Does Even Mark Zuckerberg Know What Facebook Is? - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/10/does-even-mark-zuckerberg-know-what-facebook-is.html <comment><USER2> > "We have been working to ensure the integrity of the German elections this > weekend," Zuckerberg writes.

Excuse me, what? As an advertising company, you don't ensure the integrity of a sovereign nation's election. You can at most abstain from unduly interfering with it (and of course you should, it's not particularly laudable or supererogatory).

<comment><USER3>
      Facebook has grown so big, and become so totalizing, that we
      can't really grasp it all at once. Like a four-dimensional
      object, we catch slices of it when it passes through the
      three-dimensional world we recognize.

This is an incredible bit of prose. It reads like a description of some kind of future mega-corporation from a Gibson novel, and it's mind-bending to contemplate that we really do live in that universe.

<comment><USER4> He elaborates a bit later on the properties of this object. What a sentence:

        But what had been presented as a democratic town hall was
        revealed to be a densely interwoven collection of parallel
        media ecosystems and political infrastructures outside the
        control of mainstream media outlets and major political
        parties and moving like a wrecking ball through both.

<comment><USER5> Oh my, do I have to do yet another "mobile friendly" reply? Maybe I should write a Mobile Quote Bot. :-)

> _But what had been presented as a democratic town hall was revealed to be a > densely interwoven collection of parallel media ecosystems and political > infrastructures outside the control of mainstream media outlets and major > political parties and moving like a wrecking ball through both._

Tip to HN commenters: don't indent block quotes and break them up into lines. That is for code formatting, and it makes the quote hard to read on a mobile device.

Instead, put the quote all on one line in this format without indenting it:

      > *Quote here.*

Or the quote can be on multiple lines (newlines and spaces are interchangeable), as long as the lines are _not indented_. Just add the > and * at the beginning, and another * at the end. This will put the quote in a reasonable format that works both on desktop and mobile browsers.

If the quote consists of multiple paragraphs, I like to follow the above formatting for each paragraph separately. Put a blank line between each paragraph so they don't run together.

And then be sure to check the format after commenting. It should look like the quote near the beginning of this comment. If it doesn't look right, edit to fix it. And no, you do not need to add an "Edit: fixed formatting" note. That would be silly, just fix the thing.

HN's comment formatting options are rather meager, so this is about the best we can do.

Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Sorry about that. I figured that the post I was replying to had done it for a reason that I didn't understand, so I mimicked it. I'll keep your advice in mind in the future.

<comment><USER5> No worries, and no apology needed! It gave me an excuse to post some general advice on quoting, so that's all good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quote of the year:

> _But if Facebook is bigger, newer, and weirder than a mere company, surely > his trip is bigger, newer, and weirder than a mere presidential run. Maybe > he's doing research and development, reverse-engineering social bonds to > understand how Facebook might better facilitate them. Maybe Facebook is a > church and Zuckerberg is offering his benedictions. Maybe Facebook is a > state within a state and Zuckerberg is inspecting its boundaries. Maybe > Facebook is an emerging political community and Zuckerberg is cultivating > his constituents. Maybe Facebook is a surveillance state and Zuckerberg a > dictator undertaking a propaganda tour. Maybe Facebook is a dual power — a > network overlaid across the U.S., parallel to and in competition with the > government to fulfill civic functions — and Zuckerberg is securing his > command. Maybe Facebook is border control between the analog and the digital > and Zuckerberg is inspecting one side for holes. Maybe Facebook is a fleet > of alien spaceships that have colonized the globe and Zuckerberg is the > viceroy trying to win over his new subjects._

<comment><USER7> Maybe someone is behind Zuckerberg? I don't find him too smart, really.

<comment><USER8> He's not the brightest, but he sure is savvy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Digit-Al I can see a number of potential reasons why Zuck wouldn't want to be US president.

Firstly, it seems to me that it could potentially poison his brand overseas. Everyone knows that Facebook can potentially exert a lot of influence in very subtle ways. How many countries would want most of their citizens under the potential influence of a company owned by the president of a potentially hostile country? It could cause Facebook to be banned in some countries (like it already is in China).

Secondly, it could be argued that the owner of Facebook already has more power than the US president, so it would be a step down. After all, Facebook has influence over more people than POTUS. And considering the subtle ways we can be manipulated by social media, it can surely be argued that he can influence people more directly and more powerfully than POTUS.

So it seems to me that becoming President gains him nothing but aggravation and stress, and stands to lose him valuable overseas business.

<comment><USER9> I disagree that the head of an online advertising company has more power than the POTUS.

<comment> T-hawk The POTUS has 300 million users. Facebook has 2 billion.

<comment><USER10> The POTUS has nukes and one of the most highly trained and best-equipped militaries in the world. Facebook can be shutdown by POTUS in an instant.

Power is not measured by "users."

<comment><USER11> The President of the US indisputably has more destructive power than the CEO of Facebook, but the ability to kill people is not the only measure of power. And, how would the President shut down Facebook in an instant? The US President's powers are highly constrained, as many of them have complained about.

<comment><USER9> I'd like a better understanding of your viewpoint.

What actions do you think Zuck could take which would demonstrate that he has more power than Trump?

And, why do you raise the hypothetical of Trump shutting down Facebook? In particular, it's my understanding that many of Trump's foes are blaming FB for his win.

<comment><USER11> I only raise the point about "Trump shutting down Facebook" in response to the comment "Facebook can be shutdown by POTUS in an instant." It simply isn't true. The President of the United States often can't even get the legislative platform that they ran on through Congress. I don't see any way they can shut down a major US corporation in an instant, unless with the cooperation of dozens of different parties within the government. The power of the US presidency is staggering and fairly unconstrained when it comes to killing millions of people with nuclear and conventional weapons. It's pretty constrained in every other arena.

As to actions that Zuck could take to show that he has more power than the POTUS? As I mentioned, constructive power and destructive power are of different natures, so that the power of an artist building a great sculpture is not really comparable to the power to smash that sculpture with a hammer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For the record: What Facebook is and wants to be is actually an _enforceable personal relations layer_ on top of the web stack.

Uber agrees to send in my name a "Pay me £7.23 for that shared ride" to my Facebook friends, but not to people for whom I can't prove I know well enough. Tinder shows shared relations with strangers. That is a powerful web of features unlocked thanks to this. That's why building an API was such a key early change of what Facebook was.

Typically, Twitter does something similar to Facebook on the surface (a news feed) but is not planning on serving as an authentication layer, so they do a lot less to address grievers, inauthentic accounts and lately, unwanted political influence.

The News Feed was the first key feature, built internally and it boosted the business model that Facebook has started leveraging: targeted advertising. But neither the News Feed, not advertising is the core of Facebook — no more than ads are at the core of Google.

Google wants to leverage artificial intelligence to organise the world's information. That your friends matter to you and that you trust them more, and that you want computers to tell who they are is what's at the core of Facebook; the recent pivot to communities is clearly in that line: you also trust and are willing to help people that you might not have met before because you belong to certain groups, communities.

Ads are a simple and effective way to finance both projects. Because management had to place ad-focused people high up, they took over a bit of the attention, but leaders at both companies know to focus on the end-goal.

I can easily imagine Facebook making more money from transaction fee, or distributing 3D-content; I can imagine Google making more money similarly (typically, CPA is kind of that). Both have tried, and the results were underwhelming, and will most likely try again.

</comment><comment><USER13> From the following NYT's article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/mark- zuckerberg-f...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/opinion/mark-zuckerberg- facebook.html)

 _" Are you bothered by fake news, systematic misinformation campaigns and Facebook "dark posts" — micro-targeted ads not visible to the public — aimed at African-Americans to discourage them from voting? You must be one of those people "upset about ideas" you disagree with.

Are you troubled when agents of a foreign power pose online as American Muslims and post incendiary content that right-wing commentators can cite as evidence that all American Muslims are sympathizers of terrorist groups like the Islamic State? Sounds like you can't handle a healthy debate.

Does it bother you that Russian actors bought advertisements aimed at swing states to sow political discord during the 2016 presidential campaign, and that it took eight months after the election to uncover any of this? Well, the marketplace of ideas isn't for everyone."_

</comment><comment><USER14> Is this an issue with Facebook, or an issue with the society that has yielded the wild success of Facebook?

 _" I read it on the internet, so it must be true."_

Everybody would know I was joking, yet all of this is only an issue precisely because people are insufficiently critical of the things they read. But I'm leaving off an important part of that sentence: _... people are insufficiently critical of the things they read when such things confirm their own biases._ People believe what they believe because they believe that is the most logical view to have. That causes people to turn off their filter when seeing something that confirms that belief.

Somebody censoring a belief or attaching an appeal to an arbitrary authority declaring it false isn't going to change people's minds. If anything, it could very well strengthen their resolve as they feel as though they're being oppressed or attacked. There needs to be more cordial debate and discussion between differing groups. I am not suggesting promoting a false balance, but rather pointing out that what we have _now_ is a false balance. So many topics are optically homogenous - which gives participants and readers a gross misunderstanding of reality and leads both to less questioning of their own views, and a lack of understanding of how anybody could ever disagree with them.

</comment><comment><USER15> News publishers are subject to a certain degree of accountability.

When Facebook launched the real name policy and its limited scale ensured a certain amount of accountability.

