The Anthropic Principle (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~lwilliam/sota/anth/anthropic_principle_index.html <comment><USER2> Every time I read about the Anthropic principle I get the feeling I'm missing something. Enthusiasts of the principle seem to be committing a fallacy; perhaps someone can explain why they're not, or why they are. I compare the principle to this. A group of friends get together and decide they'll roll a d20 to decide how to spend the evening. There are various options afoot, but they decide that only if they roll a 20 will they play board games that night. Lo and behold, they roll a 20 and spend the evening playing board games. Later someone says, "How lucky we are to be playing board games!" A skeptic says, "Whatever do you mean by 'lucky'?" Reply: "Well, there was a 1 in 20 chance, and we hit it! That's pretty lucky." The Anthropicist snorts and says, "Hardly! We're not lucky at all. There was a 100% chance. After all, we're playing them." Is that a good analogy? Or does it miss something crucial on one side of the argument or the other?

<comment><USER3> Here's a better analogy. Joe has OCD. Every morning, he rolls a d100, and if it comes up 1, he hosts a board-game party that night.

On day XX/YY/ZZZZ, Joe hosts a board-game party and a bunch of people show up. During the course of the party, Joe reveals to everyone his d100 policy.

Tim asks him what his die-roll this morning was. Joe tells Tim that he rolled a 1. Tim exclaims _" The only reason we're here is because you rolled a 1! How did this incredible piece of luck come to pass?"_

Adam responds _" There's nothing incredible about what happened. If Joe hadn't rolled a 1 today, we wouldn't be here. We would never have this discussion, or have it on some other day when he does roll a 1."_

<comment><USER4> To extend this even further...

~This~ morning Joe rolled a dice, and it came up 1, so he hosted a board-game party.

During the party Joe hints that the die he rolls may be very large, but stops short of outright saying so.

Joe also refuses to say whether he rolls the die every morning, or if it was just this morning.

The interesting questions are:

How big is the die?

How often is it rolled?

Does Joe do anything at all if he rolls almost anything other than a 1, or does he just lie in bed?

If the very large die is only rolled once, and all non-1s are very boring, then it is remarkable that we're here.

<comment><USER3> _" Does Joe do anything at all if he rolls almost anything other than a 1, or does he just lie in bed? If the very large die is only rolled once, and all non-1s are very boring, then it is remarkable that we're here."_

That's a very interesting point you raised, and I was thinking about this as well. If the universe only "exists once", and life is very unlikely but it still came to be, then it does seem remarkable.

However, this is based on the presumption that life is non-boring, and all other potential universes devoid of life are boring. This seems like a very subjective presumption. Clearly we are biased towards thinking that our own existence, or the similar existence of "life" is special. But a skeptic would claim that from a purely scientific perspective, there's no reason to believe that a universe without life is any more boring than our universe.

<comment><USER2> Well, but there is something fundamentally and essentially special about conscious minds. A universe that is complete unperceived is, first of all, harder to even imagine than it first appears and, second, would be neither boring nor interesting, since both of those words, and all other assessments, only have meaning within the context of conscious perception. So I would affirm the presumption that "life", in the sense of the existence of conscious minds, is non-boring and universes devoid of life are either boring, or inconceivable.

<comment><USER5> Spoken like a conscious mind

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also relevant: Boltzmann Brains

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

A Boltzmann Brain is (very roughly) a "brain", i.e. self-aware entity, that appears spontaneously in the middle of the universe due to random quantum fluctuations. In an infinitely old and infinitely large universe this should actually be a common occurrence. So why are we not Boltzmann Brains ourselves? Why are we all here observing the universe clustered together on this one planet a mere 15 billion years since it came into being? Why is there so much structure?

<comment><USER7> _> "In an infinitely old and infinitely large universe this should actually be a common occurrence. So why are we not Boltzmann Brains ourselves?"_

Because our Universe is neither infinitely old (is about ~14 thousand millions years old) nor infinitely large (is about 90 thousand millions ly in diameter).

Now this might seem big for you, but it's actually infinitesimal when compared to the number of necessary permutations in order for higher intelligence to appear solely by a quantum fluctuation.

This means that the only scientific possibility for higher intelligence to appear, is then that only a very small set of universe conditions must occur so that atoms then stars then planets then life then intelligent life has the time and conditions to form.

<comment><USER8> _is about 90 thousand millions ly in diameter_

This is the diameter of the _observable_ universe. We don't know if the universe is infinitely big, but all signs (e.g. the flatness of space as far as we can measure it) point to it being infinite, or very very much larger than our observable sphere.

I don't understand why I'm constantly having to inform smart people of this very basic fact. Is there something wrong with the way we teach astronomy? Can you help me spread the word?

<comment><USER7> > _" "90 thousand millions ly in diameter" This is the diameter of the > observable universe. We don't know if the universe is infinitely big, but > all signs (e.g. the flatness of space as far as we can measure it) point to > it being infinite, or very very much larger than our observable sphere."_

Our observable sphere is nowhere near 90 thousand million ly in diameter since that would violate relativity. Our observable sphere in ly is always smaller than the age of the universe in years (so ~14 thousand million years).

Also, what you said is no fact, basic or not, it's just some misconception you have about cosmology so you should stop spreading that word since you are misinforming people you talk to.

In a nutshell: A Universe that begins in a singularity cannot have an infinite diameter and while it's true that we do calculate the size of the Universe by assuming the expansion rate right after the Big Bang and that rate might be wrong, it still cannot be infinite without violating the major principles of physics and the all big bang theory.

<comment><USER8> My "fact" doesn't refer to the universe being flat. I would never call this a fact. The "fact" I referred to is that the universe appears to us to be flat as far as we can tell.

 _Our observable sphere in ly is always smaller than the age of the universe in years (so ~14 thousand million years)_

This ignores the basic fact that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. I'm comfortable calling this one a fact. Many 9s behind that confidence percentage (even if the number of nines was recently lowered).

 _A Universe that begins in a singularity cannot have an infinite diameter_

Based on what logic? You are probably imagining an infinitesimally small sphere expanding out and becoming the universe. This is a good description of only our observable universe. There's no reason not to think that point wasn't part of an infinitely large manifold. This would point to an infinitely large universe.

I'm not an expert, but in my curiosity I've spoken to Dr. Don Lincoln from Fermilab about this very topic, so that's the source of my confidence. Along with my own subsequent (armchair) research. I've since followed up and done my best to understand why this misconception is so prevalent. I'm convinced it's because many sources say "universe" when they mean "observable universe", leading to many misconceptions.

You seem as misinformed as most.

<comment><USER7> > _" This ignores the basic fact that the universe is expanding at an > accelerating rate."_

And that ignores the basic fact that information about those parts of the Universe didn't have time to arrive yet (that is where relativity is violated). You are mixing the concept of "observable universe" with "observed universe". At a given time, given the expansion rate of the universe you have an "observable universe" (those ~90E9 ly), but it will only be fully observable somewhere in the future, in the present you only get to observe ~14E9 ly). In a nutshell what you are proposing is that we are observing particles with infinite redshift. Or perhaps in a simpler way: You can be observing _today_ parts of the universe that are (for instance) 25E9 ly away _today_ , but you are observing particles of light that left that part of the universe a _long time ago_ so that the _c x t_ condition was never violated.

