Raising a moral child - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/opinion/sunday/raising-a-moral-child.html?emc=eta1&_r=1 <comment><USER2> The experiments this op-ed describes are really neat. I especially like the one that demonstrates the importance of "practice what you preach."

Here's another cool experiment related to social/moral development, which you can perform on your own kid:

Have two grown-up friends each show your baby a toy. The first friend should offer the toy to your kid but then retract the offer and keep the toy to himself. The second friend should offer the toy to your kid but "accidentally" drop it out of reach.

Now, give your baby a different toy, and then prompt her to share it with one of the friends.

Your baby is very likely to share it with the friend who dropped the toy, rather than the one who withdrew the toy.

The above experiment is based on a 2010 study involving 21-month-olds. It found that two-thirds of the kids shared with the person who dropped the toy -- and the other third kept the toy to themselves. Not a single one shared with the person who offered the toy then retracted the offer. (I talk about this more in "Experimenting With Babies" [http://www.experimentingwithbabies.com](http://www.experimentingwithbabies.com))

Not only is this fascinating because it shows that babies act preferentially toward people who are kind to them ... but it holds true _EVEN IF_ the person who initiates a kind act is unable to complete it, but demonstrates the proper intent. Think about the complexity of the cognitive processes that are going on in that evaluation. It's amazing!

<comment><USER3> I don't understand this at all. At 21 months, a toddler can walk and talk, and you can play keep away with them for fun. I don't know what it means to drop a toy out of reach. Do you drop it on a high counter or something?

<comment><USER2> In the original experiment -- see [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424094](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424094) for the abstract -- the toddlers stood on one side of a slanted table, so that anything placed on the table would roll down to the other side, where the adult actresses were. Presumably, the toddlers were not able to walk around the table.

One way to replicate this at home, albeit imperfectly, is to place your toddler in a high chair, so that if you drop the toy on the floor, she is unable to reach it.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if they controlled the effect of the actresses own response. Although they might be excellent actresses, being mean to a baby is probably going to make you feel pretty rotten, at a level it might be hard to control, and the baby could be picking up on that.

Animals can pick up subtle cues that are not apparent to adults; I'd be amazed if babies weren't at least as good.

I'm thinking of _Clever Hans_ [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans)

<comment><USER5> Both actions seem to qualify as "mean to a baby" to me. Assuming the actresses agreed with me, this would cancel out the variable.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking about that, and the thing is people are often deceptive to children for their own good, as a way to handle them without upsetting them (arguably not ideal parenting but let it pass). So that, if you convince the child you really did drop it, you won't feel bad. But if you are overtly mean - it's unmistakeable that you deliberately the toy back, then it's hard to kid yourself that the baby didn't realize. Now _did_ the baby realize? That's the whole thing we're trying to determine! I'm just saying that the actresses' model of what the baby will understand and won't will affect how they feel about it.

This of course all depends on the actresses having a particular model of the baby's ability to model them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Modern parenting literature seems largely to be about manipulating your child into being who and what you want them to be. 'Tricks' and 'techniques' abound, and every other article is about 'teaching' your child to achieve/empathize/compete.

You know what works extra- extra- well? Be the kind of person you want your kids to be. Treat them like a decent person treats other decent people and that's the behavior they will learn.

Your kids are _way_ smarter than you think. They know what you're doing, they know you're trying to encourage certain behaviors, and they eventually know how to manipulate you much more effectively than you know how to manipulate them.

Quit treating five-year-olds like they're some kind of resistant clay, and you have to cleverly shape them into the person they're going to be. That kid is _already a person_. Treating him like a puppy to be trained will certainly affect his personality and behavior, but the largest impact will not be the one you intended. You're teaching them how you want them to be, and you're also teaching them that the way to get what you want is to manipulate people into giving it to you.

<comment><USER7> I felt a lot of this when I was growing up. A lot of times I could feel my dad trying to mold me into the best type of person possible. Not that it was unwelcome or that he was doing the wrong thing, but in a lot of ways it felt weird and unnatural. Sometimes it felt like he was a lot more guarded around me, like he couldn't be who he really was because he was trying to set the best possible example and be the best possible parent.

In hindsight, I think that left me unprepared for a lot of challenges I faced in college. A lot of times, I would ask him a question and get only half of a response, because answering truthfully would involve revealing less-than-ideal character. I wish that there had been more heart-to-heart and less 'raising your kid the right way'

<comment><USER8> Indeed, your father had trouble because we was trying to sculpt you without actually being a role model, and you noticed the different between his words and actions. The article discusses this phenomenon.

<comment><USER7> He was trying to be an actual role model. In many ways, he did a good job. In places where he wasn't perfect though, he hid that fact instead of being upfront.

I don't know what would have been best, but especially as I got older I would have preferred complete transparency. He was a good man, but I wish I had known more about his flaws. It would have given me more insight into my own.

<comment><USER9> There's certain opinions that my parents hold that I do not. As one (fairly non-controversial) example, I don't believe in the death penalty, but my dad does.

We were having a debate about it one time, and I asked my dad how it was that we disagreed on these topics. He replied that he raised my sister and I to have what he felt were more ethical viewpoints on various issues than what his own perspectives were.

I was astounded when he told me this. He doesn't hide what his real thoughts are, but he recognizes that some of them aren't the most kind or moral and has actually raised me to have different views than himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Father of recent 3 year old. Big believer in modeling. I see other parents tell their kids to clean up, put stuff away, etc. I simply embrace cleaning up and my daughter follows suit quite often.

We also do whatever we can to enable her to participate in what we are doing (sadly computers are a big problem in that regard, much more than say chopping with a knife). Our kid is very well-behaved and cautious (except for tired/hungry breakdowns, of course).

I am also a big believer in the see-what happens school of action. Other parents are always encouraging (yelling at) their kids to share, particularly in support of aggressive children trying to take from their child. We believe in letting children experiment and realize that sharing leads to fun, greediness not so much. We demonstrate the power of choosing not to play others which is really the best way of handling unpleasant people/situations.

But at the heart of it all is simply being, authentically, the kind of person you want your child to be. They are programmed to learn actual behavior from their parents who 1) have been successful enough to reproduce and 2) have a similar genetic makeup meaning their behaviors are likely to be compatible with the kid's abilities.

So be a better person and relax. Oh, and look into Sudbury education for your kids which really teaches them how to be moral in a community.

<comment><USER2> From Wikipedia: "At a Sudbury school, students have complete responsibility for their own education, and the school is run by direct democracy in which students and staff are equals. Students individually decide what to do with their time, and tend to learn as a by-product of ordinary experience rather than through coursework. There is no predetermined educational syllabus, prescriptive curriculum or standardized instruction. This is a form of democratic education."

Hey, I'm open to using a child's own interests to help them learn ... but Sudbury takes a good thing way too far.

You say that Sudbury teaches kids how to be moral in a community. Maybe ... if that community is "Lord of the Flies."

<comment><USER10> The wikipedia quote is correct. Your assessment seems to be not based on anything. Ask yourself, what is harder to learn: (1) knowing who you are and how to work with others or (2) solving an algebraic equation?

They pretty much all learn how to read, write, do arithmetic. Those who want to go to college (about 80%) do so without difficulty, learning what they need in a few months. They are serious, engaged students in college because they know why they are there. They find college kids goofing off to be quite a mystery. They are free to become themselves when they are supposed to -- puberty. That's what that stage is for. Most schools prevent the self- exploration that is necessary to allow for that. So then it gets delayed until people's 20s.

\--

Visit such a school and you will see that they are much less nasty than those in a public school. Bullying is virtually unheard of. They work together as a community and take responsibility for it. They are collectively responsible for all the policing and judgement of others as well as themselves. They adjudicate quite fairly.

I saw 8 year olds wrestling with determining an appropriate punishment for their friend vs. their own desire to help their friend. They really struggled to find a balance. 8 year olds. This is an issue that a lot of adults struggle with.

They also write themselves up when they break a rule. They all buy into building a community. The school I visited was full of energy and respect.

So you can either choose to believe the fiction of "Lord of the Flies" or believe the results of forty years of actual experience with the model.

<comment><USER11> I can't help wondering whether the Sudbury School model would work quite so well in encouraging moral behaviour if it was filled with problem kids with gang affiliations rather than the offspring of well-to-do parents with a deep interest in finding their kid a suitable environment.

<comment><USER10> I think you are right that that is an issue. But what school does handle that well? Also, the value of Sudbury is community. If someone is in a gang, they already have that (I presume).

They do have experience with "troubled" kids doing just fine and thriving, but these are a small number injected into an otherwise pleasant environment.

They also do occasionally expel students. But I also remember a story from the Jerusalem Sudbury school in which one of their students left and fell into drugs, etc. Later, the founder of the school asked the kid if they had failed him. He said "failed me? You were the only ones that didn't fail me. You are the reason I sought rehabilitation instead of dying on the streets. I always carried you and the school with me, voices of support." Take from that what you will.

The most important thing is to have a good environment for students to come into. People adapt to their environments, for better or worse. If you were to take a single gang member away and put them in a strongly functioning Sudbury school, I would give them great odds of succeeding. But if you plopped a number of gang members into such a community, I bet that would be a major problem.

The hardest part for a Sudbury school is starting and dealing with huge influx of students. It takes time to assimilate to such an environment.