These days with advertisement, constantly changing algorithms promoting user content and global scale spanning all types of legal frameworks and enforcement bodies there is no real accountability. Facebook is a tool with incredible power and access to the power is poorly guarded. Zuckerberg may be all powerful but even worse he is enabling anonymous bad organized actors to wreck havoc. An accident that was waiting to happen and of course it did.

</comment><comment><USER16> Facebook is the biggest farm of data milch cows that has ever existed. How can he publically come out and say that? Yes there are, and will continue to be unintended effects on society for running such a large farm...

But

Everyone (trapped) employed in the credit fuelled consumption economy needs the farm to exist.

Asking Zuckerberg to clarify the role of the farm is pointless. It's like asking why a gigantic herd of wildebeest are required for the Serengeti to exist.

If you want a consumption culture that gives you, your iPhones and Star Wars movies you need the farm. Whether its called facebook or is run by a Zuckerberg is in an irrelevant point.

<comment><USER17> >"Everyone (trapped) employed in the credit fuelled consumption economy needs the farm to exist."

The consumption-based segment of the economy has existed for much longer than social networks or the internet:

[https://jobenomicsblog.com/consumption-based- economy/](https://jobenomicsblog.com/consumption-based-economy/)

Also countries with post-industrial economies are a mix of service and consumption. There is no economy that is solely consumption based.

<comment><USER18> _" Whether its called facebook or is run by a Zuckerberg is in an irrelevant point."_

<comment><USER17> How does your comment relate to anything I wrote?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I had an interview at Facebook where the hiring manager completely forgot about it. Ackward, because he was the one I was suppose to meet in the lobby. One of the interviewers came late and took me upstairs, and between the him and the other three, I heard three different stories about what happened to the hiring manager.

However, in the interviews, I came under the impression that Facebook knows very well what they do, where they are going, and what their 7-year plan is.

It's just that corporations don't market that as their image, but prefer to cultivate an image they deem more likeable to attract customers. I'll bet that Mark knows this, and what his company is doing quit well even though at some things, they seem in disarray.

<comment><USER20> And what is that 7-year plan?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > This pledge was, in some ways, the reverse of an other announcement [on > retargeting].

No, it's not: giving advertisers relevant audiences is useful; offering customers the possibility to say "me buying a vacuum cleaner was not because I was starting a collection" serves a similar purpose: showing ads to people interested by them. (On a related note: If you sell a vacuum cleaner, please don't use retargeting.)

> The only two I could think of that might feel obligated to make the same > assurances are Diebold, the widely hated former manufacturer of electronic- > voting systems, and Academi, the private military contractor whose founder > keeps begging for a chance to run Afghanistan. This is not good company.

No words on whether Diebolt, and the hundreds of private computer security companies who protect government services are good companies.

> At 2 billion members, "monthly active Facebook users" is the single largest > non-biologically sorted group

Well, I'd wager 'Internet users' is larger…

> For most Facebook users, these meticulously constructed and assiduously > managed challenges are the only access they'll ever have to Zuckerberg's > otherwise highly private personal life.

The fact that I know his chidren's names (and have seem a dozen pictures of the eldest) but I don't know the names of most of my colleagues' child kind of defeats that point.

> Maybe Facebook is a state within a state and Zuckerberg is inspecting its > boundaries.

Something tells me that the author is American. What could it possibly be?

</comment><comment><USER21> Also saw on the page:

[http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/09/election-interference- is-...](http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/09/election-interference-is-what- facebook-is-built-for.html)

which seems to hit the nail on the head.

</comment><comment><USER22> Shouldn't the title be "Does Mark Zuckerberg Even Know What Facebook Is?"

<comment><USER23> It means "it seems like most people don't know what facebook is, but you would expect that Zuckerberg knows. But we guess _even he_ doesn't know it".

<comment><USER24> that works with a negative 'doesn't know it' but not with a positive 'does know it'.

The question does even X know Y? Implies that X is somehow out of touch, and not knowing Y, but maybe they do - surprise!

The question Does even X not know Y? Implies we would expect X to know Y, but what if even X does not?

The question Doesn't X even know Y? Implies that X is stupid and doesn't know a lot of things, but can it be that they are so stupid that they don't even know Y!?!?

On edit:

The question Does X know even Y? Implies they are knowledgable about a lot of things, but Y is such a rare and mysterious subject that we would be surprised if they did but what if they do know Y!?!

<comment><USER25> There are a lot more nuances than your analysis admits, and one is the assumed inflection of the speaker.

Consider "Does anyone know Y?". Depending on how it is said, it could be either a straightforward question about whether anyone knows Y, or with an upward inflection on "anyone" it could mean "I doubt anyone knows Y, but it's possible someone does."

With that same inflection on a person's name, "Does even Person know Y?" has the same meaning as your "Does even X not know Y?"

<comment><USER24> Perhaps, although I had a difficult time hearing the inflection when reading the headline.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Faster React development with normalized relational data - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/brietsparks/normalized-reducer <comment><AUTHOR> If you've have ever had to keep normalized reducer state (via Redux or useReducer), you'll know that managing relational updates involves boilerplate and complexity.

To save you time, try using Normalized Reducer.

It is a zero-boilerplate higher-order-reducer that takes a schema of data relationships and returns the reducers, actions, and selectors to manage the normalized state. It integrates with normalizr and supports many common use- cases for relational data. To see its features in action, check out its demo app (link in the docs).</comment>


Ever tighter policies in China are strangling the world biggest gaming market - <AUTHOR> https://radiichina.com/digitally-china-podcast-gaming-market/ <comment><AUTHOR> Gaming is one of the most profitable industries in China's tech sector. China's gaming industry generated almost 40 billion USD last year. It is doing well but the future is very unpredictable. Strict local regulation and trade war together is just not a healthy combo.</comment>


Developer Tools Update – Firefox 22 - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/04/developer-tools-update-firefox-22/ <comment><USER2> Biggest thing I'm missing in the FF Aurora builds is a console in the Inspector / Debugger panes. Having to switch to the console pane all the time gets annoying quickly.

<comment><USER3> This is something the team is looking into implementing. There's a ton of work we need to do and we have that in mind as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> __Please __, stop making the inspector lose focus immediately after you open it. It's very annoying.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there any plan to expose some of these new features (subpanes, docking mode) to the developer command line tools as well? Being able to do something like this would be very nice:

        inspect body --font
        console open --side

(That aside, developer command line tool[1] is already a big productivity booster. You should check it out if you haven't.)

[https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/08/new-firefox-command- line-h...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/08/new-firefox-command-line-helps- you-develop-faster/)

<comment><USER6> That sounds like a good idea.

We are going to give the command line it's own tab. This way output remains visible when navigating around the page.

The popup panels are a nightmare to deal with ... particularly on some OSes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great. I still wish FF's Console was as good as WebKit's, though.

<comment><USER8> What's wrong with it? Honest question? I've used both a bit but I see no big discrepancies?

<comment><USER9> For me the biggest problem is that it doesn't clear upon reload. Having to keep track of which messages/errors came from the previous page is really annoying.

Edit: Also, viewing objects is inferior compared to Chrome's tools.

<comment><USER3> We just changed the way you can inspect objects in the Web Console, check out a Firefox Nightly. For more details you can read:

[http://www.robodesign.ro/mihai/blog/web-console- improvements...](http://www.robodesign.ro/mihai/blog/web-console-improvements- and-the-new-browser-console)

Also, we have an open bug about clearing the web console after page reload. See:

<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=705921>

<comment><USER9> Okay, nice. Did you also remove the need for clicking those tiny arrows to expand?

<comment><USER3> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That font inspector looks awesome. I've wanted exactly this several times before.

It's often surprisingly difficult to pin down exactly what font the browser chooses. You can look at the CSS font declaration (which is often hard enough to find in complex CSS), but what if the browser didn't go with the first option?

<comment><USER11> Well, if you're using Firebug you install FireFontFamily[1], which crosses out the unused fonts in the CSS inspector.

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- Us/firefox/addon/firefontfamil...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- Us/firefox/addon/firefontfamily/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like they're finally making my add-on - <https://addons.mozilla.org/en- us/firefox/addon/font-finder/> \- obsolete. Frankly, all I can say is about time. This is something that I would've expected to be able to do long ago, and I welcome my new font analysis overlord.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been giving the nightly builds a real shot at replacing the main browser I do my development in, but I've been sorely missing a shortcut to clear the console output, ie ⌘K in the webkit inspector. As far as I know, the only way to clear the console is either clicking "clear" or invoking clear(); in the console itself.

</comment><comment><USER14> It used to be that I could close the inspector in FF by hitting escape. I would love to get that functionality back it makes it super easy to go in and out of it. (Ctrl+Shift+I) do thing (ESC)

</comment><comment><USER15> Honest question.....why work on these features when we have Firebug ?

<comment><USER16> If I recall correctly, Firebug had to do nastier and nastier black magic in order to hook into the correct parts of the rendering engine and provide the data it had. This meant both that Firebug was a poor experience to develop for, and also that it constrained Mozilla to not break certain internal interfaces, even though they weren't designed for public consumption.

A tool like this really does need to go into the browser as a first-class thing, because the information it needs access to is very low-level. So, the Firefox team is making their own. As a side benefit, it should be much easier to write, since they have the power to actually change Firefox to make the information they want easily available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Font panel. YES.</comment>


Reminiscences of Grothendieck and His School (2010) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.ams.org/notices/201009/rtx100901106p.pdf

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this. The mathematics involved is way above my head, but it's very pleasant to read about this group of mathematicians and particular time.