> _" This is a good description of only our observable universe. There's no > reason not to think that point wasn't part of an infinitely large manifold. > This would point to an infinitely large universe."_

Based on the theory of the Big Bang which is the de facto theory accepted by Cosmology. It is true that you could have an infinitely large manifold and that is a very interesting theory. But I was answering inside the actual theory that is the accepted one now-a-days the Big Bang (and I actually referred that in the answer). Also, even inside the manifold theory theory, _our universe_ that is what is being discussed here, would still not have an infinite diameter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Something vaguely related I've been thinking about: When looking at the timeline of life (link below), humans are a completely negligable slice of history. Dinosaurs survived for about 170M years, modern humans have existed for just 200K, civilization for about 10K, and the technological boom has been here for roughly 100 years.

Can this be seen as evidence that the timeline of humanity will be relatively short in the big picture? Because it would seem like a strange coincidence to be born at the beginning of it. This is even more true for the survival time of humans with modern technology. Assuming the era of technologically advanced humans will last for, say 200M years, it's extremely unlikely to be born at the first 100 years (0.00005 %).

It's interesting to think about how civilization would develop over hundreds, thousands or _thousands of thousands_ years. There have been some pretty significant changes in just the last 100 years, what could happen in millions of years? Civilisation is not a stable system, it seems to be quite volatile. And unlike before, changes and disruptions are not as locally constrained. Perhaps after many thousands of years, there will come a low-probability event that civilization won't recover from.

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

<comment><USER10> It's a nonsensical idea.

Imagine you are a soul, in limbo, somewhere outside the universe and elsewhere in another part of reality the universe is progressing through its motions as time goes on. You are an other-reality-style being, yet somehow still allocated as "going to be a homosapiens on Milky Way\Sol\Earth", and your birth will be random during the era of homo sapiens.

Now you can argue about the likliehood of where this random birth happens.

On the other hand, take away the other place, and the souls, and the spooky assignment of types, and just look at the universe as a thing of matter and energy. Some configuration of matter was born to your parents, from their DNA. It is intimately connected to its surroundings by a continual stream of light, heat, air pressure, physical pressure; over millions of seconds it learns. It learns the patterns of air pressure that correspond to other people talking to it, and it learns what things it can and can't push by trying, and what other people talk about.

And it says "isn't it unlikely that I was born here and now, instead of some other time?"

And the question makes no sense. _What_ could have been born somewhere else? or somewhen else? Without its parents DNA, without its particular twenty continuous years of sensory input that it learned from, it would not be itself.

Some other matter, born to other parents, with other DNA, and other childhood experiences, and other knowledge patterns. It would be someone else. Entirely someone else. And ... that happens, we call it "other people".

If you don't believe in a soul, or something like it, what does it mean for you to possibly "be born somewhen else"?

<comment><USER11> The question is, what is the probability that _a person_ picked at random from the human population, would be born during a technological era. We can work this out. Then, what is the probability that the part of the technological era they were born in was the first 100 years. This is easier to work out, it's 100/L_years(technological_era) but, unfortunately that's also the probability they are born in the second 100 years of a technological era of the same length, the third 100, the last 100 etc. so I don't think it gives us any predictive power?

<comment><USER10> No, the question asked by the parent poster is "what is the probability that _I_ would be born at this time in a long time frame".

Which is what I was answering. You can't pick a human at random including from the future, unless you're outside the system somehow.

<comment><USER11> That just leads you down the road of discarding probabilities. Since something either happens or doesn't happen, the probability is either 100% for the things that _will happen_ or 0% for those that do not. This is not a helpful position to take, although it is technically correct, in some not very useful sense.

Humans are good at dealing in counterfactuals. 'What would have happened if I hadn't missed the bus?' is a useful question to ask, even if you _did miss the bus_. What would I be like if I hadn't gone to university/had taken that job/never killed my parents? Obviously the 'I' in those questions cannot be _you_ , exactly, since you did or didn't do those things. But it's still a useful concept or thought experiment, and can give us valuable insights.

The commenter is using 'I' in that counterfactual sense. And certainly, I understood what they _meant_ by it, so they were successful in communicating (at least, to me) which is what matters with language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not complete without mention of Terry Pratchett:

> _The UU Professor of Anthropics had developed the Special and Inevitable > Anthropic Principle, which was that the entire reason for the existence of > the universe was the eventual evolution of the UU Professor of Anthropics.

> But this was only a fomal statement of the theory which absolutely everyone, > with only some minor details of a `Fill in name here' nature, secretly > believes to be true._

<comment><USER6> One of my favorite Terry Pratchett quotes is from a typical hilarious character of his pondering the nature of the universe:

"Then there was the question of why the sun came out during the day instead of at night when it would be more useful."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > The Participatory Anthropic Principle states not only that the Universe had > to develop humanity (or some other intelligent, information-gathering life > form) but that we are necessary to it's existence, as it takes an > intelligent observer to collapse the Universe's waves and probabilities from > superposition into relatively concrete reality.

This is a misunderstanding of what quantum waveform collapse is. It requires an "observation", but not an intelligent observer. For example, in the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, the Geiger Counter is a perfectly valid observer.

<comment><USER14> What's the criteria for what counts as an observer? Geiger counters are, but some photon detectors in a delayed choice quantum eraser experiment[1] aren't?

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

<comment><USER15> Basically there is no sharp division, but the more the observation spreads, the harder it is to reverse. For one isolated particle, it's easiest. Anything we can reliably read is basically permanent, like a bit flip in a computer.

So once a photon is detected, like by making a mark on a screen or camera, it's permanent. In the delayed-choice experiment this happens twice, once for the "interference pattern" and again after the choice.

If you accept that, which I think is intuitive, then it makes the DCQE much easier to grasp. If you want to understand the experiment better, I would recommend this thread:

[https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/who-is-puzzled-by- the-...](https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/who-is-puzzled-by-the-delayed- choice.402497/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To state the Weak Anthropic Principle in a form that feels (at least to me) less like philosophical woo: "Universes that cannot be inhabited by intelligent observers are never observed, because there cannot be anyone there to do the observing".

<comment><USER16> You just stated it as the contrapositive:

"NOT Universe can support intelligent life -> NOT Universe can be oberved"

... rather than ...

"Universe can be observed -> Universe can support intelligent life (-> Universe has values which can support life)"

I'm not sure either is more useful than the other.

<comment><USER13> Right. But the way it was stated in the article makes it easy to think of it as _the universe requiring_ rather than _the observer requiring_. The other versions explicitly get into that kind of nonsense; I wanted to state the weak version in a way that made it clear that it _didn 't_ go there.

