope some of my APS member dues go to improving the servers!</comment>


France's Message for Capitalism: Adapt or Die - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-17/france-s-message-for-capitalism-is-quite-simple-adapt-or-die <comment><USER2> Amusing. I suggest France adapts or dies if they want to continue to play a leading role. Countries are only as strong as their economy and France's economic performance is uninspiring. Sarkozy is pushing for a transfer of Northern European wealth to the South but the EU is not the US.

</comment><comment><USER3> The Yellow Vest movement was largely a tax revolt; a Boston Tea Party type event.

... and Macron's big take away is that France needs higher taxes?

<comment><USER4> Not really, they want other people to be taxed instead of them. Of course people always find someone richer than them to blame. (Taxes are already very progressive in France).

<comment><USER5> Even if rich people "cheat" and pay a smaller percentage than lower brackets, they still provide the overwhelming amount of tax dollars. The idea that rich people dont pay their share (whatever that is suppossed to mean, a moral premise that is very nonobvious) is silly.

<comment><USER6> Your comment is contradictory. If rich people pay a lower percentage than lower brackets, that corresponds exactly to the idea that they don't pay their _share_. According to your logic, if the rich represented 85% of tax dollars (an overwhelming amount) and 99% of the total wealth/income, they should be let off the hook

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think that the French economy would be better off if France simply outlawed all major US online monopolies. There is more than enough talent and ambition inside France to come up with better alternatives to all major US services... They just need an opportunity to start.

<comment><USER8> That's a bold statement, and it goes against my anecdotal experience. Do you have evidence for this?

<comment><USER7> I think this is true of pretty much any country. Most of the talent is there, but they just don't have an opportunity to compete against big companies like Google.

Just look at China; they blocked all US online monopolies and as a result they've quickly come up with their own alternative versions of every major service and the Chinese economy is still going strong. As unethical as it may seem for the government to control such things, there is no doubt that they're better off like this (strictly economically speaking).

<comment><USER8> China has a population (and thus potential audience) more than 20 times bigger than France; I think it's a weak argument to claim the two economies would do similarly without further evidence. Similarly, I have trouble believing the talent is there, having talked to entrepreneurs in France and comparing my experiences there and in Silicon Valley.

We might then think to look at companies like VK in Russia, but VK is order of magnitudes away from the success of Tencent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this the same country that lit fire on Uber drivers' cars?

<comment><USER10> Probably. They love lighting cars on fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A couple of observations:

Russia has less economic disparity than US-Canada (despite oligarchs), at least as they measured it.

Minimum international corporate tax rate, at least in theory sounds like it could kerb companies from moving HQs to low tax havens for the main purpose of reducing tax burden.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am baffled about how clueless these people are :(

Europe with its hyper regulation and culture against change has stifled its own economies to a level where now they need to outlaw foreign competition...just let that logic sync in!

Instead of making their laws more attractive to innovation (by rethinking things like GDPR which just strengthens large companies or improving bankruptcy/Insolvency laws) the best idea they have is to outlaw them in hope this will create a vidid startup ecosystem...good luck with that.

Here is what you need to do: 1\. Invest more in education, specially: Teach people how to be independent learners, self management, self motivation, etc. 2\. Remove all hurdles to incorporate a business (should be as easy as signing up for a Facebook account). 3\. Make it safe to fail by rethinking bankruptcy/Insolvency laws 4\. Provide a social safety net for failed entrepreneurs so that they can get back on their feed quickly and try the next thing (to be fair, many European countries do this well already at least when it comes to healthcare) 5\. Simplify the tax code so that entrepreneurs don't have huge overhead (hint, this could all be done by software) 6\. Make it easier for small to mid sized businesses to hire and layoff employee's...have the government pay the bills. 7\. Create a strong VC community with attractive tax laws

I once owned a mid size business in germany, and when the economy tanked (2008) and I had to declare bankruptcy the government fucking destroyed me...to the point that I left the country and never looked back! Thats not how you encourage innovation and competition.

Instead I moved to Silicon Valley, where I was allowed to fail a couple time more before I got the chance to drive home multiple exits and build 100M dollar businesses

<comment><USER13> The EU has about the same GDP as the USA, despite half of it being former Soviet Union. Several member states beat the US by GDP/capita, despite (because?) 28 days minimum holiday.