There is also another big question along these lines. The students at Sudbury learn the R's quite well on their own. But their parents are generally well- educated, demonstrating the value of those skills. Would kids from homes without those values do so well? Again, injecting a single kid from such an environment into a Sudbury school would be much more likely to succeed than having a majority of the school from such an environment.

But, as far as I know, no one has attempted it. Perhaps someone should.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Man, I just learned to compliment actions rather than talent, and now I have to do it the other way around.

I get why, though. Moral actions are choices. Being smart isn't. If you praise a kid for being smart, he won't be able to choose to be smart. Instead, he'll assume he's smart and won't have to work so hard. I suppose praising an innate tendency to work hard might be more effective.

<comment><USER7> Having worked with kids a lot (long term, I would work with the same kids for 4-5 years and get a long term image of their development), it really seems to me like praising a kid for being smart is going to be better than praising a kid for working hard.

This sort of gets coupled with the idea of 'work smarter, not harder.' When a child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things like staying up all night studying for a test. When you emphasize being smart and not needing to study, the child is more likely to push themselves such that they can land good grades without needing to study.

And this usually manifests as greater attentiveness in class, greater emphasis on figuring out exactly what's going to be on the test, etc. But you also see behaviours like emphasizing getting the right teachers.

And the same thing applies to sports. If you emphasize effort, you might get a child practicing repeatedly something that they are already good at. When they are really bad at passing, you get thought patterns like 'at least I'm trying.' When you emphasize being good, the child is more devastated by the idea that they are bad at passing, and they focus their energy on being not bad.

The point is that things like being 'smart' and being 'good' are things that you can actually learn, and a lot times, working on what's important is much more important than the overall volume of effort.

<comment><USER13> I'm sorry, but what you are saying just does not match my personal experience, nor what the empirical studies suggest, which is the _exact opposite_ :

> When a child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things > like staying up all night studying for a test. When you emphasize being > smart and not needing to study, the child is more likely to push themselves > such that they can land good grades without needing to study.

The way I've heard _and_ personally experienced it, kids who get praised for being smart are more likely to procrastinate ("eh, I already get that anyway"), then try to cram everything in in the last minute.

> And the same thing applies to sports. If you emphasize effort, you might get > a child practicing repeatedly something that they are already good at.

Similarly, studies suggest that by praising talent, you teach kids to stick to what they are good at immediately ("that's what I'm talented at"), instead of putting in the effort to learn stuff that they don't get immediately.

EDIT: Perhaps it depends on whether you praise below-average, average and smarter-than-average kids?

<comment><USER7> I don't mean to de-emphasize effort, it's still important to try hard, but I've seen a lot of cases where effort was focused on as the only thing that counts. For the smartest kids, that's not usually where the parental emphasis lies.

It depends on how you emphasize being smart. If you emphasize overall smartness, the kid will be more self-conscious about their weak points, which is what I wanted to convey. If you emphasize particular moments where they are good, they will be encouraged to repeat that specifically. It's a difference between emphasizing being good at [subset like shooting hoops] vs being good at [basketball as a whole]. Academically, the emphasis should be on the grades instead of on being good at taking tests. Or if you're more high-level, the emphasis should be on learning what's going to be most useful to you later in life as opposed to specifically effort or grades.

As for procrastination, in my experience the smarter kids procrastinate substantially more. But for the most part this doesn't come back and bite them. They leave exactly as much time as they need to pull off the good grade and most of the time it works out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> i had to learn the opposite message here. our society tells us so much stuff about being kind and caring, and there are very few messages about being able to stick up for yourself, being able to make reasonable requests and being able to say no to people who are not treating you fairly.

i had a roommate who didn't pay rent. i couldn't bring myself to confront the roommate because i felt like i "made of lot of money" and they didn't make much money and they had problems. i imagined them arguing with me and was scared and hurt by this image; i have no way to tell someone 'i deserve what i have and you don't' because i know i was born into a loving family that raised me and took care of me and pushed me to succeed. i can't take credit for those things.

i finally had to tell myself "it's not just ok to put yourself first. you have to insist on it; if you don't get rent from your roommate, you're letting them take from the people you love took; when your roommate doesn't pay rent, they are ruining your mood which hurts your friends and family."

it's hard. i finally said 'fuck being a good person, i'll do what i want and what benefits me and those i love.' this doesn't mean i go around being an ass to people all the time; i'm still generous when i tip and i try to look out for people.

but now i'm different. if i sense someone is trying to abuse or push me around at all, i see them as a predator. when homeless people asking for money used to make me feel like a bad person for being successful, now i see them as predators who use negative emotions to try and take my positive feelings away. yes, they're suffering. but i can't help them, and giving them money doesn't help them either.

show your kids how to be good, sure. but for god's sake teach them to say no to people who make unreasonable requests, and give them practice asking for things they are owed.

<comment><USER8> Don't go so far as to say "fuck being a good person", but understand that not everyone deserves unlimited trust and good faith. --which is I think what most of your comment is expressing.

Your story is the topic of one of the most famous West End /Broadway songs of recent years:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6h1eBEmY6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6h1eBEmY6U)

        Even if you find that life's not fair, it
        Doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it
        If you always take it on the chin and wear it
        Nothing will change
        Even if you're little you can do a lot, you
        Mustn't let a little thing like little stop you
        If you sit around and let them get on top, you
        Might as well be saying you think that it's OK

> homeless people asking for money ... i see them as predators who use > negative emotions to try and take my positive feelings away.

Or they are asking for money who using asking for money as a way to get money. Your "predator" description fits panhandlers with manipulative stories, but not all "homeless people asking for money". Also, it's worth considering , if someone is telling you a story that upsets you, but is a _true story_ , maybe the negative feelins you feel are appropriate, and there is something wrong with economic inequality.

<comment><USER15> Quote: Your "predator" description fits panhandlers with manipulative stories, but not all "homeless people asking for money."

The genuinely needful have long been run out of the public spaces/territories that have the most pay-out. The 'predators' in traffic making more than working at 7-11 don't abide threats to their income and will defend it unscrupulously. _Stop and walk on that center median sometime and see what response you get.

Edit: _I'm referring to occupied PH zones, I'm also half kidding. Be prepared for a confrontation if you do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Oh good. More ways I can mis-raise my child. I complimented the object instead of the subject in a sentence! Oh shiiiiiiit.

[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/new- par...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/new-parenting- study-released.html)

<comment><USER17> Don't know why you're being downvoted. As a parent, every single time I read something about 'raising your kids X', Dr. Lipschitz (from The Rugrats) comes to mind.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTesmh1wpI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTesmh1wpI)

<comment><USER18> I would say that, no, parents should not be expected to internalize all of the thousands of different things we're finding out about the best ways to raise kids. It's far too much to know, and the knowledge is currently too tentative. But, it's also pointless to bring that up every time a new study comes out, because these things _are_ good to know. That's probably why the GP is catching downvotes.

<comment><USER16> I've seen how parents can get amazingly OCD with these studies. They'll form cliques and look down on parents who don't perform what the current best practice is. Because of that, I think it always bears repeating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reading this, I'm pretty sure I can apply it to adult contexts too. Think about all the cases in organisations where 'values' are touted but the behaviour of people tells you how you really get ahead. Everything here is useful if you care about the organisational culture you want to create.

<comment><USER20> Funny you should say this. The author Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton and has a book called "Give and Take" that talks about a lot of this. And unlike most business books, it's all backed up with well researched data.

<comment><USER15> I know of three people who have been severely injured from a project I walked off last year. The Fortune 20 company's guidelines(and national safety codes) were ignored in their entirety. The project manager who was going to save $4.5 million at the risk of others' welfare is now shopping for bids to "do it by the book". Apparently his plausible deniability has sprung a leak or one or more of the injured have lawyered up. Vindication is bitter-sweet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I didn't get the don't be a cheater part. seemed like that would cause shame instead of guilt and confilted with the rule praise the child as a good person. expect them to do better when they do bad and seperate the bad action with fromt the good person. With hard worker being a good trait.

<comment><USER22> Sure, so the author's advice boils down to:

(1) If your child does something good,

DO tell them that they are showing traits of a person who does good things (praise character).

DON'T let them think that they're merely a person who did a good thing (praise behavior).

(2) If your child does something bad,

DON'T tell them that they are showing traits of a person who does bad things (shame).

DO tell them that they did a bad thing (guilt).

The situation is vaguely reminiscent of that old social psychology favorite, "fundamental attribution error", which is about how when other people do bad things, we blame internal traits, but when we do bad things, we blame external factors.

<comment><USER2> This is a good breakdown, but to address sharemywin's question:

When you tell your child "don't be a cheater," the focus is on character. You don't want them to do things that a person with bad character does.

When your child cheats, on the other hand, you say, "I'm disappointed, because I know you have a good character, but your action didn't reflect that." So, the focus is on the bad action, rather than the character.

Is some of this mere semantics? Possibly. If a person who does bad things can be a person of good character, and a person who does bad things can be a person of bad character, then how do we tell the difference between a person of good character and a person of bad character _except by their actions_?

But, if we're merely talking about what strategy is effective, then we can indeed say to focus on character when praising and on the action when admonishing.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, it's a matter of past-vs-future. Identity is important, but when a child makes a mistake you don't want to "lock it in" by confirming it as an unalterable quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's a lot of overlap here with what Paul Tough says in his book "How children succeed". Basically he also emphasizes the focus on a child's character, but to an extent that they regularly get graded on their character not just their performance academically.

