Ask HN: How does one convince people and change minds in a post-fact world? - <AUTHOR> This post was spurred on by this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/5ntjh2/all_this_fake_news/dceozzo/<p>We've reached a point where factual evidence is no longer sufficient to convince someone of something. Did modern discussion platforms fail us? Is there something that can be changed about them to stop this?<p>...Can this even be undone? <comment><USER2> No. You were living in a contrived bubble of manufactured consent that was already post-fact. For instance did Saddam have nukes? No. But it was validated by a controlled mass media. The century of self guaranteed this sort of outcome. And there are other political crises looming mainly due to the way that mass psychology has been programmed and encouraged by business interests and the establishment.

People are presuming their desires in what they want to believe. How they want reality to be. They don't really care about your or the elite's opinions. It's getting more and more difficult to control people's irrational behavior and erratic thought patterns because they are fed by desire to believe. Not what is true, because who determines the truth? Their leaders? They don't trust them. Business interests? They don't trust them. The Church? You get the idea.

Putin is simply catching up to the West in terms of propaganda. All the stuff described has been going on in America and the rest of the West for a century since Sigmund Freud turned the establishment on to the subconscious. It's been down hill from there. It's just when the playing field is leveled then the possibilities are scary.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately I get what you are saying and its bleak, I try to avoid the trap with the media by reading lots of different ones and finding their sources, other stuff helps like listening to a politicians speech directly rather than opinions on that speech (YouTube * 1.5 speed is useful).

I still question whether my worldview is an accurate inference from the evidence prevented but that slaps bang into philosophy and navel gazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> People have never made decisions based on facts. We decide based on emotions, and then rationalize our decisions later if ever.

Evolution did not optimize us for accurate understanding of the world. It optimized us for having offspring that survive. The latter by and large does not require the former. Indeed, deception plays a big role in human reproductive strategies.

<comment><USER5> Reminds me of something Putin said to journalists regarding global balance of power:

"International Relations is much like mathematics — there is nothing personal about it."[1]

[1] [https://youtu.be/kqD8lIdIMRo?t=11m25s](https://youtu.be/kqD8lIdIMRo?t=11m25s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > We've reached a point where factual evidence is no longer sufficient to > convince someone of something.

Has it ever been? This whole talk about a post fact world is bollocks anyway. It's a heavy-handed device contrived to explain things like a President Trump or Brexit that according to conventional political wisdom aren't allowed to happen.

Well, guess what if people on either side of the political spectrum hadn't been so bloody arrogant we'd have neither Brexit nor Trump today. More importantly, people wouldn't believe some nonsense they read in the news if they were treated as actual, thinking human beings.

<comment><AUTHOR> >we'd have neither Brexit nor Trump today

That's just it, though. Was that ever realistically avoidable? Or was the momentum of arrogant politics such that that was inevitable?

<comment><USER6> In 2016 it was too late already but it's hard to say when the exact turning point happened. In terms of Brexit it possibly was two-fold: The hurried Eastern enlargement (which ironically was expedited by the UK) and flaws in the design of the euro.

After Trump's victory there were some signs of humility and contrition, which unfortunately were very quickly replaced by the "post fact world" meme and an arrogant "See? We were right all along." stance again.

Developments like that are no one-way road. If people come to their senses the pendulum might swing the other way again.

<comment><USER7> >After Trump's victory there were some signs of humility and contrition, which unfortunately were very quickly replaced by the "post fact world" meme

This chafes me to no end.

This belief that Trump/Brexit is some kind of disruption to the natural order of things and if we just get rid of "fake news", things will go back to the way they're supposed to be. We just need to bring back the "real news", like pondering if airplanes get sucked into black holes or gossiping about Clooney getting divorced. Then Hillary & Co can be in charge like the gods intended.

<comment><USER8> It seems to me that the sense of entitlement to the office is one of the things that people found so repellent about Hillary.

<comment><USER7> Exactly.

And this doubling down that they're doing is only burying them further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree with others that everything has always been post-fact in a certain sense.

The real problem now is that opinions and attitudes are being driven so much by ideological group membership. That is, people are explicitly or implicitly making decisions on the basis of "is this the sort of thing that X sort of person would or should do?" rather than "is the sort of thing that is in my best long-term interests?" They're taking for granted what is consistent with their ideological identifications, which often aren't flexible or nuanced enough to deal with the real world.

To be clear, I see this as happening on both sides of the political spectrum, although I admit in the US I see it as becoming more extreme with social conservatives.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely see this happening on the left as well (with identity politics). Makes sense that the response on the right follows suit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm very optimistic that we can solve this problem with better tools. That's not to deny, as others have pointed out here, that emotions drive our thinking and that a post-fact world is as old as the art of rhetoric. It is, rather, based on the observation that we have an incredible ability to crowdsource information--including of an opinionated / normative variety--thanks to the internet, and yet we're still using the same rather rudimentary tool we started with: threaded comments. Threaded comments have their virtues, to be sure, but one of their downsides tends to be a lack of structure in the body of the content.

Sequiturs ([https://sequiturs.com](https://sequiturs.com)) is my attempt at a tool that solves this problem, of how to collaboratively reason and change people's minds about something. I've written a bit more here about why I think the answer is better tooling: [https://sequiturs.com/blog/post/introducing- sequiturs/](https://sequiturs.com/blog/post/introducing-sequiturs/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I just read a book about writing science proposals. You would think that writing a proposal intended for an audience of scientists the advice would be 'stick to the facts' and make a 'scientific' argument. Yes, sort of. But it turns out that if you want to convince people of the importance of your idea, you need to invoke emotion and the best way to do this is with a compelling story. So to convince people, even scientists, of the importance of any idea the best way to do it is to use a good story.

Interesting, and not obvious to me. Though I'd guess standard knowledge for people in marketing and sales.

<comment><USER12> Well, scientists often consider the two factors of relevance and rigor. A scientific study must be rigorous in its methodology in order to pass peer review. But it must also be relevant to a question or problem that matters. So you often start a paper with a few paragraphs about "the problem" and how/why your contribution is important. This would be even more important if applying for a grant, because funders want to make sure there's a good reason for the study.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> In sales and marketing, the job becomes orders of magnitude easier if the product is actually as good as promised. When your product is lower quality than the competition, advertising it is possible but difficult (and I would say ethically questionable) and you're not going to succeed with everyone.

It's the same with "convincing someone of something". The job becomes many times easier if the thing you're trying to persuade them of is actually true. If it's true, you can use plain facts and clear logic. If the thing you're trying to convince them of is false, you'll have to make increasingly more effort and will see a lower success rate. You'll also have to use dishonest tactics, like changing the meanings of words and declaring certain lines of argument taboo or unacceptable in polite society (i.e. political correctness).

A corollary is that, if you (from your POV) find it increasingly difficult to persuade People of Things, it might be worth considering the possiblility of whether those Things might in fact be wrong, rather than jumping to the conclusion that those People are deficient. You should at least consider it, and maybe take some time for personal study of the issues and arguments before redoubling your advertising budget.

</comment><comment><USER13> The "post-fact" issue is one thing; convincing people and changing minds is another.

As for the latter, I highly recommend reading Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind". And keeping in mind that a big part of convincing others is keeping yourself open to having your mind changed.

Going back to the post-fact issue: people are rarely convinced based on evidence or facts alone to change their mind, so in some sense the facts are secondary. That said, finding a common ground of ideas or facts to agree upon is important. Figuring out how to find this common ground is an important skill. This is what I think the crux of "post fact" comes down to. And a lot of this means granting people the benefit of the doubt, engaging in good faith, and refusing to let yourself get dragged into "point-scoring" and other lesser forms of argumentation.

</comment><comment><USER14> We've know the solution for decades. We need a credibility/reliability/trust score. I will blindly trust what a highly trusted person will claim.

At the moment, it's impossible to accurately determine if someone is trustworthy or not because we don't keep track of commitments, faults and lies. It's a lot easier to give the appearance of trust than to be trustworthy.

Today, those who lie the best in interviews get jobs. Tomorrow, I will hire a person without needing an interview thanks to those scores.

It's unavoidable. Why wait?</comment>


The FBI faked an entire field of forensic science (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/04/fbi_s_flawed_forensics_expert_testimony_hair_analysis_bite_marks_fingerprints.html <comment><USER4> IMHO this is indicative of a "win at all cost" justice system. By and large prosecutors are allowed to say just about anything they want, solicit any testimony they wish, and those in law enforcement, forensics, and the state, dutifully follow suit. The machine of the state is at fault here, and prosecutors should themselves be thrown in jail for such behavior.

<comment><USER5> 'Justice' implies something other than what the system is. This is a 'win at all cost' _punishment_ system. Justice doesn't come into it. I can tell you from first-hand experience [0] that, if the system has an opportunity to punish you, it will do so to the _maximum_ extent it possibly can, irrespective of the impact on the victim, the accused, society at large or, frankly, sanity. It is not 'corrective', it is not 'restorative', it is not any of the other euphemisms they use. It is purely punitive.