This sentence from Illusie says a lot: _" The person who at the time could repair anything that went wrong was Deligne. "_.

Also, this nod to Knuth is worth mentioning:

 _" Nowadays you have such efficient TEX systems, manuscripts look very nice. In Grothendieck's time the presentation was not so beautiful, maybe, but Dieudonné-Grothendieck's manuscripts were still fantastic."_

The amount of time spent formatting papers at the time should have been better spent.

Also, Serre placing Weil higher than Grothendieck is interesting to read. I wonder if they all place Serre higher than anyone...

<comment><USER3> It is a weird mode of thought we have, comparing humans on a one-dimensional scale and thus effectively devaluing them into numbers. What does that say about us? It may be useful to see such an expedient in articles on businessmen and their money, I suppose. But when one encounters it in publications on someone's contributions to knowledge and culture, it is out of place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been interested in Grothendieck's thought process in general since I read that thing about opening a nut by submersing it in water for a long time [1]. I'm talking about his general thought process, since I have nowhere near the mathematical maturity to understand any of what he actually did.

I read the linked article and found a few nuggets that I think are of general interest, which I am quoting below:

"To him no statement was ever the best one. He could always find something better, more general or more flexible. Working on a problem, he said he had to sleep with it for some time. He liked mechanisms that had oil in them. For this you had to do scales, exercises (like a pianist), consider special cases, functoriality. At the end you obtained a formalism amenable to dévissage." (p 1113)

"That was one principle of Grothendieck: every assertion should be justified, either by a reference or by a proof. Even a "trivial" one. He hated such phrases as "It's easy to see," "It's easily checked." When he was writing EGA, you see, he was in unknown territory. Though he had a clear general picture, it was easy to go astray. That's partly why he wanted a justification for everything. He also wanted Dieudonné to be able to understand!" (p 1115)

"Grothendieck was not thrifty. He thought that some complements, even if they were not immediately useful, could prove important later and therefore should not be removed. He wanted to see all the facets of a theory." (p. 1115)

Edit: I just found another quotation about him, not from this article, but too good not to mention here:

"What interested him were problems that seemed to point to larger, hidden structures. "He would aim at finding and creating the home which was the problem's natural habitat," Deligne noted. "That was the part that interested him, more than solving the problem."" [2]

[1] The Rising Sea: Grothendieck on simplicity and generality [http://www.landsburg.com/grothendieck/mclarty1.pdf](http://www.landsburg.com/grothendieck/mclarty1.pdf)

[2] [http://www.ams.org/notices/200409/fea-grothendieck- part1.pdf](http://www.ams.org/notices/200409/fea-grothendieck-part1.pdf) by way of [http://www.quora.com/Why-is-Alexander-Grothendieck- revered-b...](http://www.quora.com/Why-is-Alexander-Grothendieck-revered-by- mathematicians)</comment>


How much would that iPad app cost? - <AUTHOR>

Hey, Im ready to get my iPad-app build by a company. To be better prepared for the situation I would like to now how much it will cost. Its an app close to flipboards complexity for the iPad and I finished the design as where as it "only" needs to be programmed. Even though they might want to change a bit of the design, I am sure the basic design is finished. How long will it take the company/persons to build it and how much will it cost. My hope/guess would be around $4000-$8000. <comment><USER2> I'd guess you're off by 10x to 50x. Your rough design specification is only the very beginning.

Would you say it's around the Obama campaign app's complexity? $50,000-$150,000.

Would you say it's around Twitterrific's complexity? $200,000.

Or Instagram, which needed back-end services as well? $500,000.

Flipboard raised a $10.5 million series A funding round to build its app, along with acquiring a semantic indexing startup and whatever other tech they're building to support the eventual advertising play.

Sources: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/209170/how-much-does- it-c...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/209170/how-much-does-it-cost-to- develop-an-iphone-application) && [http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/flipboard_new_social_ip...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/flipboard_new_social_ipad_magazine_will_be_powered_by_semantic_data.php)

</comment><comment><USER3> vitovito is completely stoned...

flipboard complexity is less about the app itself and more about the web/backend/engine that drives it and prepares content for it

4-8k can get your into the prototype space but odds are for fit and finish you'll need to spend 20k or so..</comment>


Deferring ABI Stability from Swift 4 - <AUTHOR> https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20170213/032116.html <comment><USER2> "Given the importance of getting the core ABI and the related fundamentals correct, we are going to defer the declaration of ABI stability out of Swift 4 while still focusing the majority of effort to get to the point where the ABI can be declared stable."

Do I read that correctly? Swift 4 will have a ABI under the hood but they aren't going to come out and formally lock it down until after Swift 4?

<comment><USER3> Every compiler supporting separate compilation has an ABI -- the question is whether the ABI changes between releases or not.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Hacker Hiring Hunt - <AUTHOR> https://hiring.ben.church/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author Here: I rereleased an old project of mine after I updated the Javascript a bit for fun. I really do hope someone finds it useful!</comment>


Is Facebook Dead to Gen Z? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@justinemoore_85088/is-facebook-dead-to-gen-z-8007e7654ac1 <comment><USER2> I do feel like I have to cobble together a number of products to meet my social needs. Event planning, messaging, photo sharing, payments, location sharing are all managed by different apps.

I've been hacking away on a project that pulls everything important back into one cohesive group experience. I recently shared it on HN! [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21771456](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21771456)

I would love to see if this is the type of product that would thrive in a post-Facebook era.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a list somewhere of all these generations and what they mean? I can't keep track.</comment>


The Flaw of Averages - <AUTHOR> http://www.stanford.edu/~savage/flaw/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hat tip to simulate, who brought this up in a comment thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4429021></comment>


Ask HN: Where do people usually complain? - <AUTHOR>

A good business must always solve a customer problem. I was wondering, for B2C type of opportunities, where would one look for complaints? What are the places with the highest complaint-to-noise ratio?
One example would be to search Twitter for "I hate when...".
Any other ideas? <comment><AUTHOR> Other option: [http://realproblemhunt.com/](http://realproblemhunt.com/)

</comment><comment><USER2> I will suggest that one way to find big problems that can make a major difference if solved would be to look for things people talk about as _a necessary evil._ It signals that they know it sucks as a solution, having no solution is so much worse that they are willing to accept the downside, and they can't even imagine a real solution that lacks that kind of big downside.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually a great idea, thanks! Any examples of top off your head?

<comment><USER2> The one I am personally familiar with is prescription drugs as the only real treatment modality for some conditions. They are overused and have serious, harmful side effects (as well as other downsides, like high costs). I have found alternatives that work, but trying to find a way to spread the word has been, call it, _challenging_. It is a problem space I am very familiar with and only just now figuring out how to proceed. So I don't know that it helps you any to mention it.

Best of luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing. How are you currently trying to spread the word? Can you share an example?

<comment><USER2> I have a private invitation-only health blog. I also started a food blog back in June. I also carefully participate in discussions on a couple of public forums, hn being one of them. I currently have no monetization plan in place for that stuff. Trying to cone up with a business model for it has also been challenging.

If you want to discuss it more in depth than that, you can email me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Your question is kind of vague. Yelp, TripAdviser, Angie's List, GetSatisfaction, and a few others all field both customer complaints and compliments for B2C businesses and even B2B businesses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. This gave me another one: one could also look at app store ratings!</comment></comment>


Are you Living in a Computer Simulation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

<comment><USER2> This is a famous article of Nick Bostrom from 2002 (published in Philosophical Quaterly). I saw this first in a seminar on anti-realistic theories of truth.

If we are indeed living inside a simulation, what knowledge can we have about an external world?

You might also enjoy a discussion of the "brains in a vat" hypothesis: <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brain-vat/>

</comment><comment><USER3> The following might be rubbish, but it also might be very relevant: <http://prespacetime.com/index.php/pst/article/view/18>

If you believe (I do), this one might give some pointers to you: <http://www.transhumanist.com/volume7/simulation.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2055#c...](http://www.smbc- comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2055#comic)

</comment><comment><USER5> Somehow I feel like this explains the decline effect.</comment>


Nobox: A window manager in 131 lines of C - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/serprex/nobox

<comment><USER2> not the code only...even the README is difficult to read.</comment>


Exponential curves feel gradual and then sudden - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2015/05/12/exponential-curves-feel-gradual-and-then-sudden/

<comment><AUTHOR> _" Exponential growth curves in the "feels gradual" phase are deceptive. There are many things happening today in technology that feel gradual and disappointing but will soon feel sudden and amazing."_

The ending is cryptic, and so general as to be meaningless. How do you tell apart the linear from the exponential?

<comment><USER2> I think the technologies he means that feel gradual & then will suddenly accelerate are Bitcoin (he is invested in Coinbase) , Virtual Reality (Previous investor in Oculus) & Commercial Drone Applications (Invested in Airware)</comment></comment>


CryptoMaps: Cryptocurrency Market State - <AUTHOR> http://cryptomaps.org <comment><USER2> Love it, one recommendation though - make sure it's easy to share. When I tried to share on FB it didn't show an image, which I really wanted it to.

\- [https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/?q=http%...](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fcryptomaps.org%2F)

\- [https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator](https://cards- dev.twitter.com/validator)

I know it's JavaScript, but you can still generate an image using something like [https://github.com/yahoo/cronshot](https://github.com/yahoo/cronshot).

</comment><comment><USER3> Has a "million dollar homepage" feel to it.

I love it!

