Ask HN: How do you overcome Weltschmerz or fatalism about our future? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently having a hard time motivating myself to do anything, really. How do the people of HN overcome the sensation of Weltschmerz, which translates to the feeling that the world is hopeless and lost. While yes, I am not denying that there are positive things happening every day, they all seem vastly unremarkable and small  compared to all the horror that is happening every day. Famine, murder, terrorism, climate change, radicalism, fake news it's all just too much for me currently. How do you motivate yourself to go to work every day, (presumably) coding for some hyper capitalistic company, that somehow feeds the whole downward spiral? <comment><USER3> Step away from "news" and read Better Angels of our Nature by Stephen Pinker: [https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature- Violence/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature- Violence/dp/0143122010)

Not only is the world better than ever, it is getting better faster than ever, and it's accelerating.

The news is getting more negative as the world gets better. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1423632)

This is happening because as subscription revenue dries up, the media is incentivized toward click-bait, and the human brain is biased toward negativity. As a hunter-gatherer, a negative incident can have much worse consequences than can a positive one, so we've evolved toward a negative bias for survival reasons.

<comment><USER4> There are two main problems with Pinker's thesis.

First, he claims to show a tendential decline in war. But most casualties of war are the result of a small handful of apocalyptic wars: the sixty years wars, the Napoleonic wars, and the world wars. Each of these events has been bigger than the last. The consistent pattern is for there to be fewer wars over time, but for these apocalyptic wars to become more destructive. Clearly, that's the result of technological progress. If we extrapolate this trend forward, it would suggest that there will be an apocalyptic war in the next century that will destroy most of the world. Pinker acknowledges these long- tail events, but minimises or ignores their significance.

Second, his case is built on the back of a few remarkable trendlines: fewer wars, declining violence, better governance. Pinker does this very well. It's convincing and insightful. But these are data without context. Pinker's argument has no historical or sociological depth. If you want to understand what's taking place in the world, you have to recognise how the forces of modernity - capitalism, nation-states, techno-science, individualism - <USER2> led to _both_ everything Pinker celebrates (pacified populations pursuing commercial gain in well governed centralised states in a globalised world) and a whole host of dangers (increasingly destructive technology, competition between nation-states, inequality and Darwinian economic competition, decentralised capitalism, climate change, and the destruction of nature, etc.).

</comment></comment><comment> barry-cotter You might "just" be depressed. You may also be in a bad place socially or professionally.

"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."

Change your environment and habits if you can. Go outside more, preferably somewhere with greenery and wildlife. Parks are great, places with few people are even better. If you don't have an exercise habit, try and build one. Do things you enjoy. Hang out with people you like. If you can combine the two. Consider seeing a therapist or getting on SSRIs or done other drug. If you don't see much of the sun you could just need more sunlight.

Read old philosophy on how to live the good life and apply its lessons as much as you can, whether it's Seneca, the Enchiridon, Lucretius, Confucius or Xunzi. You are not alone and others have wrestled with these feelings. You can wrestle with them by yourself or you can do so with the help of those long dead, professionals, family or friends.

If your work feels meaningless and you want more meaning seek it out. Do work that means something. 80,000 Hours has a job board for people who want to do things that matter in their life and want to help people, lots of people. If that floats your boat look at their job board.

[https://80000hours.org/job-board/](https://80000hours.org/job-board/)

<comment><USER5> It would be a good start if you can work that inspires you. You can do some part time stuff or volunteering on weekends, these activities will recharge you and make you feel less overwhelmed by this dystopian scenarios. May be these small gestures of you, will make a better place for someone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Try to find something you can do that you have control over and will make things better.

E.g. I've been working in free time with local group to get safer bike infrastructure built in Cambridge. One of results of our efforts was on front page of HN yesterday. It was a group effort, but I did a little bit, and it has actual impact.

Will it solve all the world's problems? No, but it's a small step in the right direction. And it's at a scale where I can have an impact and see results.

You also have the ability to find work elsewhere that is more meaningful, some companies are much better than others in what they do (e.g. in similar realm to above, [https://www.remix.com/](https://www.remix.com/) seems great.)

<comment><USER6> I wrote up some more thoughts here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19647192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19647192)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why do you concern yourself with all that stuff? I see no problem with _being aware_ of it, but it doesn't directly affect you.

Look outside!

There are trees! Animals! People!

Isn't that crazy? Seriously. How does that stuff exist?

I think you can be - as I am quite often - genuinely dumbfounded and inspired by the complexity around us everyday. There's a lot to appreciate right in front of you. Why overlook it? There's so much.

<comment><USER8> Relevant Bill Hicks video[0].

[0] - [https://youtu.be/tGjuPJskNRE](https://youtu.be/tGjuPJskNRE)

<comment><USER9> And he died 15 years ago, this bit was from the 1980s probably. Things have ALWAYS looked terrible. In the 70s and 80s we grew up worried that at any moment the world would literally explode (USSR Nukes) and we made it.

I felt the same way in my 20s, eventually I realized that people have been worried about the same stuff for decades. I guess the only thing I can recommend is thinking about historical context. Somethings are worse now, somethings are better. Focus on the better things. Turn off and tune out "the news" for sure, especially TV news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Your question reminds me of a Bill Hicks joke about watching too much News.

[https://youtu.be/tGjuPJskNRE](https://youtu.be/tGjuPJskNRE)

On a more serious note, this learned sense of hopelessness is nothing new to humanity.

>Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.

Lao Tzu

</comment><comment><USER11> Enjoy the decline!

But for real:

1\. Stop watching news 2\. Go hitchhiking for 2 weeks

When you're hitchhiking, you stop worrying about world. You focus on stuff around you. People know they will never meet you again, so they truly open up. They help you. Some don't, which makes the good people evrn better.

When hitchhiking you will see beautiful things around you and it will change your perspective. It did for me. Anectodal, so you can dissmiss :D

<comment><USER12> 1 makes most sense and doesn't require too many sacrifices :-) .It's amazing how well my mental wellbeing has improved after I stopped watching news and being on Social Networks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The perceived downward spiral is factually incorrect. Read Steven Pinker for the full breakdown. By any and every measure human beings enjoy better lives than in the past; health, violence, leisure and more. This trend is continuing.

Secondly, your thought patterns of demotivation sound more like the patterns of depression. Focus on finding your own happiness and meaning. On that note, I recommend "Man's search for meaning". The author could find his meaning whilst in a concentration camp. Powerful stuff.

</comment><comment><USER14> History has an ebb and flow between the ability of civilization to solve problems and the ability of civilization to create problems.

Civilizations don't fall because of problems (say running old of oil, infertile soil, invasions, ...) they fall because they can't solve the problems.

The default prediction for any situation is that people will muddle through, usually they do. "Utopia" and "Oblivion" are unusual outcomes, as popular as they are as predictions.

Looking at climate change, for instance, the issue isn't that climate change is a problem, but that our ability to deal with it stuck on numerous levels.

It is very easy to point the finger at the U.S. or the Republican Party or people like the Koch brothers who have jammed our political system by spamming the agenda. (e.g. "Free Speech" is the wrong model to think about this, it is more like robocalls, electronic warfare or the use of chemical weapons.)

On the other hand, people like the Yellow Shirts in France have shown that "bottom up" movements against increased fuel prices are a thing. Practically what you find is that somebody "takes responsibility" for a role: for instance, Germany has been coming up with half-baked energy plans for decades, still burns coal and imports Russian gas. But somehow they frame themselves as the "good guys" and they can get away with it because the U.S. refuses to acknowledge the problem.

If the U.S. wasn't in the way, some other country would be the "bad child" that will take the blame. That is how politics works: it is like how legislators trade votes to balance the needs of the party vs. what their constituents will accept.

</comment><comment> Lorenz-Kraft Hi preya2k,

I know what you wanna say, and I think its only a "point of view"...

So for example: Murder You think there is more and more of "murdering" going on? Well, that's a subjective point of view. In fact, the murder rate is going downwards [https://ourworldindata.org/homicides#usa](https://ourworldindata.org/homicides#usa)

Also, just looking at the dark side is not helping much ... take a look at the dark side AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

ALSO: Have a look at the bright side: Life Expectancy is climbing year by year in almost all countries. Dying of cancer is also declining [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by- typ...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by- type?time=1990..2016)

I'm not saying that all these bad things are not terrible itself, but it is YOUR subjective point of view that leads to a pessimistic or optimistic world. This means, you can choose your point of view and you personally can change the world. It does not matter if it was you directly changing the world, it's enough if you once meet someone and change his point of view, which in turn might change the world 10, 20 years later on.

About climate change: Currently it looks like we are directly heading into hell. But again, its your point of view AND your personal action to do something about your concerns. Don't use a car, just use a bike. I think this would be enough to change the world. If everybody choose to do this, there would be no more problems with climate change.

To say if differently: There are no alternatives to being optimistic!

Best wishes for the future,

Chris

<comment><USER15> Bad things happening all over the world less and less is uplifting and we should be more optimistic because of that.

Well, I think this is pretty bad advice for times when things keep on getting worse, and it is all about perception. Feelings are pretty subjective and asserting that some objective numbers ought to change someone's perception of the world is not helpful. Maybe it is what floats your boat, nit necessarily everyone else's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Civilisation is doomed, but it will take a good few decades, maybe over a century, to completely collapse. Just focus on stuff you enjoy personally. You personally can still have a really fun life. I wouldnt recommend going to work every day though, unless thats what youre into. I pass the time making frivolous computer games, which is a hobby I enjoy.

