Managing a Nightmare: CIA Reveals How It Watched Over Destruction of Gary Webb - <AUTHOR> https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/managing-nightmare-cia-media-destruction-gary-webb/ <comment><USER2> While the Contra-LA ghetto connection might be controversial, one thing everyone agrees with is that the American invasion of Afghanistan has turned it into the largest producer of heroin in the world. Creating an explosion of heroin addictions in many countries such as in Russia, southern Europe and the middle-east (Vice also did a great documentary on Iran):

> Since NATO began its 'War on Terror' in 2001, heroin production in > Afghanistan has increased 40-fold, according to the head of Russia's Federal > Drug Control Service. "Afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people > worldwide since 'Operation Enduring Freedom' began, and over $1 trillion has > been invested in transnational organized crime from drug sales," Viktor > Ivanov said earlier at a conference on the Afghan drug problem in 2013.

[http://rt.com/news/156128-afghanistan-drugs-usa- heroin/](http://rt.com/news/156128-afghanistan-drugs-usa-heroin/) [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24919056](http://www.bbc.com/news/world- asia-24919056)

> Such has been the failure to combat the problem that more than 90 per cent > of the heroin sold on Britain's streets is still made using opium from > Afghanistan. The United Nations yesterday warned that the situation was out > of control.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102158/Heroin- produ...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102158/Heroin-production- Afghanistan-RISEN-61.html)

The side-effects of instability due to war are massive and severely under- appreciated.

<comment><USER3> I've seen a lot of this data - very troubling.

With some familiarity of Gary Webb's work on crack cocaine, it does make me wonder whether the CIA is also allowing exports of opium to fund additional covert ops in Afghanistan.

The NYT had reported back in 2001 - just prior to 9/11 - that the Taliban ban on opium production was a big success:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/world/taliban-s-ban-on- pop...](http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/20/world/taliban-s-ban-on-poppy-a- success-us-aides-say.html)

Think about it - our now sworn enemy, the Taliban, was the only effective government to shut down drug production inside its borders. Sure, among other things, but it does make you think. Karzai's family members are major opium traffickers.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html)

And, apparently in partnership with the CIA. So perhaps I'm not so crazy after all.

Heroin has won new converts among American youth who used to take oxycontin - effectively a gateway opiod. Oxy was reformulated to reduce its ability to produce a high, and heroin is now cheap and everywhere.

Just another wonderful side effect of our misguided overseas adventures.

<comment><USER4> If you search Wikipedia for "rendition aircraft" you will find a plane that crashed in Mexico in 2007 while carrying multiple tons of cocaine. Do a Google search on the tail number of the aircraft and you'll find a couple sites who did extensive investigation of the aircraft's previous owners (an empty business office) and interesting flight history (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.)

<comment><USER5> I'm not so sure about that one, FARC is a marxist group that had ties to Chavez. I can't see the CIA helping them.

It seems more likely that anyone looking at the flight / maintenance logs noticed discrepancies. No legitimate buyer would take it.

<comment><USER6> Why not? The CIA is a highly compartmentalized organization staffed by people with extremely pragmatic (albeit often relentlessly anti-Bayesian) attitude. As such, they will--and historically have--ally themselves with pretty much anyone if it seems like a plausible way to further their immediate, narrowly- defined mission.

As such, supplying arms to Iran was no big deal for them in the 80's, and helping FARC today is likewise no big deal. You have to understand that the typical CIA operative (or at least the ones who get caught doing something egregiously illegal) has absolutely no moral compass. They are purely interested in the narrowest possible operational goals, and this unfortunate reality is extremely well-documented.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember when Webb's story came out and the _L.A. Times_ , my hometown paper, scrutinized the story. This was back in 1996 when the _LAT_ had a big investigative staff and was winning prizes at the same rate as the _NYT_.

The _LAT_ 's take on Webb's story was important because South Central LA was an epicenter of the crack wars, and some of the characters in Webb's story were LA dealers.

They basically shot the story down. The recollection of one of the lead _LAT_ reporters rings true:

"As an L.A. Times reporter, we saw this series in the _San Jose Mercury News_ and ... kind of put it under a microscope. And we did it in a way that most of us who were involved in it, I think, would look back on that and say it was overkill. We had this huge team of people at the L.A. Times and kind of piled on to one lone muckraker up in Northern California."

This reaction to a new story is reminiscent of pg's idea of a "middlebrow dismissal" \-- spending much energy poking holes in something new, but not really trying to pursue what's interesting about the new idea.

Edited to add: An excellent summary of this story by veteran LA reporter Marc Cooper, on the occasion of Webb's death: [http://www.laweekly.com/2004-12-16/news/gary-webb- rip/](http://www.laweekly.com/2004-12-16/news/gary-webb-rip/)

</comment><comment><USER8> So CIA basically tossed some blood, with their "balanced report" and caused sharks to swarm in. And news worry why people don't trust them.

I loved this quote:

        "And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how
        sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd
        enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as
        I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and
        good at my job," Webb wrote. "The truth was that, in
        all those years, I hadn't written anything important
        enough to suppress."

It seems whenever someone does a moral thing in spite of society, he is often persecuted for it. From informants revealing secrets of bad government deals, to leakers, they all seem to be targets.

And it's interesting who often funds the detractors.

<comment><USER9> It's often useful to remember that the New York Times had Judith Miller and the Los Angeles Times and Newsweek had Joyce Haber. PG spoke about The Submarine - a strategically placed news article. He paid under seventeen thousand.

The problem is the opposite of what they worry about. We all trust news too much. We'll read something in a field we're familiar with, say "what utter nonsense!" and turn the page and read something about a topic we're unfamiliar with.

I suppose you don't have to publish a retraction if you aren't caught.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _On December 10, 2004, the journalist was found dead in his apartment, having ended his eight-year downfall with two .38-caliber bullets to the head._

That's certainly interesting. How do you shoot yourself in the head twice?

<comment><USER11> Apparently the two shots caused a stir at the time. The coroner acknowledges it sounds strange, but based on suicide notes, history of depression, suicidal actions (like getting rid of belongings), and apparent precedent of two shots in a suicide, they still believe that was the cause.

[0] [http://web.archive.org/web/20080507054818/http://dwb.sacbee....](http://web.archive.org/web/20080507054818/http://dwb.sacbee.com/content/news/story/11772749p-12657577c.html)

<comment><USER12> How many people commit suicide by being able to shoot themselves twice in the head? I'm no doctor or firearms expert, but it _seems_ unlikely.

<comment><USER11> 5 out of 138 (3.6%) in one study published in a journal. "Incapacitation by a shot to the head is achieved when the bullet penetrates the cerebrum; however, numerous bullet trajectories, including a shot between the eyes, do not achieve this penetration."[0]

I share the suspicion, but it's apparently likely enough, that you can't immediately conclude it wasn't suicide just because there were two shots.

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

<comment><USER13> Well, the other theory would be that 3.6% of suicides are actually murders disguised as suicides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I love how people display a "boys will be boys" attitude toward the CIA and media these days. Personally, I find this fucking disgusting.

</comment><comment><USER15> No comments? Am I brave or stupid?

<comment><USER16> On Reddit, comments are rewarded for appealing to all kinds of human emotions. A quick one liner that doesn't hint at technically savvy might get the most upvotes on Reddit. On Hacker News, comments centering around knowledge and its acquisition tend to be rewarded. While I didn't make your comment any lighter, I'd assume this is why others did.</comment></comment>


YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kgpk5/youtube-is-removing-nootropics-channels <comment><USER2> "Cronin's YouTube channel was up to about 22,000 subscribers when he received a notice from YouTube about one of his videos, "Relax and Improve Your Sleep with Natural Calm Magnesium." The notice said the video had been removed for violating YouTube's community guidelines, but didn't specify further."