It's a great read: [http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succeed-Curiosity- Charact...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succeed-Curiosity- Character/dp/0544104404)

</comment><comment><USER25>
        Act according to that maxim whereby you might
        will that it should become universal law.

Active and passive forms are quantifiable, testable under contextual and relational analyses (highly frequent circumstantial virtuous, altruistic behavior versus less frequent) of Self and Other. Kant is providing à la Spinoza a chart for the geometry of ethical behavior, so we can treat ethical behavior in terms of non-locality to specific norms — whereas Spinoza does this in terms of a calculus of the emotions w/r/t Self, or the Ethical Self.

By Bernard Williams's standard, the amoralist cannot even conceivably have an intermittent feeling of sympathy[0]. The person is at minimum embedded within and embodied by sympathetic behavior (to self or to other), but this is not a necessary condition to morality.

At the same time, the kinds of experiments we run, and the types of questions we ask, potentially distill or deauthenticate the model with the widest representation of moral truth — however the narrative of science may belie institutional refactors at meta-ethical descriptions.

–

[0]: [http://bobnoxiousthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/08/challenging-b...](http://bobnoxiousthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/08/challenging- bernard-williams-amoralist.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> Just for the record, J. Philippe Rushton, whom the op-ed draws on as a classic source of this kind of work in psychology, was a white-supremacist race "scientist" who argued, among other things, that black people have narrower hips because they have smaller brains.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a file on him: [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence- files/pro...](http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence- files/profiles/jean-philippe-rushton)

While that doesn't invalidate all the findings outlined in the op-ed, it's not exactly confidence inspiring either, as this essay persuasively argues: [http://africasacountry.com/the-racesciencefiles-the-new- york...](http://africasacountry.com/the-racesciencefiles-the-new-york-times- edition/)

</comment><comment><USER27> One can start by not associating oneself (and thus one's child) with words such as 'Israeli', 'British', 'Catholic', 'Hindu', 'Communist', etc.

"The function of education is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but be yourself all the time." \-- Jiddu Krishnamurti

[Think on These Things, Chapter 1]([http://www.jiddu- krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1...](http://www.jiddu- krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1963-00-00-jiddu-krishnamurti-think- on-these-things-chapter-1))

[Some info from UNSECO Bureau of Education on Krishnamurti]([http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/krishnamu...](http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/krishnamurtie.pdf))

</comment><comment><USER28> "A couple of weeks later, when faced with more opportunities to give and share, the children were much more generous after their character had been praised than after their actions had been. Praising their character helped them internalize it as part of their identities. The children learned who they were from observing their own actions: I am a helpful person."

Probably true, but there's an alternate explanation I think. Praising their character invokes a feel-good, I'm a good person, pride response. Praising their action doesn't nearly as much. People like the reward of the 'I'm a great person' feeling and thus are more likely to be nice if this is the result.

</comment><comment><USER7> What stood out the most to me was the distinction between guilt and shame. When you belittle a child and insult their character, they're less likely to make amends and more likely to withdraw.

I draw parallels to the way we treat criminals in our society. We cast them out and question their character and distance them from ourselves. This dumps a lot of shame on them, and might produce the same results as seen with the children; rather than feel guilt and make amends, they feel shame and withdraw.

</comment><comment><USER29> I find this article very interesting because it suggests that the effects of moral attribution to the self vs. the event has the opposite results of achievement attributions. There are numerous studies that show when you praise a child for being smart instead of working hard, they become less curious and motivated. Perhaps this dichotomy is because of the commonly-accepted distinction between talent and work ethic, whereas being good and doing good are largely the same.

</comment><comment><USER30> That made a lot of sense, especially when illustrated with the "that was a bad thing to do" rather than the "you're a bad person for doing that"

<comment><USER31> Yes, that part seems really important, defining the separation between the things that you do and your sense of self identity sounds like it's a critical part of creating a healthy sense of self esteem.

Looking inward it feels like I still struggle with this pattern of thinking sometimes, as I suspect many people do (the feeling of "that project failed" vs. "I'm a failure, this project is evidence of this fact" is worlds apart).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> For anyone who wants to know more about the topic: Adam Grant (the author) has been doing a lot of work around this concept of "givers" as a personal trait and how behaviors around the actions of giving/taking/matching results in various levels of success or early indicators for other things. This article is really a subset of his research applied to just this one case.

<comment><USER33> I just finished his book Give and Take. It was a great read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Haven't read the article as it's probably full of psycho-babble. Just live your life with integrity and the kids will follow. And don't force-feed religion on the poor kids, morals are not from fairy-tales; morals are real. My kids see the value of being moral via me and then these morals are confirmed as they wander thru life.

</comment><comment><USER35> I find this article directly interesting, as a parent, but also sort of "meta" interesting as someone who's always been fascinated by the differences between shame-based societies and guilt-based ones. I'm not discounting the author's insights, but they are very clearly influenced by western thinking.

</comment><comment><USER36> I grew up and live in New York City - where people are not very caring. But how do we measure that?

      In an Israeli study of nearly 600 families,
      parents who valued kindness and compassion
      frequently failed to raise children who shared those
      values.

How do you quantify kindness and compassion?

<comment><USER37> Confusing "valuing" and "are". For mere valuing a simple survey should be adequate.

An analogy would be valuing wealth while being poor. Or innumerable examples of reportedly valuing a certain religion's beliefs, yet ridiculously bad, often opposite, implementation of those beliefs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> There is some irony of an article about generosity coming from a Wharton professor. :-) I do like the outcome though - model the behaviors that you want your kids to follow.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why limit these concepts to raising children? It seems like they should apply to adult interactions as well.

</comment><comment><USER40> Has anyone see discussion about the relation of these kind of empirical ideas to virtue ethics?

</comment><comment><USER41> I would like to raise a moral child, and I aim to do so, but I'm sure they'll be less successful for it.

In today's oligarchy it seems like the great majority of successful people today are either criminals or general pieces of shit.

Now, of course, being a success is not the end all and be all, but seeing your skills greatly outdistance your results can be quite frustrating.

<comment><USER42> That only makes sense if by "being a success" means having more stuff then the next guy.

I'd prefer to define success differently. If I had all the worlds goods/power and treated others like dirt I'd chalk myself up as a total loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is not an article I would go to NYTimes to read.

<comment><USER44> Why?

<comment><USER45> because subliminal liberal mind control, duh!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Hi, I am not a parent, but I think I have to put across this point of the way of looking at morality being independent of "free will", because "free will" is an illusion and the illusion of "free will" is also an illusion. The non- existence of free will should not be confused with fatalism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism). Morality and love and compassion can still be quantified without free will. What goes away are actually the negative feelings like hatred, anger and pride and shame.

Let us take a simple thought experiment. Let me ask you to choose a book. Let us make it simple, let us remove all the books that you do not know about, and just consider the books that you are aware of being great. If you have already chosen one, drop it as it is wrong, don't ask me how, but I know, and this time be sensitive to the process of choosing a book. This is the most freest of choice that you ever will get to make, so free will better be here or else it is no where. Do you observe that there is a certain gap from the time I ask you to pick a book, and then there is certain gap and then suddenly there are a list of books in your mind. There is no way you can explain why you didn't think of The Godfather even though you know it is a great book. Let us say you thought about Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman and Seven years in Tibet. You have just finished one book in the series of Harry Potter and you are not interested in reading fiction again, so eliminate that, then you are only left with Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman and Seven years in Tibet, say you like reading biographies so you chose Seven years in Tibet and Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, now when you have only these two options and there is no coherent opposition that is present in the system, only then comes the free aspect. There is still no way you can explain why you did not think otherwise, of choosing another book in the series of Harry Potter and reading more fiction. So where is the free will here? All of this still does not eradicate the feeling of love and compassion we feel and does not make everyone guilty by reason of insanity.

All of this is much more well articulated by Sam Harris who holds a Ph.D in neurobiology and graduate in Philosophy. He talks about the delusion of free will at The Festival of Dangerous Ideas. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk)

Here is another piece of his work where he promotes scientific thinking and argues that moral questions are best pursued using, not just philosophy, but methods of science. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape)

<comment><USER47> Either you're doing a lousy job of putting Harris's thesis across, or the thesis itself is gibberish. Whichever is so, you would've added more to this discussion by not posting this comment at all, than by doing so in its current state.

(And, having just spent a year in academia and seen "methods of science" firsthand, I can only assume the suggestion they be applied to questions of morality represents a blatant grab for funding on the part of Dr. Harris, who no doubt envisions himself as a PI presiding over such investigations. On the other hand, if he were all that good a grant writer, I doubt he'd have gone to the trouble of publishing in the popular press.)

<comment><USER46> Thanks for pointing out that am doing a lousy job of putting across Dr. Harris's work, :) And I think that is mainly because of the way am putting the thought experiment across without a lot of premise being set, which is clearly set in the talk he gives. Many people misunderstand that non-existence of free will means everything is predetermined, which is not the case we all know. It does not matter if you have a lot of skills, but it matters if you use them. It does not matter if you have not understood some subjects, rather than blaming someone else about it, it matters if you improve on them. And he is not the only one whose work lead to the conclusion of free will being incoherent, there are many other biologists who prove the same. Now what is remarkable about Sam's work is that he also takes care of proving that the illusion of free will is also an illusion. When Harris is saying methods of science being applied to look at morality, he is not the first one to propose so, there have been many prominent schools of thought, to name one Hindu philosophy, which have also spoken the same. The way Harris is speaking about methods of science is that every individual can apply it for themselves and see it for themselves. There need not be any investigating authority other than the privacy of our mind :) I have applied methods of science myself to what Harris is saying and then coming and posting here. Please do not criticize him or his work without even looking at it :) Methods of science mean that results of an experiment being verifiable by all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> IANAP, however, the entire concept of performing 'experiments' on your child is repugnant to me.