<comment><USER17> Maybe scientists and engineers should isolate themselves in walled communities and shun the complexities of the outside world to allow them to focus on their studies.

Perhaps different parts of each community could choose how long to be isolated for (say 1, 10, 100, 1000 years). Clocks would be important too....

<comment> barry-cotter REAMDE for those who don't get the reference.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamde](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamde)

<comment><USER17> Close: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would look at two things to see if they may be causing a big part of the feeling: personal health and external stimuli

1\. "Mens sana in corpore sano". You do not need to be a fitness nut, but do make sure you get enough sleep and enough movement outside. Sleep at least 8 hours (unless you consider yourself middle age or older). Walk briskly outside (in an area you like at a time it is pleasant) for an hour a day. Or play soccer / beach volley / whatever you like.

2\. Remove gloomy external data feeds, such as news. Currently most news outlets seem to sell gloom, disasters and anger. Read a book instead. Talk to people. Travel. If your job environment is toxic, change jobs, even if it means lower salary initially.

YMMV, but those two simple things may be all that you need to get that feeling of hopelessness out of your system. My 2c. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER19> Fatalism works in both directions. If you believe that your destiny is fixed and no matter what you do is going to make a big difference then you can do anything you want content in the knowledge that nothing can stop you for achieving your destiny. Once you realize this you'll understand that fatalism as a philosophy defeats itself. There a very good essay by Emerson on this [1].

Additionally I would like to add, read everything but don't get drowned in the teaching of idle pessimistic philosophers (who they are is up to you to decide I have my list make your own). They are rightly derided for having nothing better to do than to preach. Learn to punch holes in a theory. You can start by punching a big one in mine.

>For, if Fate is so prevailing, man also is part of it, and can confront fate with fate. If the Universe have these savage accidents, our atoms are as savage in resistance. We should be crushed by the atmosphere, but for the reaction of the air within the body. A tube made of a film of glass can resist the shock of the ocean, if filled with the same water. If there be omnipotence in the stroke, there is omnipotence of recoil.

[1] [https://emersoncentral.com/texts/the-conduct-of- life/fate/](https://emersoncentral.com/texts/the-conduct-of-life/fate/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Personally, as a Christian, my hope isn't in the world. It may be hopeless and lost (in fact, from my position, it is), but that doesn't lead me to despair, because I wasn't looking for hope there in the first place.

At least, that's what my theology says. But I keep forgetting that, and looking at the circumstances of the world or my personal life, and panicking. And then I have to go back and remind myself, no, this world here isn't the bottom line. It's may fall apart, but I don't have to. My real hope will not be ruined even if everything here falls apart.

</comment><comment><USER21> I minored in history, reminding myself how things always go in the grand scheme of things, has been a tremendously efficient way of keeping myself optimistic about our future. At least in terms of our civilisation, because the climate is fucked.

Anyway. If you look at the big picture of human civilisation, then it's really been one long line of progress. Some times there are set-backs, and sometimes those set-backs last four a century, but over all, it's an endless line of progression toward a better world.

Yes there is famine, but poverty is decreasing. Yes there is murder and terrorism, but we've never been less violent. Yes there are fake news, but we've never been more educated. Yes there is totalitarianism, but we've never been more democratic or free.

Another thing I do that helps a lot, is that I select my sources of news carefully. I don't really care what happened today if it isn't important enough to remember tomorrow. I do like to keep up with current events though. As a solution to this predicament I found a high quality news paper that only comes out once a week. I buy it as paper and I digest the weeks events over the weekend. Other than that I stay away from news unless something drastic happens. I also avoid social media (with HN and LinkedIn being the only exception).

The last thing I'd suggest is finding a hobby, and spending time on that instead of worrying. The less useful it is the better, because if your hobbies are about self-improvement, then you'll end up getting stressed about them.

</comment><comment><USER22> Ditch TV, especially news, radio and newspapers, sign off to all social media sites, then read only technical books, novels etc. or listen to technical podcasts etc. Get out with friends, meet people face to face and refuse any activity involving (or worse, requiring) social media.

I share a very similar situation and doing this helped a lot. Most of our feelings about world events are caused by perception augmented by technology. Now I'm not suggesting to stop using any electronic device as that would be plain stupid, but rather to realize that people got killed 1000 years ago just like today, we had a corrupt ruling class 1000 years ago as we have today etc. but we didn't have the media telling us about that, or with the same extent, so we wrongly believe we're experiencing events that never happened before: sadly as a species, we're still the same bunch of bastards we have been for ages. Time will help because humans do indeed evolve, but not that fast, so we'll likely need a few thousand years before we learn to pursue common goals and our own happiness together, without damaging other people.

</comment><comment><USER23> Unplug from internet.

You don't need to know about middle eastern wars, african famines, gun related crimes in the US. All you need to know and care for is right now + right where you are. Focus on your local communities, improve things there, be a good friend, a good roommate, a good colleague, a good gf/bf, &c.

Overcome the negative bias [0][1] of your brain, and if you can't handle negative news stay away from them. There is enough bad shit happening in the world in a single day to feel like shit 24/7 for the rest of your life.

You'll be out in <80 years, enjoy your stay on this flying semi spherical blob of dirt, you don't have to be part of the rat race. Quit the city, enjoy the slow life of the country side. Or do the opposite, move to SF and join a startup.

[0] [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200306/our- brain...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200306/our-brains- negative-bias)

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

<comment><USER24> you can just unplug from social media and news sites for this(add adblock for those obnoxious current event clickbait).

for eg i didn't even know those boeing flights had gone down til they got mentioned in a gaming podcast i listen to(it was relevant to the topic - freemium games)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel hopeless about the future a lot, this is how I deal with it, it doesn't come easy but it helps.

The only thing I am certain about my future is that I will die, some day every one I know will die, the world will die when the sun goes super nova, our galaxy will be sucked into a black hole and everything humanity ever knew or achieved will be erased from history, it will be like it never happened. This is true of everyone no matter how much money or power they accumulate there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Humanity struggles with plenty of problems war, poverty, hunger but these things are out of my control and can not be predicted by me. If humanity solves these problems or fails to doesn't really matter because just like me the human species will die off.

The only thing that is certain of the future is that it will be unpredictable and ultimately meaningless and there is nothing I or anyone can do about it, so why bother?

Why not focus on the stuff you can affect? If the universe is ultimately meaningless then the only thing left to me is to protest this meaninglessness by giving my life its own meaning.

You don't know what the future will be like in five years but you can decided what you want your future to be like in five years. Write down what you want and get to the core of why you really want it. Once you figure out what you want, what motivates you give yourself a means to achieve it. This can be simply writing a plan.

To be motivated you need both, a goal and a means to achieve it.

If your goal is vague it may not really be want you want for example your goal is money, but what you really want is a house or the power that money brings, then money is a means to achieve your goal not the goal itself.

If your goal is not within your means then achieving it is hopeless start small, really small. If your goal is a house don't pick your dream house in the hope that you will be more motivated, pick the cheapest shittyest house on the market, once you have that you can dream bigger, climb the ladder.

When the future seems hopeless remind yourself that you are right! give yourself a pat on the back and then get back to the plan.

There are some things in this world that I can control and some things I can not. Focus on what you can do, accept the rest for what it really is an interesting distraction.

</comment><comment><USER26> The late Dr. Hans Rosling's _Factfullness_ is a great read.

Spoiler: The world is actually getting a lot better really fast.

If you're looking for a more global outlook on the longer term future, then this book is a great place. You can read it for free, per Bill Gates' donation to graduated of the class of 2018, here: [https://archive.org/stream/FactfulnessByHansRosling/Factfuln...](https://archive.org/stream/FactfulnessByHansRosling/Factfulness%20by%20Hans%20Rosling_djvu.txt)

I'd buy it for an easier reading experience here: [https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things- Bett...](https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things- Better/dp/1250107814)

Here's a quick quiz for you to test if your knowledge of the world is better than a chimp's: [http://forms.gapminder.org/s3/test-2018](http://forms.gapminder.org/s3/test-2018)

</comment><comment><USER27> Something that I came across the other day really put people's opinion of the world and everything into context. I had been searching for something, and came across a forum thread from 2010.

Everyone on that thread was convinced that the end of the world was months or years away (Keep in mind this was just after the 2008 fiscal crisis and this was an economic related forum)...

They all were talking about these facts and posting statistics and everything that "proved" these certain countries were on the brink of failure..

Those events did not come to pass.

That's when I realized pretty much everyone is entirely full of shit, and ultimately life itself is your own attitude towards things.

Negativity and opinion are psychological virii.

</comment><comment><USER28> Force yourself to do something tangible, local, and meaningful. Turn off/drown out the media and create the culture you want to see by voting with your money, time, and effort. If you have a yard, you might try researching, ordering, and planting a variety of zone-appropriate edible perennial fruit trees. This approach led me to organic gardening, which:

      - Gets me outdoors in the sun, which makes me feel better (Vitamin D, etc.).
      - Increases biodiversity, helps pollinators, offsets CO2, and helps remediate soil damaged by construction.
      - Provides a hobby that my young daughter and I can enjoy together, while also teaching her essential life lessons.
      - Will eventually provide me with tasty fruit.
      - Beautifies my neighborhood and increases the value of my home.