Magnesium isn't even a nootropic. That is, while it may have some ability to boost cognition, it isn't a substance primarily ingested for that reason. It is a substance primarily ingested so that the person ingesting it will stay alive.

A quick cruise around Duck Duck Go suggests that while science isn't saying you should use magnesium for sleep per se, it isn't necessarily a crazy idea in desperate need of being censored. Certainly the idea that magnesium is generally deficient is widespread, with estimates around 50% not meeting the US RDA for magnesium in the US, and while magnesium may not be a good solution for insomnia _qua_ insomnia, it can be a good solution for many things that may be _causing_ you to be "unable to sleep"[1], whether or not that is "insomnia".

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_deficiency_(medicine...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_deficiency_\(medicine\)#Signs_and_symptoms)

<comment><USER3> Problem is medical claims are highly regulated in the West. So there is a likely legal liability for youtube in the US and in the UK. In fact, they might have already had pressure from regulators.

<comment><USER4> "Nothing illegal, no medical advice offered, I've always been incredibly careful about this."

The article then goes on to name several videos with titles like "increase energy," "improve concentration and memory," "improve sleep," etc.

Are there any lawyers around who know of a legal definition for "medical advice" or "medical claims?" Because these videos sound a lot like medical advice despite his insistence that they aren't.

Youtube censorship sucks sometimes, but this guy experimenting on himself is not nearly rigorous enough to figure out what's really happening when he is taking these supplements. When a person sets out to improve themselves with drugs, test the process on themselves, and interpret and analyze those results themselves, it's a viper's pit of biases. Obviously the experimenter has a huge personal stake in the experiment (arguably the largest; his person is the experiment!) and that generally is great for motivation but bad for science.

I like playing with nootropics but I'm also relatively healthy and I can't imagine how damaging it might be for a seriously ill person who is taking advice from youtube in a desperate and futile attempt to improve their condition and survive. The ethics are pretty complex, above my pay grade for sure.

<comment><USER5> Those are called non-functional claims and are allowed in the US.

Any time you see something non-specific like "boosts the immune system" or "increases energy" it means the product is likely worthless because those claims don't actually mean anything.

<comment><USER6> How do those claims not mean anything? They sound pretty clear to me.

<comment> X-Istence Because the FDA has very specific rules as to what constitutes medical advice and what doesn't. The claim of "helps you sleep" is not medical advice and not regulated.

It's the reason so many "nutrition" companies can get away with claiming all kinds of things such as "burn fat faster". That statement means something to you and I, but it's not a medical statement.

<comment><USER6> The comment I was replying to said the claims had no meaning, not referring to the FDA.

They might be "meaningless" to actual medical professionals or people with decent knowledge of the ways that companies skirt product labelling laws. But the average layperson who might buy these products is probably neither of those things and is more likely to interpret them literally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Youtube is a private company and can do whatever they want with their own website. Nobody's stopping makers of these videos from hosting the videos themselves.

This is not censorship in the way we have traditionally understood. It only feels like it because Youtube is where the biggest audience is. It's the same whenever Facebook penalizes a post in the timeline, or whenever Google hides content from the search results. They feel like a the phone company or the post office - neutral platforms where people expect the right to free speech. In reality, they are publishers that exercise editorial discretion.

If we had focused on building decentralized platforms with interoperability and open standards, this wouldn't be an issue. Instead, you all wanted to make money. (Understandable)

My proposal - the government should recognize that network effects produce defacto monopolies, and use existing anti-trust law to break up these behemoth platforms, or force regulation on them.

In the mean time, I'll shout "i told you so" from my lonely, facebookless, linux-powered compound.

<comment><USER8> The _" my preferred definition of censorship specifies that it can only be done by governments, and [company] is not a government"_ rhetoric that always appears with these sort of stories is truly tiring and pedantic. Nobody here thinks that youtube is a government. The problem isn't people thinking that youtube is a government; the problem is people thinking that censorship is something only a government can do, or thinking that because censorship is legal (when done by corporations) people shouldn't complain when it happens. Many things that are legal are worth complaining about.

With regard to the rest of your comment, I'm not confident breaking up the google 'monopoly' would actually solve this problem. If you spun youtube off as its own company distinct from the rest of google, wouldn't it still have a virtual monopoly on this user-uploaded online video space? How would you actually solve that? Split youtube itself into several "Baby Youtubes"? How would that work, which one would get the domain name?

<comment><USER7> > the problem is people thinking that censorship is something only a > government can do,

It's not. Private companies can attempt to silence people.

But Youtube isn't preventing the creators from hosting content elsewhere. They aren't hitting them with a slapp lawsuit. They aren't colluding with other websites to ban these videos.

Youtube is just saying "host these somewhere else." How is that different from a publishing company choosing not to publish a book?

Well it is a little different. For the reason I mentioned in my post. Because youtube is the only game in town.

> I'm not confident breaking up the google 'monopoly' would actually solve > this problem.

The problem, in my eyes, is that youtube can ban you, and there is no alternative place to host your videos with the same level of exposure. Having a competitive market place would solve this problem, and give video hosting sites an incentive to treat creators fairly.

<comment><USER8> > _" But Youtube isn't preventing the creators from hosting content elsewhere. > They aren't hitting them with a slapp lawsuit. They aren't colluding with > other websites to ban these videos."_

Again, you're not refuting anything that anybody here actually thinks.

> _" Well it is a little different. For the reason I mentioned in my post. > Because youtube is the only game in town."_

Exactly, which is why the devil's advocate routine is so tiring.

> _" The problem, in my eyes, is that youtube can ban you, and there is no > alternative place to host your videos with the same level of exposure. > Having a competitive market place would solve this problem, and give video > hosting sites an incentive to treat creators fairly."_

I agree, but how could that actually be accomplished? If the government split up google/youtube like they split Bell, what would go to who? Would one of the Baby Youtube's get the "youtube" domain/brand? Or could they all? Would youtube.com just give you a "web portal" that impartially linked to all the various Baby Youtubes that were created by fracturing youtube? Would third party video websites unrelated to the youtube breakup get a place on that web portal?

<comment><USER7> > Again, you're not refuting anything that anybody here actually thinks.

And you aren't refuting what I said. How is this any different than a book publisher deciding what books to publish? Are you saying youtube and other websites should be forced to host content they don't agree with? Should HN be held to the same rules? How would that work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you derive a significant portion of your income from streaming video content, you should probably be using hosting sites like YouTube and Vimeo only to mirror your self-hosted content and drive traffic back to servers you control if you can.

You never know when companies like Alphabet or Facebook or Amazon or Apple will pull the rug out from beneath you and yank away that source of income, so don't stand on their rugs. If you let someone stand between you and your money, there will be someone standing between you and your money.

And as there is no way they could possibly review all uploaded videos with actual humans, much of this enforcement is done by machine detection and automated processing, and you will _never_ get any explanation from a human, unless you are in the top 1000 accounts ranked by how much money they make _for YouTube_.

Not that this sort of content needs to be in video form, anyway. If I feel the need to learn about new, unregulated, or misregulated drugs, I'd prefer reading text, with as few still images as is possible to convey the needed information.

</comment><comment><USER10> That's a bummer. But I guess Google knows better, or something.

Pardon me, while I go watch "Peppa Pig Goes to the dentist crying Elsa". It's been on YT since Feb 2017. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVx4hA0Tcdo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVx4hA0Tcdo)

Aside the snark, its time to regulate how our data is used, what decisions are made upon it, and a proper grievance for companies that do that. The GDPR is a good start, to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is really scary. People who warned of the slippery slope of censorship were definitely right.

<comment><USER12> There's a difference between "removing false/misleading videos that perpetuate a scam" and Fahrenheit 451

<comment><USER2> Depends on who gets to decide what "false/misleading" is. I'm not sure how this could be any less transparent. I personally see less than no reason to trust YouTube's judgment in these matters.