Great work and very unique imho!

Bookmarked by me at least.

<comment><USER4> Million dollar homepage is nothing compared to this one hundred billion dollar homepage

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any good site to look for volatility comparisons?

</comment><comment><USER6> Oh nooooooooo

I was working on this too! You beat me, well played.

<comment><USER7> Me too, Just finished the R package [https://github.com/amrrs/coinmarketcapr](https://github.com/amrrs/coinmarketcapr) and next is Shiny app!

<comment><USER8> what is this from?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great site! When searching for a currency, the currency is highlighted and zoomed in. When zooming out, it's hard to see where in the landscape that currency was. Maybe let the currency keep it's color?

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice! What is the source api?

</comment><comment><USER11> This is fantastic, thanks for sharing! It's especially nice on a mostly green day like today, which is to say on a day when BTC is up, since as BTC goes so the alts follow.

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks great! Would be cool to plot it over time as well.

</comment><comment><USER13> Very good. I'll use this instead of Coinmarketcap to see how the coins are moving from now on.

</comment><comment><USER14> Cool heatmap for cryptocurrencies. I always wonder why don't most exchanges offer this.

That said, this reinforces one thought process - most if not all coins, for whatever innovation they are doing move in tandem with bitcoin. BTC is down? Most will go down. BTC is up? Most will go up too.

<comment><USER15> It seems both humans and bots have a notion of sentiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> this is just like [https://finviz.com/map.ashx](https://finviz.com/map.ashx)

<comment><USER17> The original use of a squarified treemap to represent financial markets was Martin Wattenberg's _Map of the Market_ for SmartMoney in 1998: [http://www.bewitched.com/marketmap.html](http://www.bewitched.com/marketmap.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So many!

</comment><comment><USER19> It feels so bad when all the comments are so positive and I can't view the website because it's not compatible with the app I use to read HN, I really want to see it. (it's a very popular app)

<comment><USER20> Open cryptomaps.org in a web browser and you're good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wondering what everyones thoughts are on NEO its genereated a lot of buzz recently.

<comment><USER22> Wouldn't touch it with ten foot pole. Pure garbage. Ive found several consensus breaking bugs. Read the source code yourself, its awful.

Why dont I report it? I don't care about NEO.

<comment><USER23> First comment by this user. I can't comment on NEO's security, but I'd be wary of people making bold statements without any proof to back it up. Crypto landscape is for a lot of people all about the fud, the push and the pull.

<comment><USER21> Plus if you find consensus bugs you can usually make a killer bounty with any cryptocurrency project</comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Eureka machine' works out laws of nature - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/02/eureka-laws-nature-artificial-intelligence-ai <comment><USER2> I can see how a machine like this can help in situations where we have lots of data and plenty of alternative hypotheses to test, like for example the work the Adam robot is doing in molecular biology and genomics : it sifts through dozens of known genes to find the one that is responsible for a certain enzyme. This is very keen to a large search in a huge search-space. However, it still needs fitness criteria to be defined by humans - in Adam's case, how does it know the gene is responsible for the enzyme ? The experiment to assert that was designed by humans.

Furthermore, there are sciences like neurobiology where we have lots of disparate data and due to increasing sensor resolution, we are getting reams more. What is needed are theories to explain it, and thus shed lights on the underlying mechanisms. This kind of unifying theory is much more complex than newtonian mechanics - with no offense, I hope, to the great Sir Isaac Newton.

Furthermore, the Eureka machine was already studying the right experimet which generated the right data - from which Newton's laws were obvious. Sir Isaac Newton had to decide, among many other things, which was the right phenomenon to consider, and from which angle - and all this against huge cultural biases against "simplistic" and "mechanical" laws that might restrain God's power.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's very interesting, but I dislike how the article refers to a "thinking machine". The computer is finding a best match algorithm from a search space in an experiment designed by people.

</comment><comment><USER4> "When fed information on the mass of the apple and its velocity as it falls, the machine would be able to work out the equation."

Isn't it plain regression or other prediction tasks. More important that finding out relations is the ability to look at the right places for data. If you feed data to any prediction algorithm (ANN, GP, Regression, etc.), it is sure to come up with an equation.</comment>


Incremental Development for Games (Is Hard) - <AUTHOR> http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2008/04/24/incremental-development-for-games-is-hard/ <comment><USER2> "Be careful here, though. Even seemingly trivial things like UI or VFX can have a massive impact on the usability of your game." UI has a massive impact on usability? Well I'll be darned.

<comment><USER3> In most software, the UI is what you use primarily to interact with the software. In games, what's called the "UI" is usually what you use for tasks like saving and loading games, and setting options. It's also frequently given to a junior programmer to implement.

I'm a professional game developer, and I think the article makes some really good points.</comment></comment>


The life of a telecommuter - <AUTHOR> http://redgirlsays.com/blog/2010/11/the-life-of-a-telecommuter/

<comment><USER2> Unlike the author, when I was telecommuting I was never able to be effective while working in my pajamas.

When I would wake up I'd go down the hall to the office and read the first 5-10 new mails in my inbox to give me something to ponder while in the shower (that's where I get my best thinking done anyway).

I did the whole morning routine and put on clothes I could be seen outside in, and then back to the desk to work. For some reason, I would be more prone to goof off on the Internet instead of work if I had just fallen out of bed and parked myself at the desk for the day in my pajamas.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually do tend to change out of my pajamas, just into a clean pair of pajamas (or similarly comfy clothes).

What I absolutely cannot do is work in bed, under the covers--I'll doze off. Laying top of the covers, sitting on the couch, or at a desk or table works just fine though, for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I find it interesting to watch the telecommuting life style emerge and how people cope with the feelings of isolation and the unusual schedule. For instance: some of the telecommuters I know end up spending more time at bars and stuff like that to get that social interaction they're missing back in their life and use up their excess energy. As things evolve I'm curious to see where this leads.

<comment><USER4> I started working from home about five months ago. I lived alone. It took a couple of months for the social isolation to take effect, but it was severe. I didn't realize at the time how much of my drive at work came from collaboration, both cooperative and competitive. I like the joy of achieving things as part of a team, and I like the challenge of trying to be the best. (Yeah, that's not always great for team dynamics.) With nothing to prove and no one to help or to help me, my productivity tanked.

Three things really turned it around. First was moving in with a roommate. It provides some of the community at home that I used to get from the office. Second was doing volunteer work. In a way it's a huge waste of time, but the feeling of accomplishment is irreplaceable. (Lot of women there too... just saying.) Third is releasing code, parts of my project, as open source libraries. Never mind that nobody uses or even looks at it--just the concept of making code public drives me to raise the quality bar, to keep it modular, and to get parts finished. Instead of toiling away in preparation for one huge launch date, each module becomes a mini launch.

The conclusion I take from my experience is that telecommuting will foster communities, not scatter them. There will be less demand for one-bedroom apartments and more for houses to be split by roommates. We'll see more involvement in community activities and OSS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In my case, it's rather extreme. I develop a Java webapp in Santiago de Chile for an Australian business. I've travelled to Australia twice (4 months in total), but I've been able to manage the last 2 years so far interacting with them via email/chat/Phone/Skype dialy.

It's been very challenging but it's been an interesting experience overall. In my case take breaks to be with my family several times a day and walk a lot to ease the anxiety.

It's way too easy to lose focus on your tasks unless you can keep at least some discipline, but in the end I think I've learnt a lot, not only technology-wise.

</comment><comment><USER6> One thing that's not mentioned is the type of work the author does - which I do think is very relevant. I'm usually a developer and telecommuting has been working out well, but there was a situation where I ended up helping out tech support, and not being in the office has been trying.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a tech blogger and co-founder of a small start-up. I have a background in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

<comment><USER7> @Redgirlsays, you mentioned Campfire, but I'm curious if you and your co- founders use other tools to try to make things seem "closer?"

<comment><AUTHOR> Lots of emailing and instant messaging, occasional Skype chats, and sharing photos and videos (generally work related, occasionally random or just for fun). Dropbox accounts also make it easy to share larger files, but that's less a 'closer' feeling than just making things more accessible and connected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I transitioned from an office environment at a big corporation to telecommuting for a small startup recently. Working from home has been great so far and I'm loving it.

One thing I have observed is that my home life is slowly merging with my work life. While I am at home, I am working almost 90% of the time. This has been great for my productivity but I'm worried that it might be detrimental in the long run. As it is, I'm starting to feel slightly guilty when I'm at home and not working. (especially since my co-workers seem to work 24/7!). This doesn't concern me so much now as we have too much work to complete, but at some stage I think I'd need to figure out how to stop work and home life from merging completely.

<comment><USER9> I've been telecommuting for about a year and a half now. If there's one piece of advice I have, it's to keep a clear distinction between work and home.

For about the first 8 months, I would be logged in to work for about 14 hours/day (not necessarily working, but logged in and checking/responding to emails and IMs) and even found myself quickly logging in before going to bed - just to make sure nothing new popped up (which it rarely, if ever, did).

Eventually, I had to force myself to keep "normal" hours - no more sleeping in until 10 and then working till 1. "Clock out" at 6 and leave it at that - everything will still be waiting for you tomorrow, I promise. =)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the advice. Were the first 8 months of 14 hour days in a start up environment? And, if you don't mind sharing, what changed to prompt you to transition to 'normal' hours?

<comment><USER9> Yes and no. About a year before I started this job, I founded a digital publishing company with a friend, so I was working this 40 hr/week job AND on my startup whenever I "got done" for the day.