(I suspect that this page states the weak version in that way in order to make the other versions seem more similar.)

<comment><USER17> An /observed/ universe requires conditions to cause observers to evolve.

I don't but that an "intelligent" observer is needed to collapse the waveform, BTW. That uses a very non-physical interpretation of "observer." Any particle that can absorb information, can be said to be "observing." As simple as a reaction that depends on temperature would do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >The Final Anthropic Principle states that once the Universe has brought intelligence into being, it will never die out.

How can you propose someting like that? I mean, in a scientific way.

<comment><USER19> The Final Anthropic Principle follows naturally from the Weak/Strong Anthropic Principle. Once intelligence has evolved and observed the Universe with a single first thought, why didn't it then die out? Of course the definition of Intelligence is arguable, anything from a vaguely self-aware rodent to a literature-reading human, and beyond. If we take some person called Ubuntu who discovered how to control fire 130,000 years ago at age 23 years and 7 months in southern Mozambique as having the very first aware thought, then straight afterwards there'd be no more anthropic principle at work causing intelligence to exist in the Universe. The fact we're still here, our small tribe of sole humans not eaten by hyenas or our planet not extinguished by nukes, suggests there could be a Final Anthropic Principle at work.

<comment><USER20> I don't understand how this question is relevant:

"Once intelligence has evolved and observed the Universe with a single first thought, why didn't it then die out?"

What proof, line of reasoning, logical principle, or evidence do you have to believe that a single first thought would lead to anything dying out? What makes you think there is some underlying Anthropic Principle at work in the universe?

Saying something could be at work is more or less saying "God did it". It doesn't explain or illuminate anything.

<comment><USER19> It only takes a single first thought by an intelligence to observe the Universe. Everything occurring up to then (e.g. nucleii, carbon, brains) is highly unlikely and therefore many people suggest an Anthropic Principle to explain it.

Once that single first thought by an intelligence has occurred, the Weak or Strong Anthropic Principle is no longer required to explain the existence of intelligence, and so its continuance has the same unlikeliness as other life forms, i.e. ultimate extinction. The fact humans became the opposite of extinct (e.g. fire, scrolls, nukes) suggests that if the Anthropic Principle applies to the emergence of intelligence, something even "stronger" such as the Final Anthropic Principle could apply to the continuance of intelligence.

I'm not saying there's an underlying Anthropic Principle in the Universe. I'm answering the question to show that the Final Anthropic Principle is as scientific a proposal as anything else.

<comment><USER20> That's not a scientific proposal. There is absolutely no reason to think that anything should cease existing simply because the first thought occurred.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Why are planetary orbits roughly circular? Is it because

(a) if they were any other shape (e.g. very long isosceles triangles) conditions wouldn't be suitable for intelligent life to evolve, and we wouldn't be around to observe it, or

(b) Newton's law of gravity constrains them to conic sections. Stable orbit of single planets must be circular or elliptical. Any planets with highly eccentric orbits would have been ejected from the early solar system, leaving only those which are roughly circular?

Of course, the answer is (b), i.e. instead of the emergence of intelligent life determining the laws of physics, the laws of physics allow the evolution of intelligent life. But we only agree on that because we already know Newton's law of gravity. If we didn't know it, some people would believe (a) while others would think that one day a law of gravity would be found which determines planetary motion.

<comment><USER22> Why would they be triangular? There is nothing apparently unparsimonious about elliptical orbits, thus there is nothing that requires explaining.

The anthropic principle is not about intelligent life determining the laws of physics. There is no magic there. You have the causality backwards.

<comment><USER21> No reason. You can decide on any shape you want.

I don't have the causality backwards. We don't have a complete knowledge of the laws of physics, and we have something which is unexplained. Whenever this was the case in the past, better laws were found which closed the explanatory gap. Why should it be any different this time?

<comment><USER22> The point of the anthropic principle isn't to explain it, it's to point out that an explanation is not required.

We could find that the laws of our universe are the only possible set of physical laws. This would be the expectation of the Newtonian era. In that case there is nothing to explain. Or it may be, and currently seems likely, that there are many possible sets of physical laws. Then the question of why we happen to have one of the perhaps very few possible sets of physical laws that allows intelligent life to develop seems to require an explanation. The anthropic principle explains why it really doesn't, because in the (possible or actual) universes where intelligent life is impossible, the question simply doesn't come up.

The point of the anthropic principle is precisely that we shouldn't expect to close the explanatory gap, because there isn't one. We shouldn't be surprised if physical laws seem to be "tuned" to allow intelligent life to emerge.

Imagine that planets orbited in randomly selected geometric shapes, and we happened to be on the only known elliptical one, giving us the conditions required for life. Would this lucky fact require explanation?

<comment><USER21> >Imagine that planets orbited in randomly selected geometric shapes, and we happened to be on the only known elliptical one, giving us the conditions required for life. Would this lucky fact require explanation?

No more than the existence of a planet of the right size at the right distance from the sun. You still have physical laws which determine what's possible, but they probably won't (and, in fact, don't) provide a complete explanation.

The weakest form of the Anthropic Principle is uncontroversial. For example, we can use it to conclude that physical laws which don't permit intelligent life to evolve must be wrong. Can we use it to rule out physical laws which don't _entail_ the evolution of intelligent life? I would argue yes, but that doesn't require any fine-tuning of dimensionless constants: an infinite (e.g. Einstein-de Sitter) universe, or Everett's Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics would entail it, given its possibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here's another way to look at the Anthropic Principle: [https://goo.gl/O6c0Zi](https://goo.gl/O6c0Zi)

</comment><comment><USER24> That web site seems like it popped-out from 1997.

<comment><USER25> Last-Modified: Fri, 19 May 2000 20:30:18 GMT

Not a bad guess!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > [is to observe and understand the universe] a lucky break for the > intelligent beings that they exist at all?

If we were so intelligent, we wouldn't have to ask, so the answer is 42.</comment>


The Transformative Power of Suffering - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextavenue.org/the-transformative-power-suffering/ <comment><USER2> I got very sick almost a year ago, a few times in the ER, spent months in bed.

There's no silver lining to suffering. Your mind doesn't work. It's hard to concentrate. Sex isn't very enjoyable. It's next to impossible to exercise well. You're constantly irritated and lash out at the people around you. You don't get used to it. You adapt, sure, but it sucks big time.

F##k suffering.

(I'm getting better btw, doctors still don't know wtf happened to me).

<comment><USER3> I came here to say something similar to this. It's possible that you might learn some things about yourself and about the world through the experience, that you otherwise might not have learned. But if it goes on for too long (and/or it's too severe) it just ruins your life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I admire his attitude toward pain and wish I could have that same attitude as well. Like the author, I have a herniated disc (more specifically a disc protrusion) caused by a sudden weight lifting injury 4 years ago when I was 23 that damaged L5-S1. There's not really any hope of it healing on its own, and surgery is far too risky. It's just constant pain pretty much all day every day. Some days aren't too bad—other days are really bad. But the pain is always there, and I think that just knowing it's going to be there tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and every day after that for the next 50-60 years of my life is really the worst part of the injury.