</comment><comment><USER29> I had the same feeling, so decided to take Jesus at his word in Matthew 6.24-34, quit working for money, and started working for God. He has provided for me for over six years. Life is much more satisfying and I have about 95% less motivation issues.

</comment><comment><USER30> _Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness._

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History

I find comfort in, at least, spotting the cyclical nature of things. A despairing rant from, oh, the 14th century, (or 1950-odd) shouldn't be as cheerful as it seems now, but it kind of is.

</comment><comment><USER31> There are things in this world you cannot control. In fact there is probably just one thing you CAN control, and that is yourself and how you react to everything else around you. Focus on that. Everything else is out of your control anyway.

</comment><comment><USER32> Two practical suggestions:

1\. Avoid reading bad, sensationalist news about things you have no control over. Staying informed is good, but if it makes you sick you have to reduce your information intake.

2\. Get checked for clinical depression.

Weltschmerz isn't a bad thing as long as it doesn't paralyze you. I my experience, as long as I have _something_ positive to contribute I'm good. My family, my job and my hobbies demand so much attention from me that I actually miss basking in sadness like a teenager sometimes.

Also, be thankful that other people's suffering makes you feel strong emotions. As I said, tune out for some time if you feel like you can't take it anymore.

</comment><comment><USER33> There is no money in spreading good news. "Feel-good" stories on network news are basically always sandwiched between horrific tales of violence and death, or used as a capstone afterwards to make you not _completely_ want to kill yourself from watching.

Just watch/read less news. The world is a complex place and any individual shouldn't be expected to grapple with the tragedies that occur daily across the entire planet. There's no reason to carry that weight on your shoulders, especially when you're powerless to change any of it and have your own life and the lives of loved ones to care about.

</comment><comment><USER34> >How do the people of HN overcome the sensation of Weltschmerz, which translates to the feeling that the world is hopeless and lost.

Watch anime.

>Famine, murder, terrorism, climate change, radicalism, fake news

TV is cancer, throw it away.

</comment><comment><USER35> Ignorance is a bliss, really. We are badly wired to agonized over the the future. It 's comforting to know generally that the future is pretty much deterministic , in fact it is already there waiting for our timelines to cross it, mechanistically. Thinking of an idealized future on the other hand is quite self-serving . It makes one feel good, but it's not real , it s just a fantasy like any other.

</comment><comment><USER36> Reading good history books really helps. It's amazing how hard and terrible life was for 95% of the world's population just 150 years ago.

<comment><USER37> Contemplating the misery of others is a true joy

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Get a bike.

Ride it.

Think about things you can do.

That's what I do. I try to focus on things that I can do that helps people in some way. I also focus on making my own life and those I love better.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've found that reading history gives me hope because at every point in mankind's past, so many people would have had the same fatalism that we have now.Things have turned out OK after all :-)

Second, reading stoicism helps , too. I come from India where we have a similar school of thought which emphasises that the work at hand is the only thing you can control. This helps, too.

YMMV

</comment><comment><USER39> Well at least I have a word for it now. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER40> Young people are more aware than ever, they are talking about real and important issues. You can chose to take seriously a responsibility to help give them a foundation to address those issues when they are adults, and you are retired. Listen to the people younger than you, and be motivated by their want to live in a better world.

</comment><comment><USER41> Personally I think it is not a good idea to assume that the world/universe is supposed to have some kind of meaning or direction. At some level, none of this really matters. Humanity will be gone in due time, and none of that will have any meaning anymore. We just need to be able to enjoy the ride and focus on the good parts.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think and feel along the same lines. Stoicism helps. As do various forms of escapism. Every time I felt _overwhelmed_ by these feelings, it (in hindsight) turned out to be a symptom of depression.

I really, really, very strongly urge you to go and speak to your doctor for some further assistance. Don't let the black dog pull you down.

</comment><comment><USER43> Fixing your own life is usually the cure for worrying too much about the world and everyone else. Give it a try, go see a therapist and find out what the root issue is. A minor depression isn't something to be ashamed of, wasting your life without identifying and getting rid of it, might be.

</comment><comment><USER44> I wish I had an answer for you. The best I have is weak sauce -- I just remember two things: this too shall pass, and we have been in worse places than we are now, numerous times, and came out better in the end. I have to trust that the pattern repeats.

</comment><comment><USER4> The world only appears bad if you approach it with an a priori expectation of the good. The world is neither 'good' or 'bad', it simply is. Evolution is amoral; the cosmos is amoral. It is not set up to teleological satisfy human interests and values. If you recognise that fact, the kind of question that you are raising dissolves.

One of the great challenges of the Christian tradition was the problem of evil: how could a benevolent and omnipotent God allow the manifest evils of the human world? But of course the problem is built into the assumed premise, i.e. that there is a God and that the world is divine. Without those a priori expectations, there would be no problem to begin with.

That is not a counsel of complacency or quietism. It simply means that your ethical field of view should be defined by the problems immanent within society today. You should start from the concrete, instead of the abstract. If you feel complicit in a destructive form of hyper-capitalism, then do something about it. Get a new job; become political; think about how you can redress humanity's problems.

</comment><comment> david-gpu Visit a therapist. They can help you.

The problem is not the world at large, but your personal circumstances. Plenty of other people live in this same world and find plenty of reasons to be satisfied and optimistic.

</comment><comment><USER45> Not all tech work is concentrated in "hyper capitalistic companies". Try to work on something that inspires you.

For example, most of my clients are in the healthcare space.

* One is a wearable device (think watch/bracelet) that allows senior people to get in touch with family or medically trained phone operators in case they have an issue (fell down, can't get out of bed, etc). The same device is also used for locating runaway Alzheimer patients in medical facilities.

* Another is a medical device that detects certain heart conditions.

* Another is a gamified platform that employers can use to motivate employees to live a healthier lifestyle.

Yes, they are all startups, and their goal is to make money. I don't work for free either. That is how the world works right now, but that does not mean the result needs to be net-negative for humanity.

I can go to bed each night knowing that my work helped people, and in some cases even saved their life.

</comment><comment><USER46> what helps me personally (I'm too easily triggered so I've got my work cut out here too) is disconnecting from the news circle and read long form instead. Reading more books again (not work related ones) does have the added side- effect of being able to concentrate again and immerse myself (instead of jumping from headline to headline).

If you deal with people who suffer (ex veterans, or people who went through trauma) or even working through trauma yourself this is a great read:

 _PTSD and Complex PTSD Symptoms, Syndromes, and Diagnoses_ [https://www.guilford.com/excerpts/wilson5.pdf?t](https://www.guilford.com/excerpts/wilson5.pdf?t)

I strongly believe that we are mostly products of our own suffering (which is unique to every individual but true for all as a collective), so spotting a behavior that might point to a history of trauma allows you to better think of more than just the message but the whole of the person who delivers it. For me this only works irl online it's back to square-1. In the end I have to constantly remind myself that online we're all just randoms on a market square yelling at people totally removed from our own thought process.

Online pseudonymous discussions are valuable because people tend to speak their truths which when it is the truth, is often offensive, ugly and raw. On real-name policy sites you get everyone posing and pretending so participation doesn't produce any healthy benefits there for me mentally. With pseudonymous communication I have to be aware that people just spill their thoughts.

We constantly pretend that online conversations are real but they aren't so much conversations we would have with people we know. Also they're not 1:1 or 1:5 but 1:many so social media as currently envisioned is always going to outrage. It's a short jump from disagreement to outrage online which doesn't exist irl.

Reminding myself that we either a) haven't invented the right technology yet to meaningfully replicate communication into the digital space and/or b) haven't as a society we haven't yet learned that there are major differences in these forms of communication and we need to overcome them

the push from industry and society is towards b) to press us into the chaos and just force us to learn how to be better communicators.

</comment><comment><USER37> [https://youtu.be/nun_d8bpzNI](https://youtu.be/nun_d8bpzNI)

</comment><comment><USER47> Knowledge is half the battle which helps, I found reading the Bhagvad Gita about the modern age (Kali yuga) helped

</comment><comment><USER48> regardless of the fate of the world after you are gone, strive to create something that will persist beyond the span of human existence, something that will scream out to any other species that WE WERE HERE! YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

The sum of current human knowledge scattered about on the moon is one such thing.

</comment><comment><USER49> Frankly, the world is hopeless and lost. Physicists don't debate so much that the universe will end someday as _how_ it will end. Each and every one of us is destined to be dust. Ultimately, all creation is ephemeral, but that doesn't make it less valuable.

Suffering is just a part of living and, more importantly, a requirement of growth. Think back and ask yourself if at any point in your life where you grew significantly as a person there wasn't suffering involved. It is the same with humanity as a whole. We have challenges set before us, in order to grow we'll have to deal with them. Think of it as a selection pressure, many paths are attempted and the ones that fail are ultimately trimmed, but they were necessary none the less. We may not succeed. Humanity may ultimately be unable to overcome the challenges presented by this stage of its development, but that's ok, the universe is a big place and it is likely that someone out there will, and even if they don't, well, the end result is the same anyway.