<comment><USER13> So should it be illegal to run a curated platform?

<comment><USER14> To be fair information is a weapon and there should be no free reign for anyone. If you are on purpose suppressing some information to fulfil political agenda - that should be a criminal act.

<comment><USER13> So what's a political agenda?

Is the promotion of cats a political agenda? Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs?

<comment><USER15> > Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs?

Sure. Why shouldn't a private entity be able to determine what kind of speech they allow on their own property?

<comment><USER16> Because if they have a huge defacto monopoly, and also a outsized impact on our culture, the impacts of them doing so are far more far-reaching than, say, LiveLeak removing some video (trying to think of a competitor for YT is surprisingly hard).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The question I have about this, gun related content and anything else that is "A violation of our T&C" is this: when does YouTube/FB/whatever stop being a safe harbor according to the DMCA? Which special interest group (NRA?) is going to bankroll the law suit against Google for hosting copyrighted content without permission and that they are entirely liable because they're exercising editorial control? Or is the safe harbor provision toothless because Google is a giant?

</comment><comment><USER11> YouTube will probably remove fitness videos soon, since some people invariably are stupid and will hurt themselves with the exercises on display, a completely analogous situation.

<comment><USER18> Exercise is much different from research chemicals. One difference is you don't need to buy exercise from shady sites that will eventually be shut down by the FDA.

<comment><USER11> You didn't bother to read the article, this isn't about research chemicals.

And even if it was about RCs - talking about them and sharing experiences should be allowed, censorship of information only aids misuse.

<comment><USER18> Many research chemicals are sold as nootropics. We are allowed to discuss things that are related.

But not sell them, which is what YouTubers do indirectly through affiliate links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Without having watched any of this stuff, my assumption is these videos are not clear enough in disclaiming any confirmed medicinal or FDA-approved effects. If the content is tantamount to advertising on the level the supplement manufacturers are prohibited from (and careful to avoid) doing themselves, it's probably appropriate for YouTube to close down the channels. Especially if these YouTubers are somehow generating income from the "product reviews".

<comment><USER20> I bet this is close to the real issue here. All this guy's videos were hawking products from specific manufacturers.

Anyone know whether he disclosed that he was being compensated by the companies?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I remember when I was in high school, I got onto Something Awful and saw some posting about nootropics and was interested in the possible effects, like improved memory and sharper concentration, so I got some (I think piracetam). In the instructions it said it would take some time to work, like a week or two, and after a few days of feeling the same and seemingly having no effects I stopped taking them and the only benefit I got afterwards was selling the remaining pills to my friend since they apparently make the high from pot more intense.

Beyond the anecdote I don't think this is censorship from Youtube, it's likely the creators were either venturing into advertising/selling products as the primary purpose of their videos, or giving some kind of medical advice about how they can improve your life/body, or both, both of which I think are against Youtube ToS. Given that it's a story from Motherboard we're probably just getting a partial part of the story and the article is just making it seem like Youtube is censoring something they shouldn't, rather than putting the creators at fault.

</comment><comment><USER22> New Ask HN thread: where are creators migrating to in lieu of YouTube?

Vimeo? Twitch? Facebook? Metacafe or Dailymotion? There are also also already dozens of dapps for streaming like dtube, lbry, viewly, lino, flixxo....(etc, just see [https://www.google.com/search?q=decentralized+youtube](https://www.google.com/search?q=decentralized+youtube)), but I don't see any particular venue rising above the rest, as a lot of creators seem to choose "all of the above" as an answer, syndicating content across as many domains as possible.

<comment><USER23> There is nowhere to go, no platform wants to host polarizing videos, which will alternatively be attacked by both the far left and the far right (mostly by the left today since tech companies employees mostly sympathize with them thus they get more favorable outcomes)

<comment><USER24> Looking into DTube, their about page says, "Because of the decentralized nature of IPFS and the STEEM blockchain, D.Tube is not able to censor videos, nor enforce guidelines. Only the users can censor it, through the power of their upvotes and downvotes."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> YouTube has a monopoly on free online video and this is what monopoly looks like.

When Google bought out YouTube, as those that were online back then can attest, there were dozens of not hundreds of competing sites. None of those could hold a candle to the resources Google's cash could buy, and they quickly dropped out of the running. The only site still around is probably vimeo, and only because they were smart enough to not target the masses and instead pick a niche to serve.

<comment><USER24> The few video sites that have managed to compete with YouTube all have interesting angles. There is DailyMotion, which is popular in France and seems to play fast and loose with IP laws. Tudou for when you're behind the great Chinese Firewall. Facebook videos, which compete in view counts with YouTube by force of their own monopoly on social media. And Twitch which carved out a niche in video game streaming. Maybe we should consider Twitter videos too. RIP Vine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Here's part of the deal:

Take YouTube, a large commercial interest.

Add their lobbying, that is participating and influencing a _limited,_ largely invitation-only discussion of what video distribution is and will be on the Web.

(I say largely invitation-only, because 10's and 100's of thousands of us can mount campaigns "of the masses" without moving the needle, or generating only a temporary reaction until the powers that be can slip their changes through another avenue or after simply wearing us out.)

Now, they are no longer "just" a commercial provider, free to choose what they wish to host.

They are defining the very nature of Web video (and, more broadly, content) distribution -- to suit their own purposes.

THAT's why you worry when big players start doing stuff. Because it tends to become "the law".

</comment><comment><USER27> Look, I know there are plenty of people here who will sing the praises of their chosen Nootropic stack, but quite honestly, the majority of the videos I have seen on the subject online tout over-the-counter supplements as miracle pills with limitless-esque possibilities.

9/10 pieces of advice I see on Nootropic use amount to dangerous and misinformed medical advice.

I can understand why YouTube would want to avoid looking complicit in all of this, especially with more than one popular Nootropic supplement sending users to the hospital in recent months.

<comment><USER28> I wasn't aware YouTube is liable for any advice on it's platform. Is that the case?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Big pharma are untouchable on TV (the silence around mass shooters and prescription meds is deafening) so my guess is you will soon see more pharma ads on YouTube etc. Can't upset the sponsors now.

</comment><comment><USER30> My curiosity about nootropics was the only reason I bought Bitcoin in 2014 so I could buy them online.

</comment><comment><USER31> Would be interesting to know if these "silenced" channels have monetization turned on.

</comment><comment><USER32> I had to Google what a Nootropic even was.

TL;DR It is suggested they improve cognitive function (memory, focus, etc.). They are not fully regulated and you can find examples for sale on Amazon. As such, no idea if short or long-term usage is safe but it's interesting product if you simply read what the labels claim.

<comment><USER33> Nootropics aren't really products in and of themselves. Caffeine is a nootropic for example. There's a pretty broad range from herbals all the way to perscriotion and illicit drugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> there needs to be a decentralized YouTube

<comment><USER35> On blockchain.

<comment><USER36> Like DTube?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Who is YouTube to decide what I can and can't watch?

<comment><USER38> The owners of the platform. They are not a public service nor to they have to pretend to be one.

<comment><USER39> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space)

YouTube essentially has a monopoly on video. Monopolies and other actors can be forced to comply with public space laws or to respect principles that normally apply only to the government.

<comment><USER40> How exactly does Youtube have a monopoly on video? What's the underlying scarcity they're exploiting?

<comment><USER41> Well, they are the de-facto curator of the bulk of our civilizations videos. Lets be honest, if you aren't on YouTube your chances of being searched/promoted/seen are greatly diminished. Maybe to nearly zero.

<comment><USER42> The only video content I can remember paying for has been on vimeo and udemy.