<comment><USER49> Why?

<comment><USER48> Because a child cannot give consent.

<comment><USER50> Note that in reality, all parents are experimenting. Nobody __knows__ the right way to raise a child. I'm the father of a 3yr daughter but I dare not claim that my way is the right way...

<comment><USER48> There's a difference between 'experimenting' and experimenting. The explicit variation is what I'm referring to — and I don't think it's a matter of semantics. It's the intention that I'm taking issue with.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


We need a Groupon for phone plans - <AUTHOR>

I would love a service that groups me with 4-5 other people who want similar phones on the same carrier, and then lets us compile our cash to get a cheaper bulk phone plan. Thoughts? <comment><USER2> Why would the phone companies go for this?</comment>


Eating Clean is Useless - <AUTHOR> https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/zmvwb4/eating-clean-wont-make-you-any-healthier?utm_source=vicefbus <comment><USER2> A little straw man here, a little twisting of the meaning of clean there and voila: trying to eat healthy is classist and racist.

Junk food is being marketed at poor uneducated people. Yes! That is even more reason to fight it, not find escuses to indulge in it. And if you are really into social justice and the like, that yoga guy and the whole white middle class is not the enemy of the poor black guys. They are not the owners of junk food mega corporations, nor do they pass laws to subsidize corn syrup.

If you want to "stick it to the man" stop buying his horrible products.

"Fuck you white middle class yoga guy, I'm eating all the Nestle shit I can find, take that!" \- how dumb is this?

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I'm surprised at the support for this article...

I somehow got downvoted for saying that growing one's own food is a great alternative to the narrow perspective the article is pushing.

<comment><USER4> Most people prefer to find justifications for their generally poor diet choices (ie eating Lucky Charms every day) rather than being objective. Food is really an emotional thing for most of us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All of our fitness and nutrition advice is troubled by the cargo-culting, marketing-driven, personal-religion factors: if I go to a yoga class I spend a lot more time and money to get effects roughly similar to doing a high school gym class stretching regime each morning and evening. I paid $14 yesterday for the experience of a burger with a fancy name and an overly sweetened bun that was ultimately less satisfying than Burger King. If I buy and use supplements marketed by a bodybuilder, or try to follow their training program as printed in a magazine, I'm not going to look like the bodybuilder, and I will probably overtrain, because they weren't using the supplements at all, they were using a PED stack to train harder, eat more, and recover faster without overloading their system. Worrying about my body weight, BMI, or aesthetics is similarly Quixotic in that my body will prefer to stay in a certain range regardless of how I eat or train, and the numbers I can consistently improve tend to be "weight and reps" or "time and distance", while aesthetics and vanity numbers are much harder to aim towards.

To wit, it's more important to develop your own feedback loops for each of these things. There are serious concerns with fitness and nutrition in the U.S. but they aren't necessarily because it's impossible to get at the good stuff: it's just that eating beans and rice and oatmeal, making a habit of stretching and bodyweight exercise, and studiously logging one's training are all unfashionable, implicitly discouraged by most workplaces, and not well served by market forces.

<comment><USER6> > implicitly discouraged by most workplaces

What do you mean?

<comment><USER5> Long "crunch" work hours with little or no enforced break, laissez-faire approaches to lunch and break room snacks, occasional encouragement to drink alcohol, lengthy car commutes to office parks, heavy preference towards in- person over remote. These are just some of the things workplaces do to lifestyle that are too small to be a topic for regulation but big enough to impact lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Non-GMO and organic is mostly BS of course, but it's a fact that refined carbs are cheap and plentiful, so the poor consume proportionally more of them. They simply can't afford fruit and meat. This is in part because of the infinite shelf life of processed carbs, and in part because they're heavily subsidized by the government. Also, government dietary guidelines still push people towards relatively high carb diets, and snacking is encouraged from kindergarten and up, causing insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. The point being, the nutritional situation in the US is a clusterfuck, and GMO and organic stuff are kind of orthogonal to rectifying it.

<comment><USER8> > They simply can't afford fruit and meat.

Maybe this differs per area, but in most places i know, fruit is significantly cheaper than processed snacks. I can eat 4 apples for the price of one Mars bar.

<comment><USER9> I've been hearing similar things for a time now, like e.g. poor people eating at McD because it's cheaper to get a caloric and macronutrient-full meal there than to assemble it from fruits and stuffs.

This disagrees with my daily experience in Europe, so I conclude it's a US- specific thing.

<comment><USER10> > This disagrees with my daily experience in Europe, so I conclude it's a US- > specific thing.

It is. Having lived in both places, it's astounding how expensive good food is in the US and how cheap crap food can be. $1 for a single apple or for a McD burger? Tough choice.

Add to that the fact that most of the US poor are time poor as well. Working 3 jobs and/ot commuting 3hrs per day doesn't leave a lot of time to prepare meals.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. In my midwest small town, the $1 apple isn't even the good apples. Bananas are preposterously cheap though. I'd still rather east two double cheeseburgers or two breakfast burritos than 5-6 bananas.

<comment><USER10> > I'd still rather east two double cheeseburgers or two breakfast burritos > than 5-6 bananas.

Probably healthier to eat two double cheeseburgers than 5-6 bananas too. Bananas are really really really packed with sugar.

14 grams per 100 calories (banana) versus 7 grams per 440 calories (McDonalds double cheeseburger).

Now whether it's healthy to eat 800 calories for breakfast ... eh, probably not. But that's a different problem. Also depends on what you intend to do all day. Physical labor? Eat away. Sit at desk? Maybe try a quarter of a double cheeseburger instead :D

<comment><USER6> A double cheeseburger may have only 7 grams of "sugar", which is defined by the FDA as a mono- or di-saccharide, but it has 29 grams of carbs, most of which is white flour, which is almost as unhealthy as sugar.

<comment><USER10> A single banana has 27 grams of carbs. Most of which is pure sugar.

So I dunno. Bananas are not the best example, great after and pre workout, not thaaaat great as something you'd eat all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "100-percent organic, locally sourced, non-GMO, and free of antibiotics"

Even if it does not have an effect on your health, three of those four (100-percent organic, locally sourced, and free of antibiotics) are at least good for the environment.

The fourth (free of antibiotics) is maybe even good for your health, in the long run: Over-use of antibiotics by farmers (not using them to cure sick animals, but to make animals grow faster) seems to be a big problem (creating resistent bugs)...

Edit (after reading a comment): I left out non-GMO here because I have ready about some evidence that - at least some GMOs - can be better for the environment and for your health.

<comment><USER13> 100-percent organic is often bad for the environment because it takes more land to grow the same food.

It often takes more energy to grow food locally (greenhouses and fertilizer) than transported food.

Antibiotic-raised foods grow faster and thus have better caloric ratios, and less farmland per pound of beef.

<comment><USER14> This makes intuitive sense but I have never seen good evidence for it. I personally do not believe that:

      - organic food is bad for the environment
      - organic food is less space efficient to grow

I do believe that:

      - organic food may have lower crop yields

<comment><USER13> Uh...

> \- organic food is less space efficient to grow > \- organic food may have > lower crop yields

These are the same thing. If you have to generate X calories, and you generate fewer per acre, then you need more acres of crop.

<comment><USER14> Think outside the box. Think 3D agriculture. Aeroponics.

<comment><USER15> But if you're willing to do that for organic you're also willing to do that for non organic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To me eating clean means avoiding preprocessed food, the author is taking a much more extreme view which to me feels like a straw man.

If someone is used to junk food and switches to more fruit, veggies, lean meat and fish, I'm pretty sure they'll start noticing a difference after a little while. I know it worked for me (n=1).

<comment><USER17> Agreed, I've always considered "clean" to mean non-preprocessed food.

n=2

<comment><USER18> This is the long standing definition, which has been used in the athletic community for much longer than it has in the "wealthy yoga mom" community described in the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article seems to be making the implicit claim that "clean eating" refers to eating organic products. On the other hand, I've always understood the expression to just mean eating healthy, especially including plenty of vegetables. Has the meaning changed or have I just always misunderstood it?

<comment><USER20> I was confused the same way. I think the article should replace "clean" with "organic\non-GMO."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> 'Clean eating' is suppose to be about eating minimally processed foods. You can eat plenty of GMO produce and mass produced meat and still eat 'clean'

</comment><comment><USER22> The most appealing benefits of organic foods, in my household, are not to do with our own health. Instead, we adopt the practice under the information that organic farming is more sustainable and better for the environment. Top three search results for "organic food better for environment."

[http://www.fao.org/organicag/oa-faq/oa- faq6/en/](http://www.fao.org/organicag/oa-faq/oa-faq6/en/)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/is-organic- agr...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/is-organic-agriculture- really-better-for-the- environment/2016/05/14/e9996dce-17be-11e6-924d-838753295f9a_story.html)

[http://www.thechicecologist.com/green-living/food- drink/is-o...](http://www.thechicecologist.com/green-living/food-drink/is- organic-food-really-better-for-the-environment/)

Regarding it being a "rich [white] people thing," either way, that may very well be, in practice. Is caring about sustainable farming and the environmental impact of our savage resouce consumption also a rich white people thing?

