The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mormon-church-amassed-100-billion-it-was-the-best-kept-secret-in-the-investment-world-11581138011 <comment><USER3> Can you imagine the criticism if the investment arm was losing money? The Church does amazing work providing resources during crises. I've personally cut trees off of people's houses with chainsaws provided by the Church and given buckets of sanitation supplies when hurricanes swept through Florida.

There is always a tension in "what do you spend now and what do you invest for later" but I honesty feel like the Church cannot win this argument. Those who are distrustful of organized religion can win if the church is poor ("why didn't their 'prophet' know better"); if they're rich ("why don't they give to X"); or if they do nothing ("they teach their own members to save but don't practice that themselves—the hypocrites").

I'm a believer so my view is not disinterested, but where is the conversation that they are conservative in their investments; won't make money from industries they teach against; etc.

There are very few people in the ecclesiastical arm of the church who work full-time and are provided a living stipend. And many of those people were very successful before leaving their professional lives.

The current President (Russel Nelson) was a pioneer in open heart surgery. I'm pretty comfortable assuming he would have made more money in his life had he not accepted a calling to full-time ministry.

To me this article is interesting but the reaction is predictable. People will read into the confirmation of whatever biases they had to begin with.

For my part, I'd rather the church invest wisely than poorly...

<comment><USER4> > I'm pretty comfortable assuming he would have made more money in his life > had he not accepted a calling to full-time ministry.

Two comments.

[1] The Mormon church is a corporation sole, meaning presently Nelson is the sole controller of all assets. He could reasonably set up his family for life with beneficial contacts and contracts. That is worth more than (now probably expired) intellectual property associated with open-heart surgery.

[2] The leadership of the Mormon church tends to come from the same set of Utah-based families. Not 100%, but certainly a high representation. It's a social network that has been extractive on the work and labor of their membership for over a century, benefiting these few families greatly. This doesn't mean the organization hasn't done good -- it has. It's just that good doesn't blot out bad, nefarious, negligence, or other societal negatives.

<comment><USER5> [1] Yet no one has alleged that anything like that has happened. Also if I was 90 years old and had plenty of money I would much rather live a comfortable retired life than work at the pace he works at.

<comment><USER4> People have, it just doesn't hit home like seeing the $100B figure.[0]

[0] [https://davidvbartosiewicz.blogspot.com/2010/12/lds- apostles...](https://davidvbartosiewicz.blogspot.com/2010/12/lds-apostles-and- prophet-thomas-s.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That is just what is uncovered in the investment market with one subsidiary.

They also own 2% of Florida[0], huge land tracts in Argentina, Oklahoma and elsewhere, and attractive urban real estate in most major metropolises including apartment complexes in PA. They centralize donation collection of tithes and good will offerings such that about 8% stays back at congregations (based on personal observation as the finance clerk across several congregations and the analogue of dioceses--wealthy congregations would regularly see $25k/week from 200 congregants and have a budget of ~$8k annually, but this offset with congregations in less affluent areas). They also have massive economic influence over Utah, surrounding states, and often growing suburbs.

They have a very diversified portfolio. As doctrine they take the second coming of Christ seriously and believe they will transform into the world wide government on his return.

For the record I left several years ago, but have many family members still heavily involved. It's an organization which does not allow you to leave with your dignity intact.

[0] [https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/morning_call/2014/03/far...](https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/morning_call/2014/03/farmland- reserve-own-2-percent-of.html)

<comment><USER6> It always surprises me that wealthy churches pretend to take Christ seriously, when Jesus was not very fond of amassing money.

I get why the churches do it (of course they don't believe in Christ), but why do the exploited masses believe them?

<comment><USER7> "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God."

-Jesus

Matthew 19:24

<comment><USER8> I see this quoted a lot whenever there is discussion of wealth. However, as with all verses, the context is important as well as the follow up verses. This is not in defense of.

17 "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments." "Which ones?" he inquired. Jesus replied, "'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'" "All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?" Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:17-26 - [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%2019:17-...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%2019:17-26&version=NIV)

<comment><USER9> As an atheist I love reading these passages.. it is amazing how people in this day and age are trying to find "meanings" from a book full of the stories of one person... who lived 2000+ years ago.. imagine if someone tried to find meaning in Beckhams biography 2000 years from now...

<comment><USER10> Jesus makes several truth claims, that if true, are extremely compelling for why someone may want to pay attention today. One of these is His claim to be God. You can either dismiss Jesus as a lunatic, dismiss Jesus as a liar, or accept Jesus for who He claimed to be. If Jesus was merely a good man, He would not have claimed to be God. That is not something good people do.

<comment><USER11> We have no first hand accounts from Jesus himself. We have a couple of first hand accounts from followers. Most of them don't reconcile with each other very well. And even if they did, humans have a long history of collectively believing and participating in supernatural bullshit.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbCzb_FWpi4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbCzb_FWpi4)

Lots of people have claimed to be god. Some are even widely recognized as good people. Do we need to give them all our attention? Cause I'm pretty content living my life without believing in wild fairy tales.

<comment><USER10> Does your belief system require you to be so disparaging to people who believe differently?

If you don't want to pay any attention to the claims of Christianity, then by all means don't.

<comment><USER11> No, but I'm pretty happy with seeking its demise. Christianity, along with the rest of the abrahamic religions, are a corrupting plague on our planet and society. That which is good about it is not unique to it, and that which is unique to it is not good. We are stagnant in our progress as humans to the degree that we still believe in it.

<comment><USER10> So, intolerance is the way forward?

<comment><USER12> It's not intolerant to state that you do not believe in somebody else's religion. Nothing above is even "disparaging", even that fairy tale remark. It's not disparaging to state that, without good evidence, you believe fantastic stories from thousands of years ago to be fairy tails.

<comment><USER13> > 'It's not intolerant to state that you do not believe in somebody else's > religion.'

Stating that you are, quote, "seeking its demise", is the very definition of intolerance.

> 'Nothing above is even "disparaging", even that fairy tale remark. It's not > disparaging to state that, without good evidence, you believe fantastic > stories from thousands of years ago to be fairy tails.'

This is the very definition of disparagement.

If I were to refer to your atheistic beliefs as 'the ignorance of children, raised by a wicked society that is under the influence of psychopathic demons', would you view that as disparaging? Of course you would.

The difference between that way of viewing things and your way of viewing things is simply a matter of perspective. The difference is, one viewpoint is based on knowledge, whereas the other is based in ignorance.

Source: I used to be an atheist also. As a teenager. In the Bible Belt.

<comment><USER12> > _Stating that you are, quote, "seeking its demise", is the very definition > of intolerance._

Evangelizing atheism is no more intolerant than evangelizing your religion. Personally I have no particular interest in doing either, but if you get bent out of shape over somebody doing it, that's on you. If you don't like somebody disagreeing with your beliefs then move to a theocracy where such things are forbidden. The "intolerance" you describe is in fact an expression of the bedrock of liberal society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's important to note the historical context around this. The LDS church used to be constantly in extreme debt and close to having their religious buildings taken away due to it. Then in the early 1900s they instituted a simple financial policy that could also be an example for members.

1\. Spend less than you take in. 2\. Save/invest a portion of what you bring in for a rainy day.

Thus over a hundred years that builds up. I'm a Mormon and personally don't have an issue with it as I know that wealth doesn't go to church leaders (they all get the same stipend which for many is less than they made in their professional lives) and is simply fund available to the Church for times of need.

<comment><USER14> > they all get the same stipend which for many is less than they made in their > professional lives

It's weird how much this is being repeated in this thread. It's clear this opinion didn't form on an individual level but rather is directed by the church to their followers to repeat. It's an odd way of justifying position is all.

<comment><USER15> Ex Mormon here. Yes, it is drilled down into our brains. The same exact phrases.

And the stipend is 6-figures per year (most members don't know this though, it was leaked a few times now on paystubs). But all travel and room is also paid for. Plus most leaders of the church that receive this stipend are 70+ years old, so they are already living off healthy retirements in addition to now free housing and a healthy stipend. Church leaders are all successful businessman, doctors, and lawyers. Basically you pay your way to the top. So all of these people have incredible riches before they start taking these stipends.

Church members like to pretend like our leaders are scraping by... but they are in top 1% of income earners. Further, you should hear those same leaders talk about tithing to members. Even encouraging their poor members to pay up because "they can't afford not to".

