The help and harm of the "voluntourism" industry - <AUTHOR> http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/the-help-and-harm-of-the-173-billion-voluntourism-industry/ <comment><USER3> It's not a great article, but there are really big problems with "voluntourism".

I lived in Nepal for 2 months, and met many "voluntourists". There was actually a strange kind of divide between the voluntourists, who had paid thousands of dollars to be able to teach at a school or work in an orphanage, and the people who found themselves in Nepal for a variety of reasons and wanted to do some good spontaneously. Simply put, the voluntourists didn't want to listen to any evidence that what they were doing was having a net negative effect on the local community.

But the problem is that voluntourists create profit opportunities for some really bad people. To put it succinctly, I just found this paragraph leading an article that discusses the problem [1]:

[...] volunteers in Nepal may be unknowingly contributing to a growing child trafficking industry that enables fake orphanages to secure revenue from foreigners while deliberately keeping children in destitute conditions.

I wanted to do some good while I was there, and met some volunteers of a local school (all of whom had paid to be there), and told them I'd had some ideas about how to teach computer literacy or programming to kids in Nepal. They hooked me up with someone that took me to the school so that I could talk with the principal, etc.

What I discovered was a group of people from the principal down to their computer teacher that were openly hostile and disrespectful toward me. This is too long of a story to get into here (maybe I should write a blog post about this), but what I realized later was that the school was a very well-oiled machine when it came to volunteers that were paying the school to teach English. But they didn't really know what to do with this guy that showed up offering to teach about computers, but wasn't paying anything.

My takeaway was that the for-profit volunteering industry must be crowding out some well-meaning individuals who don't offer (corrupt) incentives to the local organizations. At least this was my experience in Nepal.

[1] [https://newmatilda.com/2014/03/04/fake-orphanages-profit- wes...](https://newmatilda.com/2014/03/04/fake-orphanages-profit-western- volunteers)

<comment><USER4> > _But they didn 't really know what to do with this guy that showed up > offering to teach about computers, but wasn't paying anything._

Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't know what to do with some guy/girl who flew in off the street (while on vacation I presume) and said they wanted to teach computers, either.

Should they rearrange everything to make room for you, or be skeptical? I'd probably do the latter.

<comment><USER3> Nope, I wasn't on vacation but living there open-endedly at the time. You are also missing the point which is that when organizations become corrupted by these payments, they aren't any longer operating for the greater good, but to line their pockets. The story was more complex than I'd like to go into here, but they definitely acted outside of the best interest of their school and the kids in the way they treated me.

<comment><USER5> Volunteer recruiter in Cambodia here;

There are definitely 'organisations' out there that are purely in it to profit directly from volunteer 'programme fees', so your experience doesnt surprise me.

On the other hand, without saying its true of your case, it is also unreasonable to expect a school to automatically welcome some random off the street, who has been there only 2 months and does not have a definite plan to stay or leave, who may or may not be qualified in either the area they intend to teach or in teaching itself (which is a thing, teaching is not easy). Your experience sounds more hostile than that, and i dont doubt they were unwilling to work with you for dubious reasons; however, legitimate reasons do exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I traveled to a remote town in Hungary and worked with other Habitat for Humanity volunteers for ten days. I certainly enjoyed the experience, and working with the families that would ultimately end up occupying the homes we were building was a unique and memorable experience.

I understand the economic principle of comparative advantage, and I felt like this was economically an inefficient way to provide housing to low income Hungarians. I'm not an experienced carpenter, and I could have easily paid for three real carpenter's to work in Hungary in my place by simply donating the income I would have generated by working at home at my ordinary job rather than traveling to Hungary myself. In a technical sense, I was hurting rather than helping the overall world economy by not doing what I was best at. Knowing all this ahead of time, I was skeptical of this voluntourism trip that a friend of mine had talked me into.

Working in Hungary for ten days, with the group of around twenty other people from the USA, gave me time to reflect on my decision to take on the volunteer work. I still believe that it isn't an economically efficient way to build the houses--we were amateur builders. However, what my simple economic thinking about the trip didn't account for was the more emotional impacts that the volunteering had on the participants and beneficiaries. (One of the requirements on the recipients of the homes is that they work on the home being built for them too until it is finished.)

The volunteers in the group all seemed to have a very positive experience doing the work. It was satisfying to see the progress we made, it was satisfying to work with a team of interesting people of many different backgrounds, it was fun to take meals together and socialize in the evenings together, and it was heart warming to meet the clearly grateful families that would end up in the houses. These, to some extent narcissistic, rewards seem to be a key factor in the success of Habitat for Humanity: _people like doing it and keep going back_.

I've been dragged to many charity events, dinners, galas, auctions, runs, walks and so forth. I don't really enjoy them, but the experience of working in Hungary despite the commitment of time and expense was something I'm glad I did.

Furthermore, there were other important effects. I discovered that at first, when Habitat had first arrived at the town, the people there wondered why the workers from the US couldn't find jobs in their own country; they didn't understand that people would volunteer rather than be paid to build homes. Volunteering to help others apparently wasn't common in this previously communist country. Seeing volunteers working on these homes in these communities led some of the locals to pitch in too.

Finally, another benefit was the prolonged exposure to the people in the community. We took swims at lunch time in the very nice community swimming pool which seemed to be the town's main source of day time recreation, and we hung out with the locals in the evening in a local pub that we could walk to. Everywhere we went people were friendly and would make an effort to come up to us and talk. I think it gave us a very positive view of the people of Hungary and them a positive view of us and the United States as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> I know many libertarians here will not like this comment, and it is slightly OT, but I don't like charity. Charity is like weather, very unreliable and you don't want modern economy rely on it (and often when needed, there is actually too little charity). I think every society needs proper social assistance/redistribution mechanisms; unfortunately, this is difficult (if not impossible) to do without "coercion" (but I don't consider taxes to be a bad thing).

In addition, I consider charity to be very condescending. It makes recipient dependent, in terms of power relations, on donor. Many wealthy people use charity to rationalize their empire building, and that's a symptom of this power dynamics.

For example, I do find Linus Torvalds lot more charitable than Bill Gates. Gates took money from one group of people (having them buy Windows) and used this power to decide to give it to other group of people based on what he thought is important. Torvalds just left the money on the table, so the society could decide what to do with them. Even though I agree that Gates' choices what to do with money are really good, Torvalds did pretty much the same without the power grab. In other words, we are led to believe that Gates' actions are better just because we can measure them (in terms of money spent), but it's not obvious that is really the case.

(Just to quickly clarify - I am not against transfer of consumption pie to people like Gates, I am against transfer of power they have in the society. Money can designate both, unfortunately.)

Ultimately, I think charity is just a device for people to believe they are better than they really are. If you absolutely have to do it, do it anonymously without much ceremony, don't rationalize any power grabs with it (for example, don't avoid paying taxes just in order to put the money to charity), and let the recipient decide on their own what they want to do with the money.

I guess the disagreements will come down to whether or not you trust the society to do the right thing. But if you don't trust the society, why would you want to be charitable at all?

Although this should be read with caution. The above only makes sense in reasonably democratic societies. Then building a charity, with someone's name attached, is a non-transparent power grab from what should be a transparent democratic process. But in undemocratic society, there is really no difference, and it may as well be better for a different wealthy individual to decide. So in a sense the above is a first-world problem; charity is, in my view, simply inferior technology compared to democratic consensus.

Finally (libertarians listen!), I think there are technology solutions that could help to avoid relying on government only, but they are not much pursued.

<comment><USER8>
      I guess the disagreements will come down to whether or
      not you trust the society to do the right thing. But if
      you don't trust the society, why would you want to be
      charitable at all?

My country's society != my country's government != humanity as a whole.

I believe that giving £5000 worth of anti-malaria nets to people in countries like Malawi and DRC [1] saves more lives than paying £5000 in tax, of which only about £50 would end up in the foreign aid budget [2].

That's not because I think people are evil or society is bad - it's because politicians are part of a system that imposes certain incentives, and they can only do so much. Politicians simply think voters would vote them out of office if they increased foreign aid at the expense of making substantial cuts to health, welfare, education, policing, roads, and so on.

If I've identified what I believe is the most efficient way of doing good, why introduce middlemen when at best they would do the same thing, and at worst they might be ninety-nine percent less efficient?

      Ultimately, I think charity is just a device for people
      to believe they are better than they really are.

If a person legitimately wanted to become better than they are, how should they go about it if not through generosity of spirit and action?