I wish there were a simple model I could give you to work with, but the problem with simple models is that they're inaccurate abstractions. The map is not the territory and all that. Navigating the complexities of what you should and shouldn't do is something you'll have to work on, but let me offer this as a starting point: You're going to die some day, therefore mere survival is a meaningless goal because you've already failed. Knowing this, presumably there is a world in which you would rather not live. Imagine what that world looks like and ask yourself "am I contributing towards creating that world?", and if the answer is "yes, definitely", then maybe you should stop.

Hyper-capitalist companies (naturally) make the most money and therefore often offer the best compensation, but compensation isn't everything. Life isn't about achieving the high-score, because you still die in the end and eventually you'll be forgotten. You are ephemeral, just like everything else. Why subject yourself to the misery of knowing you're helping make the world a worse place? You can find another job. You likely won't be compensated as well, and as a result will have a less comfortable life, you may even be mocked by your peers for not being as successful, but so what? You don't have to win. No one is handing out medals at the end of all this.

</comment><comment><USER50> A little exercise, a little relaxation/meditation will make you feel a lot better.

</comment><comment><USER51> Funny, just today I was looking for a similar topic.

I always had this mindset that things are all in all improving in the world. It came down crashing with Trump, Brexit and the general trend towards nationalism, especially the AfD in Germany.

I was always aware of climate change, but it used to be so far in the future that I didn't lose sleep about it. This changed with recent studies, comments and articles on HN, Twitter etc. which painted a more dire picture of the future, plus the heat-wave in Europe last year.

Our son was born in 2016 and around that time my optimism began to fade. Luckily, the luckiness of parenthood offset the darker moods a little bit.

With climate-change, the sex-talk isn't the most unpleasant talk of parenthood anymore.

Deleting most social-media-apps helped me. Unfollowing folks who post and repost triggering material is essential. I'm usually not for hiding the head in the sand but this about mental health.

Also, sufficient sleep helps the brain to deal with those "oh no.."-moments. Aim for 7-8 hours.

There are lenses you can view those issues through, that may help you:

\- You're not alone. Most humans also worry, and are also worried. They will have to face the same issues as you. You're probably better off than most of them.

\- Humanity will adapt. You will adapt. Most changes, also for the worse, don't happen over night. (Not talking about wars, catastrophes etc. of course)

\- You can make a difference. Every kilogram less CO2 in the atmosphere counts.

A few years ago, I watched German cabaretist Hagen Rether. He said "This right now is probably the best time to be alive. This is it. We have it better than our ancestors and our children." I'm afraid he was right.

I think humanity needs some kind of a wake-up-call. I just hope it's not too late by then.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all your answers! Trying to work through them all!

</comment><comment><USER52> Most of these suggestions will help a bit, but with a few exceptions,they are largely individual answers that involve you coping, alone or with a therapist, with the problems of the broader society.

Joining a group of people working hard on one of these issues can be really empowering and hopeful. Use those skills for good! Code for the capitalists by day (for now, learn from them) and for the people and the planet in the evenings or on weekends.

</comment><comment><USER53> I just quit my job. Weltschmerz levels over 9000. A company who thought of growth and profit as the end all, be all. And I like to think of myself as a libertarian (whatever that means, haha) but infringing on others basic rights is a non-starter. I left to do some coding on my own and drastically downsize my lifestyle. I do my own projects, no VC money, small profits but fulfilling. Cook at home, spend time with my mom and dad and siblings. Travel on cheap buses and trains to see friends and cool places. Whatever brings you joy, do it. We live in a strange time, it can be a dark world out there. Never forget that, but surround yourself with those you love. Practice peace and compassion. I've made it to an equal median by asking myself, "Did I have a good life? and would those I care about be proud of how I carried myself." If yes, then you're good to go.

</comment><comment><USER54> Philosophically I'm a bit of an anarchist and a stoic. I think firstly it's a choice we make when we try to expand your awareness to a point where maybe we're "seeing" bigger movements happening in the world that are ugly and despairing to us, at the same time, when it comes down to it, this clash is more like "do I wanna be unaware of ugly truths or do I prefer to take in all that and keep working do be able to see it better, maybe act on something?".

I think studying history is very sobering because you see how much of the ugly stuff, injustices, have been present all along(also how many heroes there's always been, going against that). It's also entertaining as fuck as well as educational and makes you think about all kinds of different things.

Some bad things you just gotta be patient and let them consume themselves, e.g.: new-right obscurantism, leaders, it's just something that can't be sustained, it eventually drops because it's rotten... Other stuff have different qualities that make them stay. Anarchism is an example of this to me.

I've also stopped identifying myself with the whole. Some people are like "oh why are we like this" as if everything must move together as a single unit, as if we and the actual rulers are the same, fuck that. Everyone can act wherever they are and tip things, there's a lot of stuff that can be done(I think it's amazing really how many counter-economic things are possible, planting, cooking, for example), it only does not seem so when people think like the whole must move together in perfect harmony.

I've quit my bullshit job at the start of the year, some friends of mine, one of which is also somewhat anarchic and a damn genius engineer started a startup that's related to electric vehicles, I'm working there. I think a lot about "direct economic action" and such, doing stuff that'll let people own their lives again etc, we frequently talk about ideas like that.

On the inwards part, I do yoga, I skateboard, calisthenics. Well my suggestion is to just take care of the body and mind, practice sports, be strong, get to the level your body was designed to work on, if your body is weak you feel weak and vice-versa. The same for the mind, I'm listening to "the mind illuminated", about meditation, I'm always reading and studying interesting stuff on philosophy, history, religion. Seek nature, immerse in nature, remote areas where people live peacefully without anxiety, all that artificial stuff we try to feed on are shit, we've always had it in ourselves, I think, a healthy mind and a healthy body is not so complicated. Also as you see deep into ugly stuff, you can also look deep into beautiful stuff, music, exercising, sex, hashish, all good things! Skateboarding, for example, is awesome because it's so damn impossible, all the physics and coordination and balance involved, fuck, it shouldn't even exist, but it do!

Stoicism is also great because it's a very solid mindset, an antique philosophical mindset. If you want to put weight on this side and perspective of things, then prepare, work for it, pick fights, act etc, then it starts feeling like a big adventure. You have to make the choice sometime, I've made mine to make my own path and say it screw it to the linkedin, corporate drones running exclusively the mainstream program. I want to walk my own path and have good laughs at the blind idiots banging their heads. And I'm actually currently in a cool startup, I'm still a damn good software guy with a big project on my lap, plenty others to pursue then(secret tip: I remain interested and sharp because I don't learn, think, reflect on Software and other large things for them, I do it for myself, to be able to materialize the stuff I wanna do, to be capable of seeing what stuff stuff actually is, etc. Never had a problem getting a job, most I actually despise, the damned souls over there still love me anyway), so, I have purpose.</comment>


Inky 3 – Encrypted emails using ANY email provider - <AUTHOR> https://download.inky.com/inky-security-whitepaper.pdf<p>Even without all the capabilities of protonmail(yet) it's interesting the fact that they've managed to allow encryption communication without having you to create a new account... <comment><USER2> I had a look at this earlier and it mentions they operate a CA, to provide S/MIME certs.

How are these certs handled by other mail clients/systems? Do they have a chain to a widely accepted Root CA?

</comment><comment><USER3> So this is, what, a worse version of PGP? I'm not sure I understand.

<comment><USER4> How's it a worse version of PGP? It's similar in that it uses asymmetric encryption, but it has the benefit of having the private key stored on an HSM.</comment></comment>


Jacob Kaplan-Moss: Real World Django - <AUTHOR> http://jacobian.org/speaking/2009/real-world-django/

<comment><USER2> Credit where credit is due: half of this tutorial is by James Bennett (<http://b-list.org/>).

<comment><USER3> Great work.

Is there any audio/video available from the PyCon presentation?

<comment><USER3> FWIW, not paying attention to the date I didn't realize PyCon was in-progress. If memory serves, videos usually don't end up online till after PyCon has completed, though I could be wrong.

<comment><USER2> Exactly - the conference is being taped, but videos won't go up online until after things wind down.

<comment><USER4> I came across some of the uploaded videos on blip.tv

<comment><USER5> URL?

<comment><USER4> <http://pycon.blip.tv/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems django would benefit by brining some of this "in-house", either officially or through blessed third-party tools in the same way that rails does.

If deployment and testing is something that everyone has to do in a very similar way should it not be a problem that is solved by the framework the same way that sessions are?

<comment><USER2> The thing is that actually very little of this is unique to Django. The types of tools you need to deploy dynamic-language-based web applications don't differ depending what the "P" in LAMP stands for.

<comment><USER6> That maybe true (Capistrano which you reference was pulled out of 37 signals) but I think my general criticism still stands (+ standardization in and of itself has benefits in that it helps people help each other).

The rails community from the beginning has had a more holitstic view of the problem it is solving.

The third tab on the rails site is about deployment. There are three performance monitoring companies and 6 different rails specific hosts.

Other examples: db schema evolution (migrations) and rake tasks. There is also a litany of useful maintance tools you can find on github.

This is not just in reference to code either, its everything else too, including documentation.

I like django, I prefer django, but in this one critical area, the last mile, rails does better. And its frustrating because its not a hard problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> amazing. I'd love to see the lecture that this accompanied.