It should also be noted that the church pays these top leaders, but chooses not to pay anyone at the congregation level. From the bishop (equivilant to a Pastor in most other religions), to the people teaching sunday school, the people cleaning the buildings, the bookkeepers, etc are all asked to do it for free. These are generally lower-income or middle-income members with full time jobs, asked to do this in addition to normal jobs... oh and they have to pay 10% of their pre-tax income to the church that they make from their job.

> No bishop [aka 'Pastor'], no missionary should ever hesitate or lack the > faith to teach the law of tithing to the poor. The sentiment of "They can't > afford to" needs to be replaced with "They can't afford not to."

That quote is direct from their official prophet.

Source: [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general- conference...](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general- conference/2005/04/tithing-a-commandment-even-for-the-destitute?lang=eng)

Note: If you click that link you will see that the title is "Tithing - <USER2> commandment even for the destitute", this man had the hairy balls to stand up with a straight face and say that no one is too poor to pay his church. While he flies private jets everywhere from these poor family's sacrifices.

<comment><USER16> It seem to me that humans who does advance to the top are either greedy, combative and out of touch. The question is whether the selection criteria favors such people or the position itself engages part of human nature that are such. I incline to the former, it's sad to see there's no other way to make decent leader other than have everyone's eye fixated on any mistake he might have made.

One more argument for AI overlord.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Many have been asking what the Church does with the money it has. The official response can be found here [https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church- of-j...](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-of-jesus- christ-finances)

In addition this is the official response of the Church in reply to an almost identical story that ran not too long ago [https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/first- presi...](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/first-presidency- statement-church-finances)

<comment><USER18> I bet there are some people in the background who make tons of money through contracts as suppliers . Seems this happens with most big non profits.

<comment><USER19> You bet or do you know? Just sounds like you're accusing people without any proof.

<comment><USER4> It is a reasonable expectation given lack of financial transparency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As an ex Mormon, I've read a lot about this. The single most useful piece for additional context that I've seen is this one by historian Kathleen Flake. [https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.edu/2019/12/23/mormonism-a...](https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.edu/2019/12/23/mormonism- and-its-money/)

<comment><USER21> Though one-sided, that's a well-reasoned and well-argued piece I had not seen before. Thanks for sharing it.

Disclaimer: I'm an active Mormon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is 100 billion really that much? The church has 16 million members. That is about $6,000 per member. The church has had 200 years of tithing and compound interest to get to this point. If used as an endowment to support 16 million people in 170+ countries that doesn't seem too crazy.

A single human (not mentioning any names) having 100 billion seems crazy.

<comment><USER15> This isn't that the church has $100 billion dollars. They actually are estimated to be worth more than Apple in real estate and cash.

This $100B is one single fund that is a "secret" fund. It was collected by the church members donating to charity, but asking the church to allocate the funds. So this is in addition to all the other offerings a member is required to make (10% of pre-tax gross income). So the church took money promising to allocate it to charity, and the church members thought they were donating to charity, but the church instead siphoned it off and kept it for themselves in a secret fund that they denied existed. It took a whistleblower from within the fund's organization to reveal it to the public.

So this is in addition to normal money that the church has, or its real estates, or its hundreds of billions in other investments. This is actually a tiny slice of the pie, but it was collected maliciously and wasn't reported to the IRS.

<comment><USER23> "kept it for themselves"\---it still belongs to the church.

I thought everybody assumed, since the church so frequently taught its members about prudent financial management, that the church itself was doing the same thing.

I've left the church, I have many criticisms of it, but I really don't have a problem with an organization taking the long view and accumulating a large enough reserve to survive on the interest. It's the same approach universities and other large nonprofits use. And it's not like it's particularly neglecting its present-day mission either. Probably is too stingy, though (e.g. using volunteers to clean buildings.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here is one statement that the Church of Jesus Christ put out about their finances, which addresses several of the complaints/questions posited here:

[https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church- fina...](https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-finances-and- a-growing-global-church#questions)

I don't see any incongruity with a church that teaches its members to save to likewise have a large savings fund. It's not like they're just hoarding money: the Church actively donates billions of dollars to world-wide humanitarian projects. For a religion that believes in the second coming of Jesus Christ and a worldwide crisis preceding that, it only makes sense for them to save so that they can continue to aid people of and not of their faith during that time.

<comment><USER25> > the Church actively donates billions of dollars to world-wide humanitarian > projects.

This is not true. Just tens of millions annually. Laughably small sum compared to $7 billion annually in tithes (in 2012).

Insight: Mormon church made wealthy by donations [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics- mormons/insi...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics- mormons/insight-mormon-church-made-wealthy-by-donations-idUSBRE87B05W20120812)

How the Mormons Make Money- How the Mormon Church Makes Its Billions [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-07-18/how- the-m...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-07-18/how-the-mormons- make-money)

>According to an official church Welfare Services fact sheet, the church gave $1.3 billion in humanitarian aid in more than 178 countries and territories during the 25 years between 1985 and 2010. A fact sheet from the previous year indicates that less than one-third of the sum was monetary assistance, while the rest was in the form of "material assistance." All in all, if one were to evenly distribute that $1.3 billion over a quarter-century, it would mean that the church gave $52 million annually. A study co-written by Cragun and recently published in Free Inquiry estimates that the Mormon Church donates only about 0.7 percent of its annual income to charity; the United Methodist Church gives about 29 percent.

They even use volunteer work for for-profit enterprises.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, but you see, building that temple in Rome was just so much more important than actual charity work...

I like how the Mormon church one-upped the Catholic church in this. The Catholic church sold indulgences, one-time absolutions for sin to fund their projects, but the Mormon church transformed it into a subscription service, for the low low fee of 10% of all your income forever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seems most churches are basically real estate companies. The same is said about the Catholic Church and Scientology. Even if they lost all of their members they could keep going forever.

<comment><USER4> This seems true regarding most old-school power brokers. Isn't the UK monarchy funded by the UK government renting land?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Meh. Moonies, Scientology and Catholic church are loaded too. Also, the IRS makes it too easy to run an Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption. Furthermore, tax exemption does actively promote religion by expressly discriminating in their economic favor. End tax exemption for magical thinking!

</comment><comment><USER28> Any discussion related to "church" funds makes me go back to a very interesting question: how much is the Catholic church worth today?

I remember a while ago spending a few hours trying to dig some useful info. Of course there's not much online, and estimates range from 100s of B$ to something between 1 and 2 T$. Still credible.

The even more interesting part is how the Catholic church managed to amass this huge wealth over the course of two millenia.

<comment><USER29> >The even more interesting part is how the Catholic church managed to amass this huge wealth over the course of two millenia.

Really? I thought it was pretty obvious. They literally pass around a plate and millions of people around the world are expected to put in 10% of their salary. In addition they have been around forever so have a vast collection of property and priceless art etc.

<comment><USER30> FWIW I don't believe the Catholic Church teaches a "10% of their salary" tithe at all. Certainly not in the way some other churches do.

The church in the USA receives funds from passing the plate, but European Catholic Churches historically receive their money from a voluntary church tax levied by the civil government, which is also not 10%.

Most parishes I've been to in the USA publish their weekly offering and from those numbers it's pretty clear people are not putting in 10% of their salary. Maybe 1%?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion".

<comment><USER32> You can do both at the same time like Raël (Claude Vorilhon) did.

<comment><USER33> > You can do both at the same time

Of course you can. Do you know whom that quote came from?

<comment><USER34> L. Ron Hubbard?

<comment><USER31> Yes, it's him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The Church gives back too. FamilySearch.org is a website with billions of names, where you can build your genealogy and collaborate with others who share your pedigree and provide you your ancestry from their own research.

The website must cost millions to operate, yet is available for free.

<comment><USER24> familysearch.org is incredible. My previous bishop (a Bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ is essentially a pastor; bishops are unpaid volunteers) worked for Family Search in their engineering department. It most certainly costs millions to operate, and is being _extremely_ actively developed. Last I heard they're using machine learning to index obituaries from old newspapers so that people could find records of their ancestors more easily. Pretty incredible stuff.

