Let's End Adolescence - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_45/b4107085289974.htm <comment><USER3> It is naive to assume that "adolescence" was a concept invented out of the blue, then deliberately experimented by some politics, it _never_ works this way. The opposite is true : at some point we needed a word to describe a change in society, and a new cultural phenomenon that didn't exist before. Then was born the concept of adolescence and the teenager, wich is a worldwide phenomenom in Occident and other parts of the world.

Necessity is the mother of all virtues. People responsabilise when there is a need for it, especially when there is no other choice. Should the economic crisis worsen and make our life tougher, you'll see a lot of young people do whatever it takes to support their family and take a more serious stance on life and politics.

Some people are afraid that young people cannot responsabilise because of their education. I would argue that the same people underestimate (1) the potential of the young people, wich fuels the problem, and (2) underestimate the greatest educator of all : necessity.

<comment><USER4> It wasn't invented out of the blue, but it was an evolved creation of politics. In classic democratic fashion, a lot of factions were pushing their own agenda that ended up making the country as a whole worse off. The education establishment has continually upped the drop out age. Labor unions ( in alliance with wealthy parents) pushed for stricter child labor laws to reduce competition for jobs. Aristocratic progressives wanted an institution to indoctrinate immigrants in the American way of live. The rise of credentialing laws made college a necessity for earning a decent income. Since colleges require a high school diploma, this put teenagers in an eight year holding pattern, waiting for a piece of paper.

The result of this has been every bit as disastrous as Newt claims.

<comment><USER5> > _Labor unions_ ( _in alliance with wealthy parents_ ) _pushed for stricter > child labor laws to reduce competition for jobs. Aristocratic progressives > wanted an institution to indoctrinate immigrants in the American way of > live_ [ _sic_ ]. _The rise of credentialing laws made college a necessity > for earning a decent income._

Please provide citations of serious studies of these trends you talk about; this analysis seems facile and frankly misleading, even as a first-order approximation, but I'm not an expert so I'd be glad to be convinced otherwise. In particular, "indoctrination" of immigrants is going to be hard to establish as a primary goal of the education system, and the benefits of credential laws and the technical training institutions that go along with them in fields such as medicine, engineering, and so forth are hard to overstate.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately a lot of this came from books and articles I read years ago. "Indoctrination" is a bit of a loaded word, perhaps I should have said "assimilation" or "acculturation". But it was definitely a major factor. I remember reading a long paper about the movement establishing universal high school in New Haven in the early 1900's. It all revolved around dealing with the massive flows of immigrants who had no grounding in American civic culture.

As for credentialing laws, pretty much all professions rely on some level of book knowledge plus on the job training. The book knowledge can be provided for by reading books and passing an exam. You don't need to attend three years of law school in person to become a great lawyer. Nor do you need four years of university to be a great engineer. The architecture profession seems to have been much better off without any degree requirements. Just compare the architecture of the 1800's to that of the past few decades.

30% of jobs in the U.S. economy now have legal credentialing requirements. That includes everything from hair dresser to interior designer. Even jobs like parole officer now require a four year college degree. We're essentially recreating the old guild system, which stifles economic growth. I don't think it's any accident that the most dynamic sectors of the economy - software, consumer electronics, movies - have virtually no licensing requirements.

<comment><USER5> For some things (e.g. the hair dressing you mentioned), I concede that licensing requirements are unnecessary, and their use should be reexamined. For others (public defenders, surgeons, structural engineers, etc.) such licensing and formal training is in my opinion critically important. To construe it as purely anti-competitive is pretty misleading.

What proportion of top-level architects don't have architecture degrees?

Finally, do you think that teaching citizens about civic culture and American political institutions is a mis-use of public education?

<comment><USER4> _What proportion of top-level architects don't have architecture degrees?_

Today all of them do because it is legally required. My girlfriend is currently attending architecture school and it is beyond useless. She's learned an awful lot about "aura" and "algorithmic design" and precious little about designing buildings for the real world. Architects end up learning everything on the job.