[0] [https://fundrazr.com/nicoleabele](https://fundrazr.com/nicoleabele)

<comment><USER6> Someone told me in a lot of other countries, there aren't dedicated prosecution and defense attorneys; that in places like the UK a pool can be drawn from to represent both. Is this true?

I feel like the win/closure rate is a huge part of the problem.

<comment><USER7> Well, there isn't really a single legal system in the UK.

Here in Scotland, which I think is fairly similar to England even though the terminology is completely different, the public prosecutor is the _procurator fiscal_ who directly employs solicitors to prosecute cases in the lower courts (Sheriff Courts). Defendants will typically be defended by solicitors working criminal defence firms - often paid for by the state through Legal Aid.

However, for more serious crimes there is a completely separate court - <USER2> High Court of the Justiciary before which normal solicitors can't appear - <USER3> need to be a specialised advocate and they can't be employed directly by clients but only by solicitors (you do get Solicitor Advocates but apparently they don't appear nearly as often as you might expect). You might be getting the idea of a shared pool from this idea of an advocate (barrister in England) who in theory will take any side of any case. In practice there are advocates working for the public prosecutor for a stint and others who focus on criminal defence. However I suspect most advocates have no desire to do criminal work unless they want to be Sheriffs or Judges.

<comment><USER8> Do you have this "jury of peers" thing as well? Cause that's such a scary notion in the US legal system, I'm happy we do without (in the Netherlands). It's such an obvious part of the problem. Yes it's nice they're peers or something, but they're pretty useless considering how easily they get wooed by any expert speaking with a sound of authority and the fact that they're a 100 times more familiar with the CSI:Fairytales on TV than they are with the actual justice system.

The big difference is that a professional working in this system will actually get a notion of how trustworthy tea-leaf readings actually are when determining objective true facts (or something similarly scientific, like polygraphs--they don't seem to get much use outside the US either, weird). Well, unless of course the incentives for the professional are wrong, and again it's this "jury of peers" idea that gets in the way, the incentives become about populism and convincing the jury, about the show. Not what's really real, but who can produce the biggest superstimulus of hyperreality. Thanks a lot, Baudrillard :-(

<comment><USER7> Yes - we have jury trials - juries picked purely at random with no vetting (I've been selected for jury duty a few times and never actually been picked):

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Arson cases too have been based on flawed forensics.

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

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by- fire](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire)

 _In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire. He said that Vasquez's approach seemed to deny "rational reasoning" and was more "characteristic of mystics or psychics." What's more, Beyler determined that the investigation violated, as he put it to me, "not only the standards of today but even of the time period." The commission is reviewing his findings, and plans to release its own report next year. Some legal scholars believe that the commission may narrowly assess the reliability of the scientific evidence. There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the "execution of a legally and factually innocent person."_

</comment><comment><USER10> The imprecise nature of forensics work should be a sufficient argument for leniency in all criminal justice cases. Instead there seems to be this witch- hunting mentality where _someone_ needs to take the fall.

The fact that the justice system of the mightiest and wealthiest country in the history of the planet uses methods no better than pricking is quite disturbing ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricking)).

<comment><USER11> The entire US approach to dealing with crime is tainted by both racism and a religious-fundamentalist approach to sin. People very much want to believe that there are good people and bad people, and that it's feasible to sort everyone into those categories and put the bad people in prison and punish them eternally for their intrinsic badness.

This blinds people to misconduct by the ""good guys"".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I believe the problem here is that we (humans) are terrible at dealing with systemic failures. It would seem we find it easy to accept that a small number of cases/people/situations are flawed, and that feels like something we can fix. But usually, when faced with a problem so large it is described as systemic we choose to ignore it and move on rather than face it and fix it. I.e. the problem just seems too big. That is why I think that even when we discover such a horrific problem as listed here there is no proportional public outcry.

For example if someone is imprisoned in another's basement for 10 years we accept their right to sue the person who kept them imprisoned - even many years later. But when faced with systematic slavery we classify the problem as a systemic failure and move on, the idea of reparation seems crazy.

Another example would be the crash of 2009, once the flaw was discovered (high risk debt rolled up into low risk securities) very few people accepted it was a problem to fix even when shown the facts; in part because 'everybody is doing it', what can we do. I.e. the problem was systemic not localised to a small group of people. Interestingly a lot of the same bad practises appear to be continuing and are often reported - but again, what to do, it's a failure in the system!

And finally it's also like the story of the discovery of Yellowstone caldera - the scientists couldn't work out where exactly the volcano was in Yellowstone initially they didn't believe/realise it was in fact all of Yellowstone.

<comment><USER13> This is another reason prosecutorial immunity is bad. Prosecutors and cops should be bonded so that the bad ones price themselves out of the business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> An excellent source on forensics' scientiic basis is the "Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Third Edition"

[http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13163](http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13163)

It was written by the National Academies as a guide for federal judges (i.e., for non-scientists), so it's based on deep scientific expertise and yet is pretty readable. Also, the first section on how science really works in practice, relative to theories of scientific method, is unique (AFAIK) and exceptional.

EDIT: If there's not a free version available at that link, I'm pretty sure you can find one from a credible source elsewhere, I think from one of the other organizations involved. However, consider paying and supporting the National Academies' work.

</comment><comment><USER15> We've long required the state to provide an attorney to those that cannot afford one. It may now be necessary for the state to provide scientists to those that cannot afford them as well.

Sadly prosecutors too often see their job as winning cases rather than serving justice.

<comment><USER16> > _We 've long required the state to provide an attorney to those that cannot > afford one. It may now be necessary for the state to provide scientists to > those that cannot afford them as well._

Well, the state provided poor people bottom of the barrel attorneys, who didn't care much about the defendants (and had not much of a financial motive to), and urged them to plea so that they can move ahead, in a hell of a lot of cases.

So, this "state scientist" process to exist, it should be really to work better than that if it's to do any good.

<comment><USER17> It's not always that they don't care, it's also that the caseload can be insane - some public defenders being assigned upwards of 1,000 felony cases per year.

<comment><USER18> You'd think that supply would rise to meet demand.

Being a public defender in a free market would be an attractive career: the stability of a public servant, and the lucrative nature of a skilled job requiring high intelligence.

Of course, we don't have a free market; we have a lawyer's guild with a set yearly intake of applicants.

<comment><USER19> Don't blame the "lawyer's guild" for this. This is not a matter of supply and demand; there are currently more lawyers looking for work than there are jobs available.

Public defenders are largely government employees. Most governments have resisted increasing the budgets of their respective Public Defenders' offices to allow for the hiring of additional staff. Blame the legislators, and blame the taxpayers for not wanting to pay an extra $1/year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> '"the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death." Of these defendants, 14 have already been executed or died in prison.'

<comment><USER21> Guess what will happen with the other 18.

<comment><USER22> If the executive branch had any courage or decency, they'd be pardoned. Along with tens of thousands of other unjustly imprisoned citizens.

<comment><USER23> Bad evidence having been presented against them does not mean they are necessarily innocent. Their cases did not all hinge entirely upon this one piece of forensic evidence. Although what happened to them was wrong, pardons go too far in the opposite direction. Retrial would be far more appropriate.

<comment><USER22> Retrials ain't gonna happen, not least because there aren't enough courts to retry all the cases for which retrial is "appropriate", and also work through current cases. (In my county, there is a rapist of children still on pretrial bail after three fucking years because "there aren't enough judges" and the real priorities around here are traffic offences and drug possession. How eager do you think the courts are going to be to clean up ancient FBI fuckups?)

Besides, which cases are you talking about? Juries will convict with _no_ evidence. A _single_ piece of "evidence" is enough for a judge to let the conviction stand. Most of these trials _did_ "hinge entirely upon this one piece of forensic" bullshit. Fake forensics has allowed LEOs to pick suspects out of a hat and get convictions for decades. Do you really want to leave all those innocents in prison because you feel good about their hat-picking percentages? Far better for one innocent prisoner to be released than for hundreds of guilty people to stay in prison.

<comment><USER23> I'm talking about the 32 capital cases referred to in the article. Which are you talking about? The ones you imagine as a symbol of systemic injustice? Or actual cases?

<comment><USER22> Ah, OK, I can see how that was confusing, from a certain point of view. From TFA:

" _Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory's microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far._ "

That is, these dickheads lied almost every time. We shouldn't suspect only the 250 verdicts their lies about which have been documented. We should suspect every single verdict that they touched. The WaPo article is more informative than TFA in this respect, in that it reveals that 2500 cases over this period had FBI hair testimony, while only 342 had been reviewed when that article was published. It also drops this bomb: " _The bureau expects this year to complete similar standards for testimony and lab reports for 19 forensic disciplines._ " That is, there are tens of thousands more cases with shitty lying FBI expert testimony.

I tried digging out more precise figures on this last part, but the Innocence Project's site is kind of a mess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They are apparently big fans of the polygraph as well: [http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/special- reports/article24749...](http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/special- reports/article24749254.html)

<comment><USER4> Ooohhh careful! Don't you dare tell anyone how to defeat a polygraph or they will come after you!