Try taking a look at Family Search. It's so cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Other ethnoreligious groups do this at vastly larger scale with surprisingly little publicity.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB894240270899870000](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB894240270899870000)

[https://www.jta.org/2009/10/27/united-states/jewish- charitie...](https://www.jta.org/2009/10/27/united-states/jewish-charities-on- top-400-list-see-how-they-ranked)

</comment><comment><USER37> Question as a member. Would today be a good day to request that janitorial services be restored? Do I really need to clean the church's toilets once a year to get to heaven?

<comment><USER38> That's the thing I find most interesting about the Mormon church.

In most other churches if you don't get into heaven your afterlife really really really sucks. They tend to be very binary--eternity in paradise, or eternity of inconceivable torture and torment.

Mormon afterlife has four possible destinations: the Celestial Kingdom, the Terrestrial Kingdom, the Telestial Kingdom, and the outer darkness.

The Celestial Kingdom corresponds with heaven of other Christian sects.

The outer darkness kind of corresponds to hell in that it is where Satan resides, but I don't know if it is a place to torment like it is in other sects.

It's pretty hard to get sent to the outer darkness. It's for people who _know_ that God is real, and choose to go against Him. Note that this does not include people that are _told_ about God and do not believe--it is people who receive a personal revelation that He exists and still reject it.

Those who are merely told about God and reject those teachings, but who were decent people get the Terrestrial Kingdom.

Those who don't qualify for that because they were not decent, such as liars, sorcerers, whoremongers, etc., get the Telestial Kingdom. They are resurrected and given an immortal physical body. No torment or torture...the Telestial Kingdom is supposed to be a very nice place to live out your now eternal physical life.

The Telestial Kingdom sounds acceptable to me, and I'd probably actually make it to the Terrestrial Kingdom if Mormonism turns out to be right.

So what's the case to convert to Mormonism, or for people raised Mormon to stick with it? With the churches with the binary paradise/infinite torture afterlife, a Pascal's Wager type argument might work, even if I think there is a low probability that the church is right.

With Mormonism, if I think that there is only a low probability that it is right, a Pascal's Wager approach can tell me to optimize for my mortal life.

Even if I decide that some sort of Christian or Christian offshoot must be correct, if I narrow it down to a list that includes Mormonism and one or more of the eternal damnation sects, another Pascal's Wager like argument would tell me to pick one of the eternal damnation sects.

<comment><USER39> For a simple answer to your question (you may have answered it asked it more rhetorically, and if so, sorry), the case to convert is just that we pray about it and get an answer.

There's a lot of reasons the church's teachings are good to believe in, but it's kinda useless if God isn't saying it's right if you know what I mean.

I grew up not believing in God at all. But when it came time, I asked God, if he existed, to give me an answer. And as best as I can interpret, he did.

So yeah, that's kinda why, if you wanted to know. The reasons are extra on top of the actual question if that makes any sense :p

Hope you're having a good day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I have LDS in my family, I have an anecdote just this week

I was looking up genealogy of my family and found my Aunt already added my great grandparents back in Poland. The church runs the website and offers it free of charge ([https://www.familysearch.org/](https://www.familysearch.org/)), you don't need to be a member to use it.

Another anecdote is Matz, creator of ruby is a member: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkh0gPf4Noc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkh0gPf4Noc)

Also they make really nice music: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msoqtX4YAIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msoqtX4YAIY)

On the subject of churches asking for tithes and donations - I've seen various denominations do it and never felt odd about it. Back in my hometown, our church was the ones doing outreach to help the local homeless and getting them back on their feet (not the city or country, that's for sure). This was the early 90s though.

</comment><comment><USER41> One of my favorite passages from the New Testament is this:

      Matthew 19:16-30 New International Version (NIV)[1]

      The Rich and the Kingdom of God

      16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing
      must I do to get eternal life?"

      17 "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One
      who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments."

      18 "Which ones?" he inquired.

      Jesus replied, "'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you
      shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony,

      19 honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'"

      20 "All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?"

      21 Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and
      give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow
      me."

      22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great
      wealth.

      23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for
      someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

      24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of
      a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

      25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked,
      "Who then can be saved?"

      26 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God
      all things are possible."

      27 Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then
      will there be for us?"

      28 Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when
      the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will
      also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

      29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother
      or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as
      much and will inherit eternal life.

      30 But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

This is what comes to my mind each time when I hear about people, who call themselves Christians and their love for property.

[1]: [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A16...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A16-30&version=NIV)

<comment><USER42> There are numerous rich disciples of Jesus. It is not clear that all of them gave away all of their wealth.

You are correct that love of money and possessions is crucial concern as a Christian, and that Christians are taught to rely on the Lord for their day to day needs.

But ultimately it is the heart attitude towards money. Money is a resource like any other resource, such as time or people. You can be idolatrous about any resource, including money, but it isn't having the resource that is bad.

Anyone who is a true follower of Jesus would be willing to lose their wealth for his sake if necessary (just as it might be leaving family for the sake of being a Christian), but just having wealth isn't the problem.

<comment><USER41> Jesus words are very clear here and leave no place for doubt. Therefore all of those, who followed him, must have given up on material property, which makes sense, if one accepts the idea, that "Money corrupts."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I was told that capitalism is supposed to be opposed to ideals like theocracy, monarchy and socialism, but look at the Mormons, the Evangelicals, Saudi Arabia and China, they're better at capitalism than most capitalists.

And I'm not ranting against capitalism, I'm against this fairy tale idea that capitalism somehow magically brings freedom. Especially in America, it's become part of national pride, yet we've forgotten about boycotts and "voting with your wallet", so the system is largely directed by blind greed and powerful special interests.

<comment><USER44> dramatically declining attendance and other factors, have led various Protestant churches in California to divest, divide or sub-let many family- oriented Church properties.. The LDS does not seem to be suffering from that.. so its not so simple as "for or against" .. there is execution and timing, and a lot of other factors

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm an active Mormon, and I want to try to address a couple of the ideas being discussed on this thread. My purpose is not to change anyone's mind, nor is it to defend the LDS church in this particular case (actually I think they've got it quite wrong). Instead, it is to inform people what the culture of the church is like, and maybe if I'm really successful to help you understand how we can produce members like Clay Christensen on the one hand, and own 2% of Florida on the other.

One thing to understand about the LDS church is that the leadership is drawn from the membership, but is really _really_ not representative of that membership. In order to become a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the highest leadership body in the church, you essentially have to have spent decades serving full-time as a church leader at lower levels. This means that all the members of the quorum are old men (and yes, they are all men - that's another discussion). We have been accused - correctly - of being a gerontocracy.

There are two implications of this. One is that on social issues, the church leadership lags the membership by at least a generation, usually two. Furthermore, the upper membership of the church leads by consensus, ideally unanimous consensus. It takes a long time to get more than a dozen people on the same page about almost anything, much less something like the theological implications of homosexuality (to name one topic of the day). This goes some way to explaining why the leadership keeps getting caught flat-footed when regarding issues of transparency, LGBTQ relations, race, and so on. They aren't the internet generation and it shows.

But it has a second implication as well. Church leadership often remembers and understands church history completely differently than the lay membership does. In particular, for this issue, in the early part of the 20th century the church nearly went bankrupt. They ended up calling several people with strong business backgrounds to the Quorum of the Twelve, and one of those went on to become President. They managed to put the church's finances on a firm foundation. For obvious reasons, none of this tends to get discussed in Sunday School, and most of the membership of the church no longer remembers it. But the leadership most certainly does. In addition, it led to more and more church leaders having business backgrounds instead of pastoral care backgrounds, and as a consequence they tend to view achieving a good ROI on "the Lord's money" as being a primary good. I personally disagree, but it is what it is.

Next, one thing to note is that none of the church leadership is personally getting rich off of tithing funds. The leadership draws a salary; that salary lets them live comfortably, but it isn't 7 figures. Nobody lives in a mansion or flies a private jet. So, then, why are they sitting on an enormous cash pile? In my personal opinion, it isn't primarily about the money. It's primarily about increasing commitment to the institution. Paying tithing is "faith promoting". It gives the membership skin in the game. They aren't just showing up to a church building for two hours on Sunday. They're actively participating in building the Kingdom of God.

Of course, you can take the phrase "commitment to the institution" two different ways, depending on your going-in assumptions. For the faithful, building the faith of the membership is a primary good and indeed a principal goal of God. For the skeptical it looks like brainwashing with a nice side benefit of extra cash in the coffers.