</comment><comment><USER8> This document is covered with "FAIL" stamps, but they didn't even mention HAProxy as a load balancer! Anyway, I think that slide 135 is what most people do, maybe adding a DB cluster.</comment>


Deaths in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2020 <comment><AUTHOR> When I saw this list yesterday, I thought it is one of the best illustrations of the actual impact of Covid-19. Famous people are far more likely to be treated and tested adequately - and Covid-19 is fastly becoming a leading cause of death within this group.

Of course, there is some bias (as Covid-19 deaths make more headlines), still I found this interesting!

<comment><USER2> There also many examples where famous people deaths this year reported without any explanations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Highly appreciate to collect all (as much as possible) deaths news this year & deeply review its relation to Covid-19.[0]

[0] [https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-music- penderecki/upda...](https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-music- penderecki/update-1-polish-composer-penderecki-dies-at-86-after-long-illness- idUSL8N2BM082)</comment>


OPSEC for honeypots - <AUTHOR> http://xiphosresearch.com/2015/12/09/OPSEC-For-Honeypots.html <comment> n-exploit I know security by obscurity doesn't work in the real world, but what if some of those honeypots are actual ICS systems made to look like a poorly configured honeypot? One could host a mock service (representing a poorly configured ICS) on the cloud that acts as a wall to turn away those who don't dig deeper, but the required services are redirected to a legitimate ICS on the ground.

<comment><USER2> In this case, I think the engineering effort required to proxy a real one to make it look like a poorly-configured honeypot would be greater than actually implementing some proper security measures, like a firewall plus a VPN for any needed external access.

<comment><USER3> I had the same thought as GP as well. Could you not implement some of the "disguise-as-honeypot" features (such as setting the name to "HoneyTrap" or "Error: rand...") in addition to the normal security features?

<comment><USER2> In this case we're talking about embedded industrial control systems, I doubt they're easy to modify in that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting stuff - I can't decide whether to read it as an useful reminder about planning and analysis ('measure twice, cut once', if you will) or to read it just as a collection of hilarious failures.

My Friday brain is steering me very much toward the latter, I must confess.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's a webapp I built that does a bunch of checks to determine whether an IP is an ICS honeypot or not: [https://honeyscore.shodan.io](https://honeyscore.shodan.io)</comment>


Nim for Python Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zdsmith.com/posts/nim-for-python-programmers.html <comment><USER2> That's a benefit of static typing that I haven't seen discussed before. Certainly got me interesting in looking more closely at Nim.</comment>


A day on Chatroulette, the web's weirdest new outpost - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/feb/14/chatroulette

<comment><USER2> My experience with Chatroulette:

      Naked guy
      Naked guy
      Guy singing
      Bored guy
      Bored guy
      Bored guy
      Girl clicking "next"
      Two guys laughing
      Bored guy
      Three girls, one saying "is that a boy or a girl?"
      Naked guy
      Goatse picture
      Naked guy

<comment><USER3> ChatRoulette should start each connection with a vastly downsampled image which you can then advance to native resolution if you actually care to see what the rest of the pixels look like.

This should also be disableable, of course, as I imagine the risk that you will see something you didn't want to is part of the draw for a lot of users.

<comment><USER4> best idea ever. and the inevitable downfall of the service altogether.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I tried ChatRoulette for the first time by myself and experienced rejection at a rate faster than could possibly be had at any bar. As a chubby, unshaven 35 year-old, this did not surprise me. It's amusing to see the looks on people's faces as they're evaluating you.

Next time, at my wife's suggestion, I held our 11 month-old in full view of the camera. Pretty soon, one of the naked guys came up. The look of horror on his face as he quickly hit "next" was priceless. I don't think he had considered the idea that he would be showing himself off to a kid who just got his first teeth.

<comment><USER4> worth it for your kid?

<comment><USER5> What is your concern?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Everybody wants to be entertained," he told me. With a look of disdain, he explained how most users simply want to consume - while far fewer are prepared to do something worth watching. "

As this thing gets more press and more people try it out, it will be severely diluted by people unwilling to produce. Folks who have traditionally spent their time on YouTube watching videos have nothing to contribute here, and decrease the overall quality of the service.

Perhaps adding categories would weed out the noise a bit. I'd love to randomly chat with someone on HN.

<comment><USER7> In that case, put some sort of contact info in your profile. I went to go send you an email, just to see what would happen, but the lack of contact didn't help anything.

<comment><USER6> touché

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I don't get is why he doesn't block the guys jerking off? If +5 people report the feed as offensive then blacklist the IP for a couple of hours or something like that. That would instantly improve the site's appeal a lot.

</comment><comment><USER9> Apparently we need the reality to bark at us every so often, so that we could continue to enjoy our safe caves more

</comment><comment><USER10> If the author thinks this is the "web's weirdest outpost", he obviously have never heard of /b/ (for which he should be thankful, by the way).

<comment><AUTHOR> Startup idea: a combination of the best (worst?) bits of /b/ and chatroulette.

You can thank me when you've made your millions.

<comment><USER11> what do you think can haz cheezburgers is?

<comment><USER12> Mercifully free of pornography.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You should really read the linked article with an email from the founder, age 17. This kid has built a pretty impressive site, although I wouldn't really call it a business yet. He does host it on 7 servers and uses 7 gigabits of bandwidth to handle all of the video streams. The code optimizations he must have done to handle this are pretty impressive:

[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/chatroulettes- found...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/chatroulettes- founder-17-introduces-himself/?ref=technology)

</comment><comment><USER14> I bet Chris Hansen is already working on "To Catch a Predator: Chatroullette Edition".

<comment><USER15> I spent a very fun fifteen minutes on Chatroulette the other day. Every time a new chat started, I'd type "Hey! Haven't I seen on you _To Catch a Predator_?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So do you figure combining that concept with recommendations a la StumbleUpon would work, or just be boring?

I suspect "everybody just wants to consume" could be it's downfall, that is, there would not be an even enough match between "consumers" and "producers" to provide suitable recommendations for everyone. Producers to be taken in general, for example perhaps more men would like to see women for cybersex than women would like to see men.

<comment><USER17> Introducing some kind of 'how interesting was that chat' rating would give users an incentive to liven things up; maybe the more interesting you are, the more you get connected to other interesting people.

['course, definitions of interestingness vary plenty. Maybe you leave that in as part of the fun; maybe you introduce some kind of categories -- e.g. slashdot-style +5 funny, -2 offensive]

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The site appears to be down btw, no way to figure myself how odd it is...

Edit: it's down just form Italy. I hope it's a routing problem and not italian providers censoring this ASAP.

Edit #2: finally it worked, was just a routing problem.

</comment><comment><USER19> Props to the author for a well written article.

</comment><comment><USER4> should it be surprising to us that a place which offers anonymous voyeuristic nudity with basically no consequences appeals to a world in which pleasing ourselves and awkward desires is our driving goal in life?

i submit it should not.</comment>


How we got the .com for our startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ajt/how-we-got-the-com-for-our-startup-b48fd6c5511

<comment><USER2> So the one potentially interesting aspect of the article was withheld.

<comment><USER3> the dollar amount?

<comment><USER4> Yes what was the dollar amount? What was the original, and counter offer?</comment></comment></comment>


Is TravelMap an app? Yes, it's a web app - <AUTHOR> https://travelmap.net/blog/is-travelmap-an-app <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I'm the founder of TravelMap.net. I built it as a PWA but if it's not in the Play/App Store, I feel like people don't value it the same way. What's your take on this?</comment>


Only 25% of Internet Users Trust the Cloud – Survey - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@intelligentvox/we-live-in-the-big-cloud-and-we-hate-it-is-it-time-for-hipster-it-1f130a44d2b8#.axo45awhb <comment><USER2> Judging by the conversations I've had on HN, a lot of people here will be surprised by this. Personally I'm slowly moving away from the cloud, it simply doesn't give me enough options to do what I want with my data.

The most likely effect phrases like "cloud based" and "web app" have is to make me lose interest.</comment>


Why I love ugly, messy interfaces - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/why-i-love-ugly-messy-interfaces-and-you-probably-do-too-edff4a896a83 <comment><USER4> There's a kind of fetish in design for modernism, futurism, and this kind of "sleek commercial humanism" (someone coin a better phrase).

The cliché is a self-taught designer in a minimalist loft in some gentrified inner city, drinking espresso from an expensive vintage machine, obsessively cleaning their wooden slab desk, listening to post-techno or whatever...

...making designs that look like they signify _design_... with some new or rediscovered modernist sans serif font... matching pastel colors... tasteful transitions... high-resolution photographs that signify urban creative prosumerism...

It's a kind of functional tradition, but as a whiny outsider I'm really getting sick of it. So I like this article because it's just highlighting that there are other values to aspire for, not just these matte white ideals of OCD modernism.

Reminds me of a video from some old RubyConf, I think, after a presentation about how "beauty corresponds to quality", some humanist in the audience asked a thoughtful question like "the type of beauty you've explained seems mostly like a classical or modernist ideal; what about stuff like postmodern notions of beauty, could that be relevant too?"

(Ruby itself is ugly and messy, a weird mix of Perl and Smalltalk... Hacker News is ugly and messy... even the interfaces polished to look simple and clean turn out to be ugly and messy when you look closer, so maybe part of it is just about honesty.)