It got to the point where I finally took a step back and realized that I was killing myself. My crappy work schedule mixed with late, late nights on my startup was a recipe for disaster. I also started having some RSI issues, which I'm still dealing with today (not being physically able to work another minute is a pretty strong motivator to stop for the day... <g>).

Just let go - I know it's hard to do if you're working for a startup, particularly if it's _your_ startup. But you need to draw the line somewhere - work a set number of hours a day, or work until a set time and then _clock out_. Work hard/smart during those hours, and you'll get the satisfaction of knowing you did what you could that day and it's enough.

Co-workers/founders are a terrific source of motivation - especially if they're constantly committing quality code. But don't let that drive turn into something bad, or the guilt will get to you and destroy whatever motivation you had for the project. Programming because you feel you have to is no fun and is not sustainable - you _will_ burn out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wish I had a cat at work sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been on a telecommuting project for the past several months or so. At some point we realized that we weren't really functioning as cohesively as possible, and the solution ended up being in finding a group chat tool. The author here uses Campfire, but we went with Hipchat (<http://www.hipchat.com/>). It certainly helped us with the sense of being isolated from the team.

Now as to dealing with being in my apartment for what can be huge swaths of time...</comment>


JavaScript beats Java at number of stackoverflow questions - <AUTHOR>

There are more Javascript related  questions on http://stackoverflow.com/tags than Java related!! <comment><USER2> [http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....](http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> As above. Once you are reasonably confident with Java you are less likely to have the kind of questions that SO can answer e.g. ones with a definitive answer not design/pattern related. The API's are often consistent and well documented. A lot of people coming from C++ / C# etc can easily transfer to Java. Also although they are a similar age JavaScript uptake for solving real problems is on the increase.

I'm novice to intermediate with Java and JavaScript and I find far more gotchas with JavaScript as evidenced in blogs, books etc e.g. The Good Parts (cf The Bad Parts...)

<comment><USER4> I can relate to this. I started with C# and asked a lot of questions first few years. Now I barely ask like 1 question a month regarding this language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wide adoption + low barrier to entry + non-blocking I/O = lots of questions on SO.

</comment><comment><USER6> It is more widely deployed and it throws more curve balls. Why are you surprised?

</comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't surprise me at all.</comment>


Why are Israelis so hard to work with? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Israeli-Culture/Why-are-Israeli-people-so-hard-to-work-with/answer/Ohad-Samet

<comment><USER2> The core answer seems to be very similar to a great many ethnicities:

* Don't respect authority.

* Socially aggressive.

* Cynical.

* Entitled.

That reminds me of almost every eastern European hacker I know, most Indians, the Germans, the South Americans, the Australians.

So we have one of several possibilities:

* People in entrepreneurship tend to be all of the above, regardless of ethnicity.

* People in technology entrepreneurship tend to be all of the above, regardless of ethnicity.

* People from other countries that work for US companies or emigrate to the US tend to have these personalities.

The English Way, which most Americans and Canadians also follow to a fault, is a bit different:

* Respect authority, but also subvert it when you can get away with it.

* Very socially passive-aggressive.

* More sarcastic than cynical. Cynicism is looked down upon. Sarcasm is an art.

* Internalize conflict. Possibly the opposite of entitlement - poor self worth.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> While I don't think "as an Israeli I don't find this offensive" is enough of a justification to post (even though it's true), I find the answer very interesting in the context of the discussion "why Israel has many startups and entrepreneurs per capita?", which I think may interest the general audience of HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great explanations!</comment>


Airbnb Purged New York Listings to Create a Rosier Portrait - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/business/airbnb-purged-new-york-listings-to-create-a-rosier-portrait-report-says.html?ref=technology <comment><USER2> Given the way Airbnb portrays the average middle class family renting out a single room in their home and cooking dinner for their "guests" in their advertising in NYC while deriving most of their revenue from illegal whole- apartment-without-the-owner-present rentals... is this really a surprise?</comment>


What I Learned Scaling Engineering Teams Through Euphoria and Horror - <AUTHOR> http://firstround.com/review/what-i-learned-scaling-engineering-teams-through-euphoria-and-horror/

<comment><USER2>
        Just remember that hiring doesn't end when new engineers are in their seats,
        and keep an eye out for hiccups in your integration process — if you spot
        dissatisfaction early, you can intervene before it becomes critical, ideally
        with transparency and honesty about what's going on.

I don't feel like this is emphasized enough. Having the strictest, most rigorous hiring program in the world isn't going to help you if engineers are getting frustrated getting up to speed with your specific product and culture.

</comment><comment><USER3> "You'll be surprised how many times you have to repeat yourself to make your communication stick... Clarity often needs a helping hand from repetition. "You'll think to yourself, 'Oh my God, how did you not understand this from what I said at the all-hands last week?'"

So true.</comment>


Ask HN: How do I encourage women developers to join our dev team? - <AUTHOR>

Right now we have ~5-6 developers, one of whom is a woman. I am not the owner, so I can't necessarily move mountains, but I really want to make sure our team stays balanced as we grow (it's already a bit Bro-y).  Any things we can do in particular to attract women? Sponsoring meetups? Changing how we phrase our job applications?<p>I recognize that it may be sexist to treat hiring women as an end in and of itself, but I prefer to work in a more balanced environment. There are women working in non-technical roles in the company.  Recent hires / interviews have mostly been guys too. <comment><USER2> How about you just focus on hiring the best developers, regardless of their gender, and making sure that male and female employees are treated the same by all employees of the company? Reverse discrimination is not the answer.

<comment><USER3> 1+ to this. The value comes from the skill set, not the gender. If you take this, tomorrow it will be another controversial topic, like race, and next week can be another thing. Just hire the best people, that will make the product awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Geek Feminism's page has some useful suggestions: [http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Recruiting_women](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Recruiting_women)

</comment><comment><USER5> Create external-facing events(meetups, hackathons, etc.) that advertise the culture you want to build, then recruit through them. This will also give you experience in thinking about the overall work environment.

I firmly believe that the "bigger 80%" of the problem when discussing equality/diversity issues is in putting together an appropriately inclusive space, one where people can exchange thoughts without feeling like they're in an argument. At the high level this means successfully tapping into groups outside of your personal circles and getting people from those groups into your events. (The easiest way to do this is to find a well-connected co-host to represent the groups unavailable to you.)

The rest is a matter of managing the event so that respectful intent is maintained and it doesn't turn divisive. If the balance is already good, and you've hit on a type of event that is welcoming to everyone, you won't have to fight fires. The troubles appear when you have a definite minority and the format ignores minority concerns. Again, your co-host can help you avoid the problem areas.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you become a better solver of life's problems? - <AUTHOR> IMHO, part of becoming a better problem-solver lies in one's 1) understanding, 2) approach and 3) execution.<p>Are there best practices for becoming skilled in one, two or even all three? <comment><USER2> The hard part is usually in the execution.

Problem solving usually involves experiencing discomfort.

The ability to push past discomfort is key to solving non-trivial problems. Like a muscle, this ability improves with practice.

The problem could be to lift a heavy weight or to solve a hard coding question. Either way, there is certainly much to be gained from having the right understanding and approach but successful execution is mostly the end result of having a long consistent history of smaller successful executions.

Sun Tzu: "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. "

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm quite high in theorizing/analyzing, which has made me way less likely to exercise the execution muscle. For me, the key to what you said is the discomfort factor, which I'd say analytic types tend to avoid.

I'm at an age/stage where I want to improve upon what I don't know well, including within myself. The main thread seems to be lack of execution, but perhaps it's actually discomfort avoidance.

<comment><USER3> If you want motivation and ideas on how to get better at executing, and get better at embracing discomfort, I highly recommend reading Seth Godin.

Specifically his latest book: [http://yourturn.link](http://yourturn.link)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I agree with the list, but I'd say the sequence is backwards:

You're not solving anything if you're not executing. Start with execution based on some initial approach. When the discomfort reaches intolerable levels, find a better approach. You only develop insight (understanding) after a few cycles of modified approaches and changed executions. Understanding comes later.

Like "shahbaby" said, the toughest life problems to solve are the ones which require endurance of high amounts of discomfort.

Let's be tough as nails!

<comment><AUTHOR> An execution-first strategy seems to coincide with the idea of rapid deployment and reiteration. Even if that's "crawl before you can walk", at least it's not "theorize about crawling and walking until you think you have a 360 degree understanding." As someone traditionally way more interested in ideas than action, I'm much better at the latter.

Time for some discomfort

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Usually it's easiers to advise than to solve your own problems. But to find a way, first of all, it's necessary to calm down, because panic only makes it worse. After that you need to imagine what would you do if it wasn't about you, but about someone else and you had to give some advice.</comment>


Why don't Google sell SSL certs? – After awesome Google Domains service - <AUTHOR> In Short: I had very good experiences so far with Google Domains, now why don't they offer SSL certs?
TL;DR: I use Google Domains to buy/transfer domains recently for friends and small clients which only need a basic website, and I have very good experiences with Google Domains.
It has very clean UI, very simple and easy to use, straightforward, no hassle, no bullshit.
Flat rate at $12 for .com domain per year, with Private registry for free.
($20 for .me domain, and might have limited TLD or a bit higher rate comparing to others, but still cheap)
No COUPON whatsoever, just flat rate for every year.
(I'm laughing at GoDaddy which trick you get x% discount on the first year and get much higher rate next year. And you keep getting emails about expiring domains/and discount codes if you wait till the last day.)
No upsale. It offers partners site like wix.com, weebly.com, squarespace.com if you want to host website there. Or you can use Google App engine or any VPS to host website.
Another benefit is to easily integrate the Gmail for Business/Google Apps for Work.
So, now, why don't offer SSL certificates?
They have our Gmail, Google+, and they have very good ideas about who we are and can easily verify our identifies, to issue a Class-2 or wild char Certs. Don't they? <comment><USER2> I certainly couldn't answer why, but I wouldn't exactly be surprised if they added it to their lineup. $12 isn't that great by the way -- depending on your needs, have you looked at NameCheap.com? I used them for a bunch of my own domains, including their DNS service -- my needs are modest and the traffic hitting my sites is beyond low, but at less than $9 to register a .COM and free DNS it's really hard to argue with.