But then again I'm old fashioned and like to read about stuff on some web site and then click to whatever video hosting site they use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I run an independent music label in Toronto, and our group has been considering for some time to create a semi-serialized web series but one of the big prohibiting factors in us actually getting it done is that nobody wants to use YouTube.

If we generate a serious following that is dependent on the platform we're giving up a tremendous degree of creative control and direction for our fans.

Not to mention the serious lock-down on live-streaming musical content, and copyright restrictions. If so much as five seconds of the wrong song is playing in the background, the whole episode gets pulled.

Can we do a cover of 'x'? Other people have, but will ours get pulled?

Here we have an instance where hundreds of other similar videos and channels exist, yet these three individuals were singled out.

If there was at least consistency in the censorship and copyright stuff, or a proper channel for communication, the platform would still be viable.

But, like the Apple iOS App Store, you can produce an entire project, upload it, and, if it even gets up there to start, you've basically just gotta cross your fingers and hope it stays there, because the right to pull it at any time is there.

tl;dr: at least if YouTube, Apple, etc, were consistent with censorship and offered proper channels of communication they would be much more viable platforms.

<comment><USER7> My advice would be to use [https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE) That approach might be more agreeable with your label-mates.

I wouldn't put covers in the videos at all. You're right, that's a legal minefield. Just use original music that you have the rights to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> They will not stop at nootropics, nor psychedelics; They will stop at nothing.

<comment><USER45> I mean, I think you'd find they would stop at content that was suitable for their ad partners to run profitable ad campaigns on. That is after all how they keep the lights on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> So a creator trusts the guidelines provided by youtube and invests in a business to find out later youtube can actually shut that business down without a tangible reason. I don't understand how being a private entity gives youtube the right to make a false advertisement and treat their creators as fools.

Is it clearly stated that youtube can remove your videos just because? (considering, claiming it's not fitting guidelines is as vague as claiming it is bad for the environment)

<comment><USER47> Of course it is. Almost every single sharing service has some sort of clause in their ToS that they can remove any content at their discretion.

<comment><USER46> I get that. I wish I emphasized "clearly" because it seems common practice to create a false perception of justice/security/privacy with almost every single online service now. I just don't understand how this practice can be the "right" of any entity not just private. This sounds like an excuse for people who know to despise others for not knowing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> While it seemed against the times when I, in the age of YouTube, Spotify and Netflix, decided to start to build my media library with Plex...

...with artists suddenly withdrawing their music from streaming services...

...and Netflix constantly upping their price while enforcing ever more stringent HW-requirements for "good enough" DRM throughout your media rig for "premium" content...

...and YouTube happy to censor anything not approved by the Sanfran extreme left...

I have to say I really start appreciating having a personally curated, persistent library of media which is mine to own, and mine to decide where and how I use.

Everything old is new again, I guess.</comment>


In the beginning was the flowchart. Software diagramming - a warning from history. - <AUTHOR> http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/08/16/verity_stob_software_diagramming/ <comment><USER2> "In the beginning was the flowchart..."

Then came the "consulting industry" asking the question, "How can we squeeze a few more bucks out of this situation?"

So they came up with stuff like UML, DFD, Rational Rose, etc., etc., etc. to support their primary objective, which has always been...

<cue dramatic music>

To make those who do not know what they are doing appear as if they do.

</music>

How else could they take someone who knows nothing, pay them $50K per year and bill them out at $250 per hour?

Every time I read a post about "diagramming", I'm reminded of the end of a Boston Celtics game in the late 80's. Down by 1 point with 3 seconds left, Coach K.C. Jones was diagramming the play on his chalkboard when Larry Bird wiped everything off it and said, "Gimme the ball." They did. He shot. They won. So much for diagrams.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ugh.

Nothing like reading a critique from somebody who doesn't know what they are doing and using some technology as a straw man.

UML class diagrams are good. UML class diagrams are love. Leave my UML class diagrams out of this! (grin)

I'd go with the bigger point that engineers never met a helpful tool that they couldn't eventually overengineer and beat into something that people loathed.

<comment><USER4> OK, but the the domain-neutral component can kiss my ass.

Or, rather, my colleague's bastardized version of it. When in doubt, stick another moment-interval in between some green stuff to make it look "right".

Then again, I live in BPMN these days. Or, rather, in limbo between BPMN and UML Activity.

<comment><USER3> The BPMN and the "diagram until you puke" UML guys are just beating the heck outta the art of communication using a diagram. It's such an easy concept, why do folks have to go and keep adding more and more stuff until nobody likes it anymore?

I completely understand the gist of the article. Diagramming is supposed to be a tool for communication, collaboration, and discussion. But instead it becomes some kind of tool to control the universe. Sometimes I wonder if we only need about 1-5% of all of the tools we use. The rest is just overkill.

<comment><USER4> I kind of like the idea behind <http://www.agilemodeling.com> , but it's a little difficult to wade through and still a little too high on the "religion factor" for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brooks' Mythical Man Month records that flow charts were somewhat helpful for grouping low-level machine/assembly instructions together into higher level units conceptually. But with the advent of better languages like C, the need for flow charting went away.</comment>


NIPS 2014 papers - <AUTHOR> http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/nips2014/

<comment><USER2> I took a stab at trying to interpret the topics output by this run of LDA. Green is one the clearest: generally convolutional deep nets, image classification, empirical work.

Brown seems to have picked up on linear algebra. "Vector", "matrix", "tensor" and "decomposition" all get consistently labeled brown, as do "eigenvalues", "orthogonal" and "sparse".

The rest are not as useful. Black almost always has "number", "set", "tree" and "random", but little else. Purple at times seems to signify topic modeling, but also contains "neural" and "feedforward". Blue seems to be the stats topic, containing "Bayes", "regression", "gaussian", and markov processes. But it also contains random words like "university" and "international".

Overall, very interesting. I wonder if these topics would be even better defined with a higher setting of k.

<comment><USER3> Karpathy had a different interpretation (in the green bar at the top of the page). For example, purple would be neuroscience.

In addition to adjusting k, another change that might be interesting would be to include also previous years' papers in the model estimation. Changes in component (topic) weights year-over-year could perhaps reveal something about the topics, or the papers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Karpathy constantly shows the gap between "Anyone could've done that" and "Yeah, but he _did_."

<comment><USER5> It's only in the last 12 months that it became clear this was possible. The Ng "Zero Shot Learning" paper came out at NIPS2013, and given the lead time for a paper like that I think they must have started work at about that time.

<comment><USER5> Wow, those downvotes are pretty strong! Clearly I'm wrong - what am I missing?

<comment><USER6> This is done using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The original algorithm was published by David Blei et al over ten years ago, link to the paper: [http://machinelearning.wustl.edu/mlpapers/paper_files/BleiNJ...](http://machinelearning.wustl.edu/mlpapers/paper_files/BleiNJ03.pdf)

There are many machine learning libraries that have good implementations of LDA (e.g. Gensim), so it should be "relatively" straightforward to create the topics and clustering based on the abstracts of the papers.

<comment><USER7> I think there might be confusion about wht nl was referring to. Yes, the link is to a list (produced by Karpathy) of papers on which LDA has been performed.

But one of the listed papers is also by Kapathy ("Deep Fragment Embeddings for Bidirectional Image Sentence Mapping"), and I think this might be what nl is complimenting as being done quickly.

<comment><USER5> Yes this is the case. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When the papers mention that code will be released, is that right now, or when the conference happens? I couldn't find any links to the code in any of the papers, including the karpathy one

</comment><comment><USER9> Also check out the octopus visualization. [http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/scholaroctopus/](http://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/scholaroctopus/)

</comment><comment> bra-ket 93 occurrences of "deep"

<comment><USER10> I counted 15 occurrences in the deep learning topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _A Multi-World Approach to Question Answering about Real-World Scenes based on Uncertain Input_ is very cool.