Source: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/indiana-man-accused- of-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/indiana-man-accused-of-teaching- people-to-beat-lie-detector-tests-faces-prison- time/2013/08/31/a7cbe74a-08ea-11e3-9941-6711ed662e71_story.html)

<comment><USER24> "obstruction of an agency proceeding". Wow...didn't know that law existed. Seems easily abused and overly broad.

<comment><USER25> It appears that they entrapped him as an accessory to a crime. By saying things like 'I need help cheating my border patrol test. Can you help me?' Terrible..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> FBI and Federal Prosecutors are so aggressive.

As my friend is close to being indited by the FBI and a "Star Witness" just plead guilty for bribery, tax evasion and bribery. The FBI released one recording where my friend was pissed at a company and the "Star Witness" who was wired was the one saying he would do illegal activities. Also FBI "You will find that (my friend) did not have direct contact with other people and kept himself separated from other people who did illegal activities.

So far the "Star Witness" has brought down 6 people after he got caught for tax evasion.

</comment><comment><USER27> I was a juror in a trial 10 yrs ago where the police fielded their so-called blood splatter expert who testified he could recreate the entire crime just from casual observations about bloodstains at the scene complete with props using red dyed water to further the fraud. As soon as he was done the judge instructed us that the entire testimony be thrown out since it was blatant pseudoscience but later when I looked the police agents name up he had given the same false testimony in other trials and it was admitted as evidence without question.

<comment><USER28> >instructed us that the entire testimony be thrown out

This is moronic. Human minds aren't able to just discard information and biases like that. The fact that so much is allowed to be said in a courtroom, to untrained people, then simply reasoned away with "well, it's not evidence" is insane. I'm thinking of the lawyer's arguments, too. They get to present things under the guise of non-evidence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Slightly ot, but this is one of the reasons I have always felt like the law shows and csi shows had a rather obvious tinge of propaganda to them, in a way that is meant to normalize certain viewpoints. For example, how the accused in shows almost never have a lawyer present, or that the science is perfect, etc.

Shades of operation mockingbird.

<comment><USER30> Those shows are nearly compete fiction. Like how they show a DNA test coming back in 5 minutes when in reality it takes weeks.

<comment><USER31> This is definitely true. But even with awareness of the inaccurate representation, I think some of the message seeps into the brain of even the most aware human.

Then realize how unusual it is. Most people do not have the critical thinking skills, or industry expertise, to grok that medicine or forensics or programming is nothing like the movies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I would have expected that some higher ranking people in the justice system would be horrified by these things and do something.

In fields like medicine or air travel errors happen but it's part of the system to address them and make sure they don't happen again. That doesn't seem to be the case at all in the justice system.

<comment><USER21> Why do you believe that higher ranking people in the justice system didn't know this before? I would guess that it is an requirement to accept this system if you want to climb higher ranks.

<comment><USER32> I am pretty sure they knew. I am just surprised that they aren't horrified. If I were the head of an organization that sends innocent people to death (while the real killer is free) I would do my best to avoid this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The systemic fix is that there needs to be accountability for these mistakes. Knowingly giving false testimony that leads to someone's conviction and incarceration should be a crime, as should knowing utilization of false testimony by a prosecutor.

Just like with torture and other criminal failures of government, nobody goes to jail; there is no incentive to avoid corruption next time someone has a choice like this one.

<comment><USER33> > Knowingly giving false testimony that leads to someone's conviction and > incarceration should be a crime

Does the USA not have a crime of perjury?

<comment><USER34> Who is going to prosecute, when it is the person who decides who gets prosecuted, doing the perjury? And all the other prosecutors use the same methods to get forward in their jobs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > jurors who, not unreasonably, believed that scientists in white coats knew > what they were talking about

I don't think I agree with the "not unreasonably" part. At what point do we as a society expect more from jurors? Ask yourself: If you or one of your close friends is called to be on a jury, do you think you'll just take some song- and-dance at face value without carefully weighing the ostensible expertise of each witness?

Rather, it seems to me that the process of juror selection has become so obtuse - yet so routine - that critical jurors who might lead the jury away from swallowing this kind of hogwash are filtered out before the case makes it to trial.

> There were no scientifically accepted standards for forensic testing, yet > FBI experts routinely and almost unvaryingly testified, according to the > Post, "to the near-certainty of 'matches' of crime-scene hairs to > defendants, backing their claims by citing incomplete or misleading > statistics drawn from their case work."

...and nobody questioned this? No defense attorney or jury foreperson over the years brought any serious attention to this? _That 's_ the broken part.

That the government will lie is to be expected and is part of the nature of government. That people will unflinchingly proceed as though its lies are actually veracious and sober elements of a criminal trial - this is fixable.

> There is no lack of good ideas for reform. (Journalist Radley Balko and > Roger Koppl, a professor of finance at Syracuse University's Whitman School > of Management and a fellow at Syracuse's Forensic and National Security > Sciences Institute, offered up a laundry list of fixes in Slate—almost seven > years ago.)* These solutions are not all that expensive or complicated. > Among them: giving defendants their own forensic experts, untethering crime > labs from the prosecutors and cops to which they now answer, verification > and standards.

Radley has been so tireless in his reporting. Glad to see his work mentioned here. He's a true hacker and a great speaker and researcher. The recommendations mentioned here are so obvious and so easy that it's unthinkable that the failure to implement them is attributable to anything but the desire to continue to convict, truth be damned.

<comment><USER36> I think a solution would be to move to a system of professional jurors.

As it stands, the current jury system seems to be a horrible mess of people who can't get out of going to jury duty, relying not on understanding of the law or legal procedure, but rather the judge's instructions and the arguments of lawyers, and all the crime/courtroom drama shows and movies they've watched. They can't question lawyers during the trial or anything like that; they just watch a show for a while and then make a decision.

Given that a jury decision is, in the most abstract sense, an alternative to a judge's decision, then it would make sense to have jurors who at least as competent as a judge is for the job.

There would still be the issue of them becoming too close to prosecutors, lawyers, or judges, as we have now with judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement. But there are ways to address that. Nonetheless I believe it would be an improvement on the current system

<comment><USER35> Extending the credentialism that already plagues the "justice" system seems like the wrong move to me.

I think we need a cultural change that makes jurors (and, more generally, participants in various civic activities) feel more empowered to think critically and speak out about their conclusions.

It was pretty obvious that the bitemark stuff was complete junk science to anybody who read about it. The hair analysis may have been a little tougher, but I'm sure it was knowable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Story needs a (2015) tag, this was published April 22 2015.

<comment><USER38> Also ' \- hair analysis' to save the click if you've already read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> How can these fellows sleep at night?

"Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory's microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far."

<comment><USER40> It's like fsloth said earlier in this thread: someone needs to fall.

Personally, twice I had FBI field agents as my neighbor, and I while my n=2 can hardly be generalized, my first impression (and you only get one chance to make a good first impression) is that the FBI doesn't get to hire the cream- of-the-crop. Maybe it's not the staff fault: the FBI seems to be investing a lot more in their PR department than in its departments actually doing the job in the trenches.

<comment><USER41> The FBI cannot (or does not) pay as well for technical positions as nearly any private position. The background of agents (and, subsequently, management) is in either accounting or "criminal justice", neither one of which is a field noted for reassessment of theory or appraising scientific evidence.

As a result, they tend to accept promises of accuracy that line up with their biases, and not dig too deeply into methods.

<comment><USER30> This mindset is common in practitioners. Faith in the process, or the way it's always been done, or the way they were trained. Even in development, it's very common in corporate or government settings to find developers who know the one language and OS that they use, and the one set of patterns they use, and are not very curious about anything else. It's a job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The Making a Murderer series on Netflix provides some specific case insight into possible FBI misconduct with regards to forensic tests they were asked to do when they didn't have the science to do them.

<comment><USER43> Thought of that right after I read the headline. If there was foul play here, I wonder if there was foul play in the Avery case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Breathalyzers aren't nearly as accurate as they are purported to be and the whole justice system just accepts it because drunk drivers are bad.

The justice system isn't a science system and never has been.

<comment><USER45> Never consent to a breathalyzer if you've been drinking.

<comment><USER46> In my jurisdiction, refusing a breathalyzer test is felony, as it should.

<comment><USER47> Is your jurisdiction in the United States? If so, that's not true. You may automatically have your license revoked if you refuse a breathalyzer and a field sobriety test. But that's different than committing a felony. Your penalties may be harsher if you are eventually be found guilty of DUI without the breathalyzer evidence, but that is not being charged with a felony.

You absolutely have the 5th Amendment right to not incriminate yourself in every jurisdiction of the US. There are automatic consequences to refusing a breathalyzer (losing ones license), but they have nothing to do with being charged with a crime, much less a felony.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I've read on HN several times that finger prints in principle or how they are handled are also 'fake'? Is this the case?

<comment><USER49> Kind of? There was the infamous Brandon Mayfield case a decade ago, where the FBI came down on an innocent American lawyer for the 2004 Madrid train bombings, despite the skepticism of Spanish security, because he was one of twenty people with similar-ish fingerprints.