<comment><USER5> Ruby might be messy, but I disagree entirely that it's ugly. It's one of the most enjoyable and human programming languages I've ever used, and is what I work in daily with much enjoyment and satisfaction.

<comment><USER6> Agreed, it's still a multiple more expressive than the other languages I use daily

<comment><USER7> How do you define expressiveness quantitatively?

<comment><USER6> As in, my Ruby code generally has the least amount of implementation cruft compared to other languages. It would seem that it fits closest to how I think.

Hashtables, resource locking, regular expressions, string formatting, are all things I have to deal with a lot and I like dealing with them in Ruby more than any other language. Also, reflection in Ruby is superb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe it's me, but I consider Craigslist's interface to be clean and minimal - with no unnecessary stuff (like stock photos, or animations, in the background). Aesthetic value is not always the priority, from the user's perspective (heck, I want to rent a room, not - visit an art gallery). Looking great at the first glance of a non-user is a totally different thing from a site serving its purpose well for its users.

And exactly for the pursue of the minimalism I went from Delicious to Pinboard. Cleaner... (OK, plus - working).

Also, it's why I prefer HN looks to Reddit looks. Or even aesthetic looks of things like Blizzard forum.

<comment><USER9> Craiglist is already an established player, and its minimalism is part of a well-known brand.

Suppose you were to pitch a new startup today, at YCombinator or Product Hunt or a VC meeting, and your web app copies the Craigslist aesthetic. Would you be taken seriously or laughed out of the room, even if the functionality and content was top-notch? Would you take that chance?

<comment><USER10> This is pretty much what people do, but with bootstrap.css instead of the default unstyled Times, is it not?

<comment><USER11> Because that gives you _some_ degree of design. There's an enormous difference between "looks the same" and "looks like 1996". The average end-user has basic expectations and will very likely leave if those expectations aren't met, at least until they've already bought in.

<comment><USER12> I am _more_ likely to leave if the site looks overdesigned, honestly, because that is a signal that this company is focused more on the "acquiring customers and extracting attention" side of the business than on the "providing a useful service" part I'm actually looking for. If the site looks plain and practical, it might turn out to be useful; if the site looks gorgeous and cutting-edge, the company is probably just going to piss me off.

<comment><USER13> If the site is plain, it looks hand-crafted; like somebody who cares about it made it, and they're too busy making awesome content to fuss about the paint job.

If the site is "designed", it looks like someone just hired a designer to sell me something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> At the airshow, no one ever looks at the F-16 cockpit and says "that is not a beautiful||fresh||clean||simple||minimal interface". It is understood that the interface is for use by a highly trained user in an environment where usability is very important.

Highly usable environments require some sort of training. The amount of self training that someone will do for something like a web site will entirely depend on how motivated the user is to achieve the definite result that is the ultimate goal.

The question then is; do pretty websites cause motivation for further engagement? I suspect the answer is yes, at least a little, at least for now. In the future that probably won't be true, people will get tired of anything anyone can possibly do in terms of appearance and will value usability more.

<comment><USER15> _Highly usable environments require some sort of training. The amount of self training that someone will do for something like a web site will entirely depend on how motivated the user is to achieve the definite result that is the ultimate goal._

Is it possible to ramp complexity while ramping motivation? Games seem to do this quite well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I enjoyed this article, and overall agree - sometimes you want / need a mess.

Craigslist for example is not unbeatable, nor is it a messy interface I think is truly good. Really, I think it's more a matter of who they are at this point, and that they have a user base that gets things as are, and they can't change now. New users will deal with the mess, because they more or less "have" to use Craiglist for something. Not that craigslist needs to be pretty, but being frustrating for even regular users is not a good sign.

Photoshop is a better example, I think. Its ugly in the sense that there is a lot, but whats there IS actually designed; well mostly.

Facebook is trickier. They have a network effect which drives many new users to overcome on boarding, but also people view it on mobile a lot, and so don't see that interface. And those that do, probably have blinders and only see the second column.

Really, I think there is a time, place, product and audience for it. It's important to think about what information you "bubble up" in an interface, and what you require them to click-thru for. Obviously if users learn your messy UI, they're going to be upset with complete redesigns, so don't do that. Do care about the look of the interface, it always matters, but sometimes "matters" is pretty, and sometimes "matters" is functional and complete. If you can strike a balance between the two, and create an experience that your users can understand and enjoy, you're on the right track.

<comment><USER16> IMHO, too many designers confuse having lots of controls with "messy interface". If the controls are poorly laid out then it certainly can be messy, but if they are organized and arranged properly it is not messy. You don't say a library is messy because they have a lot of books, those books are neatly organized and indexed.

People have gone way overboard in hiding functionality in modern design. Discoverability seems like a dirty word these days. The ironic thing is that by removing the obvious controls for so many of the features in the name of simplifying the interface for new users, you actually make the interface more complex and require more training on the user's part to operate it.

The days of browsing through menus looking for an option that vaguely sounds like what you want seem to be gone. Now you have to just know the magical screen gesture to make it do what you want. The only way to discover it is to know that such a feature already exists and Google for it.

Hey iPhone users, did you know you can swipe up on the lockscreen to bring up a menu full of useful controls? I'd say roughly 1 in 2 iPhone users I've talked to know about that feature. Do you know how you were supposed to discover it? Because I don't.

<comment><USER5> > You don't say a library is messy because they have a lot of books, those > books are neatly organized and indexed.

Well said! I think the same thing about magazines and newspapers. Although we should not be so quick to compare; part of google's success was their simplicity, compared to yahoo's complexity.

> The days of browsing through menus looking for an option that vaguely sounds > like what you want seem to be gone.

Maybe. I'm doing something like this within my app, but for anywhere complicated I just have a dropdown with a bunch of examples that they can start out with and tinker with from there. I think that can go a long way in discoverability and understanding how to do something, and whats possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Neither Photoshop nor Craigslist are messy. Everything is very well organized, framed, boxed and so on with a logical hierarchy (which in PS's case can be collapsed almost entirely to display only a simple interface). It's the very opposite of messy.

In other words, you want the _simplest_ interface that allows you to do what you need to do.

<comment><USER18> I actually remember some heated discussion on changes of the UI in Photoshop not that long ago on this forum. So even there (re)design is an issue, and lovers of the 'little=beautiful' design have their influence.

<comment><USER19> Blender had an interface that was, to some people, very messy, but other very experienced, knowledgeable users fought tooth and claw to keep it - <USER2> ultimately lost. The changes were performed, and, after a while, ~everyone was happy. These kinds of interfaces get some effort to get used to, and afterwards, you learn to love their quirks and don't want them to change. New ones get added / moved / removed organically through the life of the software, so the user and the UI change together. And all of that creates an emotional attachement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For craigslist specifically, I think people often confuse "simple" with "pretty". Craigslist is a remarkably simple interface. I've never seen anyone - regardless of age or proficiency with computers - get confused while using it.

It does what it sets out to do, without pretension or fluff. If that's considered unsimplistic, I don't know what the word means.

I think the argument is a little different for Photoshop, but I'm not a user and frankly I do find it confusing. But like the mixer analogy, a professional tool should sometimes sacrifice simplicity for utility.

<comment><USER21> > I think people often confuse "simple" with "pretty".

Oh man, this.

Even richer is confusing usable with pretty. I guess nowadays people say "user experience" instead of usability, or the extremely unfortunate: UX.

Simple usually covers the very first prototype version, but then there are always requests for complicating the feature set so you can't have a simple interface anymore.

Joel Spolsky had a conference talk about this once (can't remember where I saw it). There is a tension between simplicity and power: some need simplicity; others, power. It's a spectrum. What developers and designers should strive for is elegance so that one can move along the spectrum without noticing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Those aren't ugly or messy, they are complex, but functional. These are ugly messy interfaces: [http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/index.php?mode=original](http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/index.php?mode=original)

Also GIMP.

P.S: The article is missing Blender, as it's a go-to for "ugly, messy interfaces", even though (after learning the concepts) it's highly usable.

<comment><USER23> I was expecting something like this: [http://www.simplybasicsoftware.com/images/SBPscreenshot2.jpg](http://www.simplybasicsoftware.com/images/SBPscreenshot2.jpg)

I just love those kinds of interface. I don't think I would enjoy using them, but I love the history that sometimes go with them. Typically they're in-house apps that just get extended until they do every thing, and only an old guy named Gary knows how everything works... sort of.

<comment><USER24> Crazy as those UIs look, there's a certain method to the madness. Colors and varying shapes help create spatial memory which helps with data entry.

The person who works with this every day knows intuitively that "pink box, bottom row, second from left" means something specific without having to read the labels.

If this UI were redesigned in the prevalent iOS 7 style with uniform design elements, abundant whitespace, very little contrast and lots of text labels in a light typeface, I think it might actually reduce usability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think that simplicity still applies, even in interfaces which aren't considered _simple_.

It's just a matter of how you conceive simplicity. John Maeda talks about "thoughful reduction". It's not _less_ for the sake of _less_ ; you take away while it makes sense to take away. That's simplicity. Clutter isn't the opposite of simplicity. Simplicity has to be conceived always factoring in the scope of the design. If something is necessary and you remove it, you're not making your design simpler, just _dumber_ , limited or crippled.

tl;dr: simplicity will look different in different apps. Photoshop will always look more cluttered than the prospective and portfolio-enriching weather app which is featured on Dribbble.