The Karpathy paper, too.

I love the cross-modal work that's going on at the moment.</comment>


LilyCMS open sourced - Big data content repository built on HBase+Solr - <AUTHOR> http://www.lilycms.org/lily/index.html

<comment><USER2> It's way cool to be noted here already, but just give us another 12-15 hours or so to actually open up the source tree.

<comment><USER2> We're live, out and open: bit.ly/lilynosqlout - enjoy!</comment></comment>


Yahoo Launches Online Marketing Dashboard For Small Businesses - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/02/yahoo-launches-online-marketing-dashboard-for-small-businesses/

<comment><USER2> The most interesting piece of this is that Yahoo! managed to launch something. Speechless.

On a serious note. I can't imagine sinking time into any new service Yahoo! comes out with. I'm not a Yahoo! hater by any means but they've done nothing in the last 3 years to assure me that they won't just shut this down.

<comment><USER3> I posted this on TC's comments but that's next to pointless, so here:

Yahoo won't give up YSB. It's one of the few things they make a killing on. Aside from the monthly fees they charge their hundreds of thousands of customers, they also get a percentage of each sale on every store they host.

<comment><USER2> You fail to understand how much the entire company is in jeopardy. They've lost or are in the process of losing their foothold in every sector they once were the leader (not uncommon for web companies).

I'd be surprised if the killing their making is growing or rather stagnating. Regardless, they're shrinking at a rate which means they'll be chopped up and sold in pieces. At which point I still believe my original comment rings true.

I used to work there and am sad to see an Internet icon fade but you can't change the facts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isnt this from the original Viaweb investment? Must be one of thier few acquisitions still making tons of money

</comment><comment><USER5> The service includes directory submission! Is this 1995?

<comment><USER6> In some cases a directory search is a good thing. Local is one of those cases, and something that is tremendously broken on the web. I'd much rather go to a directory of pizza places in my area than do a keyword search of pizza. Yes this is Yahoo, but local/SMB is a huge untapped market that is not served by the current web.

The only local business I find with websites are the ones that pay some fly by night "web designer" to put up some BS templated site with little info for $2k. Here businesses can do the same thing, but also control their site, get SEO, advertise, and get analytics for less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> only for USA .. ( I could not registrate ..)</comment>


Editing of Pig DNA May Lead to More Organs for People - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/science/editing-of-pig-dna-may-lead-to-more-organs-for-people.html <comment><USER2> _To eradicate these viruses, Dr. Church and his team engineered a new set of genes and inserted them into pig cells. The genes produced enzymes that hunted for PERVs and snipped out bits of the viral DNA_

So the genes were put in some cells that then created the enzymes that actually had the CRISPR/cas9 mechanisms? If so, that's clever. I had imagined that the CRISPR was delivered more directly and I was wondering how you could ensure delivery of CRISPR to all cells in the tissue. With a gene that actually produces an enzyme that delivers CRISPR, the treatment would continue in the cells until the gene was disabled.

What would really be interesting is to have the CRISPR edit include the gene that created the enzyme so that it could recursively deliver the treatment. Of course I wouldn't think that we'd want a recursive treatment like that in an eventual solution... but it would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pigs age about 5 times faster than humans. Wouldn't pig organs age 5 times faster than humans also? That might be one more thing you needed to tinker in pig DNA. Make pigs (or at least the target organs) long lived.

All this tinkering begs the question: Which is easier, tinker pig DNA to make pigs compatible with humans, or tinker human DNA to make humans with pig-like- brains that grow fast enough to be used as organ source? Does it ethically make any difference?

What if we could grow human bodies with no consciousness what so ever (this might not be even super hard, or require DNA tinkering, just damage the fetus where appropriate brain parts are about to develop), wouldn't that be the most humane option? Since we wouldn't be killing anything, but hunk of human meat that never had a conscious thought...

<comment><USER4> Considering how hard of a time Planned Parenthood is having right now providing fetal tissue to researchers, the regulatory landscape doesn't look good for anything that involves using humans as an organ source.

And modifying pig DNA to make them compatible with humans is indeed proving to be very doable.

Source: my mother works in this field. [http://medschool.umaryland.edu/facultyresearchprofile/viewpr...](http://medschool.umaryland.edu/facultyresearchprofile/viewprofile.aspx?id=7622).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How many year have we been talking about "donor pigs"? Is it real this time or just another medical equivalent of the "in 5 years"?

<comment><USER6> Heart valves from pigs are a pretty standard thing and have been used for a couple of decades. So that's something. There are clearly a lot of problems to be worked out but I don't know that anything is really insurmountable, so it ought to "just" be a matter of putting in lots of work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Will everyone get their own clone pig at some point? Like at gestation, extract fetus DNA and make donor pig.

</comment><comment><USER8> Pigoons!

<comment><USER9> My thoughts exactly!

Last year I wrote a paper on Oryx and Crake and found a case of using slightly modified pig membranes/ligaments to repair human ones...We're just getting closer to OrganInc.

<comment><USER10> These were my exact thoughts. So weird that this absurdity in a sci-fi novel might be a reality.

I'm not sure if maybe Atwood already knew this to be the case, but it seems like quite the coincidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> PR news

<comment><USER12> Backstory for a horror movie.

<comment><USER13> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake)

<comment><USER14> Also hyperpigs:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_in_Revelation_Space#Pigs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Races_in_Revelation_Space#Pigs)

(not really horror)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> maybe the could make the very first slig!

</comment><comment><USER16> I read that as orgasms ... now I am disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER17> Gunuine Question: Isn't our current life expectancy good enough? i.e. 65 years... Why cant we put more resources on quality life like eradicating cast, relegion and create free world and target towards one country one world.... rather than miserable life for 120years?

<comment><USER6> No, current life expectancy is nowhere near good enough! Death is terrible, and it's weird to me how accepting people are of it. I guess because we have no choice, but even so. We go through our lives constantly losing friends and loved ones for no reason aside from the fact that our bodies were designed by a brainless process.

The other goals you mention don't strike me as the sort of thing which merely need more resources to be solved.</comment></comment>


The L.E.D. Quandary: Why There's No Such Thing as "Built to Last" - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quandary-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-built-to-last?mbid=rss <comment><AUTHOR> Incidentally, the company Unicomp produces modern Model M keyboards, which are a cult favorite among hackers and writers ([http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/UB40P4A](http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/UB40P4A)). But that company has a similar problem: Model Ms in general, and the keyboards it sells, can last for decades—which means that their revenue stream is tiny, because customers don't need to replace their keyboards.

I used one for a couple years (see here: [https://jakeseliger.com/2009/01/31/ibm-model-m-unicomp- custo...](https://jakeseliger.com/2009/01/31/ibm-model-m-unicomp-customizer- keyboard-update-mac-edition/)) and only switched because I was having some wrist pain and tried a Kinesis Advantage instead. Which has in turn outlasted several computers.</comment>


The 'Hello World' Fallacy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@filiph/the-hello-world-fallacy-ef4f43ca8b7e#.ds76dnyl1 <comment><USER2> There are some great things about this article. But the assumption is that better platforms have to be much harder to get going. In reality, I think better platforms tend to focus on other things, and ease of ramp up isn't one of them.</comment>


Global Debt Hits Record $233T - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-05/global-debt-hits-record-233-trillion-but-debt-to-gdp-is-falling <comment><USER2> Does anyone actually believe that this debt will at some point be payed off? It would be nice if we had different words for debts that actually might someday be resolved and those that clearly never will be.

<comment><USER3> Apparently, near-100% of politicians and voters believe that "National Debt" is actually something like personal debt and actually can or should be paid off…

[https://modernmoneybasics.com/](https://modernmoneybasics.com/) (simplistic but largely accurate intro)

<comment> wu-ikkyu Perhaps I misunderstand but are you implying governments being in perpetual debt is a good thing?