In the 19th century, it was not uncommon for architects to be high school drop outs. The New York Public library, some of the tunnel projects under London, the California Aqueduct, were all designed by drop outs.

The structural integrity of the buildings was very high, and the aesthetics far surpass the creations of modern architects.

 _To construe it as purely anti-competitive is pretty misleading._

I obviously would not want an untrained surgeon practicing on me. The trouble is that credentialing laws are a highly unstable equilibrium. It requires 8 years of post-secondary schooling to prescribe penicillin, read an x-ray, or set a broken bone. I could be convinced that 2 years of schooling might be necessary. But not 8. The reason it is so high is because of lobbying by the AMA. I'm sure they argue that the requirements are in the public interest. Perhaps they even believe their own PR. But if you talk to doctors about medical school, most of them will tell you that it had little relevance to their actual job.

Perhaps the most notorious example of credentialing is the orthodontist profession. The average orthodontist works 35 hour weeks and makes 350k ( about 40% more than dentists). The reason for this is that number of orthodontists allowed to graduate each year is actually capped at 280. The orthodontist association have even gone after inventors who devise new labor- saving (and thus income-reducing) braces, See the case of Viazis v. American Association of Orthodontists. This is blatantly anti-competitive, and it costs thousands of dollars from the pocket book of every American.

 _Finally, do you think that teaching citizens about civic culture and American political institutions is a mis-use of public education?_

I once worked a bit on capitol hill. The civics class description of American democracy bears little resemblance to the reality. However, these the civics class lies are probably necessary to make a democratic system even marginally functional. My preferred solution then, would be to get rid of electoral democracy.

<comment><USER6> >My preferred solution then, would be to get rid of electoral democracy.

To be replaced with...?

<comment><USER4> One option: Abolish Congress and the presidency. I mean, what have they done for you lately? Can you name a single good deed they've done in the past 30 years? Use some sort of board of trustees to select the Supreme Court justices and the Joint Chiefs. Perhaps this board of trustees would be selected by existing trustees, or perhaps we could use something like the Venetian lottery system ( [http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2008/03/unpredictable- elect...](http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2008/03/unpredictable- elections.html) ).

Other options include something like Juristopia ( <http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/05/juritopia.html> ) or Formalism ( [http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formali...](http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted.html) )

Or, if you want something a little more proven, there is always Monarchy.

Basically, anything that doesn't use a ritualized form of gang warfare would be better than democracy in my book.

<comment><USER7> _I mean, what have they done for you lately? Can you name a single good deed they've done in the past 30 years?_

Luckily, the job of the government isn't to do good deeds -- it's to hold onto power in order to stop even worse people from getting it.

The purpose of democracy isn't to get the best people into power, it's to stop the worst people from getting into power.

<comment><USER4> I would welcome a government that did absolutely nothing except stop bad guys from getting into power. Unfortunately, Congress thinks its job is to pass "legislation" and it does so in vast quantities. This has piled up over the decades covering the entire country in a gray legislative goo. If abolishing Congress is too big of step, how about changing the rules so that any new law requires a 70% majority? Or maybe even a 90% majority?

I'd also note that democracy is altogether a failure at preventing the worst people from getting into power. Some of histories worst tyrants from history have come to power through party politics.

<comment><USER8> Where could I find a list of terrible tyrants that came to power in a representative democratic system? That ought to be interesting.

Or are you saying that all systems with parties are abominable because of parties, regardless of the details of how the systems work?

<comment><USER4> Off the top of my head: Sulla, Cromwell, Robespierre, Napolean, Hitler, Mugabe. There are many more, but I'd have to verify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The 3 stage process of childhood - adolescence - adulthood is already irrelevant in many affluent Western countries, but what was removed isn't adolescence but adulthood.