<comment><USER14> > despite half of it being former Soviet Union.

Latvia and Estonia are not half of the EU, by any reasonable measure.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I mistakenly thought Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union were synonyms. Oops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "If we don't invent a new capitalism, absurd economic solutions will win > over and sweep us straight into recession,'' Le Maire said in an interview > late last month.

This reminds me of the famous quote by F. A. Hayek:

> The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they > really know about what they imagine they can design.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's hilarious that all these news outlets still don't get it. They think the French are protesting against capitalism, and that there's any continuity with what people like AOC are saying. The fact is, France is protesting against globalism. As the UK did with Brexit. And the US with Trump. And Italy with their new government. Even in Canada, our two biggest provinces have elected populist governments, and it's likely enough we could also have a conservative government by the end of the year who will likely also take advantage of populism.

Globalism promised a future where we could outsource manual labour to developing countries and we'd all have jobs in the information sector. Well now we're automating large parts of that sector, outsourcing some too, meanwhile we've also outsourced manufacturing and labour, now all we have left is shitty service jobs. It was by design and let's face it, people aren't happy.

US media can bury their heads in the sand all they want, but all these events are an indictment of globalism and all over the western world people are sick of it.

Edit - here's a good documentary about inequality: [https://youtu.be/AFIxi7BiScI](https://youtu.be/AFIxi7BiScI)

<comment><USER14> > They think the French are protesting against capitalism, and that there's > any continuity with what people like AOC are saying. The fact is, France is > protesting against globalism.

Globalism (at least the form.thst concretely exists and is being protested) _is_ capitalism; it's true that some of the current protest is nationalist, xenophobic, and corporatist, while some of it class-conscious, not targeted against any non-economic identity group, and socialist, and that despite protesting against the same thing those two groups are diametrically opposed.

<comment><USER10> So, you've basically just repeated media talking points and have nothing to say about globalism contributing to inequality and protest?

<comment><USER14> > So, you've basically just repeated media talking points

No, none of that is "media talking points".

> and have nothing to say about globalism contributing to inequality and > protest?

Other than the fact that I explicitly agreed that both xenophobic nationalistic corporatists and socialists are protesting in response to capitalist globalism...yes, actually I have more to say on the topic (and already said it in another subthread):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19437188](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19437188)

<comment><USER10> > xenophobic nationalistic corporatists

Literally talking points used to discredit conservative populism.

And from your previous comment:

> class-conscious, not targeted against any non-economic identity group, and > socialist

Again, media talking points. PC culture has taken over the left; now instead of talking about inequality, they talk about a 'New Green Deal', gender pronouns, open borders/increased immigration, etc...

On the right, limiting immigration and tariffs are their solutions to reducing the outsourcing of labour (and both are valid economic principles), yet it gets dismissed with negative adjectives.

In both cases, all these talking points distract from the fact that inequality is the problem, globalism is one of the driving forces of inequality, and it's all glossed over by the media talking points you repeated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm quite amazed it's taken this long. Of course, it hasn't actually happened yet either. If fair taxation alone were in place, the standard of living would be significantly better in pretty much any country.

<comment><USER17> > If fair taxation alone were in place,

What is "fair" taxation?

<comment><USER18> Economically, the fairest tax system is one that does not affect people's behavior. The most straightforward means of doing this is a head tax, but that's not politically feasible. The best thing to do is a sales tax on price inelastic things.

<comment><USER19> What makes it "fair", exactly? I don't think most people would see it as such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What is ailing southern Europe and partially France is the currency union, in which Germany pretty much consolidated all the economic gains.

This is not about Capitalism, this is about sovereignty and financial determinism of a state.

</comment><comment><USER21> Unpopular opinions ahead:

As far as I can tell, "globalism" is the biggest cause of inequality. It's not about QE or easy monetary policy. It's about the fact that I don't have to pay a guy next door high wages to have something done. I can pay someone in a developing nation 10x less to do the same thing. Doing this at scale is what got us in to this mess.

Some argue that globalism was inevitable, others that there is some shadowy group pushing an agenda. But whatever you believe, one outcome of globalization (and there are positives as well) but one negative outcome is income inequality.