<comment><USER3> You're misunderstanding. The "National Debt" (this only applies at federal level for currency-issuing governments, not state, local etc) is the effective form of the currency itself.

Eliminating the "debt" that a currency-issuing government has in its own currency is the _same thing_ as eliminating the currency.

The U.S. federal government "owes" dollars to creditors kind of like the way the the score-keeper in a game "owes" points to a basketball team.

<comment><USER4> Currency doesn't have to be backed by debt.

Debt-backed currency has the fundamental flaw that, because debts charge interest, the total amount of debt will always exceed the money supply. Our currency is structured so that there are never enough dollars to pay off all debts at any given time. Fundamentally, a portion of all debts MUST default, creating a net effect where those who have enough capital to lend will, over time, acquire more and more real property.

Our currency is built to transfer wealth from the have-nots to the haves.

<comment><USER3> You're conflating things here. Our overall financial system as a whole is as you describe: set up to enrich the powerful and exploit others.

But that is not an issue with the nature of the _currency_. The way we use "debt" in terms of _Federal government_ "National Debt" is related to the currency and _not_ related to the credit market which is the usurious bulk of our money. _Most_ money flowing around the economy is based in bank-credit and has all the issues you describe. Currency is _different_. Of course, the particular policies that we enact around the currency (i.e. how we use it) are _often_ about enriching the powerful etc. although some things are at least mixed in that respect.

Do check out [https://modernmoneybasics.com/](https://modernmoneybasics.com/) (I'm guessing you have not because the distinctions that matter here are clarified there in the intro video and in the follow-up links)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Who owes all this money? And to whom do they owe it? I',m thinking this is never getting paid back?

<comment><USER3> If _all_ debts were paid back, fiat currencies would cease to exist. The only savings left would be in the form of physical wealth / commodities…

Most of the economy would grind to a halt. Our current economy runs on debt fundamentally.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Is it theoretically even possible for all debts to be paid with the given supply of money vs. what is supposedly owed?

For instance when interest is charged on a loan, the money needed to pay the interest fee is not created by the bank.

<comment><USER3> My understanding: bank credit isn't fiat currency. It can be paid back with other credit effectively. But at the end of the day, it's possible, of course, to have absurd debts and credits from banks that will be impossible to ever repay.

If I loan you $1 at 1000% interest daily, then after a short time, you are just going to default on the loan, period. There's no way you'll pay it back. So, yeah… at some point, even if you got another loan to pay the loan and etc etc. the whole house of cards will crash at some point if it's too much credit based on nothing. That house of cards could be just me never getting paid back, oh well. But if I convinced tons of other people to give me products and services that I then had debt for based on the idea that I have this expectation of your payback… then the house of cards could reach through the whole economy eventually.

<comment> wu-ikkyu If bank credit isn't backed by fiat currency (fractionally reserved or otherwise), then does it have any real basis to it?

<comment><USER6> It is backed by the fact there is plenty of demand for it. The demand comes from the fact that people need to attain bank credit to pay off their debts to the banks.

This is very evident when you think of how banks used to work: they would actually issue paper notes denominated in the desired unit of account (the national currency). To pay back your debts (or else suffer the consequences), you had to acquire and return the notes to the bank. That generated demand for the notes. People who were not banks would start accepting the notes because of the demand.

Then banks decided they could make money by accepting notes from other banks as payment (for a fee). At the end of the day, banks would exchange and retire notes collected this way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Debt is the American way, we've been in debt since well before the country was officially founded. And our founding fathers all had issues with personal debt. When George Washington was elected our first President he was flat broke and had to take out a loan to afford the trip from Mount Vernon to his own inauguration in New York City. (Washington DC didn't exist yet.)

</comment><comment><USER7> In related news, Global Savings hits record $233 Trillion?

<comment><USER8> Under gold standard, debt = savings, correct. But with government fiat, I not sure thats the case. Fed bought what, billions of USG debt, without saving this money first, they just printed it. Its not like they earned that money and instead of consumption they invested it into federal debt.

<comment><USER3> No, one party's debt is _still_ another's savings basically, even with a fiat currency. These caveats apply:

* If we're talking _private_ debt or debt from governments other than the fiat-issuer level then there's _some_ risk of default which means the savings could be lost.

* Without a gold standard, increase in fiat currency can diminish savings through _inflation_.

But simply: savings in gold ≠ savings in fiat currency, but they are both savings still.

<comment><USER9> > Without a gold standard, increase in fiat currency can diminish savings > through inflation.

That's true with a gold _standard_ as well, since all that means is that printed currency is backed by a peg to gold, usually with some form (perhaps not open to all currency holders, though) of redemption pledge.

It's even true with non-debased gold _currency_ , not just gold-backed representational currency, as demonstrated by the Spanish colonial experience.

<comment><USER3> Oh sure, inflation can happen with gold too, like when we find more gold…

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The great thing about government debt is that they can print more to pay it back

<comment><USER11> Right. Correct me if I am wrong, but that causes inflation. The end result is we all pay for it either way.

<comment><USER12> I think it's much more complicated. The US government has been printing tons of money in the form of "QE" and "QE2", but with little or no inflation. I believe the reason is that all of this money has not ended up in the hands of the general public in the form of higher wages.

When all of our wages collectively go up, you can bet the cost of goods will also go up, with no change in affordability since the same amount of your work in man-hours is needed to both produce and purchase the goods.

I think we are long overdue for wage inflation, even with the associated cost increase of goods. The positive affect of it is to make fixed rate loans less burdensome. Why enslave ourselves to the past?

<comment><USER9> > The US government has been printing tons of money in the form of "QE" and > "QE2"

"printing" is inaccurate, and more importantly "has been" should be "was"; the series of rounds of QE (QE1-QE3) ended in 2014.

> When all of our wages collectively go up, you can bet the cost of goods will > also go up, with no change in affordability since the same amount of your > work in man-hours is needed to both produce and purchase the goods.

This would be a tolerably reasonable argument based on the (inaccurate in both cases, but understandable) ideas that prices are entirely driven by supply- side concerns, and ultimately all costs are labor cost, in the case of a _global_ wage increase, but domestic wage increase won't have that effect in a global market _even with_ the inaccurate assumptions that would justify that conclusion for a global increase.

<comment><USER12> Well QE is still going on in that the fed still holds all of the assets it bought. Here is an article from last September saying that the fed is starting to sell (or not turn over) the assets:

[https://www.ft.com/content/caf45d6a-9e28-11e7-8cd4-932067fbf...](https://www.ft.com/content/caf45d6a-9e28-11e7-8cd4-932067fbf946)

Of course I agree with you on the global wage increase, I ignored the fact of multiple currencies.

I kind of think that all prices are related to (possibly delayed) labor costs, along the lines of "how much work do I have to do to buy it?" and "I'll extract that oil for you only if you are willing to pay at least what I have to pay my employees to do it".

<comment><USER9> > Well QE is still going on in that the fed still holds all of the assets it > bought

If that was true, it wouldn't be QE still going on; QE is a policy to increase the effective money supply by buying assets, holding assets isn't increasing the money supply, it's just not decreasing it. But, also...

> Here is an article from last September saying that the fed is starting to > sell (or not turn over) the assets

So, they are actually _not_ still holding all the assets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> With two friends, I can quadruple that amount.

Just stand in a circle, and each person passes a pretty pebble to their left, and an IOU for $223 trillion to their right...

<comment><USER14> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

<comment><USER3> Ironic post, since yours has the less substance and the grandparent was on topic with a meaningful point.

<comment><USER14> It's true that such moderation comments break some of the same rules they're advocating. But this a necessary evil, for the same reason that many medicines are toxic. If it's any comfort to you, I can tell you after writing 20,000 of them that they are more tedious to write than to read.