I used to use DynDNS (of course I've been using them since way-back-when in the modem days for dynamically updated sub-domain services), I got away from them just recently.. way too pricey for my needs, especially considering I needed to do multiple domains.

Google Apps for Work/GMail are both easy to integrate regardless of whos holding on to your records or hosting your name server, I don't think that should ever be an issue.

How's the "Google App engine"? I use Cloud9, and its unbearably slow -- but who knows what they pay for and how much they overload their machines with containers.

<comment><USER3> app engine, compute, containers and all their VM offerings seem pretty solid - I like them better than Heroku. great ui, etc. That being said, I only messed with it for the free 2 month trial period, so ymmv

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's a great one. Thanks for posting because I myself think they would do well with SSL, I'm sure a lot of people would definitely try it out. :) By the way, may be contacting NameCheap would be good.</comment>


After Crushing Black Friday Records, Amazon to Bring Back Prime Day - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-takes-a-victory-lap-for-prime-day/

<comment><USER2> I assume the reason Amazon did well was because there were a lot people in the same boat as me.

I had stuff in my cart for the last week hoping some of it might go on sale for PrimeDay. Then PrimeDay came and I realized it's all crap on sale, so I bought the stuff I needed anyway.

IDK, there was a lot of crap that was sold out too. 32" 720P TV for $200? Geeze, I gave away a nicer TV on Craigslist recently.</comment>


Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-fake-supplements/ <comment><USER2> Amazon needs to stop with inventory comingling. They know it and refuse to stop, so they are culpable. I'm sure it would hurt their logistics to stop, but it also hurts cigarette companies to not advertise to children and we made that a law.

It is ridiculous that you can order a supplement where it says "sold by Proctor and Gamble, fulfilled by Amazon" on the product listing, and then receive a counterfeit product that was sent in by a different company. If they received it from a different company, then it wasn't "sold by Proctor and Gamble."

At the very least they need to give brand owners the tools to protect their brands- an option to put non-authorized resellers' shipments into a separate comingled bin, and have all the authorized resellers in another.

Right now the only option for a brand with a popular product to protect from counterfeiting is to not sell anything through Amazon and sue everyone that tries to list your products on Amazon- which might not even work and really hurts your market reach.

<comment><USER3> Or at least require a deposit for sellers of a non-insignificant amount, a hold on new seller payouts for up to 30-60 days and per-seller stickers on intake inventory so sellers of counterfeits can be rooted out better.

Also, allow product manufacturers who sell directly, to block other sellers on the platform for their products and handle reports for alike-named and-or brand confusing products.

Amazon does very little to actually do anything meaningful to limit counterfeit products.

<comment><USER4> Screw the deposit. Amazon itself should be liable if they don't track who actually sold the merchandise.

<comment><USER5> Amazon does track the original supplier.

From their seller help pages:

> Note: Amazon ensures that the initial source of the commingled units can be > traced throughout the fulfilment process.

> Important: Amazon ensures that the exact same units from two sellers, > participating in the commingling programme, are always physically > segregated. This means that Amazon storage logic does not allow same ASINs > of different sellers to be stored in the same bin in our warehouse if they > are commingled.

In other words, Amazon ensures that commingled items are never physically commingled.

For a public source, see e.g. Amazon comment in this article: [https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/03/1554287401000/Amazon-...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/03/1554287401000/Amazon --sub-prime---Part-II/) (outline link: [https://outline.com/4R7fp6](https://outline.com/4R7fp6))

> The system is purposefully designed so that similar products are not placed > next to or near each other, and Amazon can also track the original seller of > each unit.

<comment><USER6> The next sentence of your last paragraph says:

> Sellers are able to choose whether to share identical inventory or not.

That seems to indicate physical commingling. IIRC, avoiding commingling has an additional cost to the seller.

<comment><USER5> As far as I understand it, that just means that sellers have the option to opt in/out of the commingling program (Settings => Fulfillment by Amazon => FBA Product Barcode Preference).

Yes, there is a cost for the seller if opting out - they need to apply their own barcodes to the products in that case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For some foolish reason I had notifications turned on for the Amazon app... it recently offered me a deal on some sort of supplements that seemed kinda strange / made some weird claims. I had never even searched for any kind of supplement or even food / drug items before.

Other offers were for what looked like seriously questionable quality things, that were semi related to items that I had searched, but looked like rock bottom quality, but they were a few $ cheaper.

It all has a very Kmart / Wallmart, but maybe worse vibe.

Amazon seems more and more like a wide open low cost kinda store where fakes, low quality garbage, and such aren't just too common, but even pushed by their own system. Sometimes Amazon takes some light action, other times they argue they're simply not responsible for whatever it is they sell: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/amazon-on-the- ho...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/amazon-on-the-hook-for- third-party-goods-that-cause-injury-federal-court-says/)

It's all the opposite of what I chose to go to Amazon for. I went to Amazon to find options I couldn't find elsewhere, and generally want good quality things BECAUSE the local retail stores already were in a race to the bottom.... But now Amazon wants me to wade through their garbage to find it and seems to want to join that $1 cheaper for $5 less quality type race .... and I swear I'm seeing fewer good quality items sold in areas where they used to exist, but now seemed to be dominated by garbage.

<comment><USER8> Amazon is busy shooting itself in the foot. The problem is, the gun is small and the foot is huge, so they probably don't feel it right now.

Supplements (or really _anything_ I put in my mouth) is one of a growing set of classes of items I won't buy on Amazon anymore. That probably doesn't result in much loss for Amazon right now, but what it does do is:

1\. Makes me trust Amazon MUCH less, which means I'm much more likely to forgo purchasing additional classes of items from them.

2\. Makes me find new online or offline vendors for the classes of items I no longer buy from Amazon. Those vendors sometimes sell other items I would normally buy from Amazon as well. If I need those items, I'm not going to shop BOTH places. I'm going with the one I trust.

3\. Makes me reconsider my Prime membership. (Among other things, like shipping having become less reliable recently.)

There's a tipping point here somewhere, where I'll just stop being an Amazon customer entirely.

<comment><USER9> Normally I'd just upvote and continue on my way but with the expectation that maybe someone from Amazon is reading and thinking "surely not everyone feels that way".

We all feel this way. Inventory co-mingling will have major long term costs. If you think about it, it is pretty crazy how big of a reputation hit Amazon has taken in the last few years.

<comment><USER10> Ditto

<comment><USER11> Same here

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You'd have to be insane to buy anything you'd put in your body from Amazon. Just this week I received an obviously used item that was "Shipped and sold by amazon.com" and sold as "new".

I realize they're trying, but Amazon is clearly failing to control the tide of fakes that is infesting their storefront. I find that for almost anything I search for, the knockoff/fake is actually the Amazon "recommended" item.

<comment><USER13> > You'd have to be insane to buy anything you'd put in your body from Amazon. > Just this week I received an obviously used item that was "Shipped and sold > by amazon.com" and sold as "new".

I bought a new mp3 player from Fry's once which, oddly enough, turned out to be stocked with a sizeable music library already.

I'd still be pretty comfortable buying a candy bar from them though.

<comment><USER14> In the case of Fry's, you have evidence that they've received a counterfeit product from a single supplier. It may be rampant, or it may not be. With that single datapoint, it's hard to say.

In the case of Amazon, we know them to have a long and extensive history of selling a wide variety of counterfeit products. There is not nearly as much ambiguity to the situation. Elsewhere in this discussion the comparison to a flee market has been made, and I think that describes it well.

<comment><USER15> No, in this case is Fry's selling a returned product as new. This is actually the main reason I stopped shopping at Fry's. It could be the case that the customer re-sealed and returned, but I've seen it often enough at Fry's that I suspect the store is re-sealing returned product and re-sell as new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Amazon has a big counterfeit problem. The reviews are entirely gamed, so can't trust those any more , even the 2-star or 3-star ones.

So I recently dropped Amazon prime and ended up buying popular name brands. Even those you can get price matched with other retailers and Target even gives you 5% percent discount and BestBuy gives you points.

Unless you are a person who is not mobile, there are several options now.

<comment><USER17> Enjoy price matching while you can. Nobody price matches craigslist for example and as Amazon trustworthiness dives towards craiglist levels one wonders if said policies will continue.

<comment><USER18> Eh? So what. If everybody stops price matching because nobody buys from Amazon anymore because everything they get is compromised, then GOOD. We'll be in a better more honest place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd like to believe that this is Amazon actually trying to crack down on fake supplements on their website, but it coincides too neatly with a noticeable increase in presence of the Solimo brand, Amazon's own supplement brand.