Many 40 year olds manage their lives as teenagers (look at the low birth rate in western Europe, or high divorce rate in the US) and vice versa - <USER2> build $15b (if you believe it ;)) companies.

<comment><USER10> I don't believe that a low birth rate says anything about when people grow up. If it did, teenage mothers would be the most responsible people in society.

<comment><USER11> You know, a teenage mother raised a man who was just elected to the most powerful position on Earth.

Anecdotal, yes. But your comment relies on a stereotype. How do we know that teenage mothers do not quickly start maturing from the point they become teenage mothers, relative to their peers? They almost have no choice.

(I say that knowing of some concrete counter-examples to what I just argued. But that's just anecdotes, too.)

<comment><USER12> Actually, her mother was the one who raised him. Barack's mother ditched him with her parents so that she could live with her husband and daughter in Indonesia.

<comment><USER13> Not until he was in fifth grade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One thing that continually throws me is the whole, "more school, especially more college!" idea. The skills that have actually put me in interesting situations, like serious brain machine interface research or a startup doing quantitative methods for human resources, had nothing to do with school. At least for me, I'd have been much better suited for an "apprenticeship" rather than having just having to tolerate classes as a distraction to the lab, where I learned about Kalman filters and intricacies of neuronal tuning in a kind of learn-it-by-yesterday-as-needed setup from the people who were actually writing the papers.

Given the amount of ADD we have as a culture, training hackers with an emphasis on "you as an individual can create things that have the potential to become forces of nature with only a cheap computer and some knowledge" and deep familiarity with the internet (irc? google-fu?) seems to be the best way to graduate world class engineers. You won't get middle American teenagers to sit down and study like Chinese students will; but that's fine. Our hackers will end up just as knowledgeable as theirs, and maybe more creative.

EDIT: One more thing: we need to drill home that "post things to share with your friends for free!" is neither a business model nor a KILLERAPP!!111oneoneone. We need to inspire kids to go after the next big problems, and not just fill them up with hype and dreams, but actually give them the technical abilities to do it.

<comment><USER15> Sure, American hackers will be just as knowledgeable as Chinese hackers, but if in general the Chinese population becomes more learned (which is happening at a rapid pace as China gets closer to being a first world nation), we would have disadvantages that they don't have, such as the anti-intellectual attitude that exists in many parts of the US.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, this is true. It's a problem, and I think it stems in no small part from how deeply rooted religion is in this country. I don't think it has a lot to do with the lack or presence of an adolescence, though, or really much in general to do with childhood altogether.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The real purpose of high school is keeping the roving hordes of teenagers off the street. Teenagers have no judgement (I certainly didn't), and we would like to have some method of keeping them occupied. Unfortunately, where before that method involved actual learning, nowadays schools are basically just low security prisons.

Furthermore, Newt is completely off when he claims that all adolescents want more responsibility. This is simply untrue. A small fraction of adolescents want more responsibility, the rest want to hang out with their friends all day and do nothing. Which is actually pretty close to high school.

<comment><USER17> > A small fraction of adolescents want more responsibility

It's a question of the meaning of "want." I think a small fraction of adolescents can _articulate_ that they "want" meaningful responsibility and structure, or make any efforts to get it.

<comment><USER18> I think that lots of adolescents honestly do not want to do anything. They prefer having no responsibilities whatsoever.

I thought it was otherwise: that people who didn't want to work or improve or learn were people that didn't have a good method of doing so, that they were restricted by the system. Long story short, I found out that's radically not the truth. Some people are a little bit icky inside.

<comment><USER19> _I think that lots of adolescents honestly do not want to do anything. They prefer having no responsibilities whatsoever._

That's because you can't start with adolescence. You have to start increasing responsibility from roughly age 2. Get them used to it, reward it, show them the connection between increased responsibility and increased choice and freedom. Then they'll want it. The problem with most adolescents is the 12 years prior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _Adolescence was invented in the 19th century to enable middle-class families to keep their children out of sweatshops. But it has degenerated into a process of enforced boredom and age segregation..._

 _The fact is, most young people want to be challenged and given real responsibility. They want to be treated like young men and women, not old children._

Where have we heard this before?