Interpretations differ, but mine is that the comment is unsubstantive because it is in equal parts obvious and dismissive. This is the sort of thing whose general purpose is to make the writer, and some readers, get a cheap hit of smart-feeling, while alienating the frankly more valuable part of the audience.

You're right, though, that it really wasn't that bad a case, especially relative to other top comments in this thread. I wouldn't have singled it out except that it was the first one posted.

<comment><USER3> I agree with most of what you're saying. In _this_ case, I think it's an intellectually _meaningful_ position to point out the fundamental problems with the premise of the initial article. The idea of summing "global debt" as though it means something really is something _worthy_ of that sort of critique and dismissal.

A bad comment would be "this is dumb" or "total debt is a stupid concept". The OP in this thread gave an intellectually clear and logic basis for dismissing the article.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Medical Mystery of the Best Kind: Major Diseases Are in Decline - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/upshot/a-medical-mystery-of-the-best-kind-major-diseases-are-in-decline.html <comment><USER2> On the other hand, autoimmune diseases have been increasing in prevalence over the last century. While these diseases are rarely immediately fatal, in severe cases they can have a major impact on quality of life. Onset often occurs in early adulthood so the cost of treatment over a lifetime can be extremely high. The usual treatment, immunosuppressive therapy, also has serious risks of its own.

While there has been much progress on finding new treatments, their scope has been limited to new and creative ways of suppressing the immune system. There are a multitude of theories which attempt to explain the causes of autoimmune diseases, but we seem to be quite far from truly understanding them.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. I wish this article wouldn't speak so generally when I hear consistent articles about major spikes in:

\- Autoimmune issues (especially allergies) \- Obesity (particularly in children) and diabetes \- Autism \- Depression, ADD, and similar disorders

<comment><USER4> > _Autism - Depression, ADD, and similar disorders_

My personal impression is that the rise of mental conditions is an increase in diagnosis, not occurrence. An awful lot of people who, just a few decades ago, would have been dismissed as lazy, stupid, whiny, or the all-purpose "crazy" are actually starting to receive recognition and treatment. That's a good thing.

<comment><USER5> The increase in suicide rates seems to be evidence against this hypothesis.

<comment><USER6> are suicide rates going up overall? all I can find, back to the 1950s, is that the rate has gone up and down with no clear upwards or downwards trend over those years (2010 rates are slightly below 1950s rates)

[http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html](http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html)

<comment><USER7> For CZ we have stats up-to 1870s: [https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/sebevrazdy_zaj](https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/sebevrazdy_zaj)

(link in czech - sorry. First image, brown line is relative suicidal rate that is probably a good metric for comparison.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I always wondered if the removal of lead in gasoline could account for a lot of this. Especially the dementia drop.

<comment><USER9> It is never one thing; your lead assessment is probably a serious contender among other pollutants. Then there is better hygiene via food handlers, stiffer USDA rules, cleaner water, less smoking and second hand smoke, more people exercising too.

<comment><USER10> Smoking rates are only decreasing in developed nations. Globally it's increasing by ~1% each year.

<comment><USER11> The study is talking about wealthy (e.g. developed) nations this doesn't apply.

<comment><USER10> I was just replying to his comment. It's a "mainstream" idea that people like to repeat, but it's simply untrue.

It's like a stock phrase: "Smoking is actually going down, you know! People really _are_ getting smarter/healthier/happier/whatever."

It's just false.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Speculation:

\- People have become more aware of the risk factors, and behave accordingly. Awareness would be connected to prevalence but have a lagged effect.

\- Deadly diseases cause evolutionary responses. Perhaps a disproportionate number of people with predisposition to these illnesses passed away before having offspring.

\- Reporting bias? While an illness looms large in the minds of the medical community, doctors are more likely to either wrongly attribute to the illness (false positive), or do false negatives less often.

\- Highly speculative: combined effects are non-linear. I don't know what they use to do these studies, but typically you hear something along the lines of "for every x, there's m*x effect", which makes things sounds nice and linear. Maybe better prevention and better treatment does better than either on its own summed up, and so you won't be able to find the "reason" by splitting into each feature.

<comment><USER13> I don't think you'd see any significant evolutionary responses in the timeframes the article is talking about (<100 years or 4 generations)

<comment><USER14> Haven't studies shown that high stress (like concentration camp) has immediate effect on next generation's DNA? That would indicate that it's at least potentially possible for evolutionary adaptation to work pretty fast.

<comment><USER15> That isn'y evolution if it is epigenetic, it would be another type of adaption, Lamarckian really: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism#Epigenetic_Lamarcki...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism#Epigenetic_Lamarckism)

<comment><USER16> This is incorrect. Evolution is simply change over generations by natural selection. the mechanism by which that happens, be it DNA or epigenetics or whatever, is not strict

<comment><USER17> Yes/no... It has to be heritable beyond a single reproductive cycle. Which isn't the case with all epi markers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> wow - I have no clue (obviously) but possible reasons :

\- better home heating (less open fires, more heated bedrooms)

\- increased time from atmospheric nuclear bomb testing (and the various dispersals of plutonium in the 60's and 70's)

\- better nutrition in general

\- higher genetic diversity in breeding populations; not many peoples grandparents all come from the same village in the developed world now

\- less pollution in the west; import of finished goods rather than local manufacturing

<comment><USER19> > increased time from atmospheric nuclear bomb testing (and the various > dispersals of plutonium in the 60's and 70's)

Ambient radioactivity, under a certain threshold (which is disputed) has actually shown some positive effects. If I remember correctly, folks living in naturally more radioactive areas have been showing lower cancer rates vs the average.

<comment><USER20> This is a great big citation needed. Come on, you can't "if I remember correctly" a statement like "some radiation is good for you."

<comment><USER21> OK, I'll supply a citation, which argues the opposite. See the Wikipedia page on "radiation hormesis". Scroll down to "cobalt 60 exposure".

TL,DR: Many apartments in Taiwan were radioactive, because the steel in the structure had been mixed in with 60Co. Residents got big doses of gamma rays. And yet they didn't get much cancer! It turns out that no, gamma rays are not good for you; rather, most residents were young, biasing the sample (few young people get cancer). The study didn't account for this bias.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is weird:

      >Until the late 1930s, stomach cancer was
      >the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in the
      >United States.

<comment><USER23> I found a chart showing the prevalence of multiple forms of cancer over time: [http://i52.tinypic.com/r9euci.jpg](http://i52.tinypic.com/r9euci.jpg).

<comment><USER24> Weird. Why would lung cancer go the opposite direction as smoking prevalence? I understand the dynamic of "cancer only kills people who outlive every other cause of death", but for the discorrelation to be _that_ strong?

<comment><USER25> The correlation is one of the strongest there is, and indeed, causal -- there's a almost perfect lag time of ~20 years [1].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_cancer#/media/File:Cancer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_cancer#/media/File:Cancer_smoking_lung_cancer_correlation_from_NIH.svg)

<comment><USER24> The graph stops at 1970.

<comment><USER26> Are you suggesting that some post-Nixonian mechanism is in play here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What about widespread use of painkillers? Aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen have become common place over this period. Calming the body's immune response might have a beneficial effect on overall health.

<comment><USER28> cancer is caused by swelling, thus anything that reduces it will reduce cancer incidents.

<comment><USER29> Cancer is caused by swelling?

<comment><USER30> Perhaps he means inflammation. Inflammation has been linked to certain types of cancers.

<comment><USER28> yes, I meant that, and no - nearly all cancers are linked to inflammation. the differences are in what causes the inflammation.

<comment><USER31> "linked to" does not mean "caused by".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if all the benefits may be coming from people having kids later in life. You'd think this would lead to more disease, but maybe we are actually evolving to be longer living and the kids later in life is what is causing it.