I closely follow the latest studies on disc regeneration, but unfortunately medical research is still in the dark ages in that field, and no significant breakthrough is likely to make it past clinical trials anytime in the next decade.

So... sorry for the rant, but if there's some deep wisdom to be gained from suffering, I still haven't figured out what it is.

<comment><USER5> If I may ask, which weight lifting exercise caused the problem?

<comment><USER4> Redacted (was just sharing for a few minutes)

<comment><USER6> I am very sorry for your accident. Thank you for sharing though. I feel like it will make me a safer lifter.

<comment><USER7> @amelius, while I understand the curiosity I think that would be an intrusion of the poster's privacy, when they specifically removed it.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, it's an awkward situation, I understand, but the user is scaring the crap out of people, then retracting part of the essential information. I'm still hoping they will post the information somewhere in an anonymized form, so the bodybuilding community can learn from this accident.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, didn't mean to scare anyone. I mainly removed it because it was kind of embarrassing. The injury was caused by trying to set a barbell down on the ground myself rather than calling for help when doing bench press. Not something that would happen to most weightlifters.

<comment><USER9> Just wanted to say there's nothing wrong or embarrassing about sharing our mistakes. Take heart in the likelihood that, by sharing this, you've probably saved a reader from a similar injury.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a difficult topic to write and talk about.

But rather than a religious approach, I think it's best to talk about this from a psychology of trauma approach. In _In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness_ by Peter A. Levine, the author describes the mindset that exacerbates suffering and also the mindset that leads to faster healing.

> trauma is neither a disease nor a disorder, but rather an injury caused by > fright, helplessness and loss that can be healed by engaging our innate > capacity to self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions.

There's some kind of magic alchemy that suffering allows us to access that not just causes us to physically heal faster, but also allows us to better transform normal, everyday living. And the quoted text, "innate capacity to self-regulate high states of arousal and intense emotions," is precisely where that alchemy happens.

High levels of arousal and intense emotion doesn't just happen when we're suffering, it also happens as a natural consequence of interpersonal relationships. But when we're suffering, the high levels of arousal and emotion _don 't go away_, which allows us to experience them enough to learn how to regulate them.

Then when the suffering is over, when things get heightened during daily life, the regulatory capacity that suffering built serves to make the feelings flow easier. That's the transformation described.

</comment><comment><USER11> There are things which pain helps to discover and understand, so it is with any other experience. But coming from a yogic background I see his understanding as quite limited.

Especially that he tries to "glorify" pain as a "true teacher". Maybe it worked for him like this, but it doesn't have to be so, joy and happiness can do the same if properly handled.

<comment><USER8> Yes, especially mental disorders (which can cause quite a bit of pain), can send one into darker and darker places, ruin relationships and cause further trouble such as personality disorders. Of course, the survivor bias stories may tell things like "depression made me a better person", etc., but most people are not so lucky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> if suffering has a transformative power, it's that you are compelled to learn humility.

With luck, from humility comes empathy and compassion. Unfortunately, you're just as likely to get fear and despair.

That doesn't make suffering belong to any privileged ethical class— it still sucks!— merely that in responding to the normal fact that "time and chance happens to everyone", we can extract the opportunity to grow and get something out of it other than pain and despair.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just what we needed - a Jewish Mother Teresa.

I'm empathetic to his suffering and applaud that he's managed to find a way to see a bright side. But when anyone goes from there to claiming that being in constant pain somehow makes you better, I see that as going overboard.

It's that attitude - with a stronger religious slant and a good touch of stinginess - that led MfT to have her "hospitals" re-using dulled injection needles and not providing effective pain relievers. And blathering nonsense about the beauty of suffering. The idea that suffering is a good thing is pretty much the most perverted idea humans have come up with.

<comment><USER14> Related SMBC: [http://smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-06-27](http://smbc- comics.com/comic/2011-06-27)

Fetishizing suffering if there's no way to mitigate the pain is actually a better strategy than being aware that it just sucks. If you can't really do anything about it, I think I would also start to talk like this. It's similar to "We're poor. Therefore, living in poverty is a virtue" \- it's a reaction to a situation we're forced to be in. Seeing positive aspects in them gives us a way to cope with it - it's simply a coping mechanism so the mind doesn't lose its will to live.

I'm not a fan of re-using injection needles, too. That's the problem I see with this coping mechanism: You have to be careful. You shouldn't use this thinking to lead your actions, it's only good for situations where you're not able to change anything or control it (like chronic pain).

<comment><USER15> Another problem with coping mechanisms is that they can prevent you from solving the underlying problem. They're good when they're absolutely needed, but we should be wary of transplanting them into situations that do not need them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can't read the article yet (server is overloaded?), but I just came across a great video by MindSmash that addresses this subject very well. "There are no beautiful surfaces without terrible depths." \- Friedrich Nietzsche [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DhZuBhX6Fw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DhZuBhX6Fw)

</comment><comment><USER17> Something I experienced is that a form of anger toward life is good when you're in mental pain. Not destructive anger but more proactive anger. It refocus your mind out of whatever clogs it and release 'energy' (simplest sense, you're a lot more able to act) as you feel less pain too.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is all trite fluff.

I disagree with the premise that suffering confers upon anyone special knowledge.

The same lessons, the same worldview, the same whatever, can be reached by people without the suffering. People like to say that everyone is different, let's not pretend that there's only one road to enlightenment then.

The only thing specific situations can teach us is how to cope with specific situations. Having a broken leg can teach you how to handle crutches better, how to balance on one foot, how to a third thing because you are temporarily disabled. But it cannot teach you how to be a better person. Now, a person with a broken leg might require and receive help and notice that people are genuinely nice and helpful and that changes their perspective on the world. But there are plenty of people who feel that way with two perfectly fine legs.

We deify struggle and suffering to such a degree it's kind of sad. There's no nobility in being in a shitty situation.

<comment><USER19> I have a completely different world view.

Just like you build muscle strength through weight resistance, you build mental strength through overcoming (or just living with) adversity. You may not value that growth or may not feel it is worth the suffering, but that belief is not fact, just opinion.

<comment><USER18> That's not true though.

Given the exact same suffering, two people who have had similar lives will react in different ways. One may break down completely, one may soldier through.

Suffering doesn't build character, it reveals it.

You're doing the very thing I was saying we do too much of: glorifying suffering.

You're also trying to dismiss me by saying what I'm saying is opinion while also trying to say that I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, then it's not technically an opinion I hold. It's just bad information.

But you posit that you build mental strength through adversity without actually demonstrating that it's true. Then you claim my position is that I don't value the growth or feel it is worth suffering. That is not what I said. That is a deliberate misrepresentation of what I was saying.

I was saying suffering does not teach anything special that cannot be learned elsewhere.