</comment><comment><USER26> In my opinion, what's important to some categories of users is high information density. This is what makes the 'ugly' Craigslist design useful to its users, the ability to have a bird's-eye view of potential navigation paths throughout the site because it reduces the number of steps needed to perform towards a certain goal and makes evaluation easier, without distractions.

</comment><comment><USER27> There's a difference between interfaces that are messy and those that have high information density.

Also, there are quite a few sites which benefit (profit) from throwing off the user's train of thought and injecting unrequested information:

\- Go on Amazon looking for a product and you'll see lots of other products that may be relevant but that are totally not what you were there for.

\- Facebook being an advertizing company is of course happy to inject promoted posts to satisfy their clients.

Edward Tufte has written at length[1] about information density, and has shown that it is possible to design interfaces that contain a huge amount of information AND yet are clean to the point of being beautiful.

[0] [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi)

</comment><comment><USER28> Pointing at popular products with crappy Ux and implying that their popularity vindicates their interfaces is totally specious. Does the author honestly believe that that is how markets work?

Those products all have years of growth and hefty network effects backing them up. You can infer exactly nothing about the importance of ux based on the difficulty of unseating them.

</comment><comment><USER29> The reason why these complex products win isn't because of their design, but instead because they have moats around their business. Craigslist has network effects and photoshop is an industry standard product. The author is confusing economics with design. The underlying economics are what make these products durable, not their complex design.

<comment><USER30> This is the correct answer. You could certainly make a better product (including betterinterface) but that's not enough to beat Craigslist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> There is nothing messy or ugly about the Craigslist page.

It is _unadorned_. Unadorned isn't a synonym for ugly.

It is neatly organized into a clear structure which stays consistent and in which you can easily find everything. Therefore it cannot be called _messy_.

Yes, people love presentations which are neatly organized into a clear structure. So if you falsely equate that with ugly and messy, then you can argue that people love ugly and messy.

Suitable word definitions of words make almost any point come true. If not, you can always bring out the bigger guns, like outright equivocation: shifting the meanings of words while midway through making the point.

</comment><comment><USER32> This sort of recalls some nostalgia i have for my middle school days. this was pre-Facebook, around the myspace era. And the prevailing thing on the web were these baroque, meticulously designed websites composed of handcrafted photoshop work, several kids in my class had designed and built their own websites and they were incredibly unique, detailed, and interesting to look at. Idk if anyone remembers this site but there was a site called "spoono.com" that was basically just an aggregator of these meticulously handmade, pixel perfect websites.

The most striking thing for me is that during this period the web felt much more like physical space. I would go to some of these websites just to spend some time immersed in the atmosphere they had so effectively created with this old, pixel by pixel style of design.

The biggest effect of html5/css3/social network era for me is that i no longer give a shit about your website. I might end up on your website if i click a HN link, but the desire to _be_ on your website, with all the sense of place that entails, is completely gone.

And all of these websites are completely gone now too, vanished without a trace. It's like an entire generation of the webs history has been erased.

<comment><USER33> I'm glad I'm not the only one that realized this. Not that I actively go around trying to find other people though.

Even bad geocities pages were unique and interesting. I haven't come across anything that's like that in so long. It seems like an endless cycle of content aggregators and the usual news website. There's really no reason to actually explore or any easy way to do it. Might just be me though.

Even myspace allowed you to edit the CSS and pretty much do whatever you wanted with your personal page. Now all we have is Facebook and the actual information isn't important at all. I rarely even bother visiting people's pages nor have I updated mine in so long. It just doesn't matter for the most part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The reasons why Facebook doesn't improve its horrible interface have to do with incredible technical bloat, and their userbase being stringently resistant to change. It's the type of person who won't start using something else until what they have doesn't work at all anymore. I predict an exodus if they tried to modernise.

Even so much as flattening out some of those beveled edges and gradients would be enough to throw people off.

"Ugly and messy" doesn't have to be a part of the equation when what you want is "dense." It's possible to have minimal, clean, dense design. With lots of buttons and features, beneath a simple UI.

</comment><comment><USER35> If the utility of the application provides more value than the pain of the interface then people will use it because it's worthwhile; in other words users will put up with the crap if they're getting enough value out of it.

It's worth noting that all of these examples are world-class, industry-leading applications in their respective domains. People use them _in spite of_ the interface. If your app hasn't proven itself to be in that class then an ugly, messy interface isn't going to work.

<comment><USER36> > _If the utility of the application provides more value than the pain of the > interface then people will use it because it 's worthwhile; in other words > users will put up with the crap if they're getting enough value out of it._

True in theory, but I don't think this is the case with Photoshop and Craiglist. Maybe with phpBB though. But in the two mentioned in the article, any serious attempt on making the interface prettier would most likely kill the usability. Those products are tools. The interface is there to let you get the job done quickly and efficiently.

And yes, you may have to spend few minutes learning how to use it. Just like you have to learn how to use a microwave, or a car.

The current trend of "beautiful and simple" is driven by the market - <USER3> companies don't care if the product is useful for anything else than getting you to sign up (and sometimes start paying - startups that aim for an exit don't even care about that). You can clearly see how little a company cares about solving their customers' problems by looking at how much they prefer beauty and simplicity to functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Agree with this completely. Hacker News, Craigslist, Reddit all wildly popular because they are functional...not pretty. They get you the information you need and the actions that you can accomplish quickly with no fuss.

Minimalist makes complete sense on mobile and I'd wager that most of what's driving the "minimalist everything" is responsive layouts.

<comment><USER38> Hacker News is pretty darn minimalistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I agree with the sentiment of the article that aesthetics are often mixed up with good overall design, whereas good functional UX design is an even more important part of it IMHO (of which craiglist is an excellent example).

I don't like his usage of the word cluttered though, which implies disorder and bad UX design for me. An audio mixer or Craighlist are not disordered, but have quite a lot of order. I guess he means dense interfaces, which can be the right thing to do for a UX design, if use cases demands it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Reminds me of an earlier article on Signal v. Noise on why Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web:

[https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1407-why-the-drudge-report- is...](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1407-why-the-drudge-report-is-one-of- the-best-designed-sites-on-the-web)

</comment><comment><USER41> A related observation was made by Northcote Parkinson in his famous book "Parkinson's Law" (not sure which one, there seem to be different versions). He noted that institutions that have huge clean spaces are essentially dead, as opposed to institutions which are organic and untidy, which was a sign of vigorous activity. Maybe that's somewhat true for websites and applications too..

And I would also point out to Emacs and Vim, which have visually terrible interfaces, yet some people swear to them.

</comment><comment><USER42> OK, but what about Photoshop vs Sketch?

And if we're talking about mixers — what about Sonar or Reason vs Ableton?

Simplicity can be applied to professional, feature-rich software too.

<comment><USER43> I want to add Cubase. It's not even that cluttered, but was the first program I encountered, that I could not easily learn by doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Honestly I think this guy misses the point. A lot of the extreme minimalism we see today is more about visual aesthetics rather than a clean designed meant to make an application easy to use.

A messy interface is NOT a good thing. What the author seems to try to imply is that minimal interfaces means you lack of functionality or capability. That is a misconception. It is perfectly possible to make complex interfaces with few features or simple interfaces with lots of features.

You can e.g. simplify a interface by making it easy to combine functionality and you can complicate it by making lots of overlapping functionality which can't combine.

Another way to make something complex without adding features is to always display all possible actions even when they are not relevant for the task you are presently doing. Clean interfaces strive towards only showing the actions relevant to what you are presently doing.

</comment><comment><USER45> Simplicity is overrated. Experts often need more than the simple mantra 'do one thing well'. What is often needed for the user (novices and experts) is clarity. An unambiguous, clear interface is much better than a simple one. Even a simple interface can be confusing.

</comment><comment><USER46> The compliments.dk site used as the opening example might be "beautiful", but the first thing that struck me was the unreadable white text on partially- white background (e.g. the "products" and "menu" text). That's looks like a case of misplaced design priorities to me, and is simple enough to "fix" e.g. with a faint drop-shadow around the text (I say "fix", since it wouldn't help user agents which don't implement the relevant CSS)

</comment><comment><USER47> tl;dr "Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler" \- Albert Einstein

<comment><USER48> This is so meta.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> There's no irony in this being posted on Medium, with a clean, beautiful, simple, elegant design?

Should have done it on one of those tiny-fonted 1998 Blogger templates.

<comment><USER4> Does anybody really love Medium, though?

<comment><USER50> I do, and so do many others. Granted, I am just a reader, not a writer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> CraigsList and Facebook are neither ugly nor messy. They're functional given their needs.

Maybe the thesis of this article should be:

Don't let your designer go berserk and just make whatever white-space-heavy- drop-shadow-gigantic-photographs-four-words-per-screen mess they feel like if that's not actually what your users need to find satisfaction in your site or app.

That's the single right way to do things.

</comment><comment><USER52> Seem that the author of the article is comparing information dense interfaces with those that aren't. Not really a fair comparison.

Of course they look 'messier', in as much as there's more on the screen. People use spreadsheets -- _yes, in 2016!_ \--because they're the best way to see some types of data, even if the interface is horrid and outmoded.

</comment><comment><USER53> I like how you show an mixing board for your example because that industry is actually getting a small upgrade.