<comment><USER33> Research does show that having kids is correlated to having a longer life expectancy:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/iage/201410/having- chil...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/iage/201410/having-children- beneficial-living-longer-0)

<comment><USER34> Maybe because the kids born in later in life are born to more educated, and more well-off parents?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It mentions statins as something obviously good but is there any evidence they're actually beneficial? I thought cholesterol was good now?

<comment><USER35> Some doctors and researchers believe the benefit from statins is more to do with the decrease in inflammation caused by them. Possibly widespread use of statins has beneficial effects on other disease processes too.

<comment><USER36> Yeah I think there was a large study done comparing a newer cholesterol lowering drug with statins. The result was the new non-statin drug wasn't effective at all even though it lowered cholesterol levels.

<comment><USER37> You might be thinking of CETP inhibitors. This class of drug modifies cholesterol levels to numbers associated with better health, but so far none of them have conclusively improved health outcomes:

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

Anacetrapib is still in stage III trials so it's too early to consider the concept a failure, but I think the bad results so far are evidence that hyperlipidemia is a symptom not a cause of cardiovascular disease, and that statins have some mechanism of action beyond just modifying cholesterol levels (eg. anti-inflammatory, as some people have suggested).

<comment><USER36> Yes those drugs. Hard to say conclusively, but the failure of most of CETP inhibitors is troubling news for the hyperlipidemia theory. Meaning possible hyperlipidemia has multiple causes and in and of itself isn't bad.

AKA

Cause A results in hyperlipidemia.

Cause B results in hyperlipidemia.

Cause C results in hyperlipidemia and arterial plaques.

Cause D results in hyperlipidemia.

<comment><USER38> Numerous lines of evidence, including randomized controlled trials, single gene studies, and Mendelian randomization studies, are not consistent with your interpretation.

Multiple agents that reduce cholesterol, including ezetemibe and statins, reduce cardiovascular disease outcomes and death.

Multiple cholesterol-related genes, including HMGCR, LDLR, APOB, PCSK9, and ANGPTL3, contain variants which influence both LDL cholesterol and the risk for coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, and death.

And Mendelian randomization studies that rely upon a dose-response relationship between genes that influence cholesterol and the cardiovascular outcomes that they cause have also demonstrated a link between genetically driven cholesterol levels and hard endpoints.

So, one set of drugs (CETP inhibitors) that don't seem to follow the story are more likely to be the exception, rather than the rule. Interesting biology awaits us in the explanation of why the CETP inhibitors don't do what we imagined they would with hard outcomes.

<comment><USER36> > reduce cardiovascular disease outcomes and death.

Only in small selected populations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The question I guess is not what diseases are in decline, but which ones are going up

<comment><USER25> Apparently Parkinson's disease has been on the rise over the past several disease, some say due to the _decrease_ in smoking. Which is fascinating, as smoking has been shown to be actually _protective_ against Parkinson's.

<comment><USER40> Or maybe you die from something smoking related before getting Parkinson's.

<comment><USER41> Or maybe both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is it possible that medical advances in the last couple of decades have simply delayed the deaths of many sufferers? Heart disease and cancer survival rates are usually qualified with a number of years, given that they are difficult to fully cure. With a larger aging population just barely hanging on, perhaps an upswing is just around the corner but hard to see now. i.e. the rate of death has not actually dropped, the average survival time is longer.

</comment><comment><USER43> Put bluntly: All of these 'little increases" are starting to add up in big ways. I'm not that surprised that a decline in one disease is leading to declines in others. As we all live a little longer, we make each other healthier as well, being better able to cope with the expanded safety net.

As someone who's seen her grandparents suffer with a cacophony of diseases right before death? Sometimes, one thing really DOES lead to another.

</comment><comment><USER44> The largest extrinsic factor (causally effective), should be the environment's physiological interaction with cells that have accumulative exposure: the alimentary system. Lower incidences of alimentary cancers should be the hallmark result of bans on various carcinogenic additives. The question should be how low the rates can inherently go based on diet alone, and to then proceed to narrow down the scope of any further factors.

</comment><comment><USER45> Check [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines) and [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bestselling_drugs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bestselling_drugs)

</comment><comment><USER46> Is it simply, that fewer people can afford insurance/visit a doctor? So they die of 'natural causes' and never get diagnosed?

</comment><comment><USER33> Curious, if the cause is the decline in cigarette consumption; here's a graph showing roughly 100 years of data for the topic:

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p4ECPyex_cY/TzSalazW2XI/AAAAAAAAA2...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-p4ECPyex_cY/TzSalazW2XI/AAAAAAAAA2o/Wrgj5mSyGHA/s1600/Smoking+1900-2006.JPG)

<comment><USER47> The lines do seem to correlate. In the case of stomach cancer, I'm wondering if there's a similar correlation between the decline in chewing tobacco and the decline in stomach cancer. Chew is full of fiberglass and other stuff, and if you swallow any of the juice you're swallowing that stuff. It's impossible to clear it all from your mouth after you finish chewing, too.

<comment><USER48> When smokers give up smoking they start to clear their lungs. They cough up phlegm. many people swallow that, not spit it out. That increases risk of mouth, throat, stomach, bladder, and penis cancer.

Tobacco is already pretty harmful.

> Chew is full of fiberglass

No, it isn't.

<comment><USER49> Why don't active smokers cough up phlegm?

<comment><USER50> Many reasons.

Smoking coats the lungs with a layer of tar and heavy, chronic smokers have coated their lungs to such an extent where there is drastically reduced lung area in contact with the environment (and irritants/allergens). The tar acts like a shield in this case and prevents immune response that can lead to constriction in the lungs and phlegm production.

Moreover, active smokers have destroyed the cilia in their lungs (which start to regenerate when one quits smoking) and it's the cilia that do most of the cleaning and phlegm expulsion. When one quits smoking, he goes through weeks or months of coughing and increased phlegm production as the cilia start growing back.

Finally, a lot of active (and ex) smokers _do_ cough up phlegm. The co-factors of phlegm production are simply too many for a definite answer. You also have asthmatics and those who suffer from COPD/emphysema.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> One explanation can be expanding criteria and/or earlier diagnosis. Earlier diagnosis, even with the same treatment efficacy, will lead to records of improved survival, and expanding criteria of particular diagnoses will often identify borderline cases that likely don't have the same morbidity and mortality.

</comment><comment><USER52> Of course hundreds of probable individual causes can be attributed to this phenomenon. The Galileo of medicine will be the one who can unify and make the data sensible without pretending one or two factors caused it all.

</comment><comment><USER53> Better home food (popularity of brown bread vs white bread), better take out food (not just McDonald's and diners anymore), and more indoor working conditions (less exposure to pollution) likely play a big part.

</comment><comment><USER54> Our genes are somehow improving in quality (survival longevity, quality of life, IQ), and this effect is cascading over generations. I don't know if it can be explained using pure epigenetics, and natural evolution is certainly too slow to explain this, so there might be mutagens in our everyday environment that directly modify the DNA sequence. We recognize cigarette smoke, heavy metals as mutagens, but are there more subtle mutagens that lead to better DNA?

</comment><comment><USER55> Coffee?

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting about the stomach cancer. Makes me wonder if we should be careful about limiting antibiotic usage too far? Perhaps everyone should take a course every five years or so?

<comment><USER49> What does one have to do with the other?

<comment><USER56> From the article: "Until the late 1930s, stomach cancer was the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Now just 1.8 percent of American cancer deaths are the result of it. No one really knows why the disease has faded — perhaps it is because people stopped eating so much food that was preserved by smoking or salting. Or maybe it was because so many people took antibiotics that H. pylori, the bacteria that can cause stomach cancer, have been squelched."</comment></comment></comment>