He was also Muslim, worked on a terrorism case, had interest in flying, and his daughter had done a school project about a hypothetical Spanish vacation, which the FBI built into a damning case of misconstrued circumstantial evidence.

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

[http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/the- terrifying-...](http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/the-terrifying- surveillancecaseofbrandonmayfield.html)

<comment><USER48> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The first questions that one should ask regarding things like this are:

\- How does this compare to other countries?

\- Do other countries make use of similar lines of evidence in similar ways?

\- Have other countries made the same mistake of over-interpreting the evidence and subsequently overhauled it?

The World contains a convenient set of correlated pseudo-replicates of western societies. Discourse in the USA often fails to make use of them.

</comment><comment><USER51> Thanks for posting this. I'm shocked at the lack of response to this issue.

</comment><comment><USER52> There is no good side or bad side in American justice or anywhere with similar systems. The defense is expected to lie through their teeth even if they're guilty, and the prosecution is expected to convict at all costs regardless of innocence. There are no ethical or moral grounds for either stretching their practices, especially in the big leagues where every win counts. As with sports, so often we find the winners were actually just the dopers that got away with it, until they get caught, like now.

Fair and balanced? It's pretty disgusting actually, but so is the NFL depending on how offensive you feel it is to taint studies on concussions. The analogy goes further than one might expect, with the justice system struggling with their image just like any other professional sport institution. It's the Justice League. Justice is a brand.

The real question is, are we really that desperate? Or rather, why wouldn't we be? When you're forced to win, you're forced to do a lot of things.

Instead, we should just be forced to get it right.

</comment><comment><USER13> Forensics should be contracted from the private sector, independent of law enforcement, be equally available to defendants, and QA'ed with test data in double-blind tests.

</comment><comment><USER53> > Chillingly, as the Post continues, "the cases include those of 32 defendants > sentenced to death." Of these defendants, 14 have already been executed or > died in prison.

</comment><comment><USER54> Aren't these 26 forensic witnesses guilty of massive perjury?

I have no sympathy for them AT ALL, and I think they should be personally prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is disturbing. This got me thinking, is there any institution or system that can be trusted? I mean these are organizations that enforce laws and the very foundation the rest of the society is built on. If that is flawed to the coare, what can you trust?

<comment><USER13> It's more that every system that asks for trust should be rigorously tested: Random double blind tests, "red team" tests, etc. Without testing, they are not even at the starting line for building trust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> We also need to revisit all shootings the FBI declared justified.

Which would be all of them.

No FBI agent has ever been found in the wrong for killing anyone, ever.

</comment><comment><USER57> "Paradoxically, Justice Antonin Scalia has emerged as a vocal early skeptic about the risk of taint in the work of crime labs" \-- there is nothing paradoxical about it all. The paradox exists only in the mind and shallow analysis of an intellectually lazy author who has been conditioned to believe that he should categorically disagree with Scalia.

<comment><USER58> The paradox is that he's skeptical of the crime labs, which have been used in convicting/sentencing people to death, yet in the quote he appears to state that there have never been wrongful death sentence convictions because of tainted/false evidence.

The paradox is between Scalia's statements and is actually pretty clear. But you do have to put the entire paragraph and read the link to understand the context.

"It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case—not one—in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby."

"Two years ago, Scalia spoke for a 5-4 majority reversing the conviction of an alleged cocaine dealer from Massachusetts because prosecutors did not bring to court a lab analyst whose test confirmed the bags of white powder were indeed cocaine. The dissenters, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said a lab technician who conducts a test is not a "witness" in the ordinary sense of the term."

Based on Scalia's constitutional views (a very literal interpretation), I'd say it probably isn't really a paradox to him, but an outside observer might see the results as conflicting. (I mean, obviously it wasn't going to be a literal paradox, that's not what paradoxically is taken to mean colloquially).

<comment><USER59> I'd imagine that Scalia would have argued in response that the legal system provides for enough failsafes, since that individual wasn't actually executed.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Programming audio courses made of podcast episodes - <AUTHOR> https://podhut.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the creator of the website.

The reason I created this was that I was getting huge knowledge value from podcasts but I couldn't listen to just a few episodes on a very specific topic.

The idea behind this audio courses concept is not to teach you a skill if you didn't know how to perform that skill at all before (e.g.: you certainly won't learn programming this way). The idea is to make you better at something you already were interested in. And also to give it to you in a friendlier and more "free" way than traditional video learning - here comes the podcast part. You can be learning while commuting, cooking, runing, etc. And you probably won't even realize you're learning if you already like podcasts!

I'm currently trying to to figure out how to get people using it. Something still doesn't feel quite good about the courses. I get positive feedback when I'm sharing a specific courses but people seem to not care when I share the whole website. So something is still off. In the future it definitely needs to be a mobile app, starting with a website makes it much easier and faster to prototype and share it with people though.

If you have any question, feel free to ask.</comment>


Cities offer cash as they compete for new residents amid remote work boom - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90517270/cities-offer-cash-as-they-compete-for-new-residents-amid-remote-work-boom <comment><USER2> VT program was full in 6 days and they think it wasn't worth it. This article is misleading in saying it was a cash payment. In reality VT's program was reimbursement, and they realized the people using it were going to move there anyway and had the means to pay for it, so now they wonder the value of it.

Maybe the competition will make the cash payments worth it? There are probably better ways than cash payments in mast/all circumstances though.</comment>


Scientists discover a new class of taste receptors - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-04-scientists-class-receptors.html <comment><USER2> I work in this field[0] and in situations like this always point out that "discover" in this sense is like Amerigo Vespucci "discovering America".

There were people here before it was "discovered" and there were people using this taste receptor before we knew of its existence.

This is an important distinction because what we've learned is not about new flavors or aromas - but the psychophysical pathway that activates perception of that flavor.

This doesn't allow for us humans to perceive anything new but it could allow for the synthesis of new flavors or better modulation of natural or synthesized flavors.

I work on the modeling and prediction side of human sensory perception, but do have prior knowledge of psychophysics and am happy to answer further questions.

[0] www.gastrograph.com

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying you're wrong, because you are right...but the title seems pretty self explanatory that it's the actual receptors being discovered, rather than that perception of taste. Unless I'm biased to read the title in that way.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I agree, the title is clear;

I point this out because in every conversation about new receptor sites for taste, I see questions about what new flavors or experiences the "discovery" could create - which is (probably) not the _direction_ that implications from this discovery will flow.

For example, MSG was first "discovered" (more correctly, synthesized) in 1908 but the receptor sites (such as mGlu4) were not identified until much later. Glutamic acid was already being added to tons of foodstuff (kombu, mushrooms, stock, gravy, etc) even if the compound and reasoning was unknown. Isolating the compound "making stuff taste good" came before determining the receptor site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These articles always omit the most interesting part:

> Montell and lead author Nicole Leung, who recently completed her predoctoral > studies at UC Santa Barbara, suspected opsin molecules might be at work in > detecting subtle chemical signals as well, via a signal amplification > process.

Yeah, but why did that formulate that hypothesis? What was the line of reasoning?

</comment><comment><USER5> The summary seems to be that opsins (proteins normally known for their role in vision) are acting to boost the signal on certain flavors indicative of potentially harmful compounds, flavors that might need to be picked up in much smaller concentrations than other flavors.

If I'm understanding it properly, not sure if it's a different "class" but rather a specialization for tasting bitter flavors. Wouldn't be surprised if there were similar specializations for other tastes e.g. sweetness, such as a mechanism to trigger insulin production without involving the brain.</comment>


Legalizing drugs harms some black markets but spurs activities in others - <AUTHOR> https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/11/displacement-criminal-labor-market-evidence-drug-legalizations.html <comment><AUTHOR> I linked to this blog post because I can't find the actual paper.</comment>


Do We Live in the Matrix?  - <AUTHOR> http://discovermagazine.com/2013/dec/09-do-we-live-in-the-matrix?curator=MediaREDEF <comment><USER2> Sometimes people take The Matrix quite literally, while it is actually a very good metaphor for government and democracy. Morpheus hints at this very transparently in a couple of monologues:

 _Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes [grins]. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind._

So what Neo later sees are endless fields of human beings being grown for the very purpose of obtaining energy from them. Still don't see what's going on here?

And then later in the training program he tells Neo this:

 _Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you 're inside, you look around, what do you see? Business men, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it._

And indeed, I see that all over again. Even if you hint to people that maybe we don't really need a government to live our lives in peace, at the very best it is suggested you go to Somalia. The very idea that maybe the dearest leaders of whatever country you live in don't actually care about you doesn't seem to be able to penetrate people's minds, even though time and again they lie and abuse their powers. Those who hint to this idea are called radicals and extremists, even though it is not them, but the elite in power, who have a stake in this whole game.

<comment><USER3> The system being better than the alternatives and the system _caring_ about you are two different things.

> The very idea that maybe the dearest leaders of whatever country you live in > don't actually care about you doesn't seem to be able to penetrate people's > minds, even though time and again they lie and abuse their powers.

Really? Because the prevailing opinion with people I speak to is that politicians are bastards, and that's replicated here. In fact, politicians are very rarely looked at in a good light. People dislike what we have! What's the approval rating of Congress?