The next obvious question is, even if you're one of the faithful, and you assume that paying tithing is indeed a good way of building a faith community, can't they come up with ways of using the money that are more in line with Christ's teachings than buying up 2% of Florida? And I wholeheartedly agree. There are. And, of course, owning large tracts of real estate and a mall in downtown Salt Lake City and your own private securities investment firm don't make a lot of sense if nobody in the leadership is living like a sheik. So why not spend all of (or at least a lot more of) that cash on charitable works? Why not just go in and rebuild Haiti, or cure cancer, or something?

And I honestly don't know. I go back to the leadership's business background and their recollection of the church nearly going bankrupt, and I can sort of see it... but then I read the Sermon on the Mount, and I can't again. I have to chalk it up to a lack of imagination, combined with a loss of pastoral care instincts in the church leadership.

For what it's worth, I think it will change... eventually. The time constant of change in the LDS church is something like 20 years, so don't expect it to happen tomorrow.

Finally, for those of you who have left the church and felt like it tried to take your dignity when you left, I'm sorry. My wife left, and that wasn't our experience. Your experience with the church is almost completely due to the culture and local leadership in your local congregation, and in a lot of cases that can be quite good, but it can also be fairly toxic if you're unlucky. I've experienced both, but more of the former. Of course, my experiences don't help you if yours are different. I hope you find your peace.

<comment><USER46> Thanks for your comment, it provides nice additional context to the discussion --but I feel like you've done more to affirm the other comments in this thread than refute them. In your own words, the Church is a gerontocracy wielding enormous wealth and therefore power, dodging taxes, and siphoning funds intended for charitable purposes. It's one thing for the Church to want to avoid going bankrupt, but how can you justify an ostensibly charitable, non- profit organization amassing funds in excess of $100B?

<comment><USER45> The claimed concern is that in a severe economic downturn, the church wants to be able to both continue operating and help people in need. They say it's a rainy day fund, and I think in the leadership's mind that's exactly what it is.

The church's yearly operating expenses are somewhere in the neighborhood of $7B. Add another $7B on top of that for feeding the membership in a Great Depression situation, and add a loss of 50% of your investments due to the stock market crash, and some loss of liquidity due to market turmoil, and a significant loss of tithing income due to that same downturn, and $100B isn't that far off the right number.

The problem, of course, is that there are people who are hungry today. We don't need to wait for an economic downturn to find people in need.

But I guess my overall point is this. The church makes a lot of mistakes, and it has some significant structural issues. But at core it isn't malicious. Church leadership really isn't getting rich off this. They're true believers, and although they have a culture of secrecy you can usually take what they do say at face value.

They're just... about forty years behind culturally, and very slow to change, and have a world view that was informed by many decades of teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And they really do believe that Jesus is going to return sometime soon.

But, again: people are hungry right now. We should feed them.

<comment><USER47> And for secrecy, the church got screwed pretty hard early on (driven from place to place, leadership beaten and murdered, forced to move west, investigated by the military, etc). It makes complete sense to only give out as much information as you can, especially when there are so many looking to destroy the church _and_ if you assume that the devil is literally behind people trying to destroy the church. It's a very different type of secrecy compared to other groups, like Scientologists, at least that's the way it feels to me.

And yes, I completely agree that the church should probably adjust its focus a bit. I think the church has plenty in the bank, so what's wrong with having most of the income used for feeding the poor and everything else Jesus recommended?

However, that's really not my call, and IMO it's not really my business. I give my tithing because I'm asked to, not because I think the church will use it optimally. It's a show of obedience to God and faith that the leadership is being a good steward of that money. It isn't my choice how the church leadership chooses to use that money, it's my choice whether to give, and it's my choice whether to give extra to causes I believe in. So I do. I give to the church as well as other causes I believe in. Jesus recommended to give everything, and I feel like I do pretty much the same thing as the church (most excess goes to investments, which I hope will allow me to dedicate my life to helping others once I retire, hopefully early).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> So I'm officially a Mormon but am not a tithing member or active at all. I've asked some of my Mormon friends about this and their response is basically "well of course they are, how else would they build Zion in the city of Independence, Missouri?". They've said that's where the latter days will be spent a long time ago, and they're preparing to make that a reality "when the time comes".

They have a form of socialism called the law of consecration that Mormon society will live under (I believe they might have lived like that in Salt Lake while initially settling there). My seminary teacher, the sweetest woman you've ever met, got VERY upset and yelled at me when I said that it sounded like Communism. It still sounds a lot like Communism, though.

It's truly amazing that they have 15 years worth of tithing for their members saved up. I have concerns though, when my friends family lives in a house where their youngest kid got lead exposure, and they're barely getting by, tithing their 10%, but the Mormon church is amassing such wealth yet my friend's family of five is on food stamps. Something feels off there.

<comment><USER49> > It still sounds a lot like Communism, though.

That is because it is, 100%. If your teacher freaked out over it, she is having trouble reconciling it with the American cultural meme of "Communism is pure evil.", which stems from the Cold War, not religious doctrine.

And yes, something is off if a tithing LDS family is living on food stamps. I have had family who lost jobs and had no money, and the LDS church gave them food and money to cover bills, until they could get back on their feet. Such situations tend to be handled at the local level, and there are definitely good and bad leaders in all organizations, including churches.

<comment><USER5> I think the key difference is the Church's system is voluntary and communism is not voluntary.

<comment><USER11> State communism might not be voluntary, but there are plenty of forms of communism that are voluntary: employee owned companies and cooperatives are literally communist.

And I don't really consider it voluntary if I am to believe the consequences that they teach: the threat of being ripped from and permanently separated from your family for eternity is just as coercive of a punishment as the threat of being sent to a gulag.

<comment><USER50> Nobody I know teaches that, in that way, but that some opportunities and blessings are gained or lost based on our choices: to say otherwise would be simply deceptive. Most marriages say "until death do us part", or such, or assume it, but eternal promises do have requirements to be met. God is both merciful and just: one attribute cannot rob the other. He gives us real choices, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> From a business perspective a religion is one of the best things you can start, it's free of taxes on most countries, it autoscales after convincing the first few people because it's now their (unpaid) job to convince even more; the demand is always there because most people have a biological innate fear of death/non-existence and just like with movies people crave a "happy ending", call it paradise, heaven or else; the best part is that the children of your believers are bound to be converted to your religion so there will be no lack of money donators on the long term, and is pretty easy to teach believers to denounce anyone that tries to convince them of leaving your religion as intolerant.

</comment><comment><USER52> I guess it's really the First National Bank of Latter Day Saints.

</comment><comment><USER53> The specific dealings of the church aside, there are some seriously concerning philosophies coming out of all this. I wrote up a little something because I'm uncomfortable with the things I'm hearing members say.

[https://apathofmyown.com/saving-for-a-rainy-day- prosperity-a...](https://apathofmyown.com/saving-for-a-rainy-day-prosperity- and-the-gospel/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Is this a deep, publicity lead to attacking the tax status of the LDS in the USA, as political retribution to Sen Romney ?

<comment><USER4> Only if we have a time machine that takes us back a few months: [https://kutv.com/news/local/washington-post-lds-church- accus...](https://kutv.com/news/local/washington-post-lds-church-accused-of- stockpiling-100b-intended-for-charitable-use)

<comment><USER44> WSJ yesterday looks specifically like escalation, from here

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Here is a related article from Forbes.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2020/12/30/mormons...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2020/12/30/mormons- and-the-tax-law/#7c04e4351d2c)

</comment><comment><USER55> Churches shouldn't be allowed to amass money. It screws up the economy and politics.

</comment><comment><USER56> How much does the Roman Catholic Church have, especially when you appraise the artwork?

<comment><USER57> According to the article around 50 billion USD, so half the size.

<comment><USER58> The catholic church has unbelievable real estate locations in Europe. The arch diocese Cologne has 12 billion in assets.

If you count the real estate, it is easily at least 500 million _per historic city in Europe_. This is a rough estimate (area for 500 houses in absolutely top locations).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Mirror: [http://archive.is/sy1Ay](http://archive.is/sy1Ay)

</comment><comment><USER59> [https://archive.md/sy1Ay](https://archive.md/sy1Ay)

</comment><comment><USER60> [http://archive.is/sy1Ay](http://archive.is/sy1Ay)

</comment><comment><USER61> Churches should go back to being churches. No reason a religious organization needs a 100 billion warchest.