[1] [https://www.againstmalaria.com/](https://www.againstmalaria.com/) [2] [http://www.theguardian.com/global- development/2013/mar/20/uk...](http://www.theguardian.com/global- development/2013/mar/20/uk-aid-spend-important-works)

<comment><USER7> I think I already addressed these objections, but let me try to be more specific.

> If I've identified what I believe is the most efficient way of doing good, > why introduce middlemen

Because (unless you arrived to your conclusion by asking people globally what they need), you've just become the middleman! Then you are the one deciding what's good for the others, not the recipients.

I think it's very tempting, and that's why people should take extra precautions not to do it.

> Politicians simply think voters would vote them out of office if they > increased foreign aid at the expense of making substantial cuts

(Assuming you avoid those $5K in taxes.) This is pretty much an age old question whether it is morally acceptable to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving person.

What I am saying is that it is morally acceptable, but only as a kludge. What you really should strive for is a society which doesn't face these moral dilemmas. Likewise, I consider charity only a kludge. It can do good, but can be done far better.

> If a person legitimately wanted to become better than they are, how should > they go about it if not through generosity of spirit and action?

Assuming "honestly wanted to become better", I think do three things:

1\. If you want to be generous, do it through your own work (that you do for living). That means do not cheat your customers, or even maybe decrease your price. And it implies not trying to gain power or cheat other people in order to do good - that's often a delusion.

2\. If you think your work doesn't have an impact it should, change your job.

3\. Alternatively, to help other people, help them get the more equal political and economic power in having their own say about what their needs are (so they can better share resources). (This also carries a lot of risk and is more helpful than trying to figure out how to cheat on taxes. What I am really saying: Subterfuge is allowed if other people benefit, not you - <USER2> it's OK to break the laws and norms regarding point 3, not 1.)

All of them are very hard to do, because it's very hard to be honest with yourself and not to think you can do better if you actually become a middleman. And that's why I don't like charity - it's awfully tricky to get right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a terrible article. It's just someone whining for the sake of it.

They can't even find actual harm, the worst they've got is some people don't buy local health insurance because they know volunteer health workers will come in a few months.

There's even a bizarrely racist paragrpah where the author bemoans white people helping black people. Because the volunteers can obviously help choose the colour their own skin is...

Clickbait.

<comment><USER10> I'm surprised you have such a strongly negative reaction.

"Volunteering holidays can do more harm than good" is not a new concept, and isn't particularly controversial. Floods of rich white low-skilled western volunteers with continual churn are not what is needed in most situations. This is especially true if those volunteers over-estimate their skills and ability to make any real difference.

2010: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hubs/gapyear/8107555/Volun...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hubs/gapyear/8107555/Volunteer- holidays-do-more-harm-than-good.html)

2010: [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/orphans...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/orphans- cambodia-aids-holidays-madonna)

2013: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22294205](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22294205)

<comment><USER9> Cherry picking some articles is a waste of both our times.

Volunteering isn't all bad, but just like almost anything in the world, there is some bad and obviously where there's money there's going to be corruption.

This article has absolutely no facts or even anecdotes to back it up, it's just a big whine designed to appeal to self-righteous suckers who can only see the bad in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Like superplussed said, not a great article, but one that raises valid points. Having grown up in the expat community of sub-Saharan Africa and later spent a year working there, I've had my own experiences with these voluntourists and heard plenty of stories from old-timers in the field. Just two of these here:

Every few months, colleagues of ours would get a "team" from abroad, sent to them courtesy of their organization. That meant: a dozen young, inexperienced western adults descending on them for two or three weeks to "help out". The first 1 1/2 weeks would be spent doing odd jobs at the orphanage, perhaps putting up a new toilet block or something like that. The next week would be spent on holiday - visiting one of our big national tourist sites. On the face of it, yes, the team did do something useful. But what were the hidden costs? Most importantly, time. The long-term couple that was usually in charge of the orphanage had to devote big chunks of their time per team for planning: planning how to transport the team around, planning how to accommodate the team, planning what to do with the team, etc. Then of course the team needed constant attention and supervision, not to mention accompanying on their tourist trip. All amounting to several weeks of time that could have been spent a lot more profitably. Also, consider the money aspect: each team member probably paid around $2000 - $5000 for the whole trip. What if that money had gone directly to the project? They could have done a lot more than just putting up a new toilet block (which, by the way, could have been done a lot cheaper by local workers, thus also helping the local economy).

Apart from this indirect harm caused by voluntourists, there can be direct harm as well. The project I was involved in once had a pretty major staff crisis following some indecent behaviour of a short-term visitor towards a local girl. Said visitor had just come for two weeks to have a look around and help out a little, so we hadn't given him any cultural training (which was an organizational failure, in retrospect). He didn't realize that his behaviour towards the girl, which would have been fine in Europe, was deemed very inappropriate in the local cultural context. The result was, however, that the girl's grandmother, a vital member of our team, felt publicly shamed by her granddaughter's behaviour. (Public shaming is one of the worst things that can happen to an African.) Almost before we realized what was going on, she had sent in her letter of resignation and was packing her bags to leave for her home town. It took a week's patient negotiation by other local staff to get her to stay.

So yes, voluntourists can cause a lot of problems, even when their intentions and motivations are impeccable. There is a place for volunteers to serve abroad, but it needs to be done in close communication with the people on the ground who know what is really needed. Plus, if you're thinking in a time span of weeks, that is almost definitely too short a time to do anything meaningful. If you really want to help, come for six months or a year, then we'll talk again.

<comment><USER12> > Also, consider the money aspect: each team member probably paid around $2000 > - $5000 for the whole trip. What if that money had gone directly to the > project?

I think that's really the main point here.

For example I'm familiar with Morocco, a country with significant unemployment issues even for those who are well educated. You can hire a worker there for $10 to do manual labor for an entire day of 10 hours of work (pretty insane). So this notion that $3000 goes towards 6 days of work for 5 hours of work each day, just makes no financial sense. Instead of paying $30 for 30 hours of labor from someone who has experience in e.g. construction, we're seeing two orders of magnitude, $3000, spent on an equivalent amount of hours to a person without experience in construction.

You might as well take 1% of your budget, pay a local worker and just go on a holiday and you'd not only contribute as many hours, but those hours are more effective, you're also creating a local job, local income and tax revenues. (well the latter might be a bit optimistic seeing as taxation either isn't enforced, or voided for low-income groups, but you get the point). Or hell, take 5% of the budget.

I tried to persuade my girlfriend when she left for India on a similar project last summer to do something else. At least that was a 3 month project and she did quite a bit of teaching and was able to do a bit of knowledge transfer.

I think that makes the most sense though, knowledge transfer, i.e. an engineer or a doctor who teaches engineering or health practices in places where there's knowledge deficiencies. There's quite a bit of that going on, it's also far from without flaws but it feels much more structural. Engineers without borders has been pretty transparent about their failures in the past while not giving up. Almost anything else and you're really just overpaying rich people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is a terrible article because the headline is false.

"The voluntourism industry, worth about $173 billion annually"

No it isn't.

If you click through to the PDF and the source the PDF cites you will find what is actually stated is "global youth travel industry is currently worth USD 173 billion per annum..."

Not every young traveler is volunteering.

<comment><USER14> > _It is a terrible article because the headline is false._

This is a terrible comment, because it implies that you can judge the whole of an article (which might contain lots of useful information, observations etc) from its headline.

Actually, the headline in most news outlets is not even written or chosen by the journalist. Traditionally it's chosen by the editor of the outlet (and it's often made to attract readers).

<comment><USER15> The headline exists so readers can judge the article before reading it. Complaining about a clickbait headline is fair.

<comment><USER14> > _Complaining about a clickbait headline is fair._

Only when it stops to the headline and doesn't make assumptions about the quality of the article.

Please explain in what universe the statement "It is a terrible article because the headline is false" is true.

<comment><USER16> That statement is obviously excessive, but it's helpful to have pointed out that the $173B number is false. I thought when I saw it that it sounded high, but it didn't occur to me to check. We've taken it out of the title.

As for titles in general, there's no standing in the way of the dreaded title fever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Never mind the incorrect term in the second sentence (I'm relatively sure it's language-immersion...I mean, I guess a language emersion course could be described as one that takes you out of your native language, but I've never seen it described that way).

Ultimately, the article just misses the forest for the trees with statements like "While the foreign volunteers were well-intentioned, they misplaced their focus; it was necessary to build stable homes, but the real problem was crippling, multigenerational poverty. Lacking skills and employment to improve their condition, Haitian families continued to beg in the streets in the absence of tourists. The volunteers came and left but nothing had really changed."