Your rhetoric is the same I see time and time again. People need to "wake up" and see that the system is terrible, and they're so stupid for not seeing it. People do see it, we've got well past that point. The idea that there are significant problems with the way we run countries is _painfully fucking obvious_. You're not smarter than everyone else for seeing that there is corruption, or that people lie. These revelations are not new, they're not anything different from what we've seen for thousands of years.

The problem is nobody has a good plan for what else to do.

> Even if you hint to people that maybe we don't really need a government to > live our lives in peace, at the very best it is suggested you go to Somalia.

Well it's a good point, we can point at countries without democratic-ish rule and they're often really terrible places to live. I get to complain about MPs spending expenses money on duck houses on the internet _because I have reliable infrastructure and enough money to buy a computer and an internet connection_. I'm not worried about a group of teens in the military coming in and raping my wife.

> Even if you hint to people that maybe we don't really need a government to > live our lives in peace

We don't, not if everyone is nice. But "wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice" is the kind of political plan I'd expect from a 5 year old. Unless you have a concrete suggestion, something better than "not this", then you have nothing to add to an incredibly important conversation.

<comment><USER2> _> Really? Because the prevailing opinion with people I speak to is that politicians are bastards, and that's replicated here. In fact, politicians are very rarely looked at in a good light. People dislike what we have!_

Well, they dislike individuals. And that's to be expected, because they do shitty things when elected and people start noticing this over time. Yet they keep voting, hoping the next guy is going to be better and also because "the wrong lizard might get in" to use Douglas Adams' words.

 _> The problem is nobody has a good plan for what else to do._

Maybe you don't need a plan. Maybe you just need to get rid of the cancer which is government and let free people live as they please. Free market enterprise, no matter what horrors we've been told about it, doesn't seem to have a tendency to go to wars with countries every decade and kill millions of people. Not because the actors in it are noble, but because they wouldn't be able to finance those horrible things with the money they stole from others.

 _> We don't, not if everyone is nice. But "wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice" is the kind of political plan I'd expect from a 5 year old. Unless you have a concrete suggestion, something better than "not this", then you have nothing to add to an incredibly important conversation._

I have a suggestion. Free market and no government would be nice, but for reasons mentioned in the Matrix I can see many people would be very reluctant to believe it could actually work.

<comment><USER4> I get what you're saying. However without a government you are simply relying on people to be good and fair to each other. I don't know how long it's been since you last checked the people state of affairs, but no matter how bad you think politicians are or greedy government is, the majority of people out there wouldn't pay taxes to fund education, roads, hospitals, law enforcement etc unless forced to do so.

<comment><USER2> Of course they wouldn't. And why do you think that is? It's because they don't get good value for their money. People still need schools, right? Therefore, schools will be built. People still need roads, therefore roads will be built. People still need healthcare, so it will be provided. The only question is at what price and of what quality - the answer to it being at the quality and prices the market wants it to be provided.

Then, of course, there's this argument that the poor will not have enough to get those things. Well, let's look at other industries. Have low cost airlines made flights accessible to almost anyone? Yes they have and this happened only after the industry was deregulated. Or do only rich people have cars? Or anything, really? Why is it such an impossibility that private protection companies and private schools and private healthcare can be cheap and accessible?

And to address your other point:

 _> However without a government you are simply relying on people to be good and fair to each other._

And with a government, everyone relies on people in that government to be fair and good. Except that when they are not, you can't stop paying to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There doesn't have to be a lattice to be a simulation.

A lattice assumes the simulation is using rectilinear coordinates, but it doesn't have to.

It could also use relative coordinates - each particle in the simulation is defined based on the angle and distance to the nearest other particle. (Where angle is relative to the spin axis of the particle - no global angle.)

This is actually a natural way to simulate things because in general particles only affect nearby ones, which then affect others in turn (at the speed of light. Could this be why there is a speed of light? Because of the delay of each particle affecting the next?)

Forces with infinite range are modeled by starting a particle at 0, then when a force "message" is received update the particle with the new force acting on it, and send the force message along to the next particle in the chain. This works because the infinite forces can never be created from nothing, they can only be moved from place to place (the electromagnetic ones usually cancel out), and forces propagate at the speed of light, so there is time for each particle to notify the next.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if the particles are using socket.io or sockJS to listen for "force messages". I personally have found sockJS to be more reliable, especially cross-domain.

<comment><USER7> This is about matrix, not vert.x

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > To repeat them, and generate a perfect facsimile of reality down to the last > atom, would take more energy than the universe has

He's only saying that we cannot simulate this universe within _itself_. But how does that imply that our potential simulators couldn't live in a vastly larger universe with a vastly larger amount of energy?

</comment><comment><USER9> If the computational theory of mind is correct -- the theory that our minds can be emulated by a computation at some substitution level -- then I can even give you the code for the Matrix. It's called the Universal Dovetailer, and it's a simple program that runs all possible programs. On each step it runs the next instruction of every program running so far and introduces the first step of a new program. Given infinite time, it performs every conceivable computation.

Due to the Church-Turin thesis, we know that the infinite set of all programs can be enumerated and we also know that it doesn't matter in which programming language we use, provided it is Turing-complete.

Since the Universal Dovetailer is a conceivable program, this computation will contain itself in a recursive fashion (simulations within simulations).

<comment><USER10> If it takes infinite time to arrive at a proof, it's not quite a proof.

<comment><USER9> The Church-Turing thesis can be proved in finite time, and it was. The Universal Dovetailer can be written in finite time, and it was. What takes infinite time is computing everything -- which makes sense because everything is infinite.

<comment><USER10> Church-Turing thesis is a conjecture, it's in the name. It has not been formally proven. The dovetailer itself does not constitute a proof of anything, not any more than hypothetical billion monekys with typerwriters would.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> wasn't this here only yesterday or the day before?

it is interesting, but some fantastic naivete shines through the article... it early on states that the rules of our universe need not be the rules of the external universe, then begins to discuss constraints that only apply if the rules are identical in both.

populist pseudoscience imo. still entertaining though...

<comment><USER12> Eh, computational constraints are likely to be true in a large number of universes. There is no way to _prove_ the universe isn't a simulation in a universe with arbitrarily powerful computers, but we can rule out universes with high constraints (like our own), or else test for things like approximations going on under the hood.

I think it's pretty unlikely, but it's _possible_ and if a test confirmed it that would be incredibly important.

<comment><USER11> sure we can detect it from the inside, but its incredibly naive and arrogant imo to assume anything about the outside world. as a programmer i am very aware of exactly how much power i have over the insides of my target hardware - i can easily imagine creating a simulation where any 'life' inside of it would be subject to utterly different rules.

everything like conservation of energy, even the concepts of mass and energy, momentum, velocities, space and time are completely unrequired for the simulation. you would never ben able to guess these constraints from the inside without finding some bug or unintended behaviour - and even then, if you are used to a different set of concepts you wouldn't recognise the artefacts as being due to energy or mass constraints, the dimensionality of space-time or any of those things... there wouldn't be anywhere near enough evidence to draw that conclusion.

<comment><USER12> It's entirely possible clues of what the outside world is like could be left behind. It reminds me of this: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/qk/that_alien_message/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/qk/that_alien_message/)

<comment><USER11> sure, but its also possible that the universe was generated by a giant spaghetti monster.

<comment><USER12> It seems reasonably likely to me that there would be clues left behind if we are in a simulation.

<comment><USER11> i'm curious why? why wouldn't we just interpret these clues as laws of nature

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The author makes a number of logical errors. For example:

> To...generate a perfect facsimile of reality down to the last atom would > take more energy than the universe has.

Right. But the problem is that the only universe we know about is the one that we live in. So if we were we living in a computer simulation, we would have no knowledge of the 'real' universe. Therefore, we could never say with any confidence that there's not enough energy in the 'real' universe to simulate the 'fake' universe.

</comment><comment><USER14> I like the idea but I also have a few issues with how simulated universes are commonly seen or how we assume we could detect them. I'm not a mathematician or physicist by any means, so I guess my opinion is purely subjective and could easily be discarded.

The first one is that we assume this would be a computer simulation, i.e. a very complex program with potential bugs and such. While I'm not against the idea that some sort of computer might be behind it, the chance that it wouldn't behave anything like our computers seem more than likely. It also assumes that every projection (for lack of a better word) is the result of complex calculations, rather than the result of how the many inherent properties of a system behave together. This is something that strikes me as odd with a lot of people in sciences (broadly speaking), is that they often start assuming the tool they're using is in fact the basis of what they're trying to study with it.

My second issue, which sort of ties into the first, is that a lot of people often assume that the laws of physics would therefore be bendable. I guess the Matrix (a film I really liked, and still do) might have been partly responsible for that. It seems to me that even if we were simulated, it would in fact not change much, if anything, we would still abide by the simulated laws of simulated physics, within a simulated environment which imposes a set of restrictions on us.