<comment><USER23> On the other hand, if you search "organic food worse for environment" you get results which explain why organic farming is less sustainable. Your search results are dependent on your query so if you search "vaccination schedule bad for children" don't be surprised when you get some highly placed anti-vax stuff.

In any case, assuming you eat a diet typical of an organic shopper with far less meat and more vegetables compared to the general population then organic farming is merely as carbon intensive and uses only 40% more land. If you buy organic but have a pretty normal diet then it's even worse. Is it a rich person thing? Switching to organic for everyone would require massive deforestation worldwide and probably still wouldn't get us enough arable land so not only would the price of food go up, we'd likely be hit with large food shortages that would probably disproportionately hit the developing world. Yeah, it's a rich person thing. They're the people who can afford organic and they're fine when food shortages come along.

[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Nordborg/publicat...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Nordborg/publication/316871522_Carbon_footprints_and_land_use_of_conventional_and_organic_diets_in_Germany/links/59340791aca272fc553cb695/Carbon- footprints-and-land-use-of-conventional-and-organic-diets-in-Germany.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> While the article is somewhat correct in that 'clean eating' is useless, what the hell is up with every single US News outlet literally stirring up racial tensions?

Back to the clean eating part - all my ancestors that I know of (grandparents, great-grandparents) at relatively unhealthy food. Tons of butter, lard, and carbs. True, it was natural-ish, they all grew up on a homestead, but far from the 'clean eating' ideal.

As for the racial tensions, WTF? Does every single article in every single outlet have to bring it up? All this does is make it worse in my experience.

<comment><USER15> They don't want to solve the problem, they want to exploit the problem.

A lot of media/activist/political activity makes a lot more sense through this lens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> To me "eating clean" means eating mostly vegetables by volume and mostly fat and protein by weight. For instance typical ketogenic/paleo diet. Eating "dirty" is theoretically doable. If one prototypical example of eating "dirty" is having a standard supermarket cake slice or mound of cereal and milk to fulfill daily caloric needs, then it is actually harder to maintain a "dirty" diet. Satiety becomes an unattainable goal. We simply cannot handle the insulin spikes well. We get hungry and cravings are more intense with such a diet. It is essentially impractical. It may also explain why there are so many obese in the world. "Eating clean" can be used as a marketing term to get people to fork over huge bucks for an oversold concept. But fundamentally, "eating clean" the way I define it is very cheap, tasty, and pragmatic. Especially for losing weight and maintaining a low weight.

<comment><USER25> "Eating dirty is theoretically possible".

I think you mean "hypothetically", unless you have some references to scientific research?

<comment><USER14> Sorry; my English is poor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clickbait title leading to poorly written article by a mid 30s man-child wanting to justify eating Lucky Charms everyday because he left mom's house too soon.

"Eating clean is useless" is such a terrible statement to make, especially today. You want to eat crap, good for you, but don't try to avoid feeling bad about it.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have a pet theory that food ideology is/has replaced conventional religion for a lot of folks. There is a need to feel 'virtuous' in our daily lives and since we gotta eat it's a convenient place to go. So we get all these strange ideologies and dogmas which don't seem to make us much healthier physically but maybe helps fills in some accumulated spiritual decay.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article smacks of narrow-minded contrarianism for its own sake.

The cheapest thing one can do -- and healthier than the option of eating Lucky Charms daily -- is to grow one's own food. The space requirements are actually tiny -- it's possible to grow all of one's own veggies in something like 300 sq ft of space (in a mid-latitude region) and all one's own calories in something like 800 sq ft of space. It's cheaper to do it without sprays too, so you end up organic by default. I'd recommend interested folks check out ... Grow More Vegetables ... by John Jeavons and One Circle by David Duhon for how to do space-efficient veggie gardening.

Edited to add: I should have mentioned: I'm opposed to the fad diets that the article is attacking as much as I am to the contrarian posture the article takes. Growing food and eating it, and eating a variety of such homegrown foods with a mix of other things, seems sensible to me, and it's also cheaper than either highly-processed industrial food products or fad-oriented yuppie foods.

<comment><USER15> This is only a cheap option if you consider your own labor to be free.

Plus don't forget about the seasonality of the crops, the effort of preservation, etc.

<comment><USER3> It is free. The time you spend in the garden is time you would have otherwise spent exercising in some other form and (to a lesser extent) shopping.

<comment><USER27> Im glad you've found something that works for you, but you must understand that you have quite the unique circumstance there. There is no gardening out there that would ever be able to replace the exercise that I do...gardening is extremely mild cardio at best. And 300-800 sqft of sun-exposed space _per person_ in the city where I live would undoubtedly cost an order of magnitude more than I currently spend on food.

If it were really that easy to grow one's own food, industrialization would have never happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there a single definition of "clean"? The author has one definition which seems based on items commonly found on labels, like "non-gmo" or "certified organic", that gives consumers an easy way to feel good about what they are about to eat. The commenters here, however, seem to each have their own different idea. Is it keto? Is it organic/"chemical-free"? Can someone point me to one single definition of "clean" eating that isn't just what you feel is "clean"?

If there is, how does it line up with the author's definition? How does the actual definition fit with the content of the article?

If there isn't one definition, I'm sort of with the author on this one. "Clean" is whatever labels the consumers use to feel superior through what they are eating.

</comment><comment><USER29> I eat organic fruit and vegetables mostly to avoid synthetic chemicals, and because you have more heirloom varieties which can offer better taste, but I'm not a vegetarian, so I'm okay with the blood meal and bone meal that goes into the product.

<comment><USER30> What is the basis of the idea that organic pesticides and herbicides are safer/better than synthetic ones?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In respect to value, at least, bio/organic (real, not just misleading labeling) is suppose to be free of pesticides, and that's actually a good thing... I'm sure.

Regardless, I don't think even the WHO suggests there's a preference to organic food, but clearly indicates the danger of food contaminated with pesticides.

Even if most pesticides are now forbidden in most developed countries, we can see that in the USA legislation and regulation is being again "relaxed", which is not a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER32> "And for 30 years I've somehow not only survived but thrived. "

At 30 years of age, your habits haven't caught up to you yet. A 30-year-old smoker could make the same claim.

</comment><comment><USER33> Possible problems with GMO: \- Harder to digest proteins \- Possible new allergies for some people (because if slightly different proteins, or mixes from other plants) \- Plants with build in pesticide \- Patents \- Plant monoculture \- Plants that grow faster and are cheaper, but not optimized for taste.

Is the above list inherit to GMO's: no. Do I know if the GMO I am eating is suffering from this: no. As such until I get detailed information about your GMO, I prefer to avoid it.

<comment><USER9> Wait, you listed some hypotheticals, said they don't necessarily apply, and still concluded they do?

But what do I know. I'm a food contrarian - if I see two items, one labeled "no GMO" and one without such label, I pick the latter...

<comment><USER6> > and still concluded they do?

When did they do this?

<comment><USER9> The way I read that comment was:

\- [list of possible problems with GMOs]

\- Are they inherent to GMOs? No.

\- Do I know if a given GMO has them? No.

\- Conclusion: I will avoid GMOs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Finally. So true. "Eating clean" is probably one of the best marketing campaigns in history; billions of dollars spent on products that make you feel healthier, but in reality, don't amount to shit.

It's all about calories in, calories out and macronutrient composition (carbs, fats, proteins). That's literally it.*

* Unless you seriously train for a sport, in which case the little stuff (eating time, micronutrients, # of meals, etc) matter.

</comment><comment><USER35> I never understood the hate toward GMOs themselves, considering that genetic modification is practically the definition of agriculture as it's existed for thousands of years. Granted, we relied on artificial selection instead of, say, CRISPR, but still.

I do understand the hate toward companies like Monsanto, however. Hating all GMOs because of some unethical company peddling them seems heavy-handed and broad-stroked to me, though.

<comment><USER23> I'm always interested in people's perceptions of Monsanto considering that to me they seem like an entirely pedestrian and boring GM crops company with a couple of cool products. Perhaps you could explain why you dislike them and think they're unethical?

<comment><USER35> I don't like their intellectual property policies. Suing small farmers because their crops were inadvertently exposed to patent-encumbered Monsanto pollen is, suffice it to say, a dick move.

Monsanto is basically to agriculture as Oracle is to IT.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps you could link me to an example where that happened? Probably the most famous cases of Monsanto suing farmers were Bowman v. Monsanto and Monsanto v. Schmeiser. In both cases the infringement was entirely purposeful.

Schmesier's case is one where the seeds were initially blown onto his property so that may be what you're referring to. From Wikipedia:

As established in the original Federal Court trial decision, Percy Schmeiser, a canola breeder and grower in Bruno, Saskatchewan, first discovered Roundup- resistant canola in his crops in 1997. He had used Roundup herbicide to clear weeds around power poles and in ditches adjacent to a public road running beside one of his fields, and noticed that some of the canola which had been sprayed had survived. Schmeiser then performed a test by applying Roundup to an additional 3 acres (12,000 m2) to 4 acres (16,000 m2) of the same field. He found that 60% of the canola plants survived. At harvest time, Schmeiser instructed a farmhand to harvest the test field. That seed was stored separately from the rest of the harvest, and used the next year to seed approximately 1,000 acres (4 km²) of canola.

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#As_plaint...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases#As_plaintiff)

<comment><USER35> Sorry, mixed up seeds with pollen.