The author is so unaware that they don't seem to realize what they even wrote. The people needed houses and were poor. Are we really supposed to believe that because building houses did not fix both issues that it should not have been done at all?

<comment><USER11> Sometimes working on the wrong problem is worse than working on none at all. Especially if there are limited resources available.</comment></comment>


Acetaminophen use in pregnancy linked to child's behavioral problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-acetaminophen-pregnancy-behavior-problems-20160815-snap-story.html <comment><USER2> Anaesthesia trainee here (doctor, similar to an anesthesiology resident in US vocabulary)

I've read the actual referenced paper and not the LA times piece.

This type of research is hypothesis generating. As they acknowledge, this shows a correlation, not causation. The big question here is why were these women taking paracetamol/acetaminophen? Was it the drug or the cause of their pain/fever/discomfort that is more relevant to the outcomes observed?

As part of a cohort study, this was just one outcome measured. It is not clear to me whether this was a outcome measure they had intended to analyse from the outset or whether it was post-hoc. This makes a huge difference to the credibility of the finding

With regards to the relative safety of paracetamol and ibuprofen, well, they are totally different drugs. For most healthy, young people, in short courses both will cause little harm, with paracetamol having the edge in safety. Ibuprofen causes significant, undetected kidney and gastrointestinal injury. Paracetamol can cause liver failure, but generally only in overdose, prolonged use or when associated with poor nutritional intake. A healthy person taking the odd dose will not develop liver toxicity. Prolonged administration of ibuprofen will invariably cause damage. For paracetamol it is less clear.

Source: I prescribe and manage these drugs and their side effects daily. Pain management is a core part of my day job.

<comment><USER3> Given how taxing these types of drugs are, why are opiates not an option for most people? They don't cause any long or short-term damage to organs.

<comment><USER4> Fears about addiction, and a huge dispute over how well-founded those fears are.

<comment><USER5> Which is slightly odd, considering we had something like 100 years during which codeine, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and a whole bevy of other currently- scheduled drugs were sold essentially unregulated, over the counter and at every county fair in patent medicines. Surely there must be some data there that some conclusions could be drawn from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good of the authors to explicitly acknowledge that there is no causal link indicated here.

Fun Hypothesis: There exists an underlying latent variable that determines both of these. It takes the form of a negative affect activation function; ie. at some level of pain/annoyance we start to consider the source a problem and look for solutions. Adding this latent variable to the analyses would mediate the relationship between acetaminophen use and the child's behavioral 'issues'.

The authors do address this a bit with:

 _" They looked for a link between a child's behavioral problems at age 7 and his or her mother's post-natal acetaminophen use, and found none."_

I would not suppose that this activation function is linear which may confound the authors attempt to control for this.

</comment><comment><USER7> Acetaminophen is one of the more dangerous over the counter drugs available. It is right up there with alcohol for causing liver failure.

[http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/liver- failure/...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/liver- failure/basics/causes/con-20030966)

The tricky thing with acetaminophen is that it is included in products without adequate warning. If I'm sick, I have a headache and take 2 tylenol, plus cold medicine, plus whatever, and _BAM_ I've killed my liver because those 3 things all had acetaminophen in it. The tipping point between being 100% healthy, and 100% needing a liver transplant is really narrow.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064964/Warning- hidd...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064964/Warning-hidden- danger-taking-Paracetamol.html)

[http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/health/a235/esq1103-nov- bod...](http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/health/a235/esq1103-nov-body/)

Nevermind what acetaminophen does to fetuses, this drug needs to be treated with a lot more caution. I have dialed my intake waaaaaaay back. I'm sure my liver is happier with me.

If you take tylenol, make sure you take no more than the suggested dose. Make sure you aren't getting duplicate dosing bundled with other medications. Make sure you don't routinely take it longer than the bottle dose instructions indicate.

<comment><USER8> I never take acetaminophen anymore and generally only take ibuprofen, and only a few times a year. Serious question: Why do people even take acetaminophen anymore?

<comment><USER7> The reason I am freaked about acetaminophen is that I suffer from migraines. The most effective OTC medicine for me is Excedrin Migraine (a combo of acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine). I didn't realize that this med contained acetaminophen. I also didn't realize that the product name Tylenol equaled acetaminophen. Only put things together when I heard about people overdosing and examined my medicine cabinet and check product labels. I think I had 3-4 different medications that contained some amount of acetaminophen, mostly cold medications. I know I've taken most of them in combination and probably in an unsafe way.

I also had no idea the overdose margins were so thin. I've taken a shit ton of Excedrin Migraine over my life. And Theraflu. And double doses of Excedrin Migraine after a does of straight aspirin or Tylenol didn't work alone.

Given the easy ability to overdose, I am of the opinion that acetaminophen should be sold singly and not in combination with anything else. Even if that means Excedrin Migraine doses come in a two pill combo. This way, people could easily calculate a total daily dose without it being in an unexpected product.

It's a miracle I still have a functioning liver.

<comment><USER9> Why are you medicating with _anything_ without looking at what it is? Read label. If not understood, quickly look up the medications involved.

Unless they are marketed very misleadingly (possible - opiates get tons of bad press, Tylenol doesn't), seems like you have zero reason to complain. You voluntarily consumed medications without even reading through the basic info that's on the box!

Splitting into two pills? Why would that work? Presumably most people will take both, so the packaging needs to reflect that. It helps nobody except people that are aware enough to know they want the caffeine but not acetaminophen, but not to just buy such a product in the first place.

<comment><USER10> I worked in a pharmacy (not a pharmacist), and this sort of thing is extremely common. I helped a nicely dressed fellow one night, who asked where the Advil was. I showed him, and pointed out the store brand (Much cheaper). The guy told me that ibuprofin doesn't work for him, only Advil. This happens with the cough and cold medicines as well - most are the same combination of drugs, sometimes with or without one, and folks will buy different labeled combinations at different times.

When the word got out about tylenol and liver damage, one of the causes they cited was the same situation as above - multiple drug compounds. Migraines. Folks thinking tylenol was the safe choice, impossible to overdose on. Folks generally think the stuff on the shelf is really, really safe.

It isn't like they teach this stuff in school. While I might have known to look out, I didn't always know this. And if this sort of information misses you when it was the 'big news'... well, out of luck.

I'd much rather the products be in different pills most of the time as I think it means consumers might think a bit more about what they take and match it up with symptoms. Either that, or have many be only available without receipt after asking pharmacist or trained personel.

<comment><USER7> Exactly... you hear that "Tylenol" causes liver damage if taken incorrectly. What I didn't realize that Tylenol = Acetaminophen = Paracetamol, in a long list of stuff.

I had a mix of stuff purchased from a couple of different countries and in 2-3 languages. So yeah label reading was a bit of a challenge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _A.k.a._ paracetamol, Tylenol. If validated, the implications of this finding are potentially quite troubling.

</comment><comment><USER12> OK well I'm not pregnant but I've been downing tonnes of these things for a sprained ankle recently. I don't like doing it as they are hepatoxic to some extent, and would prefer codeine, but the authorities make it too hard to get your hands on in most countries. Grr.

<comment><USER13> For a sprained ankle you likely want a NSAID like ibuprofen...

<comment><USER14> Agreed. Acetaminophen is really not safe in high quantities. Ibuprofen has a much better safety profile.

PS. Don't walk on the ankle just because you don't feel the pain! You can turn a 3 month recovery into a 2 year recovery if you do that.

<comment><USER12> Thanks. Have ibuprofen too but it apparently has nasty side effects if you take it too long. Right now I am looking at weeks, so trying to limit consumption. Was given one SAID and one NSAID but also too many side effects for my liking.

<comment><USER15> The amount and duration needed to see side effects with ibuprofen is much more compared to acetaminophen. Look at the actual research and the amounts and durations studied. Ibuprofen is ridiculously safe if you're outside particular known risk groups, and often even then. Generalized side effects like hearing loss are far preferable to, e.g., the deaths that acetaminophen regularly causes. But AFAIU hearing loss is exceptionally rare even for heavy users.

My father fell off a roof, feet first, onto hard clay and shattered his feet. Doctors said he'd never walk again and it took awhile to find and cajole a doctor to pin his bones back together. He's been on his feet for well over ten years.

The pain is still excruciating, though. 24/7\. He refuses prescription pain medication, and has been eating ibuprofen like candy for the entire time. His hearing is bad, but not much different than typical old-man hearing, especially considering he used a skill-saw for most of his life.