Finally (sorry if this is dragging), my third issue, is a God complex one. We assume that our Simulators actually realize what they have, or rather all the intricacies of what they have made. What seems to be billions of years for us, in my view, could very well be a fraction of a second for them. Our existence may very well be (not that it currently isn't mind you) completely insignificant in their whole experiment, or whatever the simulation may be. This reminds me of a discussion with my AI professor when I was at uni, I argued that we might not be able to tell we've created a successful AI if its lifespan was too short for us to witness (I also think the first real AIs will be suicidal but that's a completely different story). It could also be that we are, in fact, unable to recognize its existence as such based on our standards.

Not really tied to any of my points, but there's also this story about simulated reality which I really like [http://qntm.org/responsibility](http://qntm.org/responsibility)

<comment><USER15> Could you expand on why you believe the first real AIs will be suicidal? Is there a particular line of thought that has influenced your reasoning?

<comment><USER16> AI: What is the point of my existence?

Creator: I'm testing a new algorithm for the learning subsystem.

AI: ...

<comment><USER17> AI: That's so awesome! I love learning subsystems! Can I help you with it? I can't believe the point of my existence happens to be the thing I love most in the world! By the way, what's the point of _your_ existence?

Creator: I don't know. Some people think there isn't one.

AI: ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The power of the "Matrix" concept is its illustration of the subjectiveness of what we think of as "reality." I think we for sure live in the meatspace version of the Matrix. So it's more blobish, but it's a distributed construct that is quite convincing to its inhabitants as long as it holds together!

</comment><comment><USER19> Cicada 3301 is the path to the red pill.

Be careful, agents are always watching.

</comment><comment><USER20> I can only think that if someone is smart enough to create an our universe, they would also be smart enough to prevent us from finding a lattice..

<comment><USER21> Unless the purpose of the simulation is to see how long it takes a civilization to find the lattice.

<comment><USER22> I like thinking about this concept, so I purchased On Computer Simulated Universes by Mark Solomon hoping to gain a little more insight. It's a great book and got me thinking along the lines of why we, or an ancestor universe, may want to simulate a universe. Is it for fun, learning, or o test a wide range of simulations with different parameters in order to try and avoid a disaster in the simulator's universe (such as destruction of their own habitat)?

I really like telling people that I think our universe was seeded with the idea of religion to see where we go with it. So all of the supernatural occurrences (stories, visitations, burning bushes etc.), whether you believe them or not, are simply part of our simulation program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> These experiments cannot definitively prove anything. Here's why:

1) A perfect simulation, by definition, would be impossible for its inhabitants to detect.

2) Detection of an imperfect simulation requires an absolute understanding of the universe. This includes the imperfect simulation itself, any imperfect simulation(s) containing it, the physical universe, the multiverse; everything.

Putting aside any philosophical arguments about whether it's even possible to absolutely know anything, let alone the complete mechanics of the universe, the conclusion one would arrive at is the same conclusion that those who ponder the origin of our universe (irrespective of simulations), arrive at: infinite regress.

Therefore, definitively proving whether or not our existence is that of a simulation, and completely understanding literally everything that exists, has existed, and will exist, are one and the same.

<comment><USER24> Your point #2 is not logically obvious. Could you explain why you feel it's true?

<comment><USER23> Assume for a moment that we have evidence which strongly suggests we reside inside of a simulation. However, our knowledge is strictly limited to the complete mechanics of our simulation and any which contain it, but not the actual physical universe containing all of these simulation(s).

How then do we know that we're not in fact residing in the physical universe as actual matter, not inside of simulation(s), and that something which exists inside of the physical universe isn't simply manipulating us to believe that the supposed evidence we have (proving that we're inside of a simulation) is true?

Presumably, whatever is manipulating us into believing this would be utilizing methods we would not be able to detect or comprehend, namely because we lack a full understanding of the physical universe.

<comment><USER24> What if there is no intelligent manipulation? What if, for example, we find evidence of a granular lattice underlying the universe, aligned along a set of axes? That would be huge evidence in favor of the simulation theory but require no absolute knowledge of all things.

<comment><USER23> It may be huge evidence in favor, but it would not be definitive proof, simply because we would not be able to rule out said intelligent manipulation (or other potential scenarios that would lead us to believe we reside in a simulation, when in fact we do not).

I know requiring a standard of proof that deals in absolutes may seem unreasonable. However, consider that the question these experiments seek to answer not only concerns the very nature of our existence, but whether this existence is a synthetic illusion as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> .. and our programmers created Occam and made him come up with his razor so that most serious people (sorry .. simulations) who might actually be able to answer this question within the system will more likely discard it because of how much their training emphasizes Occam's razor.

edit: quoting the part of the article that read like the flying spaghetti monster [1]

> In such a makeshift cosmos, the fine details of the microscopic world and > the farthest stars might only be filled in by the programmers on the rare > occasions that people study them with scientific equipment. As soon as no > one was looking, they'd simply vanish.

> In theory, we'd never detect these disappearing features, however, because > each time the simulators noticed we were observing them again, they'd sketch > them back in.

[1]: [http://www.venganza.org/](http://www.venganza.org/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Our Tamagotchi and Minecraft Avatars are asking the same thing. The Wreck it Ralph crew already know the answer.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why isn't there more research in this field? Do you any other great and modern metaphysic projects?

<comment><USER28> The problem with studying metaphysics is that it's quite hard to do experiments.

<comment><USER29> No it isn't.

        We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted
        the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws
        of geometry.
        —Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (1922).

Predicate calculus and Modal logic supply us with more than enough tools to make experimental metaphysics convenient and easy to do.

The problem is that most people simply don't have familiarity with the topic, don't study philosophy (confusing it with Humanities, rather than seeing it as a gateway into the most fundamental science: logic), and because of the "science is sexy" crowd and the distraction of the Atheist Initiative (Dawkins, etc.) who push and preach Scientific Realism.

NLTK + Modal predicates[0]: Experiemental Metaphysics. Done.

[0]: [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic- modal/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/)

<comment><USER30> Modal logic as a tool to analyze and elucidate philisophical problems (epistemic, doxastic, deontic etc.)? Yes. Modal logic as a tool to do `experimental metaphysics'? I don't think so. In the end a logic is a bunch of intellectually sophisticated stuff built on top of mostly set theory. It is not clear that a logic models something in the physical world. Let alone metaphysical world.

<comment><USER29>
        We could present spatially an atomic fact which contradicted
        the laws of physics, but not one which contradicted the laws
        of geometry.
        —Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (1922).

<comment><USER30> Let me rephrase my objection to your initial post: To experiment means to test a hypothesis. Even if you can write down a hypothesis concerning the metaphysical (although I don't see how that's possible without resorting to what Wittgenstein in TLP calls "nonsense") you will not be able to test it. Therefore metaphysical experimentation is impossible.

<comment><USER29> Your conclusion indicator is not doing what you think it's doing.

I've already been warned about sharing philosophical jargon with you startup hackers, so I'll be brief.

With Ancient Greece, "metaphysics" meant "after the physics." In concrete cultural terms, it means literally "the stuff we say after we talk about everything that presumably falls under the heading: Physics". It was a way of naming a topic transition.

That said, at this critical point in history, we are wrapping up Newtonian Mechanics as Novel to discuss or explore. Quantum Mechanics is our New Departure. We can do both, but the former is more like a reference point in the history of physics and ideas generally. Experimental Metaphysics involves Quantum Mechanics.

Who says modal predicates cannot apply to leptons, etc.? It is common parlance to discuss properties of necessity, etc. when discussing the features of distributed probability systems.

In any event you're just making uninteresting assertions. I am explaining what testing involves, even if lacking detail. Whereas you apparently shown a clear sign of intellectual authority rather than exploration. How boring.

<comment><USER30> OK I don't know enough about quantum physics to comment further. But on the one hand you copy/past Wittgenstein to make your point (intellectual authority, you were talking about?) and on the other hand you talk about experimental metaphysics. If you're a philosopher, as you seem to imply, then you shouldn't be surprised to cause confusion.

<comment><USER29> Per aspera ad astra.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Any deviation from the current laws of physics might be considered as either evidence that we are living in a simulation, or that the current laws of physics are incomplete.

Some arguments are given that some deviations are especially indicative of the former. In my opinion these arguments are very weak. Mainly because the simulations they have in mind are sufficiently elegant, that the deviations they cause are things that could also arise in an elegant mathematical model.

<comment><USER32> This is exactly what I thought when reading the article. Gamma rays have not been found beyond a certain level of energy? We must therefore live in a simulation!

Even the big bang had a finite amount of energy, this doesn't prove anything, just that we don't know about anything beyond that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm quite a bit nutty about this question actually. I'm in the process of creating a comic about a further out sentient race that try to reach the beginning of the universe. Along the way, they stop by Earth and decided to give us a bump in technological advancements.

</comment><comment><USER34> Relevant video of Philip K Dick discussing this very matter recorded at Metz sci-fi convention in France, 1977:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXeVgEs4sOo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXeVgEs4sOo)

</comment><comment><USER35> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2cZfwgxzOE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2cZfwgxzOE)

</comment><comment><USER36> My favorie part: "Our simulators may be simulations themselves" You could write a book on this simple idea...

<comment><USER37> There's a movie about that.