What they are planning to eventually do with it? Buy off my local pol? Buy Utah and secede? Never mind the advantageous tax treatment enjoyed. This disturbs me.

<comment><USER62> I would be happy if churches had exactly the same status as any other business. Nothing less, nothing more.

<comment><USER63> It is often the case that they do. For example, the church that I attend bought adjacent property to keep as vacant open space.. but since there is no church on the land, the church pays property tax on it just like any other non tax exempt entity would. Kind of ironic since if it were farmland deemed open space it would be a different story in most places. Our tax code is not perfect but the path forward is to look at it in totality... the minute you try to solve one problem here, you'll create a dozen there. Churches are global organizations... I'm sure it wouldn't take much thinking, painful as it may be, for the Mormons to decide to hold their wealth outside of the US should our tax policies become unsustainable for them. Just because it's a large number doesn't mean it's wrong.

<comment><USER64> > Our tax code is not perfect but the path forward is to look at it in > totality... the minute you try to solve one problem here, you'll create a > dozen there.

Not really. Remove all exemption, deductions, credits, and special treatments.

<comment><USER63> Generally I'm with you but in the case of religion, I think it's a bad idea to tax one's belief in God. The key issue here is the state isn't supreme... just because there is untaxed wealth doesn't mean it automatically belongs to the government... especially if we believe in separation of church and state.

<comment><USER64> Not providing an exemption for donations is not taxing one's beliefs.

<comment><USER63> So I guess we shouldn't provide military service exemptions to conscientious objectors either. You either have separation of church and state or you don't. As a practical matter I'm unaware of any church organization even the Mormons who are 'killing' it with the exemption. Very few people give 1% of their income to their church much less a full tithe or anything more than tithe despite the favorable tax treatment. I submit you're angry about organized religion, the size of the investment fund or both... but neither are a justification to change separation of church and state.

<comment><USER64> I'm not angry about organized religion and tax rules specifically. I just know that the more complicated the rules get, the more they get exploited.

Off topic, but I would also support mandatory service in military for all similar to Israel. I can't think of any other way to make people care about their country's actions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Now I understand those "Thank you Jesus" signs.

</comment><comment><USER66> How is this on HN? And on the front page no less?

<comment><USER4> Hackers have a natural affinity for the structure of systems, be they behavioral/political or technological.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I'm Catholic, and I wonder whether it might be a good test of the divinity of the institution just to give away all the wealth accrued over the centuries. If it is God ordained, then it should survive in the same setting as it was founded, i.e. without any material goods. If not, then why bother with it?

</comment><comment><USER68> I cannot fathom why churches are automatically tax exempt. Regular nonprofits have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prevent these kind of shenanigans. We are supposed to have a secular government. How is it that we single out this one class of institution for special treatment?

<comment><USER33> Religious orgs are a time-tested model for providing sustainable and widespread social cohesion, which is a huge positive externality and also protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression. The tax exemption seems obviously warranted on that basis alone, even abstracting away from any of the more visible charity work or social support that these orgs usually provide.

<comment><USER69> I'd definitely not agree with the "protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression"

Perhaps if you are a member of the church, but definitely not if you don't abide by the exact, often conservative , rules of a given church.

Look at slavery, equal rights for lgbtq and people of color, abortion etc. Not only do people in power use the churches to hide their personal beliefs behind, many churches use their power to oppress others.

I mean the crusades were a thing...

I'll agree churches provide social cohesion but often at the cost of tribalism against people outside that given churches norms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Any way around the paywall?

</comment><comment><USER71> I've found why anybody outside the church should care:

«If the whistleblower's claim is successful, that person could receive up to 30% of the proceeds collected by the IRS.»

Meh.

<comment><USER68> They are stealing from everyone. Churches do not pay taxes. This is supposed to be contingent on not engaging in politics and actually acting like a non- profit.

<comment><USER72> Some people might be able to claim coercion because tithing is required to participate in certain ceremonies, but I don't see how that's stealing (forced, against one's will).

<comment><USER68> I meant that it is stealing from the taxpayer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> So the Mormon Church has created an endowment instead of corruptly spending the tithes on trifles and graft for their leaders, in preparation to help their members when needed and continue their operations in times of scarcity. I see this as a very smart thing, not nefarious. Not any more "scandalous" or hidden than the Harvard endowment.

Mormons are well aware the Church uses its tithes to invest. Much of this thread's comments are little more than ignorant and bigoted attacks on Mormons and Christians.

<comment><USER4> > Much of this thread's comments are little more than ignorant and bigoted > attacks on Mormons and Christians.

Please call out such. I'm sure dang and the mods would prefer to keep bigotry out of HN.

Especially if you are referring to my comments, I would like to be told where my expressions and observations are being perceived as bigotry. I love my currently Mormon family deeply and work hard to not push them away, despite their actions towards me.

<comment><USER73> Not you, I'm thinking specifically of certain comments that are using this thread as a thinly veiled excuse to attack Mormonism and even Christians in general.

I'm not Mormon myself but I have Mormon family members and the openly upvoted bigotry disturbs me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Honestly you guys, we really don't care about the money, take it and fund another Uber or something if you can find a loophole that lets you do it, we live and breathe this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER75> A prior discussion of Clay Christianson mentioned how he wouldn't play basketball on Sunday because it was the first small step that leads to larger steps (of sinning). This is a massive amount of money.

I'm struggling to understand if this money was gathered under the tax exempt status of churches in the US. And if this isn't a bigger sin than playing basketball on Sunday, if you believe in sinning.

Remember, downvotes are just like playing basketball on Sunday...

<comment><USER76> Clay Christensen was referring to one of the Ten Commandments - "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

I don't think many religions count churches not paying taxes as sins.

Incidentally, Christensen almost certainly contributed a rather significant amount of money to this sum, and likely would have said it would be a sin not to have done so. "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings"

<comment><USER4> Note the irony that the scripture you quote was given to the priests, who were benefiting from the tithes and offerings of the nation [akin to the Mormon church giving luxurious homes to their General Authorities and plum book deals through Deseret Book], not the people themselves.

Tithing got re-defined over the years. Consider: [https://puremormonism.blogspot.com/2012/12/are-we-paying- too...](https://puremormonism.blogspot.com/2012/12/are-we-paying-too-much- tithing.html)

<comment><USER5> Do you really think former heart surgeons and company executives are making more money now on the general authority stipend than before?

<comment><USER4> Let's collate our conversation regarding this to the other thread.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Unix's Revenge - <AUTHOR> http://www.asymco.com/2010/09/29/unixs-revenge/ <comment><USER2> There is a huge assertion in there - that Windows isn't as adaptable to multiple different environments. I know that empirically this looks to be the case - we don't see the NT kernel running on gadgets - but is there actually any true technical reason stopping this? By that, I mean is there any barrier that a team of Microsoft engineers couldn't overcome in say a year?

It would be interesting to know what those limitations are if that is the case - there would no doubt be lessons to learn for all of us.

<comment><USER3> You know, NT was developed on the i960, a RISC chip from Intel that is now mainly found in printers, and once ran on AXP, PPC and MIPS in addition to x86. There was even a SPARC version. The decision to target only x86, ia64 and x64 now is purely a commercial one - people just didn't buy NT on anything else. And ISVs weren't interested in cross-compiling their software.

I actually used NT on AXP in the mid-90s. Kick-ass platform for SQL Server. But ultimately the momentum wasn't there.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but I believe those were all desktop systems or servers, weren't they? I was thinking more about limitations that make it difficult to adapt in resource constrained environments such as we find in today's smartphones. We do see Windows used in places such as ATMs (I got a great photo of one rebooting on me the other day, Windows icon and all!). But even Microsoft don't seem to want to use it in their portable gadgets. I for one do not have a good understanding of the issues that make this type of adaption difficult on Windows, or even if it's not a technical question, but rather a political one...

<comment><USER3> There is no _technical_ reason that you couldn't run NT on anything you could run Unix on. It was architected from day 1 with a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) specifically for that. In theory, port the HAL (assembly language) then the rest is just a recompile. There's more to it than that (the SPARC version suffered severe performance issues due to endianness) but that's the general idea.