I also like how you choose to engage me, rather than the people who shared personal anecdotes of suffering without being granted any special wisdom or knowledge, effectively saying what I said: suffering is not a teacher, suffering is just suffering.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would Java make it if introduced today? - <AUTHOR>

Given the meteoric rise of Java, I started using it in 1995; would Java the language and platform enjoy repeat success if it had instead been introduced today? <comment><USER2> Instead of answering the question, I'd like to point out how different the world of programming might look today WITHOUT Java. Java was the first maintstream GC language (no more malloc), fully object oriented and the first byte code based VM language. Prior to Java, you were either writing in interpreted languages like Perl or in C/C++.

Java brought programming to a higher standard with clear syntax, easy of use and a much faster learning curve than languages up to that point. That paradigm gave rise to new languages like Javascript and new designs for large scale software.

So, I think it's irrelevant if Java would make it if introduced today since I am not sure today would be here (or at least in its current form) without Java.

<comment><USER3> > the first byte code based VM language

UCSD pascal would like to have a word with you. Circa 1980

> fully object oriented and the first byte code based VM language.

Smalltalk would like to have a word with you. Circa 1984

> Java was the first maintstream GC language

Basic (in all its variations) would like to have a word with you. Circa 1968; And perhaps it is going to bring along its buddies Lisp (1958?) and APL (1950-1960, depends on who you ask).

All of these languages were mainstream at one point or another - in a much smaller world, but still, mainstream.

Java wasn't the first to offer all of these together - Smalltalk did that in 1984, and I'm not sure Smalltalk was the first.

> Java brought programming to a higher standard with clear syntax, easy of use > and a much faster learning curve than languages up to that point. That > paradigm gave rise to new languages like Javascript and new designs for > large scale software.

Java's syntax is clear only to someone who is versed in Java (or a Java like language like C, C++, C#). Python came out at the same time (1991) and brought a syntax much, much clearer, with a much faster learning curve. It was also VM based and GC, by the way - and having programmed both in 1991, I can tell you Python was often much faster (mostly owing to dicts being implemented in C, whereas Java was all interpreted).

> So, I think it's irrelevant if Java would make it if introduced today since > I am not sure today would be here (or at least in its current form) without > Java.

I agree. But I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Specifically, I don't think Java deserves any accolades. It's the COBOL of the 21st century. If Java wasn't around, and Python took over, I think we'd be in a much better place. If Java wasn't around and C/C++ continued their reign, I supposed we'd be slightly less well off. We don't have to agree on opinion. But we should be able to agree on facts.

<comment><USER4> You think we'd be better off with Python, a non-typed language against a typed language? Really, I like Python, but speed as well as typing is lacking. I'm glad we have both languages.

<comment><USER3> I'm referring to the hypothetical situation in which Java did not come along, not to modern Java vs. modern Python.

Yes, I think we'd have been better off with Python + C++ (which is likely had Java not come along).

w.r.t Speed - one of the reasons Python's speed is (still) lacking, is because it never got the amount of work Java did. JavaScript is no longer lacking in speed, and neither does Lua - and both are as dynamic as Python. Lua is much more impressive in this respect - LuaJIT's speed, the work of one person, is comparable to the best JavaScript engines, works of multiple big multiperson teams.

The original Java was a little safer than Python, but definitely not on par with what you'd consider a modern staticly typed language. There were no generics, and everything was cast all around e.g. if you used a dict/map container. It was easy to have static typing locally, but not globally. The standard library at the time was really, really bad. I think I considered it acceptable only with Java 1.5.

A lot of modern Java is like it is _because_ it was in widespread use, _and_ it was so bad to begin with. Had it been Python instead, perhaps Python's bad parts would have been addressed earlier (including lack of type checking and lack of speed - both of which are coming of age)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure how that can be answered. How would it compete against C#, which is basically Java++, and now open source and cross platform, and mature? But C# doesn't exist without Java, which it was heavily influenced by. Scala runs on the JVM. Does Scala exist if Java is "introduced now"? Scala is also a Java++.

I mean, Java was such a major influence that you have to stipulate how we deal with the fact that Java couldn't compete now because it would be essentially competing against future, evolved version of itself.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. If Java hadn't existed until now, it's entirely unclear what languages would be popular or even exist. Hell, would object oriented programming be popular, or would it be a niche paradigm?

<comment><USER7> OOP gained momentum in the late 80s and early 90s. Before we were programming in Java, many of us were using...C++. OOP might have been different, but it would probably still be dominant.

<comment><USER8> Java did a lot to strengthen the C++ style static dispatch branch of OO. The Smalltalk/Python/Objective-C school of OOP might have fared a lot better of there was no type safe language in the opposing camp.

<comment><USER7> The dynamic branch of OOP actually fared pretty well in Python, javascript, ruby, even in the presence of Java. As to why the others faltered (objective C being popular just because of Apple, smalltalk always being niche), I can't really say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Honestly, as it currently stands, Java appears to me as merely a pared down version of C#. C# shares nearly all of the same major features, while adding in more useful ones like properties and Linq, plus the promise of many new features on the horizon, like the null propagating operator. All of those, plus the rest of Microsoft's development ecosystem, make it a much nicer language overall.

The only reason I don't think C# has taken over Java yet is because of how entrenched Java is, and it's wide cross-platform support. With mono, Silverlight, and Microsoft's newfound love for open-sourcing however, I think those arguments would be pretty much null if Java were to be introduced today.

<comment><USER10> Wasn't C# developed after Microsoft failed to buy Java from Sun?

<comment><USER11> Worse, they took Java, put Windows only stuff in it, and Sun sued them...

<comment><USER12> Do you have any links / sources to back this story up? I haven't heard about this before.

<comment><USER13> I hesitate to pull the "Google is your friend" card, but this is one of those stories that's so well documented that a three word query will keep you reading relevant articles all weekend.

<comment><USER12> What's bad about LMGTFY is it assumes Google's results and articles would lead me the correct and objective sources - in a perfect vacuum - where you assume I know what to even query. C# and Java bring up a lot of things - and guessing won't necessarily reveal the context of what was in conversation.

In my opinion, the LMGTFY peanut gallery tend to be the glib one's. Always going for the short, clever smirks, never the depths, the wisdom; teaching others.

What's most toxic about this kind of - I assume well-intention people's behavior - I literally find myself Googling, and every now and then, hopefully an answer on forum thread where they say "Just Google it", "Just search it on the forum".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not at all. Java's rise was the perfect storm of several factors: object orientation taken to its logical conclusion during a huge IT hype period for it (much like "Big Data" today), the tail end of a huge explosion of CPU architectures which made VMs very attractive, and CPU power finally getting to the point where pervasive garbage collection wasn't a detriment to large systems.

The platform as we have today is simultaneously weak in terms of its stagnant and outpaced feature set, and strong in terms of its optimization capability and ecosystem size. But its strengths were a function of its popularity: lots of people wrote Java so there was plenty of incentive to invest in the platform/ecosystem.