So Amazon's model here looks like:

1\. Allow sellers to sell counterfeit products, so they can take a cut of profits from both legitimate and fake inventory.

2\. Copy the best-selling products after they've been product tested, and compete against their own customers (sellers on their platform).

3\. Undermine the credibility of their competition by warning that their competitors' products might be counterfeits.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't buy anything that I would put into my body from Amazon. This also includes creams, make-up, etc. Way too many counterfeits to trust them and trying to figure out which are legit is a huge task in itself.

<comment><USER21> Yeah my wife bought 'tylenol' that was a bunch of individually wrapped packs of two marked 'not for resale'. I made her throw them out.

<comment><USER22> Why?

<comment><USER21> Because who knows where they came from or what it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Supplements are buyer beware anyway because even when they're direct from the manufacturer there is no guarantee the product actually contains what is claimed.

My favorite example is that I'm lactose intolerant, I've tried a bunch of different Whey Protein products that were all listed as "Whey Protein Isolate 100% lactose free" and all of them made me sick as if they had lactose. I finally caught on and tried a Vegan protein.

</comment><comment><USER24> > "When consumers have tried to sue online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay > for selling dangerous goods in the past, courts have ruled they aren't > responsible for products offered by third-party vendors..."

If there's one thing that makes me back away, as a consumer, from Amazon, it's this sort of thing, this lack of real accountability. Sure, Amazon, says they do things to prevent counterfeits from being sold through, but there doesn't appear to be any powerful _outside_ force that consumers can bring to bear on the company when they screw up.

<comment><USER25> And IMO it's even worse on Amazon than on eBay. At least on eBay you know that it's not sold by eBay themselves, because that's how the whole website works. And also, eBay prominently shows who the seller is on the listing pages.

Amazon's product pages make it so easy to overlook who the actual seller is, and I don't think that's coincidence.

<comment><USER15> Even the seller information on Amazon may not accurate due to inventory commingling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Everyone is rightly ragging on Amazon for being terribly irresponsible and consumer-hostile in allowing counterfeit products to be sold on their platform.

But doing what CVS is doing (independently testing all their stocked products) is not the solution. This is _ahem_ WHAT REGULATORY AGENCIES ARE FOR. The FDA needs to do its gottdang job and test and regulate supplements. This is utterly shameful for a first-world country that consumers can't be certain that pills on shelves contain what they purport to.

</comment><comment><USER27> Amazon also has issues with returned items. If they judge the returned package to be cosmetically sellable, even if the item is used or half gone, they'll re-sell it.

<comment><USER21> Yep, got a car seat cover that was supposedly new and had a broken zipper and someone else's name written on the tag.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> There's entire classes of items that I no longer buy off of Amazon, because I have no trust in their supply chain.

* Supplements

* Anything vaguely medical, really

* Chargers

* Certain types of electronics e.g. phones

</comment><comment><USER29> if risking blinding people during the eclipse due to counterfeit eclipse glasses was not sufficient to get Amazon to change, nothing will do so until someone actually dies.

<comment><USER30> In that case it might even be cheaper to pay a few million in settlements than it would be to change their ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's a big issue: supplements, batteries, cables, headphones etc...

</comment><comment><USER32> I've bought supplements from Amazon on a regular interval without issue. Maybe I just jynx'd myself. If I ever received fake supplements, I would treat that as being poisoned and report it to the CDC, FDA, FBI and local news.

My only bad experiences with Amazon to date was with NVidia video cards. Twice. Shame on me for falling for it twice. Each time they swapped out the cards with slower clock speed video cards. They also censored my feedback. Apparently nobody else checks their cards clock speed once installed?

</comment><comment><USER33> Knowing how ill-equipped Amazon is for the supplement market, are there any legitimate lab-tested online vendors?

<comment> ar-jan If there's one vendor I'd trust over any others it's Nootropics Depot. They do all their testing in-house, because it is much more reliable than 3rd party lab testing. The owner frequently gives extensive insight into how the supply chains and testing work. Recent example: [https://old.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/cength/testing_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/cength/testing_your_supplements/eu59kxg/)

<comment><USER34> I was about to recommend Nootropics Depot too. Don't get thrown off by the name, anyone, there are plenty of "normal" supplements in addition to the racetams and such.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> >"If you still have this product, we recommend that you stop using it immediately and dispose of the item,"

I've received one like that before so this isn't the first time they're sending out a mail like that

</comment><comment><USER22> And if you return too much stuff they'll ban your account; very cool.

<comment><USER36> I stopped buying a lot of stuff from amazon because I don't want to get banned. They just put books loose in boxes now. If I'm buying an $80 art book I want it delivered in mint condition. It might take amazon three tries to do that now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> there's a new trick/scam on amazon I am not sure if anyone else has noticed yet

seems designed to trick not only buyers but also sites like fakespot

a vendor lists an item for awhile, something cheap and reliable enough to gather plenty of legit 5-star reviews

then they leave the listing and ASIN but delete and change out the photos and the title/text with another item, not even similar item in some cases

so the ratings/reviews remain but the new product is given all their weight instead

cannot believe amazon does not detect and stop this

<comment><USER38> There's an e-mail thread going around Amazon about this, internally. The scam is that the fraudulent seller finds an item that is real but out of stock from all sellers. The seller than sends in their inventory, and updates the listing because they are now the only seller of that item.

It really sucks, and I hope we find a way to solve this, soon. It's a terrible customer experience.

<comment><USER39> Wouldn't one easy way to solve be that a human has to approve all changes to the name of an item? Or that name changes that change more than x% of the title have to be approved by a human? Or that all changes only happen after some waiting period? I would think anything that slows this down/makes it even a little harder will have big knock-on effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Then don't sell it. You created the platform.

</comment><comment><USER41> Does amazon canada have a counterfeit problem? To my knowledge I haven't received any and I'm wondering if the same comingling issues exist.

Or are counterfeits generally perfect visual frauds?

<comment><USER42> This year, I bought a lot of cosmetics and hair products from Amazon Canada. Most of what I received was fakes and knockoffs. Now I know that every time I buy a product, I have to look first at the 0-star reviews.

It seems that sellers first build a reputation and then move on to counterfeiting. As a result, product listings have excellent reviews, even when they are clearly false. I'm talking things like a cream shampoo, brown water instead, etc.

I have practically given up buying these products on Amazon. Instead, I pay the manufacturer's small additional shipping and handling fees.

<comment><USER41> Interesting. I guess I always check for zero stars, so maybe that's how I avoided it.

Would it be clear the branding was different? Like, the brown water didn't have an immaculately reproduced shampoo bottle? Thinking of supplements, where it can be hard to tell what a legit one should look like.

<comment><USER42> I think they either use old empty bottles, dilute genuine product or steal the content for themselves and then refill the empty bottles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Amazon cares about counterfeit products as much as YouTube cared about copyright videos in its infancy. It's just here to enable growth until they start to fight it.

</comment><comment><USER44> Awesome do Apple headphones next</comment>


Global Citizenship a Growing Sentiment Among Citizens of Emerging Economies - <AUTHOR> http://www.globescan.com/news-and-analysis/press-releases/press-releases-2016/383-global-citizenship-a-growing-sentiment-among-citizens-of-emerging-economies-global-poll.html <comment><USER2> What does "global citizen" even mean? I am quite happy to be a citizen of smaller entities. I would like them to be even smaller, not larger. I'm German, and I find the size of that entity in terms of democratic accountability almost too large already. Definitely constructs like the EU are overblown and have too many competencies. I would prefer a small state like Switzerland with a small population, but direct democracy and relatively direct accountability.

<comment><USER3> Democratic accountability does not depend upon the size of an entity. Instead it relies on how said entity is internally structured (e.g. direct democracy vs. more representative models) and how prone to corruption it is.

Personally I think nation states are rather burdensome. In business one has to handle countless different legal and tax frameworks while fundamentally every human has comparable needs. Why operate ~196 governments when one government would suffice? The inefficiency is just mind boggling in my opinion.

<comment><USER4> > Why operate ~196 governments when one government would suffice?

I don't disagree with your inefficiency comment, but upsides are diversity of trying things in 196 slightly different ways, 196 chances to fail without thew whole system going down, and the opportunity for individuals to move to a place that is most inline with their personal philosophy.

<comment><USER5> >the opportunity for individuals to move to a place that is most inline with their personal philosophy

There are very, very few people who are lucky enough to base their current country on their personal philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had a running theory that the spread of Internet and virtual communities would force free exchange of ideas and bring the people of the world together. I am less inclined to believe that now. Developed and under-developed nations show no difference in nationalism. Nothing short of an alien invasion can possibly bring humankind together.

<comment> vanilla-almond One of the positive attitudes shown in this survey is the acceptance of mixed race relationships.

I know that the 2011 census for England & Wales showed that it has one of the largest mixed race populations in Europe, and projections are that it will continue to grow.

For me this is a positive development - it shows that people mix with others of different ethnicities, and perhaps might also encourage people to be more open and tolerant of others.

<comment><USER7> What worries me is that we are increasingly accepting people who are not necessarily accepting the same things we accept and we are increasingly intolerant with those of us who are worried about our excessive tolerance for the intolerant.

<comment><USER4> Wilful ignorance, I see a lot of it on Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Without passing judgement, is this not just measuring the desire not be lumbered with the negative connotations of their respective countries? And possibly also showing a desire and entitlement to be able to move to a better off country?