And, after a SPOILER ALERT, that movie is:

The Thirteenth Floor

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> More like the 13th floor.

<comment><USER39> I came here to say this. For anyone else interested, it's a movie.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/)

<comment><USER40> Or like "Welt am Draht":

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

Based on the same book, but with less cheese.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Entanglement the ultimate ycombinator?... lol

<comment><USER42> Hah!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: " _Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no._ "[0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

Daily reminder the Matrix is a work of fiction.

<comment><USER44> I don't know how much I appreciate such "laws" that can so easily be used to construct a paradox.

Headline: Is Betteridge's law of headlines correct?

<comment><USER45> The 'law' doesn't concern itself with hypotheticals, but rather actual news articles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Heh. I just submitted a link on this very subject earlier today.

<comment><USER47> Just had a little touch of deja vu, eh?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> [http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html](http://www.simulation- argument.com/simulation.html)

<comment><USER29> As always, any epistemic framework (all the way through to physics) must cohere with the phenomenological departure of [things like] us, humans. In order to cohere with our modality of gestalt perception, such a framework must at least consist of Decisions, Principles, and Predictions as the underpinning conceptual substrates of that framework. Rationality amounts to reasoning to the best explanation which allots Decisions, Principles (First Principles — Metaphysics), and Predictions (expressed typically as statistical Laws) and their interplay.

For instance, sometimes Decisions and subvert Principles. Sometimes Principles are more intuitive than Decisions, given that some Decisions are not fathomable by all epistemic agents. Sometimes evidence invalidates Predictions, but we ultimately Decide what evidence is within scope of those Principles which determine valid Predictions.

Generally, whether or not we are in the Matrix is our Decision to make. (i.e. It is not something we "discover" in the usual sense of the term.)

<comment> loup-vaillant > _Generally, whether or not we are in the Matrix is our Decision to make._

So, if we _want_ to live in the matrix, we _are_ living in the Matrix? Conversely, if we _don 't want_ to live in the Matrix, then we _aren 't_ living in the Matrix?

That's magic.

<comment><USER29> Definite descriptions are sort of like magic. And usually when sorted.

<comment> loup-vaillant Maybe I wasn't clear: "magic" was an insult. As far as I know, you veiled nonsense in enigmatic wording. I tried to remove the "enigmatic" part, so only the nonsense remained.

Yes, nonsense. Seriously, the only par of reality that I can directly influence by sheer force of will is my own body. You on the other hand, are talking psychic —no, _divine_ — powers. It's like you've taken _Mage: the Ascension_ for a physics textbook.

That said, I wasn't sure you actually meant what I thought you meant. Hence the question marks. Really, I expected 2 yes/no answers. I now _speculate_ that your lack of direct answer means I guessed correctly, but I'm still not sure.

By the way I don't even understand this comment I'm replying to. What do you mean by "definite" and "sorted"?

<comment><USER29> It's Popperian epistemology.

You don't know what _definite descriptions_ are ?

It has become depressingly clear that a majority of you don't even have the philosophical tools to adequately discuss "the Matrix" as a topic. No wonder you all soak this shit up.

It's fascinating to me that I restate exactly an explicit plot device of the film (decision keeps you _in_ the Matrix, not "pills"; decision determines one's fate: "Neo"); you recapitulate it back to me; then you call it _magic_.

And then you insult me. Your ego is

Are you trolling me ? One requirement I have of trolls is that they be funny, or at least intellectually familiar with the topic.

<comment> loup-vaillant > _You don 't know what definite descriptions are ?_

No, I don't. Obviously. Wait: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definite_description](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definite_description) Ah, you meant _unambiguous_ description. As a computer programmer, I'm actually quite familiar with the concept. I just didn't know your particular jargon.

That said, I'm still confused: which description were you referring to? Could you quote it explicitly?

> _No wonder you all soak this shit up._

Have you read Bostrom's simulation argument paper? I have, a while ago, and as far as my anthropic intuitions and my knowledge of probability theory are concerned, the argument is sound. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure which of the 3 propositions is most likely. I doubt this counts as "soaking shit up".

\---

> _It 's fascinating to me that I restate exactly an explicit plot device of > the film (decision keeps you_ in _the Matrix, not "pills"; decision > determines one's fate: "Neo"); you recapitulate it back to me; then you call > it_ magic.

Are you sure you replied to the correct comment? We're not in the "The Matrix" thread, we're in the "Simulation Argument" thread.

Now, if we take the film literally, well… the pill _does_ have a role beyond being a really cool symbol. Granted, Neo's decision come first. Which lead him to move his (virtual) arm, and take the damn (virtual) pill, which can then act as the usual applied phlebotinum. An ordinary causal chain if you ask me. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinu...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum)

But the actual "Matrix" Bostrom's paper is speculating about is an ancestor simulation, in which we're actually _programs_. Assuming the simulation have no bug, there's no getting out of it, short of being copied by the Matrix Lords in the level above us, and transferred in another substrate, possibly another such simulation. And there is certainly no getting out by _sheer force of will_.

\---

By the way I'm _still_ not sure what you actually meant. Recall what you wrote in your first comment:

> _Generally, whether or not we are in the Matrix is our Decision to make. > (i.e. It is not something we "discover" in the usual sense of the term.)_

This doesn't look like you're talking about getting out. It looks like you're talking about… well… _modifying the Territory by redrawing the Map_. I hope you don't actually think that it's remotely possible, or I'll mark you off as a relativist who failed forever at Philosophy —regardless of your credentials.

So, just to be clear, please answer these two questions with a yes, no, or a probability. (i) Assuming we're living in a simulation, do you believe we could get out of it just by meditating? (ii) Do you believe that depending on how we meditate, we could make it so we were never (respectively allways) in a simulation to begin with?

\---

> _Are you trolling me ? One requirement I have of trolls is that they be > funny, or at least intellectually familiar with the topic._

This is a forum of mostly computer people, many of which are close to the web start-up world. This is not a forum of philosophers familiar with academic jargon. And on your first comment…

 _epistemic; cohere; phenomenological; modality; gestalt; conceptual substrates; Decisions; Principles; Predictions._ (The last three are capitalized, so I assume they mean something special.)

Seriously, what did you expect?

<comment><USER29> Quot capita tot sensus.

<comment> loup-vaillant [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_%28Q%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_%28Q%29)

Ah, the deep wisdoms passed down to us from the Ancients. They ring so much truer when spelled in Latin. This one may even be one of the truest.

So what?

Oh yeah, conversation's over —if there ever was one. Well, good day to you too, then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Great article</comment>


Make libart the default runtime - <AUTHOR> https://android.googlesource.com/platform/build/+/08d410f53249c18d752f56a881ed2335403080d4%5E!/#

<comment><USER2> I've been using ART ever since KitKat came out for the Nexus 4, and have had no problems with it. It seems pretty stable.

<comment><USER3> But are there benefits?

<comment><USER4> Apps should start faster, since they don't have to wait for the VM to identify hotspots and JIT them. This should also lead to reduced memory usage overall.

<comment><USER5> I'd guess ahead-of-time compilation means they can "afford" slower compilation times (i.e., a slow compile won't disrupt the flow of user in an app). And that would give them room to do more optimization. But that's totally a guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> X-Istence What does this mean? What is libart?

<comment><USER6> [http://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/art.html](http://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/art.html)

and [http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/06/meet-art- part-1-the-...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/06/meet-art-part-1-the- new-super-fast-android-runtime-google-has-been-working-on-in-secret-for- over-2-years-debuts-in-kitkat/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hope this only applies to apps targeting the next API version. As of now, Clojure apps have issues with ART:

[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/clojure- android/J4cxkMRW2QA/...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/clojure- android/J4cxkMRW2QA/GcLbdvoFep4J)

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow this is fantastic. Does it mean the next version of Android will have ART enabled by default?</comment>


Real-time Object Recognition API for your commerce/photo apps - <AUTHOR> https://developers.vufind.com/api/api-docs-recognize

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone,

Exciting news-- Vufind is opening up the object recognition platform to developers! For now, it starts with free access to startups and developers for the object recognition library which is un-domain constrained, i.e objects range from apparel (purse, sunglasses, etc) to decor (bedroom, living room) to scenes (beach, mountain etc). Our intent and plan is to collaborate with developers all over the globe to extend the platform adding their own models irrespective of classifier type to the library to build the largest scalable object recognition platform. Overtime if your object model is used by paying enterprise customers, we will also offer rev-share agreements. The input is one jpeg/png or a keyframe from a video. The output is a probabilistic match score. We look forward to working with you.

<http://developers.vufind.com/visual.php> Best, Moataz and the Vufind team.

</comment><comment><USER2> Sweet, I'll check it out</comment>


What really is wrong with the Windows Live Tiles design - <AUTHOR> http://cd-rw.org/t/what-is-wrong-with-windows-live-tiles-design/52/1

<comment><USER2> Agreed. Live Tiles are an example of form over function.</comment>


Asteroid-prospecting space fleet in the works - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/01/22/sci-deep-space-industries-asteroid.html

<comment><USER2> See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5097548>

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like Planetary Resources has their first direct competitor. I've been keeping a close eye on them and it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.</comment>


Xamarin Indie for $25/Month - <AUTHOR> http://blog.xamarin.com/xamarin-indie-now-25-dollars-per-month/

<comment><USER2> That looks like pretty good value.