There are plenty of bad things ibuprofen is capable of. But the point of my anecdote is that the actual risk is, relatively speaking, much less than you'd think. Consumer warnings lead us to equivocate risks when in fact relative risks can be worlds apart. Look at the actual studies and make informed decisions. I'll run things past a doctor or pharmacist for anything serious or if it involves a child, but 9 times out of 10 they'll know nothing more than the literature and the commonly understood exceptions and unknowns. They always give me the thumbs up for my over-the-counter, make shift drug formulations.

Regarding acetaminophen, I always told my wife during her pregnancy that she should only take as little as necessary, if at all, but of course she shouldn't needlessly suffer. I'm only just learning about this new research, but it's been obvious to me that the safety of acetaminophen has largely been based on a lack of contrary evidence and by the level of comfort that comes with group-think. Like Microsoft, nobody ever got fired for prescribing Tylenol (the brand name in the U.S.). In medicine absence of evidence often _is_ evidence of absence, but only in so far as people have been paying close attention, and only in so far as alternatives have been explored.

But ibuprofen has gotten an undeserved bad rap in the U.S., and in some other countries requires a pharmacists' prescription. That's ridiculous. It seems we're much too risk adverse when it comes to ibuprofen, while dramatically underestimating the risk of acetaminophen. If anything the situation should be the reverse. OTC acetaminophen causes incredible harm. The biggest risks for ibuprofen relate to interactions with other, invariably prescription, medicine, and so there's ample opportunity to inform people to avoid ibuprofen.

Some people would like laws to restrict the sale of both. IMO trying to bifurcate medicines into safe-at-any-dose, OTC and prescription medicine has caused caused both medical professionals and regular consumers to lose our critical faculties. It's caused OTC medicines to become ineffective. And it's caused prescription medicines to become too widely prescribed and abused when people and situations fit the letter of the marketed indications. In both cases professionals and non-professionals aren't thinking as critically as they should, and aren't taking into account how little we actually often know about this stuff. It also substantially increases the cost of care.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for sharing your father's story. Luckily my pain isn't chronic level, so I am tapering off already after a few days. My heaviest use is 6-8 OTC pills over 24 hours, probably not considered out of normal. Personally, however, I'm for OTC codeine. It costs nothing to produce, is stupendously effective, and the only problem is potential addiction (the least of all opiates IIRC) which is basically a non-issue with (cheap) supply.

<comment><USER16> I'm also in favour of OTC codeine with appropiate box warnings etc. (it works very well for me [currently prescribed], and the difference between an analgesic dose and a fatal dose is fairly wide - 15-60mg vs 100s mg). That said, calling potential addiction a non-issue is a little on the optimistic side. Codeine combinations (with ibuprofen or paracetamol/acetaminophen) are OTC in the UK, and problematic addictions (ever-increasing doses, dependence, impacts on work/family) are certainly not unheard of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ummm maybe it's the actual ailment that caused the mother to take the acetaminophen that is the root cause?

</comment><comment><USER14> BTW Pregnant women should not take ibuprofen either due to the potential for premature closure or patent ductus arteriosus.

So if this is true I don't think there are any safe painkillers during pregnancy.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm starting to become a little shocked at the lack of black box warnings involved with Acetaminophen given how easy it is to poison yourself with it, and what appears to be a growing list of long-term side effects

</comment><comment><USER19> That would somewhat explain the rise of prevalence of ADHD.

(My mother didn't take acetaminophen during her pregnancy. Still have adult ADD. Unlucky me.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A more rigorous write-up of this paper: [http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/08/15/49006966...](http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/08/15/490069664/how-big-a-risk-is-acetaminophen-during-pregnancy)

</comment><comment><USER20> What an unnecessary, garbage drug; one that's responsible for half the liver failures in the United States. Maybe a restriction on pregnant women taking it could move it behind the counter, or better, into the dimly-remembered past.

<comment><USER21> Given the issues with NSAIDs in general (and even moreso with NSAIDs with particular populations), acetaminophen being available remains important. It definitely has dangers particularly if used improperly (and a much narrower gap between normal and dangerous doses than many other drugs), but its not an unnecessary or garbage drug.

<comment><USER22> Right - for example pain management in Crohns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Finding a link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and an outcome affecting the child is no proof that acetaminophen is the cause of the outcome. But the authors contend that the study results do heighten concerns that fetal exposure to acetaminophen can give rise to neurodevelopmental problems." This study and its results are misleading. The scope & method aren't good for the conclusion. It doesn't answer whether people should use tylernol while pregnant or how much can they consume.

</comment><comment><USER24> Or, people with headaches produce offspring with headaches, but kids don't know they have headaches and just get angry and act out

<comment><USER25> From the article: "They looked for a link between a child's behavioral problems at age 7 and his or her mother's post-natal acetaminophen use, and found none. They looked for a link between a child's behavioral problems at age 7 and acetaminophen use by the mother's partner during pregnancy. Again, they found no association."

<comment><USER26> You guys are downvoting a guy that didn't ask what you're answering. Who isn't reading for content?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So: pregnant women can't do ibuprofen, and they can't do acetaminophen. What's left for them?

<comment><USER28> There are non-drug methods of dealing with pain.

<comment><USER29> Can you expand on what non-drug methods you are speaking about? And whether you are speaking about immediate relief or long term relief? These drugs used are usually used for immediate pain.</comment></comment></comment>


What does it feel like to be schizophrenic? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-schizophrenic?srid=XPb

<comment><AUTHOR> The main answer is by a (purported) schizophrenic. Highly informative and remarkably lucid. (I don't mean the latter as a slight towards the author. I wish more people wrote like this).</comment>


Most Female and Male Occupations Since 1950 - <AUTHOR> https://flowingdata.com/2017/09/11/most-female-and-male-occupations-since-1950/ <comment><USER2> >Between 1950 and 2015, there were 82 occupations out of 459 that flipped from male to female and/or female to male. Out of the 82, 72 shifted from male to female majority. There were 28 occupations that shifted from majority female to male. (Keep in mind that an occupation can fluctuate more than once over the years.)

Opinion - It seems to me the only real female dominated space where males are gaining equal track is "Personal Care and Service Workers, All Other". Females however are gaining a ton of ground in a multitude of professions/services (which is a good thing).

I would be interested in seeing this data cross analyzed with the respected field's average yearly salary.</comment>


Show HN: Open Paperless 2 – Scan, OCR, and catalog all your paper documents - <AUTHOR> https://demo.openpaperless.com/#/home/ <comment><USER2> Found another post from the creator's of Mayan regarding commercial forks.

"Commercial involvement with Mayan is not a problem at all, it is encouraged and the license was changed a while back from GPL to Apache 2.0 to be more commercial friendly."

"Forking and doing specialized versions is not bad and I encourage it, it is the way FLOSS projects grow. If a feature can then be added upstream, we do so, if not, it is made into a 3rd party app or sub project ([http://www.mayan- edms.com/ecosystem/](http://www.mayan-edms.com/ecosystem/))."

"In this case Ranjith offers a customized version with features that we have not been able to included because they are very specific to him and his clients."

"On the other hand was Ranjith is doing is perfectly OK since there is no copyright violation and the terms of the license are being followed. The work he is putting into his fork of Mayan is helping the software get into other markets where the upstream version might not have been a choice. We've been talking and we are looking into backporting some of the more general work he's done in his fork."

[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mayan- edms/D4GdfFG6khM/OhAf9...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mayan- edms/D4GdfFG6khM/OhAf9GVTBgAJ)

<comment><USER2> This was regarding a specialized version done for the Indian market in 2016.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I don't understand all the fuzz about the "open" part, the licensing, or the price. It's a commercial fork or the Apache licensed Mayan EDMS done with the approval of the Mayan folks.

[https://forum.mayan-edms.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64](https://forum.mayan- edms.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi- licensing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing)

Apparently not the first paid fork of Mayan EDMS

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mayan- edms/paid|s...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/mayan- edms/paid|sort:date/mayan-edms/Kd3NuZHZtwQ/wlrZZELJCgAJ)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm happy to announce that Open Paperless has been acquired by Mayan EDMS!

Mayan EDMS is the project upon which Open Paperless is built on. We are now an official Mayan EDMS product!