Least I heard Yamaha hired a bunch of people to redo the interface on some of their higher end equipment. Trust me, they need it. When you need to go to 3 different menus to configure one setting properly then there is a problem.

<comment><USER54> The problem isn't the desk, it was that they put a screen on it to "simplify" things... unlike the one in the post!

<comment><USER53> Well no, there are some features that were unthinkable to do in such a small table top setup as they are in the digital setups.

Some of these are virtual EQ racks, piping audio, and doing some other cool stuff like eco reduction and speaker sound offsets based on distance from crowd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> My favorite chat/messaging interface was Google Talk: [http://screenshots.en.sftcdn.net/en/scrn/43000/43041/google-...](http://screenshots.en.sftcdn.net/en/scrn/43000/43041/google- talk-07-505x535.png)

Clean, beautiful, minimal. RIP.

</comment><comment><USER56> Here's why I like them: they're like Odysseus's sirens, but for hipster UI designers. SV is littered with the wrecked hulls of startups that were like, "we'll just do Craigslist, but with a hip, clean, modern UX. It'll be like taking candy from a baby!"

</comment><comment><USER57> Ugly is highly subjective.

As for messy, that comes down to it getting in the way of getting something done.

If something has tools and parts all over, but the workman knows exactly where everything is and can reach for them as needed, it may look like a mess to an outsider, but will be efficient in operation to the workman.

</comment><comment><USER58> I see way too many designs that mistake clean for functional. Apple is a huge offender in this category lately. They have a terrible habit of hiding functionality with no hint of how to interact with it.

</comment><comment><USER59> Content-wise there is no competition for the examples he came up with. I think their success should be credited to habit (people are now used to it) and content, not to their 'ugly' interfaces. I think that new apps / sites like Uber and Airbnb wouldn't have succeeded with Craigslist's aesthetic and that the iPhone would have flopped if the interface looked like Windows mobile.

And for a personal example, I come to Hacker news for the content and the community. I do _not_ like the look of it.

</comment><comment><USER60> I disagree, the Ipod had the best interface ever! It's pure brilliance that should be held as a school example in UI design.

<comment><USER61> Scroll down, there's "When this is what you really need:" and a mixing console.

<comment><USER62> I'm thinking that two smaller images shown side by side with captions underneath each would have made the point more crisply. I, too, missed the carried over point while scrolling down the first time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Tesla touch screen interface comes to mind...

I don't like it at all ... I just want to reach out and spin a knob.

</comment><comment><USER64> Do people use bootstrap for anything more than a landing page? I see what the author is trying to say - but the kind of design that they're highlighting as the "new simple. beautiful" interfaces is rarely used for any thing but something nice to look at before you get into the meat of a product.

<comment><USER65> I think the article is still spot on - the "minimal design" frenzy has influenced more than just bootstrap landing pages.

The YouTube App on my iPad looks wonderful, but for the life of me, I can't find any back/forward navigation buttons. I suspect they were minimized away (I'm on iOS7 on my iPad2, this may be different in newer versions).

My Android phone (Cyanogenmod) has a wonderfully minimal interface that even includes a universal back button - but a "go forward" button was presumably deemed too messy and either thrown out completely, or hidden so deeply that I did not manage to find it in a year. This is especially bothersome in the Android browser...

Yesterday I used a personal Oxygen sensor, for safety reasons. It's a wonderfully designed piece, with just two buttons. Yet their functions are so overloaded, there is no way you can use the sensor without studying and memorizing the user manual.

My Windows PC becomes "simpler and more beautiful" each time the Windows version number goes up, but always at the cost of useful (but messy-looking) interfaces. Quick access to wireless network properties? Too messy! Modify the DDE-commands that the Explorer issues when double-clicking a file? A GUI is too messy for that, users should just use regedit.exe. The "go up"-button in Windows Explorer? Why, "go back" should satisfy all our users' needs!

Of course, destuffying messy interfaces is a noble and important cause. But the degree of mimimalism that current designers seem to strive for is, in my personal opinion, too radical, and I enjoyed reading a piece that points out how sometimes, great interfaces must have lots of buttons.

<comment><USER64> Yeah I can see where you're coming from here, the Android example does resonate with me. Perhaps I'm not seeing the forefront of this movement because I'm using Linux so much nowadays - I guess I saw the bootstrap example and left it there.

It is odd how we're getting more and more screenspace to play with, phone screens and computer screens are getting larger with higher resolutions regularly, and yet we're pushing to remove functionality in the name of simplicity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> rather weak argument from the author.

He conveniently overlooks the fact that many of these sites sporting minimalist UI, are doing so due to lack of content. They need a natural way to take up the canvas for a site that is low on content.

</comment><comment><USER67> In other words, "make things as simple as possible, but not simpler".

</comment><comment><USER68> Complex problems need complex UI to do them justice, it's true.

But it doesn't change the fact that complex UI is hard for users to learn.

If users only use your software rarely, instead of daily, they will not be capable of learning a complex UI.

If users don't know or think of what they are doing as complex or at least important, they will not be willing to learn a complex UI.

If your software started out with a clean simple UI but added features little by little, and many/most of your users have been with you all along -- that was a lot easier to learn, because they learned it little by little, and don't even realize how complex the thing they learned is.

(This also means if you can hide complexity for beginning users and add it in little by little, this can help it's learnability. But easier said than done -- Microsoft Office's attempts to hide 'less used' menu items is an example of failure that made things worse).

A shopping site with a complicated UI is going to fail miserably -- unless you manage to make a shopping site that convinces users it really does something much much better than the competition, and/or a shopping site your users will use daily.

Photoshop is something users use daily, often as part of their paid job, to do something the users recognize is fairly complex work and find valuable -- AND many of it's users have probably been using it since it was simpler and learning it little by little. Newcomers to photoshop (or gimp), especially those not using it for a paid job, often find it very difficult to learn and give up.

Facebook is something users use daily, for something they find indispensable. It also does an _okay_ job of providing a UI where the users can ignore _most_ of it until they need it (and there are many parts that many users have never found even if they would be useful). It's also got the network effect lockin -- a Facebook competitor with a "better" UI would have trouble competing even if it _did_ manage to come up with a just-as-powerful-but-simpler UI, assuming that were possible.

Craigslist -- I think actually _is_ a clean/simple interface. Better graphic design styling probably wouldn't hurt it (I really don't think it would, in any way, if done well), but it's not complicated.

It's true that powerful functionality is very hard, or sometimes impossible, to do with a clean simple UI. And powerful functionality is great. But it's also true, I think, that no matter how powerful your functionality, users are going to find a complex UI difficult, and they have to have a lot of motivation to learn it.

For a shopping site someone uses only once or occasionally, I am still convinced clean simple UI is always going to 'win' (increase sales, get more sales and users than it's competitors all things being equal, etc).

I am also convinced that you should always _aspire_ to as clean and simple an interface as possible. If you can get powerful functionality _with_ a clean interface, users will always like that better than the same func with a complicated interface. (People _use_ MS Word, but few _like_ it. If someone could figure out how to provide the same func with a cleaner interface, people would go wild for it. It's a big 'if', it's not easy). If you can't figure out how to do that (and it's not easy) -- it is hard to predict whether less powerful cleaner software or more powerful complex software will 'win' with the users in any given case, it just depends.

<comment><USER43> What really annoys me is the usefulness of ugly color coding. But maybe there are better palette choices than on the avid keyboard: [http://www.drted.com/IMG_1225.JPG](http://www.drted.com/IMG_1225.JPG)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Yes, I love having to hit command/control + F on a site like Craigslist. What could possibly be a better design than forcing the user to use their find function because the site is basically unusable otherwise?

</comment><comment><USER70> remembers me of all the directory websites until they got replaced by a simple search mask.

</comment><comment><USER71> Meh, overstating the obvious, then making it a sales pitch.

</comment><comment><USER72> Agree with this premise, Users will not necessarily appreciate simplicity over functionality.

It's also worth noting that Facebook, Craigslist, Photoshop, etc are not necessarily optimizing their UI for new users, but rather those users who have been using their software for a while. I imagine that one's design considerations will change based on the prototype of the typical user.

</comment><comment><USER73> I don't feel that this article has a point. For example if you don't like the ui of Facebook you will still use it because there is no alternative (yet). There are so many factors at play like lack of alternatives you don't take into account. I personally think that Craigslist for example is very well organized. Just because it is not material design it can be good.

<comment><USER74> Sounds like the change from the old Google maps to the new ones where I can't find anything because it is all hidden away behind unintuitive humburger menus or something similar. Sure I get maybe 10% more screen space, but I have too Google how to send a link almost every time these days.

<comment><USER75> Yeah, there are big problems with their UX. I don't think the problem is the "10% more space" or clean design, just bad decisions for simple UX concepts. I would expect something to be somewhere logically, but it's not. Or I would press back and go to a page I've never visited. Or I would want to go somewhere by walking, but they show me a car icon..?! oh wait, I need to press the car, then I can change it to walk. Why not show me an icon that say "Go There" if it's an abstraction for many moving types.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> He picked two examples that came from a time where UX/good graphic design didn't matter. They are still popular today because of their incumbent status.

I'd wager that neither application would be as popular if they came out today as our standards have been raised.

Shout out to Basecamp for getting attention for another one of their link- bait-y, contrarian articles though. They are so good at that and it keeps their name out there.</comment>