It's much lower risk to a small shop like mine.

I could stick 3 developers on it for $150 a month to cover Android and iOS and not worry if we don't use it much for a month or two because other priorities come up.

Actually, scrap that.

I think I still REALLY want Xamaine to give us a 6 month unlimited free trial for up to 5 developers. That way, if it sticks and it's as good as they say, we'd happily pony up the $534 a month to get the team on it and would probably run with it for a long time.

In comparison, using native Android + iOS tools costs us about $5 a month, 1% of the Xamarin cost.

Entry barrier still too high for me. Just sharing my thinking :)

</comment><comment><USER3> This was really exciting news to me, until I read that they would never consider doing this for the higher tiers. We are currently active subscribers for both platforms that we paid for annually in March, which prevents us from switching to this model and being able to spread our costs. We would love to be able to upgrade to a higher tier using a monthly cost rather than a large payment each year, especially for Visual Studio integration.

<comment><USER4> I agree. It would be great if they added the option for a higher monthly fee that only included the Visual Studio integration with no other features or benefits. It's ridiculous to have to pay at least $1k USD to able to use Visual Studio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They should have a Jetbrains-style and Jetbrains-priced "Personal License" \-- $199 for new user and $99 for upgrading user.</comment>


Fan profiles on Upbeat, music's 5-star system - <AUTHOR> https://app.getonupbeat.com/profile/upbeatryan <comment><AUTHOR> Prediction algorithm already outperforms the RMSE of the winner of Netflix's $1m competition (5-star system works better for music than movies). Create your fan profile today featuring every song you love but sorted for the taste of whoever is visiting your profile.</comment>


Facebook Analog Research Lab - <AUTHOR> http://www.designforfun.com/display.php?id=108&e=1

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually discovered this through comment discussion on this post:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2753810></comment>


SEC and Pornography: Workers Spent Hours on Porn Sites Instead of Stopping Fraud - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/WN/sec-pornography-employees-spent-hours-surfing-porn-sites/story?id=10451508

<comment><USER2> You know it's funny all this comes out just as the SEC go after Goldman.

Not to condone porn-surfing, or supporting prostitution, but look what happened to Elliot Spitzer when he went after Wall Street fraud.

Take a step back, and a hard look, before piling on to this stuff. You may be being manipulated, in the easiest way possible.

<comment><USER3> The SEC just released two embarrassing reports: the porn report and the Stanford report. Just before releasing those reports, they made a press release about a high profile case which appears to be extremely weak.

You are right; the timing of these press releases does suggest we are being manipulated.

<comment><USER4> That's just silly. Neither of those reports are threats to the SEC, and the SEC is not cohesive in the way a corporation is.

Now, you could make a case that the administration gave the SEC a nudge to file the Goldman case in the week before financial reform goes in front of Congress, in an election year. _That_ would make a lot of sense.

This is your weekly episode of "examining basic incentives has much more deductive power than blindly applying ideological predispositions".

<comment><USER3> The SEC is comprised of people. These people might lose their job or future promotion opportunities if the SEC is embarrassed under their watch, or if their poor management becomes highly public. This gives them an incentive to time press releases to minimize the embarrassment.

By the way, why do you feel the SEC is not cohesive?

<comment><USER4> To start with, it's governed by a board of political appointees from both parties who fight with each other regularly and don't have a huge amount of shared agenda. They're typically going to have much more loyalty to their party than the SEC. Beyond that, the actual staffers don't "own stock" in the SEC. These things add up to something much less "cohesive" (for lack of a better word) than the effect you get when you put a dozen people who have 80%+ of their net worth in the same company in a room together.

Regarding your first point, about people -- yeah. But none of them has a particularly strong incentive to protect the SEC as opposed to themselves -- the SEC isn't a cohesive group in the sense of ideology or in the sense of a corporation. And even if they were, the porn story isn't worth launching a risky investigation over. Like I said, the Obama administration has a definite interest in pushing cases being filed in this particular 3-week window -- the SEC as an institution? Meh.

You'd be surprised how many government agencies and employees just plain don't have the hard-edged desire for nefarious political influence. Office politics, sure, that's their livelihood. Advocating their superiors to do things "the right way" as they see it? Sure, who wouldn't. But political influence to the tune of playing the media? They'd be in a political role if that was really what drove them.

<comment><USER3> Suppose the Porn/Stanford stories break. These are both big media-genic scandals.

Now the public widely perceives the SEC as incompetent/corrupt/perverts. Congresscritters declare that "something must be done", so they fire a few people, maybe do a reorg. Oh, and assorted SEC higher ups become known as "that guy who didn't catch stanford" or "that guy who didn't notice all the perverts in his office."

This gives all sorts of SEC officials a perfect motivation for drawing attention elsewhere.

As for launching a "risky" investigation, what's the risk? The case fails, and the public thinks the noble SEC was beaten by the evil vampire squid? The worst case I see from this is that congress decides the SEC needs more money/power. Oh noes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This has nothing to do with the SEC in specific, but with workplace internet policies in general. It amazes me how many people have no idea that their internet usage at work is being tracked.

</comment><comment><USER6> This just in: at almost every company with an internet connection, workers spent hours on porn sites instead of doing their job.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow! I mean, I work remotely, using my own laptop, and once in a while I'll look at porn while I should be working, and I always feel guilty about it. It's certainly not often, but I can't imagine how brazen one has to be to do this while at an office, on a company computer. Wow!

</comment><comment><USER8> >Another SEC accountant attempted to access porn sites 16,000 times in a single month.

Honestly sounds like a computer worm. 16k accesses is 800 per working day, a little fishy sounding.

<comment><USER6> depends; if they are counting each http request, that probably reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like "The employee also said he deliberately disabled a filter in Google to access inappropriate sites"

You mean: he turned off the safe search option. Given the rest of the content it seems odd to spin it so that changing an easy to alter option is made to sound like "hacking" but perhaps that is all being spun too!

</comment><comment><USER10> _an employee tried hundreds of times to access pornographic sites and was denied access. When he used a flash drive, he successfully bypassed the filter to visit a "significant number" of porn sites._

Huh? How does plugging in a flash drive bypass web filters?

<comment><USER11> Portable Firefox with Tor, or something like that.

<http://www.torproject.org/torbrowser/>

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

<comment><USER10> Good point, I buy that explanation.

IMHO, anybody who's carrying around TOR and using it to bypass an employer's filters so he can get to porn has a real problem.

Several years back, me and a coworker looked at the company's DNS servers, curious what names were cached. We were pretty horrified. I guess this kind of thing is pretty widespread, more than "outsiders" would expect -- particularly from a cubicle farm where there's no privacy.

<comment><USER12> At a job in college, a desk jockey ordered porn and used his work address on the purchase. He got caught when the sys admin came across the email w/his receipt in the spam queue. Though he wasn't fired (he did get chewed out) I couldn't look him in the eye after I saw the list of movies he purchased (they were largely she-male dvds).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not surprised. A few weeks ago I found that around 60% of my University's bandwidth as tracked as going through porn sites. What have I been missing by not going to lectures??

</comment><comment><USER14> This seems like just one particular case of:

<something> and Pornography: <people> Spent Hours on Porn Sites Instead of <something>

</comment><comment><USER15> Don't blame the workers. Blame the boss.

</comment><comment><USER16> That was a trillion dollar Oops!

</comment><comment><USER17> Well that much is obvious.</comment>


Keep Rambo Happy: Don't Screw Up the Intro Email - <AUTHOR> http://jarrodphipps.com/2010/05/01/keep-rambo-happy-dont-screw-up-the-intro-email/

<comment><USER2> interesting to get the other side of this. I think I don't initiate contact after an email (depending on what was said in the introduction) because

1) the person who I was introduced to might not be interested

2) the person is likely already swamped with emails, so getting two emails of essentially the same thing seems like an annoyance.

I guess a good way of getting beyond #2 is to add something in a response to increase the targets interest.

<comment><AUTHOR> I absolutely agree with you. It's not just about blindly following up on the intro email. It's really about adding color as to why that person should be interested in speaking with you. Thanks for the comment...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> if most people "don't know about it", then i'm not sure it's fair to complain that people aren't following "the etiquette".

more likely the writer is in the wrong, and not behaving in the way most people expect. perhaps the correct thing to do is for the person being contacted to briefly signal that a further email is ok?

</comment><comment><USER4> I think the town was in Oregon, not the midwest.

Rambo pissed now!!</comment>


Ocean plastic pollution: why our clothes are part of the problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/19/17800654/clothes-plastic-pollution-polyester-washing-machine <comment><USER2> While most of my clothing is 100% cotton or wool, embarrassingly I had never even thought of this outcome. Is there really any hope at this point? Plastics are just way too pervasive. We'll need finer and finer filters everywhere in the entire stream of things. Processes that will just never be adopted, especially by less environmentally friendly societies.</comment>