I expect Dave Cutler remembered that VMS (at the time) could only run on VAX, the OS and CPU were developed in tandem and VMS relied on some features not present on other CPUs (I don't recall exactly what offhand). It was a huge engineering effort to get it onto Itanic.

<comment><USER4> VMS also ran on Dec-Alpha.

The main problem was that a single Alpha could replace an awful lot of VAX HW and so to claw the profit back, the license fees meant a VMS Alpha was about 3x the price of the same machine running NT.

We used to buy NT Alphas and install Linux - to compete with Sun Sparcs.

<comment><USER3> Yep, later on - AXP also developed by DEC with VMS in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This entire article is ridiculous. Even if were true, it wouldn't be interesting as very few smartphone users know what OS kernel their phones run, and fewer still care.

And even as a developer you won't get very far trying to develop applications for iOS, Android or RIM's QNX based devices using the original Unix API.

It would be much truer to say that the rise of smartphones represents the "revenge" of ARM over Intel.

<comment><USER6> You won't get very far developing GUI applications for modern Unixes using _just_ the original Unix APIs, either. And most Windows programmers today aren't using Win16 APIs. I think you're missing the point.

I've written a few iPhone apps. My background in Unix, and the Unix libraries I've been able to use without modification, were both extremely helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _But Bill Gates, no doubt motivated by license fee considerations_

Well that's wrong for starters: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix>

</comment><comment><USER7> the comments are interesting too.</comment>


IPv6 Multi WAN madness - <AUTHOR> IPv6 is seemingly predicated on a single link - your prefix is delivered from a single ISP which is not generally under your control, unless you buy Provider Independent addresses and use BGP peering with multiple providers.<p>How do you deal with bootstrapping and effectively running a IPV6 network under these conditions without resorting to PI?  How do you migrate from one ISP to another? <comment><USER2> Router advertisements!

You may consider using RFC4193 addresses inside your network.

There's also NPT but that's basically NAT which I, personally, recommend avoiding if at all possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ta for replying.

I have already deployed ULA (and discovered a few wrinkles) and NPT is the only game in town for getting multiple WANs to work. You _may_ recommend against it (I hate NAT too) but what is the alternative?

For example, you are a small business (say <£1M t/o pa) You have a 80/20MBs-1 FTTC (UK - VDSL, copper last mile) internet connection and you want to get some sort of redundancy/backup for your internet connection. So you get another line in at the same rate. In the UK, we pay around £30-£40 per month for this (if it is available.)

So, ISPa gives me a prefix and ISPb gives me another prefix. My router, via SLAAC, causes various addresses to become available but my endpoints are stupid - OK they do not know what to do because they are not routers. Knock out ISPa and they will not automatically fail over to ISPb. Nor will they do the really best thing and use both ISP links simultaneously.

I understand IPv6 very, very deeply (I've used it for years) and it is wanting. To be fair, the addressing scheme is spot on but the ISP addressing model is badly wrong and absolutely right at the same time (depending on who you are).

If you have a multiple GB connection and a /48 prefix through a 99.999% trusted supplier or a home grade VDSL link that you don't even know what is happening, then all is probably OK for IPv6. I look after rather a lot of people and businesses that don't come into those categories.

Is NpT really the best that IPv6 has to offer?</comment></comment>


Access to open data is growing in Detroit - <AUTHOR> http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/open-data-090516.aspx <comment><USER2> I find the notion that there can be a "broad mentality of data transparency" very encouraging. Culture is definitely one of the biggest obstacles to effective utilisation of data.

In my experience managing physical assets, a little bit of broad knowledge (SQL, relation databases, statistics) has greatly improved my own capabilities: I can speak the language of the IT folks who shepherd my data, and I can keep a skeptical eye on the quantitative risk folks. I can stand by my analyses because I trust the ingredients and can enumerate/quantify the risks.

Conversely though, without being bit of a data jack-of-all-trades, it's harder to see the cool potential in our existing datasets. Especially if the environment/culture doesn't contain the right people to share this knowledge.

I'm hoping that some sort of data-basic-training becomes standard in undergrad engineering courses in the future.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For Detroit locals here's a few groups to check out:

Detroit Civic Tech Meetup [https://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Civic-Technology- Meetup/](https://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Civic-Technology-Meetup/)

Maptime Detroit [https://detroitography.com/maptime/](https://detroitography.com/maptime/)

Disco Tech Detroit - Primarily community groups using tech to effect social change. Few of these people are programmers but their causes would be greatly helped if programmers volunteered to help them. They have Saturday all day events around the city. I've really enjoyed attending their events. [https://www.alliedmedia.org/ddjc/discotech](https://www.alliedmedia.org/ddjc/discotech)</comment>


Dear Anonymous AAAI Reviewer - <AUTHOR>

Thank you for your time and valuable comments.
We're particularly grateful for your unfair characterisation of our paper as a reinvention of prior work.  I very much enjoyed reading through the two references given in support of this argument -- despite neither one having much of anything to do with the technique you've supposedly been reviewing for the past 6 weeks.
Thank you also for claiming that our paper amounts to a bunch of code hacks and contains no theoretical contribution. Did you perchance miss the 2 pages of theorems and proofs we give in support of our work? I guess they're must have escaped your eagle eyes as you raced toward the conclusion.  Just like the page and a half of results showing an order of magnitude improvement over the current state of the art.  Clearly inconsequential next to the "large" 30% improvement yielded by your favourite technique -- which you went out of your way to point out to us.
-----
sigh
The above is obviously a tongue-in-cheek rebuttal, but I'd like to use it as a diving board into a more serious issue: namely that submitting papers to CS conferences is a crapshoot. I know I'm not alone when I say I've had bad reviews come back from obviously inexpert individuals who have  failed to understand the basic problem at hand -- much less the contribution they're supposed to be opining on.
When submitting to a conference, I usually take the time to look at who is on the Program Comittee. If I see names I know I'm more likely to submit there. However, more often than not, paper reviewing gets farmed out by these genuine experts onto unwitting PhD students who are simply not yet in a position to offer up a fair assessment.
Which brings me to my question: what's the point of being a committee member if all you're going to do is shirk your responsibilities? <comment><USER2> For what I've seen from the couple of papers our team submitted while i was working in a research institute, there is no negaive feedback on the committee member "farming out" the reviews if his PhDs screw up. Why would he worry about it?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you spend your break time? - <AUTHOR> Usually when I take a break I'll check HN, Twitter, text messages, YouTube, etc. I think these activities are fine on occasion when you need to just unwind for a bit and not worry about productivity. But when I follow the pomodoro technique, a 5 minute break every 25 minutes, that's almost 1.5 hours in a workday or around 16 days a year if you work 5 days a week. That's a lot of time. I'm interested to read what you spend your break time on that has more value. More value break activities I've thought of is trying to answer questions on Stack Exchange or read a book. <comment><USER2> I was never able to commit to Pomodoro mainly because those 5 minutes are not a lot to commit to anything.

For small breaks, I will just get up, do some stretching, have a snack (usually an apple with peanut butter or another fruit, maybe some dark chocolate). If I really want to get out of the zone, I will open HN/SO and will spend more than 15-30'.

For my lunch break, I will put a podcast/book on and will cook with that on the background.</comment>


Khan Academy offers free devices and Internet access (for schools) - <AUTHOR> https://www.khanacademy.org/learnstorm

<comment><AUTHOR> Email reads like this:

Hello,

We've heard from a lot of teachers that they would love their school to participate fully in LearnStorm but it has been challenging since many of their students don't have enough access to the online content.

So we're thrilled to announce some help for schools in the form of free devices (e.g., Chromebooks) and free home internet access!

Unlock our accessibility prizes for your school!

Here's how it works: If ...

\- A majority of your school's students are in the Free and Reduced School Lunch Program \- Half of the eligible students at your school (those in grades 3-12) sign up for LearnStorm \- Students do at least half an hour of work on their math skills in LearnStorm

Then the school will unlock free devices and home internet access for students:

\- Google.org will fully fund classroom technology up to a value of $7,500 for smaller schools (for example this could buy one laptop cart plus 30 Chromebooks for a school) and up to $15,000 for schools with more than 300 students through DonorsChoose.org. \- Internet Essentials from Comcast will fully fund 6 months of free home internet access for all eligible students and their families.