For more details regarding the acquisition head over to the official announcement [https://forum.mayan- edms.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=69](https://forum.mayan- edms.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=69)

</comment><comment><USER2> The license is clear and can be read without buying the product. It is right before the shopping cart. Cookie cutter template regarding warranties, liability, indemnification, limitations, etc. Pretty standard when you buy a license for any software.

[https://www.openpaperless.com/shop-1](https://www.openpaperless.com/shop-1)

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice! I prefer open source software like this when dealing private data like receipts and invoices.

</comment><comment><USER3> Doesn't really tell me much about why it could be considered "Open".

<comment><USER4> [https://github.com/zhoubear/open-paperless](https://github.com/zhoubear/open- paperless)

<comment><USER3> That _still_ doesn't tell me why the website asks for a $4/month fee.

<comment><USER5> because hosting and maintain a website costs money, it's an opensource procect, meaning you can host it on your own (for free).

<comment><USER3> That still doesn't explain what the licence is for.

It says "After completing the checkout, you will receive an email containing your product key and installation instructions."

So, its still an installed version. I love how everyone is champing at the bit "oh its on GitHub look you're just stupid its open source" when you have no fucking idea what the licence is for either.

<comment><USER6> Incivility will get you banned here, so please edit any of that out of what you post.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good work! Looks awesome, it's very fast and responsive.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't understand all the fuzz. It is a commercial fork of Mayan EDMS done with the express permission of the core developmers of Mayan EDMS. [https://forum.mayan-edms.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64](https://forum.mayan- edms.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64)</comment>


Scratch Monkey Story (1987) - <AUTHOR> http://edp.org/monkey.htm <comment><USER2> To me, this story has analogues to the analysis of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. The engineering report indicated the O-rings were a risk, but the report was not clear enough or strongly-worded enough to effect change. The mission went forward unmodified with fatal results.

This story is a strong argument for physical access controls. The computer could have been placed inside even something as low-tech as a locked cabinet, with only the people who knew what they were doing granted access. While the DEC Engineer should not have made assumptions, the assumptions he made were assumptions any reasonable individual might have made.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's two cautionary lessons here, and I've found (anecdotally) that they respond to two schools of thought. One is: The signage should have been more thorough, specifying what domain-expert was required to remove its restrictions and enable writes. The other is: The DEC Engineer should have known that while he was a domain expert in tape-drives, he did not have knowledge of why that sign had been put there in the first place, and should have done some non-invasive diagnostics before removing it (or just asked). He made an assumption about why there was a taboo, but did not check it.</comment>


Facebook Is Primed To Disrupt Online Dating - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/25/facebook-can-disrupt-online-dating/

<comment><USER2> Perhaps it is primed, but this guy is out of touch. Asserted that "no social dating site has gained meaningful traction." Really? You forgot OKCupid. Never once mentioned them in the article.</comment>


Photos Taken With iPhone 5S - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/camera/gallery/

<comment><USER2> I was pretty shocked at how noisy the 100% images were. That much noise[1] in broad daylight (in spite of some very aggressive noise reduction) is surprising.

[1]100% crop from the photo on the landing page [http://i.imgur.com/2lbzB7G.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/2lbzB7G.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> With a heavy duty tripod, probably studio quality lighting and diffusers by a professional photographer with ISO at 50. None the less, the crispness is great.

</comment><comment><USER4> I will never trust photo shoots done by the manufacturer. They could be shot under ideal conditions and picked out of thousands of photos. Or even faked like Nokia did with their video.

</comment><comment><USER5> The picture of the jellyfish seems to be underwater. Do you think this means it is waterproof, not actually taken with it, or something else?

<comment><USER6> It was taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium: [http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/59698680553/heade...](http://montereybayaquarium.tumblr.com/post/59698680553/headed- to-monterey-for-the-weekend-check-out)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm looking forward to some high quality bathroom mirror self shots!

</comment><comment><USER8> by a professional photographer

<comment><USER9> The one thing to note here is that an iPhone doesn't have any UI to manually control settings a professional photographer might change like shutter speed, aperture and ISO. It only has a rudimentary interface to change the focus and most of the times I've seen people take photos won their iPhones, they rarely tap to set the focus and rely on the autofocus.

The iPhone camera is definitely not holding anyone back from shooting pictures of "professional photographer" quality and I for one am glad to see so many people have access to something that allows for great photos to be taken without needing to know anything and everything about how cameras work.

<comment><USER10> > It only has a rudimentary interface to change the focus and most of the > times I've seen people take photos won their iPhones, they rarely tap to set > the focus and rely on the autofocus.

The "interface to change the focus", AFAIK, is just an interface to change the reference point for the autofocus, so even if you "tap to set the focus" you are still relying on the autofocus.</comment></comment></comment>


Apache httpd 2.4.26 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/Announcement2.4.html <comment><USER2> Finally:

> *) HTTP/2 support no longer tagged as "experimental" but is instead > considered fully production ready.

<comment><USER3> mod_proxy_http2 is still experimental though :(

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some substantial changes, esp for those not familiar with httpd 2.4 and just know about 2.2 (or older!):

\- Performant reverse proxy \- RFC compliant caching with various backends, including Redis, memcached, etc... \- Load balancing with fail-over \- Dynamic proxy configuration \- Dynamic reverse proxy health checks \- FPM for PHP and others \- Event-based, async request handling \- HTTP/2 support \- brotli support

See [https://www.slideshare.net/jimjag/apachecon-2017-whats- new-i...](https://www.slideshare.net/jimjag/apachecon-2017-whats-new-in- httpd-24)

</comment><comment><USER4> Changelog: [https://www.apachelounge.com/Changelog-2.4.html](https://www.apachelounge.com/Changelog-2.4.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> What's the pro / con of using Apache vs Nginx these days?

<comment><USER6> It's 99% of the same. Green apple and red apple.

If you have an existing configuration written in any, it invariably ended up as a pile of hacks, domains and misredirections that is a pain to rewrite for the other. That makes it hard to change.

Apache has support for some modules, mostly for authentication, that nginx doesn't have.

Old applications, like wordpress, are only supported and documented on Apache.

<comment><USER7> >Old applications, like wordpress, are only supported and documented on Apache.

Not true: [https://codex.wordpress.org/Nginx](https://codex.wordpress.org/Nginx)

<comment><USER8> > This page is marked as incomplete. You can help Codex by expanding it.

I've been using WordPress on Nginx for almost a decade now, I just found that bit funny given the context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wait, Apache is still around? I mean, with nginx being the state-of-the-art industry standard http server, why even keep around a forking server?

<comment><USER10> Full disclosure: I'm a committer on the Apache httpd server.

I hope this is sarcasm. Apache has support for the same event driven model that NGINX has. Since most people get their copy of Apache from their distribution they're often getting a rather old version of Apache. NGINX has taken good advantage of this to imply that Apache is out of date.

I happen to also use NGINX at work. What I'll say is it has it's own set of problems. There are various reasons to choose one or the other for a particular problem. But the idea that Apache httpd is obsolete is nonsense.

<comment><USER11> To be fair most distros (still?) provided Apache with mpm_prefork as the default. I doubt many people even realize you can use an event based handler. Out of the box nginx will be way more performant.

<comment><USER10> And the reason distros do this is because modules like mod_php and mod_perl have historically not worked well with other MPMs. As far as I'm aware this should be resolved with newer versions of Apache and the modules. Also historically the MPM was built into the server and required a rebuild, but newer versions provide the MPM as a loadable module. But the distros have very long upgrade cycles and are hesitant to change their defaults since they don't want to break peoples existing setups.

If you care about performance then you probably don't want to use the distribution's copy. People tend to use NGINX's distributions directly from NGINX or build it on their own. Since NGINX didn't have dynamic loadable modules until recently that drove more people to build their own copies.

I do think it's fair to say that NGINX has a reputation for getting better performance out of the box without configuration. However, it doesn't take long before you have to start tweaking it as well in my experience.

So I don't think some peoples impressions of Apache are entirely unfair but I don't think they are entirely fair either. But this shouldn't surprise anyone given that NGINX is a business and has a marketing department. Apache is a foundation and really doesn't market like NGINX does.

<comment><USER12> I don't know about perl but for php php-fpm is basically the way to go now rendering mod_php irrelevant.

<comment><USER10> Yes that is very much the case, but people are still using these things.

<comment><USER12> I think mostly because they don't know better.