The only way I could see it taking off today as a new language is if there were a company willing to dump 10x the resources into it that Oracle or Sun ever have.

<comment> vezzy-fnord _object orientation taken to its logical conclusion_

Oh, how I wish. OO was never taken to its logical conclusion in the mainstream at all. Java's Nygaard-style OO was just a sugar coating on top of a generic procedural paradigm and a far cry from Smalltalk's example that was set over 20 years prior. Ironically, much of the JVM's early optimizations were born out of research into the Self VM - a prototype-based OO Smalltalk environment.

Yet thanks to C++ and Java's object models following the Simula legacy becoming so firmly entrenched into the mainstream as _the_ OO, today the entire paradigm has become disgraced and is outright reviled in some circles (how many times have I seen FP enthusiasts jump every time it's mentioned...)

The Smalltalk and Self communities are minuscule. A more recent addition was the Io language, but that too is very small. OO died before it could really shine, though the Smalltalkers' legacy did somewhat live on as they went on to establish many of the software development methodologies and maxims that are taken for granted today.

<comment><USER7> OO's death has been exaggerated. Take a language like Scala, which has really powerful OOP constructs in the form of mixin-style traits (at least on the static side of object innovation). Not to mention many of the strongtalk people are now working Dart.

Objects will rise again (if you think they've fallen, that is).

<comment> vezzy-fnord I agree somewhat. You can also find object models in plenty of other places where many don't realize it (e.g. in many practical implementations of actor model concurrency). Those are all relatively small and indirect victories though. Who knows - maybe pure message passing languages might become the next fad soon enough.

<comment><USER7> The Clojure and Go people always like to talk about their non-object systems, which are of course very object-like. The only real functional purists is the haskell community.

I'm personally working a new language/programming environment right now based on traits/mixins; there is still a lot of fun to be had there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not really about the technology, it's about the hook. I also started using Java when it came out, and there were two main hooks for us C/C++ coders:

\- write once, run anywhere.

\- write programs that run on web browsers (applets).

Today, it could be: "I want to write an Android app, and Google just released this new Java language/platform that I have to use."

In other words, any new language can make it if a large corporation creates a compelling reason for large numbers of programmers to use it.

<comment><USER16> So, unlike swift.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not if it were introduced with the original bytecode interpreter. The first few iterations of the Java Virtual Machine were horrifically slow, but it got better.

So if the Java language and VM were released today _in their current state_ , complete with lambdas, streams, annotations, and HotSpot, then yeah, I think it would take off.

</comment><comment><USER18> Java was a success because performance + ease of use compared with the languages then available, on the hardware available. Today, python, ruby etc are fast enough for many tasks.

Java was a hit in the enterprise because it had static typing, modules etc and was a complete product (tooling, doc - and stewardship from a big and respected tech company, who was neutral). OO helped, fashion-wise. C# and objective-C are the most similar languages today - but notwithstanding MS very recent moves, both are wedded to a proprietary company.

But if Java was introduced today, it would have a difficult fight against Go: Go is similar, and with Google's neutral backing, would have taken Java's role. Or maybe languages which Java displaced: delphi, ada, etc.

The realistic answer is: if java hadn't existed, something that met those needs would have been drawn forth by the demand.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't know, but Java definitely succeeded at least in part because of the programming environment at the time.

I didn't live through the time that Java saw it's rise in use on the enterprise, but what I've been told by others that was a big deal at the time were two things combined that made it attractive, and it being one of the few languages that was very accessible that had these two characteristics. These were:

* Garbage Collected language.

* Being able to write code in Windows (which is what most enterprise developers used then and even now), and deploy on Linux/other OS reliably.

Again, this is just what I've heard from others that were there, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Today, there are other options, so maybe it wouldn't be as big a sellilng point. But to me at least, it is still one of the languages that allows this the easiest by far.

</comment><comment><USER20> Absolutely. The only thing really keeping Java from taking over the world is a slightly outdated standard lib. It's a great combination of speed, portability, community, OO, native types, functional prototypes and some clear lines drawn so you can't shoot yourself in the foot too terribly bad.

Oracle's API architects are concerned with selling as much WebLogic licenses as possible however, so don't expect changes soon. However, the community has come up with some absolutely brilliant libraries where Oracle has clung to legacy technology.

All in all, it's a superb language with a bright future. Maybe we'll get better leadership as Oracle is forced out of the closed source era (it's happening at Microsoft, so don't laugh).

<comment><USER21> Well and Java evolution stalled for 5 years during the Sun to Oracle transition, while the rest of the world passed it by. Java 8 should have launched by 2010.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, for one, the notion that it was 'write once run anywhere' wouldn't convince too many people - after all, everyone's already got a language called LiveScript in their browsers and that's turned out to be good enough for 90% of use cases.

</comment><comment><USER23> The way that the Java platform evolved very slowly just seems rather unlikely nowadays. Sun didn't allow for Java extensions that made it too platform dependent. To this day Java's platform independence is perhaps its greatest legacy, since platforms have changed a lot and the Java code can still be used even for the latest hardware.

But the idea of a proprietary platform is just exotic nowadays. I doubt it that when they started the Java project that they imagined it that most of it would be free and Free. Everyone wants software to be a commodity. I don't know how they would fund a similar project knowing that it would compete against very much free and Free solid alternatives.

Also, browser plugins are dead. So something like Java applets would hardly take foot.

Like others have said, one of the big selling points for Java was Windows development. The interfaces sucked. But the need was there. Once Microsoft came up with .NET that profitable market was challenged.

A lot of Java alternatives nowadays can go a long way from just hosting web services on Linux. So Java's selling point of supporting many different platforms would not have been as interesting. Also, Apple restricts JIT on iOS, further compromising alternative platforms on that platform so even if a new Java wanted to support iOS it would have to settle for less.

Settling for less was in fact one of Java's goals. It helped it with platform independence. But it didn't make many platform dependent developers too happy either. :-)

</comment><comment><USER24> What are the other assumptions in this hypothetical scenario? Does C# exist? Does Scala exist? Does F# exist? You could argue that none of these would exist if Java didn't.

What might we have instead? C/C++ of course, Python/Perl/Ruby and friends too. QBASIC is older than Java and Visual Basic was just a cleaned up QBASIC, so we'd have that. Borland's Pascal-derivative Delphi was a decent language; maybe that would've done better without Java.

Would Haskell and the MLs have done better? Perhaps, because at the time it came around Java was quite a productive language. Or maybe I should say, it _was_ a nice language before everybody and their uncle discovered the design patterns book and started implementing AbstractFactoryInterpreterEventLists willy-nilly. Without Java, I think it's plausible that the design pattern craze - a lot of which is just attempting to shoehorn functional programming into an OO language - would never have happened. And people might've discovered _actual_ functional programming earlier and the state of the art might've been closer to F# than C#. So back to the original question, in this scenario, Java wouldn't make it, because honestly, although Java is a decent language but F# and friends are way better.