What bugs me about this article is that these people think they can solve inequality with MORE globalism ("global" taxes, regulating international companies etc). I don't think doubling down on it is going to fix anything.

You know how you fix capitalism? You break apart the huge companies. You incentivize smaller companies (with progressive corporate income taxes and other things). Competition will yield lower prices and more innovation.

<comment><USER19> It might increase income inequality in your country, but does it do so globally? I mean, that person in a developing nation will still likely get way more money than they would have from local work. So it serves as wealth transfer from developed to developing countries.

Now, large corporations are taking and pocketing a large part of that transferred wealth, effectively gouging it back (and making it even more concentrated in their home countries in the process). And why can they do that? Because, while capital and goods can flow across borders mostly unrestricted, labor is constrained by immigration restrictions. Chinese workers don't get direct access to the US market - no, they have to work for transnationals that will pay them slightly better than local wage, and then sell the product of their labor for as much as they can in countries where wages (and hence prices) are much higher.

<comment><USER22> >It might increase income inequality in your country, but does it do so globally?

I think locality matters for income inequality. The poor kid in Bangladesh, really doesn't care that someone owns a $100 Million apartment in Manhattan. However, if you are the working poor in NYC struggling to make ends meet, you are likely to feel something viscerally (maybe a tiny amount) when you go past those apartments.

People tend to compare and judge locally. Who you see, who you interact with on a daily basis matter far more than some theoretical person 1000's of miles away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> France is barely capitalistic though when compared to the US or even its close neighbor the UK.

<comment><USER19> Is French industry mostly nationalized? If not, I don't see how it's barely capitalistic. Capitalism doesn't require laissez-faire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> People's general lack of education on "Capitalism" baffles me.

> _"If we don't invent a new capitalism, absurd economic solutions will win > over and sweep us straight into recession,'' Le Maire said in an interview > late last month._

> _A key example for him is Italy, where the populist government came to power > riding a wave of public anger. It quickly threw out the rulebook on fiscal > responsibility, sent bond yields higher and confidence lower, helping to > push its economy into a slump._

An example of a failed fiscal policy is a government who gave up on fiscal responsibility. _No shit Sherlock_.

> "If we want capitalism to hold together work must be better paid," Le Maire > said. "There comes a moment when workers won't tolerate it any longer."

If you want better paying work: find a better paying job. If you can't get employed in one, develop/learn marketable skills to do so. If you want freedom from "finding work", create your own value by starting a business.

The system is fine. Sure, the system can have added "benefits", but it's not the system that is broken — it's the people.

<comment><USER25> If you want better paying work, _have the government stop taking more than 50% of the money._

(I don't mean that the government charges 50% taxes on workers. I mean that, in France, government consumes 50%+ of GDP - or so I understand.)

<comment><USER26> We've generally tried that. Turns out there appear strong ones who bend the rules to their wishes. So we had to gather together to defend ourselves from such behavior.

Here we see another iteration of power grab - and another iteration of defense. Government isn't only the burden, it also serves some purposes.

<comment><USER25> I agree that government serves some purpose. I agree that it's necessary to keep the strong from devouring the weak. But _half the GDP_? Is _that much_ government necessary?

And if it is, then you don't get to complain that work doesn't pay very well. You're taking the rest of your compensation in the form of government.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Depression – Being an Expat in the First World [Need Advice] - <AUTHOR> http://wanna.live/are-we-born-to-work-and-die-a-soul-crushed-employee-looks-for-a-way-out/ <comment><USER2> Previously posted 8 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17061287)

Also, the title of the linked article is "Are We Born To Work And Die? A Soul- Crushed Employee Looks For A Way Out"

</comment><comment><USER3> Mate if you think being a salaried employee sucks you might to want to try working as a blue collar worker in a slaughterhouse.

Don't take this the wrong way but your coming across as super entitled.

<comment><AUTHOR> As written in the text, once you "get" a "white-collar" job, you'll see that there is not much difference between the two.

We're in the same hell.

<comment><USER3> The OP Said "Salaried" and there are many differences social status etc self defined hours of work.

And if you think working in an office is just the same as working in a slaughter house or in an amazon warehouse you probably have never worked at manual job.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, what would you recommend to improve the situation?</comment></comment></comment></comment>