<http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html>

<comment><USER21> Is this starting to become like "I, for one, welcome our new X overlords?" is on Slashdot?

PG wrote everything. Let's take that as a given. Now can we move on?

I'm not trying to be persnickety, but your comment adds absolutely nothing to the discussion and sounds like fanboy tripe. If PGs article was on here, we could talk about that. But it's not. AFAIK, every one of PG's articles has already appeared on here and we've already talked about it. So on with the new material, okay?

<comment><USER22> Sorry, Dan, but the strange loop generated by what I am submitting here is irresistible. Cheers: <http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2007/12/the_guy.php>

<comment> bjelkeman-again Thanks. That really threw me in a loop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I discarded this guy's argument once I read this paragraph:

 _And experiments such as the one my daughter, Jackie Cushman, is running in Atlanta—where poor children are paid the equivalent of working in a fast-food restaurant to study and do their homework—are examples of a more dynamic future._

How is being paid to study and do homework an example of early adulthood? One huge difference between adults and non-adults is adults tend to grab every opportunity to improve their skills, and understand that those don't come that often.

This article started with an interesting (if incendiary) premise, but then the author showed that he has poor logical skills. Perhaps he should go back to school himself.

In short, this article is a hodge-podge of potentially interesting half-ideas and downright nefarious illogical conclusions.

<comment><USER24> You discarded all of it because you didn't like that one part? This type of behavior always annoys me. There are lots of interesting and important thoughts here. I agree that these ideas need to be closely examined and refined a great deal before being put into practice -- but I'm not just going to shout "FAIL" -- because while that may be gratifying to the ego, it is utterly counter-productive.

<comment><USER23> I decided that once you took away that key step of "having a clue what an adult is", the rest of the argument fell away like a puff of smoke in the wind. There may be interesting ideas in there, but they are too closely interweaved with dangerous mistakes and incendiary "political linkbaiting".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If Newt Gingrich says this, I have to wonder if it is because Republican think tanks have come to the conclusion that the allure of Democratic ideals are too irresistible for school/university inhabiting kids, and they must be converted to tax paying realists much earlier.

<comment><USER16> The reason republicans so frequently tout this line is because they fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of education. Newt and company believe that education is essentially career training, and as such cannot fathom why kids need to be learning things like calculus and biology.

The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals. Industry does not want to simply hire people who know exactly how to do the job. Industry wants to hire people who are intellectual, and they do this by hiring college grads.

Now certainly the value of a diploma as a measure of intellectual curiosity has gone down dramatically, but I believe this was the original reason.

<comment><USER26> _and as such cannot fathom why kids need to be learning things like calculus and biology_

I'm pretty sure that Gingrich who is a professor, and every other republican who has ever considered the question in any way, recognizes the use and purpose of calculus and biology. But don't let reason get in the way of your mindless contempt.

 _The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals_

No, it isn't, unless you are talking about highly selective liberal arts colleges. And even then, the best you are going to get are 3rd generation photocopies of Susan Sontag.

 _Industry wants to hire people who are intellectual_

No it doesn't. Period. Even the relatively "creative" jobs like software engineering want a fundamental skill set and raw intelligence, not the ability to quote Chomsky.

<comment><USER27> > The real purpose of education is to turn people into intellectuals

Reminds me of something Seth Godin (?) once said - that the whole purpose of school is to institutionalize mediocrity

<comment><USER18> Don't knock on intellectuals. There's something to be gained from the path they take. The fact that most people miss the path entirely doesn't change that. It's like saying that most programmers never make anything of worth: yes, it's true, but it doesn't make the entire career irrelevant.