Regardless, to me that's a distinction without a difference. Suing a farmer because he used seeds that blew into his property is still a dick move. Too bad the Canadian courts don't seem to agree (though considering that the Supreme Court decision was a 5-4 split, I'd argue that the legality of contaminating someone's field with genetically-modified seeds and then suing farmers for using those seeds or the products thereof is still very contestable, and for good reason).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Link doesn't work in Australia. Just get redirected to [https://www.vice.com/en_au](https://www.vice.com/en_au).

Yet this works: [https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/d385ak/eating-clean-is- us...](https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/d385ak/eating-clean-is-useless)

</comment><comment><USER37> I thought the article was talking about eating food contaminated with dirt reading its title. Which I happen to agree with, small doses of bacteria do wonder for my immune system. It turned out to be an article of counterargument against antiGMO and organic food though.

</comment><comment><USER38> The best evidence for eating healthy are girls who do yoga.

</comment><comment><USER39> I am sorry but GMO is actually bad for you.... Monsanto tried to spread gmo corn in France, they tested it on rats for a year and the rats developed multiple tumors the size of an egg.

<comment><USER40> I assume you are referring to this article[1]? Looks like there were numerous issues with it and it was retracted by the journal it was published in.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ralini_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ralini_affair)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think the author researched this article after selecting his position rather than vice versa. He keeps claiming health benefits have not been shown to be true. He goes so far as to say: "...organic produce tends to have more antioxidants—but those differences haven't been shown to improve health outcomes." Maybe, but I'm pretty sure they do. In my experience being around a good number of athletic people, the ones who look really good, as in others do double takes or give gratuitous compliments, are not the ones work out the most but instead the ones who eat the best.</comment>


Ask HN: Rails for Django developers? - <AUTHOR>

I've done some django development in the past and I'm looking to expand my horizons by learning Rails. Does anyone know of good tutorials or other resources aimed at people with previous web development experience looking to learn rails? Strangely, google hasn't turned up much that's useful. <comment><USER2> I was in a very similar boat two months ago and went through Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial (<http://railstutorial.org>) and found it to be a great resource. You'll be able to get through it pretty quickly with your Django background, you'll learn some good stuff about workflow and testing in the process, and you'll know enough to build your own basic Rails project when you're done (with lots of reference-checks back to Rails Tutorial of course).

I also played with Rails for Zombies but found the pace to be a bit slow with the emphasis on cool multimedia and the simulator.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very neat. Did you purchase the PDF or the screencasts or did you read it online?

<comment><USER2> I just read it online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> <http://lmgtfy.com/?q=rails+for+zombies></comment>


The Job Of A CEO At A 200 Person Company - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/10/job-ceo-200-person-company/

<comment><USER2> 4\. Make a profit.

Meebo is on their series D and has raised $70 million. It seems it's still being run off VC after 6 years.

Meanwhile they seem to have peaked in 2008 <http://www.google.com/trends?q=Meebo>

<comment><USER3> The size and scale of Meebo is always a suprise, but they have massive distribution. See the Meebo bar - <http://www.meebo.com/websites/>. They are on some heavily trafficked sites (tmz etc...) where they sell quite a few ads.

<comment><USER4> Does anyone actually use the messaging?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The key traits of great historical leader, may it be Alexander the Great or Napolean, was that they had an Ideal. Nietzsche wrote many interesting points about it that have in the past and present proven to be the case.

A leader must have all his followers/team completly behind him, so that when the leader moves forward his "body" the team does as well without thought just like we do when we move our body. It just happens and follows our minds will.

I can think of two simple examples like when birds migrate to Africa , they fly in big swarm to live in the warmth of the African winter or the Transformer charachter Voltron who comprimises of many small Robots but join to a big one.

Both are in normal times more individual but when on quests or adversity join as one big entity. What brings them together are the Common Goals of : Prospering and to Survive 2. Defence against other enemies.

Based on this I think best is to find an Ideal for you and your team to follow where your setforth an IDeal that in your value system " will make the world a better place" and by following this ideal, prosper, survive and defend against enemies.

People are willing to work for free and pay for it as well for a good cause like you see in many charities but you wouldnt find the same passion with someone earning 10$ an hr in a shop to oversimplify the Ideals Vs Cash arguement.

Interested to know what others think make a team become 1 with the ceo and share the same vision. thanks

<comment><USER6> Voltron, Defender of the Universe, is not a Transformers character.

<comment><USER5> sorry, I meant this guy, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devastator_(Transformers)>

I typed into google something like "transformers small robots big robot" and Voltron was there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember Meebo.

the biggest shock to me is that they're a 200 person company. good for them, probably.

</comment><comment><USER8> This was a great post. I found as I was reading it that many of the characteristics he possesses as a leader can be found in John Maxwell's leadership series. A small book I reffer to regularly is John Maxwell's delegating leadership. THis article was dead on with how as a CEO that becomes you main job. I recommend it to all CEO'S.

For others looking for good leadership books here are some others I like:

\- 7 habits of highly affective people \- how to win friends and influence people \- Launching a leader revolution (great book my friend gave me this!) \- Wooden \- Anything from John Maxwell or Dale Carnegie

</comment><comment><USER9> 200 person company? Er, people still use Meebo?</comment>


AWS as a career path - <AUTHOR> I'm a software dev working on a legacy platform (AS400) for about 10 years now and I want to move out of this position into something more "trendy" or "in-demand" tech. I'm based out of the NYC area and I was hoping to start with something like learning to use AWS (using the free tier).
I was thinking of taking up either AWS Software Associate/Developer certification and trying my luck with applying for jobs that were looking for AWS devs or something similar.
Does this sound feasible?
Edit:
I'm also struggling with selecting the correct certification to start things off - Software Architect or Developer?
Also, when I do learn some of the bits with AWS and try to get these certifications, how do I sell myself as an AWS dev/something since I would not have had any "corporate" or "real world" experience of AWS?
I might be jumping the gun a little here but I do want to set a goal for myself that I can chase/achieve. <comment><USER2> yes, sounds feasible. AWS is the new operating system of cloud. Worth the shot. I would also recommend Openstack or a private cloud stack. Rationale is that AWS complexities will either be simplified or AWS would do the managed service quite well at least cost.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will look into Openstack.

I'm also struggling with selecting the correct certification to start things off - Software Architect or Developer?

<comment><USER2> Start with Developer and natural next step would be Architect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks again! That seems like the natural progression. In an article by LinuxAcademy or ACloudguru, I remember reading that as far as AWS was concerned, Software Architect Associate -> Developer -> DevOPS was the route to proceed and it somehow didn't add up in my mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Serverless" seems like a viable option for sure nowadays. Worth a shot no?

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this based on a similar rationale as the other response with Openstack?</comment></comment>


Doodling in Math: Sick Number Games - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhlv5Aeuo_k

<comment><USER2> I know this girl, and she's brilliant.

<http://vihart.com/doodling>

I especially love her Moebius music box

<http://vihart.com/musicbox/></comment>


Vitamin D Supplement - <AUTHOR> I am not going outside my home for last 10 days for covid-19 issue. Should I take vitamin D supplement as I am not exposing me into sunlight? <comment><USER2> You should take a vitamin D supplement all the time. There is no way you can get enough from diet or the sun. It is the steroid for the immune system. I would recommend the following 3 vitamins to strengthen the Immune system.

D,C and Zinc. D is a fat soluble vitamin which means take it with some fat (in a meal or with a fish oil supplement).

</comment><comment><USER3> 10 days wont be an issue, do you like milk a lot of them have D added.</comment>


I launched my abandoned side project and got a paying customer within 24 hours - <AUTHOR> http://toomanytabs.com/blog/2713/i-launched-my-abandoned-side-project-and-got-a-paying-customer-within-24-hours/

<comment><USER2> Nice idea. I work for a company that manages hundreds of domain names and SSL certs. Our sales people have some sort of system for managing these now, but we often run in to issues with however they're doing it. I'll pass your site to my boss to see if he's interested.

One thing I'd like to see is the ability to create folders where I could name it the client name and keep all of their domains there. For example if xyz corp had xyzcorp.com, .net, and .org, I'd like to have all of those under one folder. I'd also like to see a dashboard that shows domains that are expiring within 30/60/90 days.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey jrsmith1279, thanks for your comment on Flaregun. It's great to get real feedback and validation.

Both your feature requests becomes important when you have hundreds of domains managed by Flaregun. I think being able to assign domains to clients is a really key feature going forward. I have added both to my todo list.

Give me a shout if you want to talk through anything else or run into any problems. I am really keen to open up a dialogue with my early adopters to help shape the product.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best HN Client for Android? - <AUTHOR> Which app do you use to read HN on mobile? Thanks <comment><USER2> Best is Chrome.

But also Materialistic is good. [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidroh.materialistic)</comment>


Show HN: Snowy – a new image library for Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.prideout.net/snowy/ <comment><USER2> Massive opinionated opinion ahead: I like libraries that don't invent new types but just build around established ones. I think it's great that it uses numpy arrays and doesn't venture to (essentially) wrap an array of some kind and reinvent the wheel.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm happy with this design decision. The only bummer is that it doesn't allow daisy-chaining, as in:

        img = img.resize(...).blur(....).hflip()

<comment><USER3> I always regret writing those lines when I come back to them anyway. Any time I try to refactor them I throw something out of order or drop a function.

That said, I don't claim to be a clever man.