<comment><USER13> It's mostly because it works for them and is good enough, so there's no strong motivation to change, especially when the old approach is so well-understood.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to overcome the paralysis of too many interests? - <AUTHOR> I'm not a programmer. I'd like to learn programming to the point where I'm skillful enough to start a startup. But I have so many interests that I can't focus on programming. I'd like to be a writer, and write a novel. I'd like to learn about investing. And so on. How can I delete these many interests and focus on one?<p>I'm asking the HN community because you all seem smart and I believe programmers are very natural high-focus people. <comment><USER2> > How can I delete these many interests and focus on one?

You don't.

People tend to overestimate how much work can they do in the short run, but vastly underestimate how much can they in longer timespan. This means you should simply start doing whatever you have at hand, and do it again and again. Start accumulating knowledge and skills and finished side projects.

You say yourself you're interested in many things; take notes when you're working, so it takes you less time to resume your work later. It will still take a lot to resume work, especially if the field is completely different from what you were doing lately. Maybe at some point you'll decide to narrow your focus, so switching becomes easier; maybe you'll get better at switching context; maybe you'll just get used to this.

You can't gain expert level in _everything_ , so you must accept that you'll leave some fields out. But don't let it prevent you from learning any of them.

After two or three years you'll see real progress, and after five you'll be amazed how much have you done.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a tough one for me. I tend to take pet projects just to the point where I know they're doable and feasible and it's just a question of performing the "brainless" work.

Instead of sticking with it and finishing them completely.

I think it's about prioritising what could have the biggest impact to your life and being honest with yourself as to what you want to get out of it.

I have now allocated time for "intellectual exercises" but I don't kid myself that I'm doing these for my career. And if I find a justifiable angle for it to benefit my professional career I make sure I put in place the steps to promote it on my résumé, blog etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> For me, it's all about discipline. You don't delete your interests, you just force yourself to focus on the thing you've decided is most important. Sometimes you need a break or have 'writer's block' and can play with some other interests, but at the end of the day, you need to finish the thing you've prioritized.

There's nothing wrong with having lots of interests and playing around with lots of pet projects. But the more you do that, the less likely you'll ever finish anything. There's certainly a lot of sacrifice in order to see something to completion.

</comment><comment><USER5> too many interests is a symptom you've still to find your _true_ calling</comment>


Dallas Natives Bring Parking into the 21st Century Through ParkHub - <AUTHOR> http://www.dallasinnovates.com/dallas-natives-bring-parking-into-the-21st-century-through-parkhub/ <comment><USER2> As a Texas and Dallas native, I am so happy to see stuff from Dallas on HN. Dallas and Fort Worth have some really interesting startups showing up in the biomed area, so it's cool to see something more conventional getting traction. There's the elephant in the room that all of the talent is in Austin, which is quasi-confirmed when you see a 3rd party developed their core tech. Not sure I like that, but hey at least we're on the map.

<comment><USER3> If that Dallas to Houston bullet train goes through, it'll be a huge win for Texas tech. Especially if it beats Musk's / Cali's hyperloop plans.

<comment><USER4> Texas Tech is hundreds of miles away from that train line tho.

<comment><USER3> I meant the Texas tech industry.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prosper.com, P2P Lending Startup, Shut Down by SEC [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2008/33-8984.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Submitter here. Glad you liked the story.

Incidentally, I am a Prosper lender to the tune of $300. The dirt on this story could fill a small book, or a large forum (<http://www.prospers.org>)

The long and short of it: Prosper really wanted to be a technology play like Paypal which disintermediated banks and then got to take a small slice off each transaction. However, their model required that they, in effect, take on a lot of banklike aspects -- including investigating borrowers and collecting on deadbeats. They were woefully unprepared for both of them, thinking at the beginning that the lending peers would crowdsource it, before they realized that this would be very, very illegal.

(Privacy/harassment laws + telling 50 pissed people the identity of a single mom late on her payments + Google + lawyer = you tell me how this story ends.)

Anyhow, Prosper expected that despite the complete lack underwriting and neigh-total lack of fraud checking they would get default rates roughly similar to that of banks. Then, BEFORE the financial crisis started, reality set in and lenders started losing lots of money. This made Prosper's claimed rates of return ("Hey, if you loan money at 20% and only 5% default that means you make 15% APR!"[1]) extraordinarily rosy. Rather than accepting the data and revising the claimed rates of return downward, they instead started slicing it in smaller and smaller pieces (creating, for example, a Prosper Select Index filled with their best quality borrowers -- are we hearing the word "tranches" yet?) to claim that the rate was still exceptionally positive.

Representative ad:

[Edit: Thank you to commenter who pointed out my URL was borked. I'll TinyURL it: <http://tinyurl.com/63em2c> ]

Funny, "Earn 8.00% to 12.00% rates of return" looks like a security, it sounds like a security, it feels like a security... except if it were an actual security, well, the accountant who approved those numbers would be locked up. (Seriously. I _liked_ the company, but the math is THAT bad. The average rate of return lenders of size were actually achieving was, at the time, closer to 3%. About 25% were losing money. Only about 10% every achieved the rates that were claimed in 36 pt font. And for what its worth, although my $300 doesn't make me a large lender by any stretch of the imagination, up until my first late payment a few weeks ago I was earning close to 18%.)

[1] Despite two years of trying to educate them about how math works via their forum and their email, we lenders were unable to penetrate their ignorance about high school math. Seriously. Three years after opening they still thought 25% interest and 20% defaults meant a 5% return. Even if the defaults were almost instantaneous, as most defaults on the platform are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, full disclosure: I am a former borrower, too. I got a loan from them to assist in paying my younger brother's tuition. I paid it back in 6 months.

From the _borrower's_ perspective, if you can't qualify for a traditional bank loan, they were amazing. (I fit that description at the time: there was a dearth of traditional banks which were well set-up to service a young white professional whose salary was paid in yen.)

My loan was one of the success stories: I couldn't have gotten a student loan through a traditional lender ("Your brother is going to cosign this? From Japan? Via fax? Pull the other one, kid, it's got bells on"). My peers, other lenders from the official forums (which were later closed), trusted me after several months of online interaction. I asked them for $5,000, they crowdsourced it in $50 and $80 and $230 increments. They got all their money back and 13% interest besides. Prosper got $50 and 1% APR for providing the platform. My little brother got to register for classes at Notre Dame on time. Everybody won.

And for a while, I thought loans like that were going to be common enough to paper over the (numerous) faults. I was catastrophically wrong.

<comment><USER2> _> My loan was one of the success stories: I couldn't have gotten a student loan through a traditional lender ("Your brother is going to cosign this? From Japan? Via fax? Pull the other one, kid, it's got bells on"). My peers, other lenders from the official forums (which were later closed), trusted me after several months of online interaction. I asked them for $5,000, they crowdsourced it in $50 and $80 and $230 increments. They got all their money back and 13% interest besides. Prosper got $50 and 1% APR for providing the platform. My little brother got to register for classes at Notre Dame on time. Everybody won._

William Gibson, eat your heart out...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for submitting! This was really important news for me.

I'm actually a huge fan of Prosper - I'm a lender with $500 invested, and I've actually gotten a 20% return because I spent a lot of time screening my borrowers, who have still yet to make a late payment, much less default.

I only accepted B and above credit ratings and generally just used common sense when selecting a borrower; very well written, well thought out profiles got priority, limited (1 or 2) late payments in the past were required. I always checked how much of their credit they were using versus how much they made, I never funded a loan near the $25k borrowing limit to avoid a hit-and- run default, I only funded good causes that suggested the borrower spends wisely, etc. Prosper gave a lot of financial information about these people, so I felt that I could make a pretty educated decision.

I hope Prosper registers with SEC so they can continue doing business. The platform is pretty amazing, and I think they really added value to the world. I was totally looking forward to scaling up my selection system by automating it, and Prosper was working on an API that would actually let me do that.

I never bought into their math, and didn't even really think about it. My plan was always to pick loans very carefully so that very few if any would default. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't do any subprime lending. :)

That said, I probably jinxed myself now and everyone in my portfolio will default...

</comment><comment><USER4> I loaned $1000 to rather risky people with an average interest rate of 21.2%. I lost $200 dollars with a 39% default rate.

<comment><USER5> So you experienced the sub-prime crisis in microcosm ;)

<comment><USER4> I really did... my tactic was to loan to high risk people that were homeowners. I was making money until the whole subprime troubles started bubbling up.

Though I wasn't using 35:1 leverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The SEC regulation are their to prevent companies taking advantage of naive investors. From what I've read Prosper mis-represented the risks of these loans, which is precisely the kind of thing which SEC regulated companies are not allowed to do.