The first step is to reach out to your principal and teachers and help as many students as possible get started at Learnstorm2015.com. When your school unlocks this prize, we'll reach out to your principal with next steps to claim!

If you'd like more information, please reply to firstname.lastname@example.com.

James and the Khan Academy LearnStorm Team

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice Thoughts. Good Luck Khan Academy</comment>


Ask HN: How to avoid 16 months in jail for not providing a password? - <AUTHOR> I read the article about a man who is jailed for more than 16 months for not providing his password. I wonder if this could be avoided if you can prove you do not have the password anymore.
1.) Do you know about a service which permanently destroys passwords if the account which stores those passwords has not been accessed for more than X days? (for example: a self destructing LastPass) 2.) Would it be sufficient to use such a service to proof you do not have the password anymore? 3.) How could you prove a data carrier was encrypted with such a service and the master password is permanently destroyed?
I truly believe data carriers containing personal beloningings are extensions of our mind. It is a poor man's implementation of the Black Mirror episode 'The Entire History of You'. The data carrier is not intertwined with our minds yet, but this is just a matter of time.
Being able to restrict access to your mind is very important to me.
If you have any ideas how to protect data in such a way access to the password gets destroyed, I'd love to hear it! <comment><USER2> Who's your attacker? How determined is your attacker to see you suffer?

If your attacker is a well funded government agency it doesn't matter if you're legally in the right, they're going to fuck you over.

In this case they're going to ask for the key; or they're going to ask for the unencrypted material; and destruction of either is destruction of evidence and contempt of court.

</comment><comment><USER3> Use truecrypt or its successor. Use the plausible deniability option to have 2 encrypted partitions so you can provide a password when requested that opens a partition you don't mind law enforcement accessing.

You must also follow the general rules of use to ensure that it looks like a valid partition to anyone who you are trying to convince.</comment>


JavaScript January: a curated collection of blogs and tutorials, published daily - <AUTHOR> https://www.javascriptjanuary.com/ <comment><USER2> Images are too big, and is there some sort of weird scroll jacking going on? Or is loading the images so processor intensive that when I scroll down it stops dead in its tracks?

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the design. Looking forward to checking out the articles.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd be curious if anyone could make some clarifications on the Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) article. I skimmed it, but it didn't seem like it ever got to something concrete (I could be wrong); then I looked up his book recommendation on Amazon ("Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything") and read some reviews, but they were also mostly just praise without saying anything very specific about the content.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sorry to pile on to the design complaints, but when I opened it in my browser, the first image (the wall with security cameras on it) was so big that the title of the article was completely below the fold. So I just waited a moment expecting some text or something to load in. You should definitely consider condensing this down a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't get past the horrible site design.

<comment><USER7> Not sure why are you getting downvoted, the giant images add nothing to the site whatsoever and make it incredibly difficult to get to the content.

<comment><USER8> The fact I have to scroll to figure out what a gigantic ass tile is referring to is infuriating. Especially since the tile design has literally nothing to do with the topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What differentiates this from anything else?</comment>


Limbo dev open-sources its Unity 5 anti-aliasing tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/268722/Limbo_dev_opensources_its_Unity_5_antialiasing_tech.php <comment><USER2> There is a technical explanation of the Temporal Anti-Aliasing technique in the linked GitHub project:

[https://github.com/playdeadgames/temporal/blob/master/GDC201...](https://github.com/playdeadgames/temporal/blob/master/GDC2016_Temporal_Reprojection_AA_INSIDE.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: How to explain to people about bad privacy? - <AUTHOR> What's the best way to educate people about their bad privacy, both to family & friends and public persons?
Recently I was practicing my social engineering and OSINT skills when I came across a rather large Youtuber showing their apartment ("room tour"). Being curious to how much data I am able to gather in a limited time frame, I challenged myself to find as much information as possible in 3 hours. Surprisingly nearly everything: name, birthdate, address, phone number, relatives, etc. (using traditional approach not from doxing sites).
As I consider myself an outright white hat, I intended to share my knowledge with them via e-mail. But to my surprise I received no answer within two weeks. I tried to explain and argue as neutral as possible because of the more formal distance but from my experience with friends and members of my family, the reactions to neutral arguments are always worse than to fictional threatening examples.
How would you approach these situations? <comment><USER2> I got a lot of friends who really don't care about their privacy, they download every app, sign up for whatever, etc.

The way I explain to them about privacy, especially if they are left leaning, is by giving them example of 2016 elections. I explain how companies can use bits of info scatter around the web to create a detailed profiles of them. Then they can run different experiments on groups of similar profiles/people and see what message will trigger them to take an action. The action might be to buy coffee or to vote for someone.

Some people say that they have free will and they will not be easily influenced. Which leads to different debate but I recommend them that they watch "The Great Hack" documentary.</comment>


How Neanderthal DNA Helps Humanity - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160526-neanderthal-denisovan-dna-modern-humans/ <comment><USER2> The article is very interesting and informative, and comes from a good source. But I have to quibble about describing Denisovan and Neandertal hominins who were ancestors of current human beings as coming from a "different species," because by one of the main concepts of speciation, if two organisms can mate and have viable offspring, and then the offspring can further reproduce, you say the two organisms are part of the SAME species. There are, of course, full-length books about the details of defining species among the common descendants of the earliest living things, and about the mechanisms that bring about speciation among the descendants of a common ancestor species,[1] but right now we don't always know for sure when we dig up old hominin bones which belong to relatives of direct ancestors of living human beings and which do not--that is part of what the studies of ancient DNA are intended to find out.

To make the point I am bringing up here, I would rewrite the second sentence of the helpful article kindly submitted here to read, "As the individuals who provided the main genetic contribution to modern humans began to spread out of Africa roughly 50,000 years ago, they encountered other hominin clades that looked remarkably like them — the Neanderthals and Denisovans, two groups of archaic humans that shared an ancestor with us roughly 600,000 years earlier."

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search- alias%3D...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Speciation)

<comment><USER3> That conception of what a species is has been my understanding as well for a long time. It's a very simple and clear concept but apparently biologists have given up on it for various reasons. There's actually a whole wikipedia article about it:

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

<comment><USER4> Nothing in your link suggests they've all given up on the concept.

<comment><USER3> Not the concept itself, but the aforementioned simple and clear definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Based on prior discussions I've had the impression that the BNC2 and other skin-related Neanderthal genes were associated with less melanin pigmentation.

Melanin reduces penetration of UVB into skin cells, important in an equatorial environment to protect skin integrity. However in northerly latitudes, heavily pigmented skin is a disadvantage due to the role of UVB exposure in producing vitamin D, essential to survival.

Indeed the most pigmented skin requires 5 times the UVB exposure to produce equivalent amount of vitamin D vs. least pigmented. A possible tradeoff for adaptating to an environment with less available sunlight is greater susceptibility to developing conditions like melanoma, but that's admittedly an oversimplification of a very complex subject.

</comment><comment><USER6> The world map for Denosovian DNA is wrong. The Australian/Papua population is around 6% not the 0.8% which the figure shows.

It is a shame that Africa is so ignored in these studies. We know that there were many interbreeding events that occurred in Africa (the African pygmies are one example), but we know almost nothing more.

<comment><USER7> > the African pygmies are one example

can you expand on this?

<comment><USER6> Sure. Have a look at this post [1].

1\. [http://dienekes.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/archaic- introgressio...](http://dienekes.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/archaic- introgression-in-pygmies.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The colored map is informative - color reflects percent of archaic genes inherited by modern populations. But the placement of the colored dots looks suspiciously like a heatmap. I know the data is sparse. But maybe there'd be a better way to represent it.

</comment><comment><USER9> The genome percentages in the article are a bit confusing. It is oft-quoted that we are "99% Chimpanzee", so how could we also be no more than "6% Denisovan"? Answer: they really mean 6 percentage points "realigned" vs the African reference populations. I've read many other articles repeating the "6%" and it would be nice if they (and this) were clearer (and used the correct units--but maybe that's too much to ask).

Some cool charts for reference: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-genetic- diffe...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-genetic-differences- between-humans-and-other-primates-pervade-the-genome/)

<comment><USER6> The 99% is basically wrong. What it is referring to is that for 99% of genes you can find in humans you can find an ortholog in chimps. It tells you nothing about the function of the genes in the two species and is basically meaningless from a functional perspective.