<comment><USER4> What is the alternative besides chaining, devise a new variable name for every operation? I understand that daisy chaining can be error prone, but the alternative is so difficult to maintain in long chains.

<comment><USER5> If the object is modified in place (as it seems to be in this case), then the "pythonic" approach is:

       img = ...
       img.resize(...)
       img.blur(....)
       img.hflip()

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something I would miss as a user is interoperability. There should be ways to read from/export to numpy arrays, pytables, PIL, OpenCV, ImageMagick, basically all the mentioned and widespread libraries so far.

(Edit: There is in fact: [https://github.prideout.net/snowy/reference.html#load](https://github.prideout.net/snowy/reference.html#load) , haven't noticed, very good!)

<comment><AUTHOR> Understood. Maybe it helps that Snowy does not define an Image object, instead it simply operates on numpy arrays.

See also [https://github.prideout.net/snowy/index.html#interop](https://github.prideout.net/snowy/index.html#interop)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's the overlap with ImageMagick and its pals? This meant to replace or just be a smaller-tool-for-the-job?

<comment><AUTHOR> Smaller tool, not a replacement.

ImageMagick is much bigger, more powerful, and more production ready. Snowy is hopefully a bit more Pythonic and easy to play with.

<comment><USER8> so, who is your target audience? The just getting started developer?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a small target audience :)

I think graphics developers like myself would be interested; people who work with distance fields, tileable images, HDR imagery, and height map data.

Maybe a technical artist at an animation studio would be interested, or someone working with map imagery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Neat. How does it benchmark against PIL and OpenCV for common image processing tasks?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not as fast as PIL but has reasonable optimizations like performing convolution in two passes, caching filter weights from row to row, and using numba decorations.

It's not quite apples to apples because Snowy offers a variety of filters, does everything in fp64, and is purely written in Python.

<comment><USER10> "Purely" meaning it does not _add_ any C code; it still very actively uses numpy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Under Alpha Composition

      icon = snowy.load('snowflake.png')
      icon = snow.resize(snowflake, height=100)
      sunset[:100,200:300] = snowy.compose(sunset[:100,200:300], icon)
      snowy.show(sunset)

Pretty sure you meant to say on line 2 `icon = snowy.resize(icon, height=100)`

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is fixed now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well done! Some commenters have compared this to ImageMagick. I would equate this to comparing love2d [1] to SDL. If you want a user-friendly API for quick image manipulation, use Snowy. If Snowy doesn't give you the level of control you need, use something like ImageMagick or vips.

I could see myself using this in the future.

[1] [https://love2d.org/](https://love2d.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Would you mind defining a primary use case for this as opposed to PIL, ImageMagick or OpenCV? For the purposes of saving a description with the website.

<comment><AUTHOR> High-quality filtering of floating-point image data.</comment></comment>


4.2BSD on SIMH vax with networking - <AUTHOR> http://plover.net/~agarvin/4.2bsd.html <comment><USER2> SIMH is one of the things that got me into embedded programming. I'm still very fond of this thing, and it's one of the first things that I install on any machine that I have.

I am not old enough to have used those machines in real life. I have _seen_ some of them in real life, but only as a child. However, I was interested in computer history -- and I had been for quite some time (after stumbling upon ESR's edition of the Jargon file) when I ran into SIMH.

This was back when documentation was pretty scarce, and Internet images slow. I got SIMH on my home computer by relying on floppy disks and a very understanding internet cafe operator. Shortly after, I got a dial-up connection, and managed to lug a few of the historical UNIX images, and boot them in a PDP-11 machine.

I remember being astonished at how much could be achieved in (what seemed to me, back in the late 90s/early 00s) so little memory and with so little computational power. It's what got me interested in the whole "doing less with more" business. Many years later, it turned out to be useful knowledge; when I got my first job writing device drivers for a really tiny RTOS, 48 KB of flash and 4 KB of RAM seemed like a reasonably comfortable space to write code in.

A few years later, I also got a hold of an OpenVMS copy -- which was actually pretty complicated because it involved signing up for DECUS Munchen (I still have my membership card!), which was not very easy considering that I was well under 18 and all the German words I knew were "Danke", "Gutten" and "Tag". I don't remember if SIMH or another emulator already had pcap-based networking support back then, but in any case, I ran a small OpenVMS machine and offered shell accounts to a few curious folks. The whole thing didn't really take off since the machine doing the hosting was the one I used every day for general computer stuff so...

I think the other emulator I had tons of fun with back then was GXemul ( [http://gxemul.sourceforge.net/](http://gxemul.sourceforge.net/) ). Warmly recommended, even today. It's a glimpse into interesting times -- I'm tempted to say "better times", but nostalgia is a little treacherous.

</comment><comment><USER3> Spun up 4.3 BSD Unix on SIMH a few years back -

Definitely puts things in chronological perspective to boot up something from that era (1986) and find it to be just about as functional as the base system today..

This is in contrast (imho) to v7/32v from only a few years prior which feels very 'incomplete' as compared to a modern system.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is also a writeup on how to run OpenVMS on SIMH VAXserver 3900, a more obscure thing than older Unix installations: [https://vanalboom.org/node/18](https://vanalboom.org/node/18)

</comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me a bit of my writeup here:

[http://www.jdpressman.com/2015/11/27/how-to-emulate- unix-v7-...](http://www.jdpressman.com/2015/11/27/how-to-emulate- unix-v7-using-SIMH-\(2015\).html)

(I figure if you enjoy this tutorial you'll probably enjoy trying that one out too.)

To OP: The networking is a really nice touch. I didn't even attempt anything like that so kudos to you.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice writeup.

But if you do this don't you get 4.3?

[http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_4.3_BSD_on_SIMH#Enabling_...](http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_4.3_BSD_on_SIMH#Enabling_remote_users)

</comment><comment><USER7> There are some more obscure systems of interest for which emulators are also available -- Multics (see [http://multicians.org/sim- inst.html](http://multicians.org/sim-inst.html)), the Burroughs 5500 and MCP ([http://retro-b5500.blogspot.com/](http://retro-b5500.blogspot.com/)), old mainframe environments via Hercules, and so forth.

<comment><USER8> Ok, that's interesting. I'd seen the Multics source was made available a few years ago. Has anyone tried this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've always felt SIMH was pretty cool. I haven't done anything with the VAX emulators, but a few years back I had a PDP-11 simulation running on a Raspberry Pi with RSTS/E 7.0.

This was roughly equivalent to the system I used in high school, and I laughed out loud when I discovered that 7.0 wasn't Y2K-compatible. The math teacher who taught the computer classes was warning us about two-digit year values back in 1981!

</comment><comment><USER8> Can you actually use the Web on this? A couple of years ago I installed NetBSD on a Vaxstation 3100, and white it ran fine, and even networked over the AUI port, I couldn't get Lynx to run. I'd love to have a less-anachronistic BSD on my VAX.

<comment><USER10> You will have to rewind to 5.9, but lynx should work on openbsd. Not sure why it wouldn't work on netbsd, though.

<comment><USER8> Thank you. It looks like my 3100/38 is supported. Should be a fun winter project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really impressive. One question though - back in 1985, when I first logged in to a real VAX 11/780 running BSD 4.2, it was on a VT220 terminal connected through a terminal on a DZ11 (I think). Is that also available in the simulation?

</comment><comment><USER12> For networking, if necessary, one can use slirp.

"Another alternative to direct pcap and tun/tap networking on all environments is NAT (SLiRP) networking. NAT networking is limited to only IP network protocols so DECnet, LAT and Clusting can't work on a NAT connected interface, but this may be the easiest solution for many folks."

source: [https://github.com/simh/simh/blob/master/0readme_ethernet.tx...](https://github.com/simh/simh/blob/master/0readme_ethernet.txt)

[https://virtuallyfun.com/category/slirp/](https://virtuallyfun.com/category/slirp/)</comment>


Jobs had liver transplant 2 months ago; expected to return to work as planned - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124546193182433491.html <comment><USER2> Bury this. Jobs's medical condition, whatever it is or was, is a private matter about which he has elected to not speak. He's met all reasonable obligations by announcing when he was going to be out and when he expected to return. The rest is small-minded gossip.

<comment><USER3> Jobs is a figure of mythic proportions who is of keen interest to technologists, entrepreneurs, and the general public. He's been featured in movies; books have been written about him; he's granted the media many levels of access, from photos through interviews, to boost his products.

That attention can't be turned off like a spigot. Even if Jobs weren't still actively involved in Apple, people would be deeply interested (and concerned!) about his health, making it a legitimate area for reporters (and biographers!) to report about, as long as the information is obtained in a honest manner.

I believe it's a valid story (for both the WSJ and here) because we care about Jobs, we care about his creative output (including Apple), and we often best learn about things in life -- including dealing with health challenges -- by seeing how they affect prominent people.

<comment><USER4> True enough, but this particular article is completely unsourced. It is very little more than gossip at this point.

<comment><USER3> The WSJ doesn't run "unsourced" news; they had confirmation of the key details from multiple sources (even if the exact sources aren't named) before running the story.

<comment><USER4> I understand if you hold the WSJ in very high regard, as do many people, myself included. But they have not _published_ in which way they've obtained the information, not even in vague terms. As far as we know, it is completely unsourced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sure sounds more serious than those "Hormone Imbalances" that we have been hearing. My dad suffered a long time because of Liver Cirrhosis before meeting his end last year. I know first hand how painful liver related problems can get.