</comment><comment><USER25> If Java was released today, it would still be valuable. Java is a small, well defined language (without many surprises). Java runs on an open source platform, OpenJDK. The JSR's are incredibly well designed -- Web programming (Servlet, JSP, JSF), Message Driven Beans, JMS, JPA, and JAXB.

If you look at benchmarks of web applications/frameworks, Java-based ones are blazing fast.

</comment><comment><USER26> I think it's possible, if this hypothetical Java had strong corporate backing. I'm not sure Oracle could do it, but if it came out of Google, I bet it would catch on. The language Go has shown you can release a language no one really needs (sorry enthusiasts, just my opinion) that will still be successful.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't know about _make_ it, but Microsoft Stack (C#/VB/.NET) would have a stronger dominance nowadays considering that it would grow without Java on it's back.

<comment><USER28> Ignoring of course that much of C# owes its existence to Java (and C++).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> As is yes, as was would sink without trace.

<comment><USER30> ...but the stack trace would still be visible from outer space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't think any of the languages which were introduced 20-25 years ago would make it.

All modern languages and all current iterations of the older languages are vastly superior by every imaginable metric.

All those 1.0s from the past would look like someone's toy project, because, well, that's what they were.

</comment><comment><USER32> If they invest as much in marketing as they did, yes. Just look at the success of mongodb.

<comment><USER21> Java was the original Web Scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Maybe. Java does one thing really well - marketing. Primarily to schools. It's hard to compete with a language that every graduate knows, and worse, it's the only one they "know."</comment>


My Thanks to GNU/Linux and Free Software - <AUTHOR>

i am working with gnu/linux and therefore with free software since about 1996 and during this 16 years i miserably failed to express my feelings and thoughts about that fact properly. this will change now.
easy, easy! go on reading! i am not going to write pages over pages about my personal history with gnu/linux or some awesome and funny anecdotes about how i came to gnu/linux in the first place.
after so many years of performance, community and "it-simply-works" there's only one occupying thought in my mind left gaining more and more mental ground every day:
"what if gnu/linux or the idea it represents would have never existed?"
i think that the sheer amount of pure panic this simple question is able to produce in me is my kind of humbly saying: "thank you very much all you people! i owe you one...or two". (especially you, richard;)
thank you for giving me the possibility to own an operating system which had a 40,0000 dollar price tag on it 30 years ago and would have needed some kind of nasa-highend-rig to run it and to work with it today on my crappy dell notebook FOR FREE. Imagine that sh*t!
... and thank you for all the fun! <comment><USER2> "what if gnu/linux or the idea it represents would have never existed?"

Then we would most likely be using some BSD variant. Oh, wait .. I am!

</comment><comment><USER3> Can agree with all of this. I'm only 19 and have been programming professionally for 2 years now (and as a hobby for 4-5 more). I know that without free software, I wouldn't be where I am right now as I simply wouldn't have had the tools available that I did as I was growing up and as I was learning to program.

<comment><USER4> I'd love to know which type of company is willing to hire someone so young. I know someone around your age that's competent (for his age) but is finding it difficult to find anyone to take him seriously.

I've suggested to him to build up his portfolio and github profile, but that takes time.

<comment><USER3> The firm I started at was tiny, just me and 2 other guys. I found a list of website development companies in my local area and sent emails to all of them, asking if they were taking anyone on. Only got a reply back from one of them, went to the interview and completed their little test quickly so they took me on. I was paid very little for my efforts, mind, but without that job I don't think I would have gotten my current one (where I'm working alongside university graduates for a decent salary).

I think something that definitely worked in my favour is that I brought along my laptop and showed them a design of a website I had been working on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I sure enjoy playing all the free games dotdeb.com offers for linux. Wish I would have switched to it sooner.</comment>


Merkel: Coronavirus is Germany′s greatest challenge since World War Two - <AUTHOR> https://www.dw.com/en/merkel-coronavirus-is-germanys-greatest-challenge-since-world-war-two/a-52830797 <comment><USER2> I think Germany is handling this crisis really well[0].

Almost 20-25 days back, Merkel herself stated that they are expecting 70% people to get infected and that their main objective is to flatten the curve so as not to stress healthcare. It's hard in times like these to be so truthful about numbers(right from start) especially when other leaders were just denying the truth until the cases ramped up.

It also shows that the administration was listening to experts right from the beginning rather than playing the wait game or blatantly denying the seriousness of situation.

[0]: [https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest- coronavirus...](https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus- cases/)

<comment><USER3> > I think Germany is handling this crisis really well

People are out in groups, in parks, drinking with friends, I see old people in line in supermarkets next to coughing people, no safety distance, no masks, supermarket shelves are more and more empty, people dinning with their entire family from toddlers to grand parents, &c.

I expect Merkel to announce an Italy/France style full lockdown in the next few weeks when they figure out that people simply don't care about what the gov is asking for.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps, but at least Germany is tackling this on the data front. They are performing over 160,000 tests a week [1]. That's more than most countries have tested in total.

[1] [https://www.ft.com/content/c0755b30-69bb-11ea-800d-da70cff6e...](https://www.ft.com/content/c0755b30-69bb-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The headline is misleading. Merkel never said that Corona is Germany's greatest challenge.

<comment><USER6> It is a paraphrase. But I believe it accurately reflects the spirit of this quote from the address:

> ...since the Second World War, there has been no challenge to our nation > that has demanded such a degree of common and united action.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I still disagree with that. I'm sure the Cold War era with a split Germany and high tensions world wide would certainly qualify, unless she's lumping that in with "ww2" (which is fair from the anti-Nazi German perspective).

<comment><USER8> 100% agree, was downvoted for saying so elsewhere though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't know if the rest of the world highly regarded Germany's efforts during WWII...

<comment><USER10> Please don't post shallow dismissals or snarky nitpicks to HN. We're trying for something different than that here.

Actually, a line like this could well be part of curious conversation in person. But on the internet these things come across differently.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The phrasing is definitely weird. "Germany's greatest challenge since the rise of Nazism" seems a lot more appropriate.

<comment><USER12> If anything, nobody has ever accused her of being a good public speaker.

Also, this is what she said, only then NOT to implement any mandatory stay-at- home policies.

<comment><USER13> I actually thought that was a good speech. I can't comment on Germany's policies on this as I haven't been following them that closely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 1\. I'm entirely unsure German politicians will say this in hindsight.

2\. De-Nazification, and coming to grips with what had happened in Germany during those years, was a greater challenge - which Germany overall failed. In West Germany most of the regime simply persisted (the Nazi party was disbanded, but most of the rest of it just stayed in place; and the ownership of capital remained mostly untouched); in the East, there were numerous executions and significant social changes, but a lot of this was Russian influence and it was more heavy-handed than a deep social process AFAIK.

3\. Forty years of cold war were also a great challenge, probably more so than the covid-19 pandemic.

<comment><USER15> She said "since" the war.