That quote, however, is spot-on. Anything that doesn't focus on the best and brightest hurts the best and brightest in a way. And the fact that they survive despite this is a sign of those people ignoring the system rather than of the system's working. I wrote a lengthy post about this long long ago: can't find the link, apparently subjects delete themselves here?, but my point was that by _making_ a system that was hostile to people like that, while ensuring it possible to live without the system, American school systems encourage people driven by ambition to become successes. It's why we have such a powerful entrepreneurial drive in the country.

I wish I could find the link, though, because I said it better back then.

EDIT: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=258239>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> they take away a quarter of my life (av age of death 75) holding me back and forcing me to learn for tests things that i dont want to know. i like volcanoes. i know how they work. i dont need to be tested on their intricities.

finally i get a chance at a college education and choose something that i hope better gels. if it doesnt its back to step one. if i succeed, im most likely stuck in a 9-6'er at a job that will eventually bore me, turning the cogs for the economy in the dream i am supposed to have.

the more money i make, the more things cost. meanwhile the politicians take summers off and long breaks, pay themselves handsomely and imagine that this is fair. they wonder why i am not happily churning out kids for them to support their economy and further wedge myself in their dream. i'll keep pissing about thanks.

<comment><USER29> _they take away a quarter of my life (av age of death 75) holding me back and forcing me to learn for tests things that i dont want to know._

then drop the fuck out! go work at ford. see you in twenty years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> While I wholeheartedly agree that there are many things wrong with "kids these days," completely abolishing adolescence would... what's a good word here... suck! Look, I did my fair share of dumb stuff when I was younger, most of which was done in the name of boredom. But what's the alternative here? "Happy 13th birthday, son, now go get a job!"?

If high STD and drug use rates tell us anything, it's that these young people are, on average, too immature to assume adult roles. I adore the feelings of achievement that being an entrepreneur/adult have brought me, but at the same time I recognize the fact that "being a kid" wasn't as bad the article makes it out to be. I spent most of my time playing video games, hanging out with friends and, yes, doing drugs! OMG! But you know what, at the end of the day, it was still _fun_.

I think we as a society should do everything in our power to encourage young people to focus on school so that they don't get dragged down into the worlds of drug addiction, poverty, etc. However, the reason I had so much time to dick around during my adolescence/teenage years was mainly because school was far too easy and not engaging enough. The entire schooling system is not nearly as progressive as it needs to be. Furthermore, there are not nearly enough reasons to excel at it. Working hard in high school just means you can get into a good college where you have to work even harder (and, unless you _really_ excel or are financially secure, take a long-term monetary hit for the privilege) and the reality is that where one attended college is rarely relevant today.

School should be designed to provide useful knowledge instead of information that is merely cataloged, regurgitated, and forgotten. It should encourage and enable young people to find something they are passionate about and learn relevant things about that and gain useful experience in the process. The only classes that I worked hard to excel in and go beyond the bare minimum were programming and writing courses. It should come as no surprise that these are the two topics I am most passionate about to this day.

<comment><USER31> _If high STD and drug use rates tell us anything, it's that these young people are, on average, too immature to assume adult roles._

Or that they have nothing better to do?

<comment><USER32> Sex and drugs are not activities exclusive to adults (nor should they be). Kids DO have better things to do, and for them (as well as adults) it's usually sex/drugs/rock&roll that are the 'better things'.

<comment><USER18> Most kids get into sex and drugs because they're bored. I don't know a person that got into either for any reason but "There's nothing to do." I hear that from every single party-going person on my dorm floor when they go out. "I _need_ to get drunk, because there's no other reason to be in college and there's nothing to do."

<comment><USER17> > Most kids get into sex and drugs because they're bored.

And here I was thinking that sex and drugs are loads of fun, regardless of whether you're bored or not.

<comment><USER33> Both are true. When you're bored you get into dumber kinds of fun.

<comment><USER17> Nuthin dumb about it done right.

<comment><USER18> Of course it is. Neither is a pleasure derived from your achieving anything whatsoever. It's an automatic pleasure. I'd compare it to the pleasure that you get from eating food, or from drinking soda. It's pleasurable entirely thanks to automatic changes in your body.