<comment><USER9> I'm no geneticist, but isn't this "structural" number still valuable for other purposes? Also isn't the 6pp also "structural" so modulo my previous complaints we're comparing like measurements?

<comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, how do you take the modulo of an (English) argument?

<comment><USER9> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulo_(jargon)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulo_\(jargon\)) in ignoring the differences I already pointed out ("my previous complaints") I am defining an equivalence relation.

<comment><USER10> Cool, thanks</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Traindown Transponder – Simply record your training data - <AUTHOR> https://www.traindown.com/transponder <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks! Creator here.

I am trying to build out this app with two goals: 1) Users have full control of their data 2) The input is as fast as it can be digitally (try to match pen/paper).

For more information on the open source markup language used in the app, here is the website: [https://www.traindown.com](https://www.traindown.com)

I would love any feedback you may have. Thanks!</comment>


The Impact of Ageing Population (2004) - <AUTHOR> https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/impact-of-aging-populations/ <comment><AUTHOR> The population of the world was 500 million in 1600.

How long would it take for us to become 1. 500 million 2. One billion 3. Two billion if each person had a. 1/2 surviving child b. 1 (0.5x2)surviving child.

What kind of mathematical progression would this be and how to visualize this? If I were to write a program to figure out, how would I go about it?

(I am newbie all around..whichever way. Please bear with this question!)</comment>


Founders Must Be Rooted - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jeremyrwelch.com/Founders-Must-Be-Rooted <comment><USER2> Good post. How did the founders meet? Was it on one of those founder dating sites? Another thing I am curious to know is could you have done this alone without co-founders? I know the importance of co- founders and I feel sometimes people just want to have co-founders when they can have a go at it alone hence these questions.

I also agree to the Peter Thiel quote. It is just like building a house. A lousy foundation leads to the house's demise no matter how perfect or good it looks.</comment>


Building digital products with simple feature phones in mind - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@pbriod/building-digital-products-with-simple-feature-phones-in-mind-ab89ea45d4a#.ylye8cibn <comment><USER2> Tomi Ahonen has written at length about SMS vs other channels, [http://communities- dominate.blogs.com/brands/2015/06/mobile-...](http://communities- dominate.blogs.com/brands/2015/06/mobile-first-mean-what-it-means-sms-first- of-course-the-only-gorilla-in-mobile-is-sms-text-messaging-of- course-45x-bi.html)

      DIGITAL REACH IN 2015 OF ALL HUMANS ALIVE (7.2B PEOPLE)

      iPhone . . . . . . . . . .  300 million download iPhone apps (4% of humans)
      Tablets (any OS) . . . . .  600 million owners (8% of humans)
      Whatsapp . . . . . .  . . . 900 million active users (12% of humans)

      Facebook on mobile . . . .  1,200 million (1.2 B) mobile users (17% of humans)
      Skype . . . . . . . . .. .  1,200 million (1.2 B) on any tech (17% of humans)
      Android . . . . . . . . . . 1,300 million (1.3 B) download Android apps (18% of humans)
      Facebook (all tech) . . . . 1,400 million (1.4 B) active users (19% of humans)

      PCs (all types) . . .  . .  1,500 million (1.5 B) in use (21% of humans)
      eMail on mobile . . . . . . 2,200 million (2.2 B) active users (31% of humans)
      Mobile internet . . . . . . 2,200 million (2.2 B) active users (31% of humans)
      eMail on any tech . . . . . 2,500 million (2.5 B) active users (35% of humans)

      Internet on any tech . . .  3,000 million (3.0 B) active users (42% of humans)

      SMS text messaging . . .  . 5,400 million active users (75% of humans)

      Table by TomiAhonen Consulting, June 2015, data collected from multiple public sources 2014-2015.

</comment><comment><USER3> We implemented the first USSD bitcoin wallet in Kenya a couple of years ago.

USSD as a technology is good, but the biggest problem is access to the networks. If you think its hard dealing with App Stores you haven't tried dealing with MTOs.

In some countries you can deploy it nationwide, but in many in particular developing countries you need to make deals with every single MTO.

If they think you are competing with one of their services such as Mobile Money they will not let you on their network. In many other cases you will need to have a physical server in their server room.

<comment><USER4> Do this bitcoin wallet in Kenya still work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's a useful insight. It's also worth noting that if you do that, you've also given your product an API. Programs can easily manipulate such interfaces.

<comment><USER6> Brilliant observation! My brain was fumbling in that direction but hadn't arrived at API before seeing your comment. Toying thoughts on this and API best practices in one's head at same time might lead to good ideas.

Another thing that popped into mind is that this looks just like a mainframe terminal application. Just smaller. Anyone who could design them (i.e. interfaces) well should be able to design these well. Maybe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I didn't even know USSD existed. It solves some problems, esp cost, that I was worried about in some use cases. The simplistic interface shouldn't be a problem. Bookmarking this.

<comment><USER4> > I didn't even know USSD existed.

Same here, I only learned about it recently because I work with pay-as-you-go solutions for 3rd world countries.

BTW: If anyone here has something to share about mobile payments I'd be happy to know, post it or contact me. Details are in my profile : )

Edit: words, contact info

<comment><USER7> If you haven't, I would recommend you look into m-Pesa. In some countries (not all countries), M-Pesa uses USSD (like Tanzania I think).

Overall, some of the solutions for payments and banking being implemented in some developing countries is quite different than what most people in the west are used to. M-Pesa is one of them, but in countries like India, online wallets are starting to gain traction too.

Most people in developing countries don't have credit cards, let alone being comfortable using them online. So a lot of people in India still use the 'Cash on Delivery' model, which isn't very much prevelant in the west, and other solutions like 'Netbanking' (in which the shopping site redirects you to your bank provider's site, you log in, and through the bank provider's site you do the payment, and then it redirects to the shopping site's payment confirmation page ; In other words, you haven't used a card, you've just paid directly through the bank) are also there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> this is an ad in disguise</comment>


Tinder is rolling out a college-only service, Tinder U - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17763862/tinder-u-feature-app-university <comment><USER2> > Tinder's marketing frames the service as ideal for finding a study buddy or > someone to hang out with on the quad.

Statements like this never fail to amaze me. Obviously nobody uses Tinder for that purpose. The entire premise of the app, right down to the UX design, is facilitating sexual encounters based primarily on physical attraction.

So who exactly is the audience for statements like this? Incredibly naive concerned parents? Is there really a significant number of people who would fall for hilariously transparent whitewashing attempts like this?</comment>


Show HN: Take a break, play a xylophone (it's fun) by theahindle - <AUTHOR> http://xylophone.theahindle.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I just made this for brownie points with a job application. I'm oddly happy I made it and it works pretty well on a desktop :)</comment>


Show HN: Make Your Screen Black by Pressing a Key Combination - <AUTHOR> http://blackscreen1.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, guys!

I would like to share with you a product that helps me stay focused during computer work.

It calls Black Screen (BS): [http://blackscreen1.com](http://blackscreen1.com)

Press a key combination - BS makes the screen black. Press the keys again and return back to the normal screen. It allows to reset attention the same way as eye blinking does it for the brain.

I set it up to make my screen black for 7 minutes after 30 minutes of work. It allows me not to sit too much in front of the computer and take a break after every 30 minutes of work.

BS allows to reset attention. After making screen black, you can press a button to see a beautiful random photo.

Would you use this thing? Write your answer and any other thoughts in the comments!

Thank you! :-)</comment>


FRIDA Robot Could Appear in an Assembly Line Near You - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/frida-concept-robot/

<comment><USER2> This is both admirable and highly desirable; I can see applications in many other spehres besides the factory. Furthermore, it's inevitable; many manual tasks are just not that complex, and technology has gotten good enough that they can be quickly taught to a machine.

There's a problem, though; while it makes enormous economic sense to deploy a device like this once the marginal costs become competitive with those of human workers, what are the human workers to do with themselves? Study and learn new skills, in theory, but that in an educational institution has become unaffordable for a great many people, and doing it at home doesn't yield the certification which many businesses now demand of potential employees. As we move towards a postindustrial technological model, our socio-economic models have failed to keep up.</comment>