Regulations exist for a reason. As long as your willing to follow the regulations (which exist to prevent mis-selling, market abuse, insider trading, and other such things) getting SEC approval isn't that hard.

The other alternative is to partner with a regulated firm and use their approval, this it the route Zopa has taken. But again you need to make sure your company follows SEC guidelines.

</comment><comment><USER7> With our current economic institutions failing, we can't afford to have innovative and successful financial institutions. That would just make everyone look bad.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am as Republican as the day is long, I invested on Prosper and made a profit, I believed then and believe now that innovation in the financial markets would lower prices and raise returns, and I default to the assumption that government meddling in the free market is almost always to the detriment of the participants.

That said? If you knew about the particulars of this situation, which I covered a wee bit about in a post above, you would say Prosper is about as close as you can get as a poster child for Why The Market Should Be Regulated without being founded by Ponzi himself.

<comment><USER8> Preventing innocent people from getting ripped off by scammers asking for investments is necessary for a healthy market.

<comment><USER9> it sure is...where was the SEC when every major bank in the world was doing it?

<comment><USER8> Eh, banks weren't really ripping people off (I'm assuming you're talking about subprime mortgages) because the banks didn't stand to gain from it unless the people they lent to did as well.

They weren't malicious, they were just stupid.

<comment><USER9> I'm wouldn't agree that they were "just stupid". I would choose the phrase "blinded by greed".

Anyway, I was referring to the banks "investors/shareholders" that have been fleeced, not those the bank lent money to.

<comment><USER8> How would you say they were fleeced? If you're talking about executive compensation, that runs through all industries, not just banking.

I do believe that most of the people making the decisions that led to this crisis had the standard capitalistic intentions of making money for themselves and their shareholders. I wouldn't say they were "ripping off" their shareholders, though they certainly did let them down.

<comment><USER9> Most publicly traded financial entities were slow and limited in the amount of risk they reveled to their investors. Many of the really bad bets they made are still hidden from public view. These entities were not caught "by surprise". This was not an accident or a surprise. Executives of these companies have for years been talking behind closed doors about the risks of the bets they were placing but not disclosing this information to their investors (mostly public shareholders).

On a smaller scale (relative to this crash), the dot com boom saw massive public market fraud as well. I was in the middle of it in NYC during this time and personally witnessed massive fraud and insider trading with NASDAQ entities. The direct result was that the outside public investors paid for this fraud.

I have seen enough details of what bank and related financial entities have done over the last 10 years (and another cycle of bad behavior another 10 years prior and then another) to understand that they did not come close to disclosing the nature of the risks on and off their books. This is actually pretty scary to think that a public financial entity can even have such a thing as an "off the books" position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem with this type of ruling is that it prevents new and innovative financial services from springing up which (if allowed to exist) might supercede the present financial system. It's not as if the present system is perfect.

Having said that, there are sensible reasons for regulating companies in the financial industry, for example preventing unsophisticated customers from losing lots of money.

<comment><USER11> _... might supercede the present financial system_

And that's precisely why they will be always shut down. Government hates competition. Gov also shut down Liberty Dollar which was a commodity-backed currency.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar>

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/71392301@N00/1404773871/>

<comment><USER9> from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar> ->

"Community currencies may present problems for users because there is little to stop the issuer from producing more currency."

ahh...brutal irony in a wikipedia article ;)

<comment><USER12> That's a good argument for repealing the Federal Reserve Act.

Did anyone else listen to NPR yesterday morning and hear the open admission that they were printing to fund their new failout package?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Kiva, Zopa next? What exactly do the other two differently so they stay on the legal side (or maybe they're all illegal)? Anyone know?

<comment><USER10> Kiva are legal because they don't pay interest.

<comment><USER13> You'd think that by 2008 we wouldn't still be banning usury, but I guess not.

<comment><USER11> Banking is a racket and they can practice usury all they want. They just hate competition, that's all. Credit cards have 21% limit in some states and no limit in others. How's that for usury?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am a lender to the tune of a few thousand dollars. I actually recently pulled all my cash out of it in a transaction that completed on the 24th. Still have a lot of outstanding loans though. I was doing pretty well, I got hit by one big default early on in my experimentation with the site and only recently came into the green again from that. If I discount that one poor investment, I was actually making a pretty decent return of about 13%.

</comment><comment><USER15> I really liked Prosper, I thought they were doing a very good job of executing their idea. It will be very interesting to see where this goes

</comment><comment><USER16> Put several thou into this puppy - mostly A & AA - loans started going belly up about 8-10 months out. Have basically written off this as a worthless investment - will be happy to get back ANYthing at this point.

And NOW...prosper is "off the air"...fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER17> There's always Lending Club! They seem to have made it through the whole SEC process and out the other side recently. They do have some lender requirements that I don't meet, unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER15> How has techcrunch not picked up this story yet?

<comment><USER18> just did.

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/26/sec-outlines-its- reason...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/26/sec-outlines-its-reasoning- for-shutting-down-p2p-lender-prosper/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not to be a know-it-all and I-told-you-so but how could they not see the problem with this model?</comment>


The tech industry has outgrown the Bay Area - <AUTHOR> https://builtin.com/founders-entrepreneurship/mighty-middle-report <comment><USER2> This story really buries the lead imo:

> In 2019, Bay Area startups attracted roughly $46 billion in venture capital, > more than twice the amount raised that year by the entire Mighty Middle > combined.</comment>


Ask HN: iPod shuffle alternatives? - <AUTHOR> I really like my iPod shuffle[1]. It's the device I use the most and taking into account that it only cost me around 50 euros, I think it's the best "thing" I've ever bought. Just one minor issue: 2GB of storage.<p>So question is if you know good alternatives. Just two features are important for me: size (~iPod shuffle) and storage (> 2GB).<p>[1]: http://www.apple.com/ipod-shuffle/ <comment><USER2> [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/51215664/mighty- streami...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/51215664/mighty-streaming- music-without-your-phone) might be worth keeping an eye on. Basically the same + bluetooth.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really interesting!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The latest Sansa Clip with Rockbox?</comment>


Bootstrap Travels: Sprint 1. Development Speed 0. - <AUTHOR> http://w-labs.at/bootstrap-travels/sprint-1-development-speed-0/

<comment><USER2> I always wanted to do something like that, great to read from you guys!</comment>


Our culture is toxic - <AUTHOR> http://snowedin.net/blog/2011/01/20/our-culture-is-toxic/

<comment><USER2> It's fairly juvenile of me to feel this way, but I was pretty amused to see this in his footer:

"Did you know you can write your own about section just like this one? It's really easy. Head into the the Titan Options menu and check out the footer section. Type some stuff in the box, click save, and your new about section shows up in the footer.

Wondering about those Flickr photos on the right?

We didn't take them, they are a random sampling of the most popular photos on Flickr with the tag 'nature'. All rights are reserved to the original copyright holders where applicable."

Using an off-the-shelf wordpress theme in service of protesting an off-the- shelf life. And at the same time randomly sampling other people's actual creative work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I'm kind of lazy. :)

<comment><USER3> Well, news flash: so is everyone else. Hence all the things you hate about our culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr: I don't like labor division and waste and I have read Chuck Palahniuk

<comment><USER5> I was searching for the words and now I don't have to, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Though I feel this piece shines a useful light on the harmful nature of certain aspects of the culture promoted in commercial media, this is different from how real people live their lives, ignoring the individually empowering influence of the internet, along with other forms of decentralized communication. While the piece helpfully defines the motivations of various commercial entities marketing their products to us, it seems to discount the value of those services as sources of inspiration (if not convenience) to us, and to understate the individual will and ability to oppose the detrimental aspects of this culture.

It would be easy to spend a week-day at home watching daytime television, and come away from it with the impression that our culture is toxic, but that would be exaggerating the accuracy of this supposed window into our culture. Reality is much more complex.

</comment><comment><USER7> _Erik Pukinskis is the founder of SproutRobot, a web app that makes it dead simple to start a vegetable garden._

Want to start a vegetable garden? That starts at $20/year and goes up from there. Can we say hypocrite?

<comment><USER8> From their homepage: "SproutRobot tells you when to plant & sends you seeds." So it's helping you to garden, not taking control away from you.

They're heirloom seeds too, rather than hybrids, so you can let some of your plants go to seed and replant next season. Again, it's not taking control away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If people want to cook, they can cook. There's plenty of raw ingredients at the supermarket, and no shortage of cookery TV programs, books, magazines and websites.