Which means she considers the pandemic a bigger challenge than German reunification after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

<comment><USER7> Which is really odd. Germany was completely wrecked after WW2, relying largely on US aid for much of the period leading up to the Berlin Wall coming down. She was only a child for much of that period, and arguably wasn't around for the worst of it.

Yeah, this rapidly spreading disease is a royal pain, but it'll most likely be resolved within the year, with the worst of it probably ending within the next couple months. In fact, they could probably do absolutely nothing to fatten the curve and have a lower mortality rate than Cold War Germany.

Yes, this coronavirus is nasty, but it's definitely not worse than the Cold War.

<comment><USER16> > She was only a child for much of that period, and arguably wasn't around for > the worst of it.

She was also in East Germany and somewhat close to the ruling party, being an active member of their youth organization. She was, allegedly, working for them on spreading propaganda at the university she was studying at. She half- heartedly denies it and cites her failing memory, obviously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I kind of disagree, I would consider reunification efforts during the cold war to be a much bigger challenge than coronavirus. Also making comparisons to ww2, however valid, is just about the fastest way to get people to disregard a statement as hyperbole. Optics is important.</comment>


How to Write the History of Science? - <AUTHOR> http://resobscura.blogspot.com/2016/02/how-to-write-history-of-science.html <comment><USER2> >" _For my own part, I do think that one of the tasks of the history of science and medicine is to chart the trajectory of progress (however we choose to define it) in an open-minded and expansive way that tries as far as possible to avoid writing a history that celebrates the 'winners' and elides the 'losers,' even as it acknowledges that some concepts and methods have a basis in reality and others don't. In part because being too quick to distribute laurels and dunce caps can lead us into unjustified and overly hasty binaries. Not all pre-1800 physicians were astrologers or quacks; not all who quote Shapin or Butterfield are ardent proponents of the Strong Programme._"

Ben, it's an excellent article. Thanks.

I'm curious if you believe the unjustified and overly hasty dualism is becoming more or less prevalent?

Since the winners versus losers dichotomy implies competition, another way to rephrase the same question could be, "Is competition increasing, decreasing, or staying about the same?"

Whether it's fame and credit for a scientific discovery, or likes and karma points, or any of the many other mostly fabricated and unnecessary competitions, to me it seems society is trending more towards divisive competition rather than beneficial collaboration. Then again, I don't know nearly as much history as you do. ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> > trajectory of progress

How to write the history of science? First, watch James Burke's histories - _Connections_ [1] and _The Day The Universe Changed_ \- for his non- teleological view of change.

 _Connections_ is an important examination about the trajectory of progress. Burke's premise - which I agree with strongly - is that change is not predictable. We can, at best, make educated guesses about the future and be prepared for those guesses to be completely wrong more often than we like.

The conclusions here - which is very relevant to teaching both science and its history - is the importance of involving normal people in this rapidly accelerating rate of change. Why involve people? Because technology is a _trap_ if you don't know how to build it. Do you think of the _trap_ you are walking into (if the power fails) every time you enter an elevator? The history of science is a series of ever more complex traps... that happen to give us incredible benefit as long as we are careful not to get caught.

 _The Day The Universe Change_ is a different focus, about how science changes our _understanding_ of the world around us. That is, our universe changes with each discovery.

[1] The original 1978 series.

<comment><USER4> For those of you who _haven 't_ watched Burke's TV series (the two above, also the Connections3 miniseries), please check them out. You will learn linkages in technology and history you never imagined, and Burke is a _fantastic_ host and explainer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There aren't many books which are as popular as _A Short History of nearly everything_ by Bill Bryson.

It is funny and easy read, yet covers a lot of ground. Also brings to the fore the eccentric characters of Science community in a sincere manner

<comment><USER6> It's somewhat dated now, but I loved Asimov's Intelligent Man's Guide to Science[1] when I picked it up at a used book sale in junior high. I felt it was great for putting the history of science in context in a way that I never really got from my actual schooling.

Another good one is The Dancing Universe[2], which I got as a textbook for some sort of history/philosophy of science course in undergrad.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligent_Man%27s_Guide_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligent_Man%27s_Guide_to_Science)

[2] [http://amzn.to/1Sv6qV7](http://amzn.to/1Sv6qV7)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't not mention Joseph Needham, British biochemist, who developed an interest in things Chinese.

In the early 1950s, Needham wrote a proposal for what he suggested might be a one-volume work covering the history of Chinese scientific, mathematical, engineering, and other arts. As of 2016, there are 24 volumes of the work completed, with another three still in process (Needham himself died in 1995).

The story is the subject of journalist and author Simon Winchester's book, _The Man Who Loved China_. There are also several condensations and abridged summaries of Needham's work, including the single-volume _The Genius of China_ (1986) and a five volume work, _The Shorter Science and Civilisation_.

The organisation and treatment of the work (detailed in the first and second volumes of Needham's original, and in the summaries and Winchester's account) are instructive as to how to write a history of science.

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

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_China)

</comment><comment><USER8> Ludwik Fleck's "Genesis and development of a scientific fact" goes very much in the line of looking at science as a gradual progress, with many failed attempts. written by winners. (Written pre-WW2; it served as an inspiration for Khun.) Its most eye-opening example is the history of [the concept/knowledge/science/... of] syphilis, from ancient to modern times. PDF (of print from 1979): [http://www.evolocus.com/Textbooks/Fleck1979.pdf](http://www.evolocus.com/Textbooks/Fleck1979.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a related nuts&bolts question. I have started to research the history of my field, mostly dating from the 1940s to 1970. It's a small field (chemical information). The histories are mostly written by the practitioners, who describe what they did, their influences, etc.

This is one of many ways to do history. Historians also approach it in other ways. I would like to learn more about some of those ways, so I can be better at researching my topic.

Can anyone recommend a book along the lines of "So you to be a science historian" or "how to learn to write the history of science"? The book mentioned here, "The Invention of Science", sounds like it's too high of a level - though it does sound interesting.

The author points to [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22department+of+the+history...](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22department+of+the+history+of+science%22) . Perhaps I should just cold-call someone ...

<comment><USER10> You could try asking this on reddit, in particular /r/askhistorians.

One of my favorite subs, and they provide great answers to similar questions on a regular basis.

Their related FAQ answer on historiography books may be helpful too- [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/historiogr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/historiography)

Edit- also related, a topic on making a history of science reading list. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/zahv0/meta_h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/zahv0/meta_history_of_science_reading_list/)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the links. They appear to be on the wrong level for what I'm interested in learning, though I need to look closer look at the historiography books, like "The Historian's Craft".

I posted my question yesterday to Reddit, as you suggested. It's at [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/44s7ak/how_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/44s7ak/how_to_learn_the_nutsbolts_of_becoming_an/) .

<comment><USER10> Cool. I asked a couple friends, and one has a friend who is a professional science historian, so waiting to hear from her and I'll pass along any response she might have as well.

<comment><USER9> Thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>