<comment><USER6> I am sorry to hear that. Going through that kind of thing with a family member is never easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> They made the right choice in how they handled this. His personal medical issues would have completely overshadowed Apple's recent product announcements and completely derailed the carefully crafted Apple PR train. Instead of talking about Macbooks & iPhones we'd be talking about the details of liver transplants. That would not have been good for Apple or its investors -- some of which will surely be upset over how this was handled but they really need to consider the alternative before getting too worked up over it

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=...](http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=Jobs+Had+Liver+Transplant)

Click first link for full article.

</comment><comment><USER9> _"Apple has previously drawn criticism from some shareholders over what they have called limited disclosure of Mr. Jobs's health problems"_

 _"once Mr. Jobs resumes work, the company will have to be "very careful" about what it says"_

This strikes me as almost unbelievably cynical, that Jobs' health could be factored into the price of Apple shares. I understand why, of course, but still, I hate it and I wonder how SJ himself feels. "Don't die yet, Steve, I'm long AAPL!"

I think he should retire soon. He's had a good run. Apple will be fine.

<comment><USER10> How is it cynical to price the health of an organization's key person into its value?

<comment><USER9> Because it's basically placing monetary bets on another human being's health. Yeah, I know he's the key person, I know why they do it, I just think it's depressing that our society still hasn't risen above putting a dollar value on life.

<comment><USER11> Why should we rise above it? What's wrong with estimating somebody's worth in dollars?

<comment><USER12> If I have a widget that I'll sell to you for $4 then it's worth $4 to me. If you'll only pay $2 for it then it's worth $2 to you.

To whom is a human worth money? You can't own people, can't buy or sell them. Can't recreate them, can't even get an accurate clone.

You can talk about a sportsperson's value to their team in terms of how much money they bring in in ticket sales, how much sponsorship, how much media attention, how much another team will pay for them.

But the problem is when lots of money is involved, people care more for the money than the person. I don't have a problem with people trading on Apple stock and factoring in SJ's health at some level. I do have a problem when it pushes further and further towards SJ being treated as just another asset, some legal and medical details to be pried through, some news announcements to be analysed, some blood pressure and heart rate figures to be tracking.

Picking apart the Golden Goose to try and find where the Golden Eggs are hidden? Tearing up the Mona Lisa to find which brushstroke made it worth so much? Pulling down the Eiffel tower to see if an Operah Tower in the same place would have as much impact?

If he wasn't already a health fan, would the world be pushing him to alter his diet? His exercise regime? "In a bowel movement estimated to be worth half a million dollars this morning, SJ's saturated fat absorption levels were up 13% on last week (full analysis here), SJ didn't respond to a request for comment. Unusually, he looked in the mirror for 6% longer than average over the last three months, experts have raised concerns over his increasing vanity assessment index especially when taken into account his recent announcement "I had a great night's sleep last night" to his wife over breakfast, he didn't respond to 18 phonecalls for comment on that either". Would we be designing every part of his life and forcing him to live as we think will maximise AAPL profit, restricting and shaping like a human veal calf?

What's _right_ with estimating somebody's worth in dollars? Why should you be able to profit from speculating on someone elses work? Why should people who have no choice where they are born be forced to be judged within the limits of someone elses monetary system?

<comment><USER11> It doesn't need to be that complex.

For every million dollars the government puts into hospitals/medicare a bunch of lives are saved. There are diminishing returns, however, and at some point you have to say, okay, that's enough, let's put some money into education instead.

You have to find some kind of balance, and the more you put in education the fewer lives you can save in hospitals. The only sensible way (I can think of) to find the right balance is by crunching the numbers. Saving a life for $1000? That's only 20 text books, definitely a good deal. Saving a life for a million? That's 20 scholarships. A life isn't worth that much.

Unless you're Steve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of the fact fame and fortune aren't worth much compared with health. I wouldn't trade places with him [...takes another sip of wine.]

<comment><USER14> Jobs and Apple have changed the world in so many ways. WTF have you done with your life?

<comment><USER13> Quit downmodding this guy. Jesus, I hate the downmod arrow. Here's some elucidation:

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north670.html>

Read it. _Time is the great equalizer. Warren Buffett is worth ten thousand times more than you are, assuming you are worth $5 million. But he is 78 years old. Not many people would want to trade places with him, one for one._

Steve Jobs is a better man than I'll ever be, but I'd rather be me than him, Is that strange? No! Because time treats humans like call options--decay is priced in, and hits zero at the set date. Steve Jobs is very, very close to zero, no matter his accomplishments.

<comment><USER15> _Steve Jobs is a better man than I'll ever be,_

Why? Because he is famous? Because he is rich? Because he, debatably, has 'made the world a better place'? Screw all those default judgements based on cultural indoctrination. Why is it Good to be famous, rich, innovative, an effective leader, ...? As far as I'm concerned, Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett are no better than you or me when I consider what _I_ think is important in life. Stop pressing culturally correct expectations and judgements on others. Develop your own code of ethics.

<comment><USER16> I've developed my own code of ethics, which says... that Steve Jobs is a better man than most of us will ever be. He pursued the things he was curious in, made sophisticated pieces of technology readily available for consumers, was enough of an asshole not to have to conform much of his work to standards he couldn't bear to conform to, developed enough business acumen to deal with lots of people he probably didn't want to deal with, funded the most brilliant animator of this generation out of his own pocket, created not one but _two_ companies with a greater reputation for excellence than any company that's existed before, and he did it all with a flair for the dramatic. In the meantime he got married and had kids and survived cancer and talked a lot to kids about loving life and survival.

When I use a computer or listen to an iPod, when I prepare to upload my music to iTunes practically hassle-free, when I look at the Mac-using companies that have developed beautiful products, I'm aware that Steve Jobs stands as a symbol for all of the things I love about this community. A lot of us have that feeling. It's not celebrity worship like gets slurred around a lot. It's more that Jobs was the first pro-aesthetic guy in computers, and he's remained an inspiration and a hero to those of us that like beautiful product, and revolutionary product, and annual dramatic revelations on-stage.

<comment><USER17> That's funny, because I always had the impression that on a personal scale he was an asshole to his friends and strangers.

But yeah, I like my iPhone.

<comment><USER16> From everything I've heard of him that's right. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I rarely judge people on their personality. I know nice guys that are absolute shits, just as I know one or two nice guys that are incredible people. Similarly, most assholes are just assholes, but some are very brilliant people with short fuses. I've found that of the people I associate with, the least consistent variable is personality, and I find that as I grow older I lose ties more and more with the people I only liked because of how they acted. Those cliques dissolve to make way for groups of people united by interest and motivation, where personality's got less to do with it.

(I also find, incidentally, that the more ambitious your goals the more likely you are to be an asshole. Jobs is certainly the archetype again. But on the other hand you've got great people like Jeff Bezos, so I don't agree with the folk that think assholery leads automatically to greatness.)

<comment><USER18> so personality doesn't correlate with competence, but does that mean we should discount it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am not concerned about AAPL or any cool products it makes. To me, Jobs is a visionary, and embodies what the company preaches "Think Different"! And agree with someone said here, his medical condition is his private matter, and we should respect that.

</comment><comment><USER6> I find it odd that disclosing a liver transplant and not disclosing the condition that precipitated it is the way they chose to go here. I would think that once the transplant cat is out of the bag, you might as well be open about the condition. After all none of the reasons for needing a new liver are good and people will probably assume the worst as it is.

<comment><USER20> I didn't get the impression that this was an official disclosure.

<comment><USER21> It wasn't very clear... the fact that they cited an Apple spokeperson made me think there was some official disclosure, because they usually just not comment at all on something they haven't released.

Whether or not it was official, I don't think we need to know the exact condition. What would that change? I can't help him, and the one who can have probably been working on it for some time now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Smart that this comes out today. Yesterday, Apple's stocks jumped up 53% with the release of the new iPhone and it proved that investor's feel good about the prospects of an Apple without Jobs at its helm day-in, day-out.

If this article had come out before, I think Apple would've taken a hit.

<comment><USER12> _Yesterday, Apple's stocks jumped up 53% with the release of the new iPhone_

Link? <http://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=aapl> suggests it hasn't broken out of 130-140 in quite a few days. Particularly not jumping to > 200 yesterday.

<comment><USER22> Sorry, I must have mis-read it or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hopefully he's learned his lesson and started eating lots of meat.</comment>


Scrap images from Facebook page - <AUTHOR> https://www.ponekyimel.com <comment><AUTHOR> Here is the source code of that website - [https://github.com/setkyar/ponekyimel](https://github.com/setkyar/ponekyimel)</comment>


Ask HN: Privacy Concerns with using Ghostery - <AUTHOR>

I read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5623860  yesterday, where many people suggested using Ghostery extension.
But if I add Ghostery, it says:
1. It can access your data on all websites. 2. It can access your tabs and browsing activity.
So, isn't using Ghostery even bigger threat to privacy. <comment><USER2> I've answered this recently on reddit, heres the relevant link and comment: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Irony/comments/1ci4ri/went_to_check_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Irony/comments/1ci4ri/went_to_check_out_ghostery_for_chrome/)

Hardly anything Ghostery does. The rules are defined by Google and the wording is unfortunate but largely correct: any extension that needs access to tabs, content scripts, and requests/responses will get the same message. So, basically, any extensions for content blocking will ask for these including Adblock/ABP+, Script no, whatever.</comment>