Similarly, you can find a great deal of resources on all sorts of activities. Want to catch a fish? Learn a musical instrument? Write a novel? At no point in the whole of human history has it been easier to learn a new skill.

And it's not like these cookery programs are put on to an empty audience. If no-one was buying all these books and magazines and watching these TV programs, they'd stop being produced.

So it's not that people aren't doing things; it's that they are being selective about what they do, because modern life _allows_ them to be selective. People are free to buy the things they don't want to spend time making, and instead use their time to do the things they want to do.

<comment><USER10> And this is GREAT. No, I'll never be great at a musical instrument because I don't want to take the time to do it. But other people will be, and the music they make will be much better than anything a bunch of dilettantes sitting in a park can strum together with their three guitars and a bongo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > You don't have time or you're bad at art.

Yes I do, and no I'm not.

> But you have to drive to Target to get one.

No I don't, I can walk.

> Oh and while you're don't you want to buy some other things? …

Because I'm just here to buy a card, ok?

Seriously, man. You can opt out.

edit: Or you can spend money to watch movies instead of - gasp, toxicity! - making your own: [http://snowedin.net/blog/2011/01/02/favorite- films-2008-2010...](http://snowedin.net/blog/2011/01/02/favorite- films-2008-2010/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Dude, somebody needs to go see a psychologist, and possibly get on some anti- psychotics to deal with their rampant inner critic.

You want free hobbies? Become a writer. Code web apps. Borrow books from the library and read them. Volunteer at a homeless shelter. Go bird watching. Learn how to sing.

 _nothing is stopping you from trying new things_

Just cause someone, or even a lot of people are trying to sell you things, doesn't mean you have to buy it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I agree with the article. The safe, high-status choice in white American suburbs today always seems to involve spending money. Making clothes yourself has become rare. Little food is made from scratch, let alone beer and wine. Live bands are being strangled by DJs.

However, I see a lot of interest in doing it yourself among young people here in New York City. There's a phenomenon of individual cooks selling out of their home kitchens. Theater and live music is far from dying.

The Burning Man Festival is another exhibit of a nice countertrend. There, you feel like an asshole if you don't get directly involved in creating, performing, contributing, taking action. Selling to the public is not permitted at all.

</comment><comment><USER13> I generally agree with the ideas, but I'm not sure our culture is as toxic as the tone of the article.

</comment><comment><USER14> _So adanced!_

Advanced.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, fixed. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Weird. Skimmed it only as this article is toxic.

I sleep on the floor. Own no furniture. Own no car. We cook a lot from scratch and are making up our own recipes. Why? Because doctors told me "people like you don't get well" and we don't agree with that sentiment. So homegrown recipes are required to effectively implement our homegrown health solution.

If you live like this article describes (and are over age 18), you do so by choice. And whose fault is that?

(Though, yes, I have canned Wordpress themes on my sites. I am trying to move towards putting up more content and coding everything by hand has been an obstacle to that. Nor do I have the money to get something custom.)

</comment><comment><USER16> So anyone want to bet on when this idiot guns down Lady Gaga?</comment>


The opponent-process theory of emotion (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://gettingstronger.org/2010/05/opponent-process-theory/ <comment><USER2> Good write-up, definitely stuff that applies to everyone. Even if you're already familiar with it, a refresher might be helpful.

A couple quotes stood out to me:

> you need only to moderate the intensity and frequency of pleasant stimuli to > ensure that the opponent processes do not build up

This is an essential skill for any long term self-medicating person to acquire. The dosages of the mind altering substances I regularly take to stave off the darkest depths of depression have not increased in years.

> exposing oneself to the forbidden fruit without partaking can often be more > effective in extinguishing addictions than merely abstaining or avoiding the > addictive stimulus

This is also a valuable tool, and indeed can make you feel like you're rewiring your brain. It is very much intertwined with delayed gratification. How long can you go without, even though you don't have to? Can you make yourself fully indifferent?

An issue I don't think was dealt with here is how to break out of a cycle once you've learned to make it sustainable. I've gotten really good at treading water, but a lot worse at challenging myself when it's not required. I'm hoping it's just the craziness of 2020. I'm fearing it's a more lasting change-- I've become more pessimistic about the future of the human race in general, so my efforts don't seem to matter as much.

<comment><USER3> I can relate to your sentiment about getting good at treading water. I think growth can happen in adversity but a lot of growth also happens from a place of feeling safe in the major areas of your life.

2020 has made me _not_ feel safe in many areas of my life (and I'm privileged), everything from the pandemic, to the upcoming election, to the economic uncertainty. I think giving yourself as much of a break as possible is absolutely warranted. This is pretty hard, even for introverts who do well with solitude and software developers who can work remotely.

My own pessimism has also grown. I doubt that the threat detection circuits in our brains, that evolved to detect uncertain threats, were ever equipped to handle the scale of some of the uncertain threats that loom over us (and the speed and accuracy of the information about them.) Hang in there, you're not alone, 2020 is pretty fucked up (2019 was hard for me personally, too) and focus on your immediate connective relationships and well-being.

This article was a recent and good read (sorry for the Medium link, I know HN hates Medium): [https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is- depleted...](https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is-depleted-it- s-why-you-feel-awful-de285d542f4c)

[EDIT] I re-read my comment after posting (as you do) and realized it has an advice-giving tone, I didn't exactly intend for that, I was intending more to relate and empathize (and hopefully be helpful.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I first heard about this process, it threw me into a bit of a depression: Why try to obtain nice things, if the pleasure/enjoyment from nice things are down-regulated to until they become insignificant? However I since learned that the down-regulation is usually not enough to completely offset the stimulus (My life is much better now!, but this post got me wondering, it seems like the this hormesis process is the thing to target if you want to pursue happiness, not happiness itself, has any research been done into whether it's possible to disable the adaptation process?

</comment><comment><USER5> > Infants who are given a bottle and start sucking on it experience pleasure. > But if the bottles are removed before the infants have finished feeding, > they universally cry. And yet they would not have cried if the bottle had > never been given.

This person sounds like they've never had to raise a fussy baby. I can't buy this.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting too in the context of History and Politics, which also tend to be mean reverting over time. As Nate Silver likes to say, people overrate trends (like GOP can't have a political future due to demographics) and underrate mean reversion (political parties adapt, people have short memories, energy switches to whomever is out of power).

</comment><comment><USER7> This is brilliant! I love the 7 specific pieces of advice at the bottom of the article.

One example, #4: seek indirect pleasure. For example: the reward of working hard on a project and finishing. I wonder if this is partially why donating money to charities is a good long-run happiness/eudaemonia tool.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow this is genius! I find that it's easier for me to accomplish tasks if I understand the science behind how they work. So keeping this article in mind should be super helpful for me.

</comment><comment><USER9> Brilliant share. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER10> Go go right, go left.</comment>


Ask HN: Is now a good time? - <AUTHOR> I really enjoyed learning new programming languages but decided in college that long-term "being a programmer" wasn't for me.  I enjoyed thinking through the problem, and enjoyed long, late-night coding session to get projects done on time (typically putting off all the work until the last minute).  But it also, at the time, seemed like a pretty uninteresting area (maybe I was just naive, this was around 2002 for context).
Eventually I went into finance (think derivatives risk management not accounting) and had a great time over the last decade given all the turmoil and changes taking place.
It now feels like the tables have turned - finance is more heavily regulated and innovation is basically frowned upon (I know "blockchain" "bitcoin" yadda yadda, there will be a few big winners but unlikely to really drive fundamental change).  Whereas the technology space is clearly making incredible leaps and making huge fundamental changes to the ways companies use technology to power their business.
It got me thinking, is now actually a really good time to make a transition?  Ignore the personal side of things, assume I can take the time to do it.  It seems like the rapid pace of change actually makes the fact that I haven't been programming the last 10 years a non-issue.  Everything has changed so much, and so many specific technical skills seem to be going out the window, it doesn't feel like I'm "starting from scratch where everyone has a 10 year head start."  It feels more like "Hey I can get up to speed on a language or two and the newest infrastructure platforms and in short order be relatively useful."
So...is now a good time?  Is the rapid pace of change a benefit for those who are intrigued by the new technologies and want to move in that direction?  Or is the head start the rest of the world has gotten still a massive obstacle to overcome? <comment><USER2> Now is just the beginning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly seems like it, which means "continual learning" is more important than ever, which seems like it should level the playing field in some sense. I wonder what people with a lot of experience think their main differentiators are that are a result of just having a lot of experience.</comment></comment>