We have something similar at a different level here. People in Salford (a not well thought of connurbation of Manchester, UK) are 'from Manchester', where as people from Didsbury are 'from Didsbury'.

That said China being on that list does surprise me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe, but even then the differences between the countries are interesting. As a German, I am unpleasantly surprised we rank so low here.

<comment><USER9> You rank low because of your history. Germans are proud to be Germans, they just don't feel right to say it. An interesting and very good consequence of this feeling is that Germany has not only very open policies towards immigrants, but also an overall good attitude versus expats which you rarely find in Europe.

<comment><USER10> The relatively small proportion of Germans willing to affirm support for intermarriage between ethnic groups suggests there's more than quiet national pride at play here. Although the country's history is almost certainly why Germans are more likely to answer "don't know" or "depends" than anyone else: even if much of the sample group is paranoid about immigrants and influence from other cultures following recent media coverage, there are still few people willing to commit to aligning themselves with the far right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Any move away from the stupidity of patriotism is good in my books.

<comment><USER12> So an emotional emotional attachment to a nation which an individual recognizes as their homeland, is 'stupid'. The nation has provided that person with certain values which she/he deeply appreciates and feels strongly about: is that stupidity? Isn't it a good idea to determine what those values are and how they relate to other people before you generalize so crudely?

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

<comment><USER11> It is orders of magnitude beyond stupid - it's utterly brainless. So your nation has PROVIDED you with your values, huh? Yay. The objective of patriotism has been achieved. Now go and fight to the death for your beloved nation, because surely no other values should exist on Earth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if everyone in this thread and this study is using the same vocabulary. When I hear or use the term "global citizen" I think of someone who doesn't pledge loyalty to any government but instead recognizes the existence of a global human community that they are already a part of.

Judging by some responses, however, it seems as if using the term "global citizen" is seen as implicit support for some kind of central world government.

<comment><USER13> Right. For me (and maybe other commenters as well) the term "citizen" implies paying taxes to an armed entity in exchange for some protection and rights. So "global citizen" in this sense definitely implies some form of a global government. But of course the article doesn't talk about anything like that. I guess it intentionally uses the flashy term "global citizen" when its main message could be expressed simply as "more and more people don't feel much loyalty for their respective states".

<comment><USER14> > "more and more people don't feel much loyalty for their respective states"

The world will not be stable with that sentiment for long. At some point, the "global citizen" will seek to express their political will; a will that will inevitably conflict with the will of the Nation-State.

To do that, the "global citizens" must have sponsors, leaders, and some way to organize. Would-be sponsors, leaders,and organizers will see the potential for gain here and will step in to sponsor, lead, and organize the "global citizens." And at that point, a central world government has been seeded and will begin to grow.

Alternately, people will remain organized in Nation-states and the "Global Citizen" mentality will fade away since it won't have any relevant meaning.

<comment><USER13> Haven't thought about it, kudos for taking a longer-term view :) But your scenario requires that some sizable majority of people share _the same_ sentiment. E.g. the idea of "world proletarian revolution" rests on the assumption that the majority of people are workers who will be more loyal to their class than their state. On the other hand it is entirely possible for most people to be more loyal to numerous hypothetical global communities which are too small to oppose nation-states. Everything stays the same in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From reading the comments, and having been born in Brazil, raised in Portugal, and for spending a lot of my allotted time on this wandering cosmic orbe on many countries, I feel that many don't get the _global citizenship_ concept.

Nations are abstractions. I belong to a greater human community. Fortunately I could witness the advent of the internet and of massive information exchange between peoples. I rejoice with a untold pride when human beings make some amazing advancement in whatever field of knowledge we happen to strive for: the many fields of science, art, philosophy. I watch with amazement when a new boundary in space travel is surpassed; when we (humans) reach political agreements that make the world a bit less inhumane (insane) and more sustainable; when we stop thinking through the lenses of arbitrary divisions and reach to a higher goal.

I am a citizen of the world (global citizenship) — and I am proud of it. I am glad I am able to learn and to share information with such a vast array of different peoples. I literally live on an utopia (no place) that is an information matrix inside my head. And I am glad to be here today typing this comment within an international community (HN).

This is my interpretation. If you try to make global citizenship a dystopian political agenda then you're talking about something entirely different.

</comment><comment><USER16> As a US citizen, I identify strongly with being a world citizen, but I am very much against the neoconservative one world government movement.

Even the democrats are marching in lock-step on the path to corporate lead world government (e.g., President Obama dutifully going to England and preaching against British EU exit, and of course democrat turned neoconservative Hilliary Clinton).

I like very small countries. I recently spent 2 weeks in Singapore on business and loved it there. I am also drawn to tiny countries like Dominica that are off the usual path.

Ordinary people do much better in local economies where money in return for services and resources circulates, largely staying in the local economy - local economies are I think more resilient to a future of sporadic, or no growth. The current economy relies on continuous growth, which is not sustainable.

</comment><comment><USER17> Generally a positive trend.

I wonder what is keeping Germans from feeling global?

<comment><USER18> (As a German) I think lot's of Germans feel global already. But I suspect it's limited to a certain demographic, namely young people with academic background. I don't know about the rest but recently it feels like more people just want to keep to themselves (especially with all the immigrants coming into our country).

<comment><USER19> > all the immigrants coming into our country

When sorted by % of population that is composed of immigrants, Germany does not have much immigration (it's country # sixty-something in the list) [0])

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant_population)

<comment><USER20> Yes, sorting that way does show that currently Germany doesn't have the largest immigrant population, but that is changing quickly.

Today Germany is the second most popular migration destination in the world, after the United States[0]

Not commenting on whether that's a good or bad thing(I feel it's pretty neutral), just pointing out that the parent commenter saying "all the immigrants coming into our country" isn't making a crazy statement.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Patriotism is a favorite device of people with something to sell [http://www.economist.com/node/21644538/](http://www.economist.com/node/21644538/)

However I strongly support [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota)

<comment><USER22> The same president is also pushing globalism (TPP, TTIP) so your implication is really a false dichotomy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Russians are nationalistic, Afghanis divide by religion, and Asian nations are racist. Not super surprising.

</comment><comment><USER24> Isn't it something similar that poor would want more equitable distribution of wealth and lower rungs in corporates would want a more normal salary rise all the way to CEOs. Pretty obvious thing.

I would think that global citizens would not be so interested in nations with similar number of high aspirants.

</comment><comment><USER25> Not sure about "global citizen" but I certainly don't feel particularly tied to any country.

</comment><comment><USER22> At first glance it seems to me that all globalism trends are also erosions of democracy. I dare say this is also what most Germans were thinking. Of course there are many ways to interpret the question.

</comment><comment><USER9> The 22% strongly agree in US worries me

Edit. Wow, 44% in Spain? Seriously guys? 35% Greece. Somebody should correlate this with GDP per capita, I believe there is a negative correlation there to be found...

<comment><USER26> > The 22% strongly agree in US worries me

Why does that worry you? I would generally consider greater global unity to be a positive trend.

<comment><USER27> Lets say you had a neighbor who spent too much money and was always broke, would you want to tie their finances to yours and for you to be responsible for them ?

<comment><USER28> It isn't about money or tying finances together, it's about how people self- identify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The results on Germany have amazed me.

Especially the huge white spaces.

</comment><comment><USER30> The full results in the report seem to me be somewhat more complex to interpret than the summary, or the original submission title, suggest. On the first question (Q18jt), a 4 point scale without a "don't know" neutral option, there are large numbers of people putting global citizenship before national citizenship (51%-49%). However, when you get to a later question (M2), that asks people what their most important identity is, national citizenship overtakes global citizenship overwhelmingly (52% national, 17% global, 11% local, 9% religious and 8% race/culture). National citizenship is the largest in all countries besides three, and it's the second largest in two of those. When given a variety of choices in M2 the level of people supporting global citizenship (17%) as a primary identity is even lower than even those who "strongly agree" to global citizenship being more important to national citizenship in first question (22%).

In M2 it seems all of the "somewhat agree" and a few points of the "strongly agree" have gone elsewhere including back to national citizenship which creates a tension between the results of the two questions. It's quite stark in the case of India where in the first question 67% place global citizenship over national citizenship but in M2 51% have national citizenship as their primary identity and only 6% have global citizenship.

I think the first question (Q18jt) would be more interesting if it was a 5 point scale with a "don't know" option provided rather than trying to railroad people into an answer with a 4 point scale. Even then I think the M2 question is a better instrument as it provides a clear set of choices. For example Pakistan goes from 56% global in the first question to 2% global in the second. Most of those seem to move to religion as their primary identity (43% answer religion on M2). Many religions are globally oriented toward all humanity but the M2 question lets us see more clearly what they believe.

Even though the second question (M2) is better it probably could still do with some examination. For example the only country where global citizenship was higher than national citizenship in M2 was Spain, but was that because many people in Catalonia and the Basque Country are choosing global over "Spanish" because the "local" option was translated in a particular way? If they used a word closer to "neighborhood" you could see how that might happen. Similarly was "local" translated more broadly in the Indonesian translation and became the dominant answer there (56%) as people could identify with an island/state/ethnic/linguistic group that was "local", like Bali for example. It's hard to tell without all the data and the exact translations of the questions.

</comment><comment><USER31> Please don't rewrite titles unless they are misleading or linkbait. The submitted title ('People see themselves as global citizens rather than citizens of their country') says something quite different than the original.</comment>