Therefore, it's "dumb" in that it requires no effort whatsoever on your part. And if you come to _rely_ on that stuff for entertainment, then you're not gaining anything as you go. As opposed to its being used sparingly, in which case you're off doing more productive things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't think adolescence is a social experiment. Its a part of our biology; some more so than others. The article is solid in regards to stating problems with our youth. Fixing our social and economic structures is a very tough process.

The article draws rapid conclusions from its anecdotes. The U.S.'s social problems can't be summed up or resolved by such simplistic ideology.

</comment><comment><USER35> I feel like many of the top comments here don't address the main point of the article:

the US education system needs to be made more efficient.

Instead there are

-arguments about semantics

-Republican VS Democrat

Only lower down, in the less pointed-to comments, is there any meat.

</comment><comment><USER36> A long time ago I listened to "The Bell Curve" on tape. One of valuable ideas I got from the book was that we should strive to create a valuable place for everyone in society. Everyone, whether young or old, intelligent or not, should feel that they are contributing something of value. No one should feel that they have nothing to give and that society would be better off without them. Furthermore, we should encourage everyone to give their best to society. Thus, if the best effort a man with an IQ of 80 can do is sweep the streets, then we should give him job as a streetsweeper and not replace him with a robot.

To me, this idea, that everyone should have a valuable place is society, explains what's wrong with adolescence. We as a society do not allow adolescents (young adults) a valuable place in society; we should be encouraging them to do the most useful work they can do; instead we discourage them. Sure, there is encouragement for being a scholar and for excelling in sports, but only a few adults are gifted in those areas: those few who will later go on to be teachers, professors, writers, and professional sports players. The rest of them are forced to do work which they are not good at, which they don't value, and which society doesn't value. Is it any wonder they become bored and turn to other things?

A better system is described in an old book I recently re-read, "Farmer Boy" ([http://www.amazon.com/Farmer-Little-House-Ingalls- Wilder/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Farmer-Little-House-Ingalls- Wilder/dp/0064400034)), not long ago which describes the life of a boy on a farm in New York in the 19th century. He was given as much work and responsibility on the farm as he could handle and he grew to the challenges. At school he learned to read and write and do arithmetic, and at home on the farm he learned to do useful work, negotiate, and spend wisely. When he was about ten or eleven, a wagon-maker offered to apprentice him. In return for several years of work, the boy would get room and board and training in the whole business of wagon-making with the likelihood that at the end of the period, he would buy the business which employed about 50 men. His father preferred that the boy become a farmer like he was, but he let the boy decide, saying to his mother, "We can keep him here on the farm by law til he's twenty-one, but he won't do any good if he's wanting to go."

Such a system worked very well in the past because it efficiently transitioned young people from a state of dependence on their parents to independence and it's accompanying responsibilities. A possible problem with that system is that it offered young people few opportunities beyond what was available to their parents. However, even then adults had a lot of opportunity to improve their situations by working harder at their jobs and by educating themselves. Today, there are many more opportunities. The job market is global: if you're not getting paid what you're worth, it's easier than any other time in history to find someone who will pay you more. Educational opportunities abound: books are relatively cheap, there are lots of libraries where you can read for cheap or for free, the Internet has lots of educational resources, and there are many institutions offering formal education. In addition, the number of work hours needed to survive is smaller than ever. So the argument that young adults need to be restrained from working and confined to public schools for several years because they won't have an opportunity to educate themselves later is unconvincing.

<comment><USER37> _Everyone, whether young or old, intelligent or not, should feel that they are contributing something of value_

If the average person is not contributing _at least_ the economic value they are consuming, your society is in a death spiral, and it doesn't matter how anyone "feels".

<comment><USER18> But what does "having a valuable place in society" have to do with not contributing economic value? I don't quite understand you.

<comment><USER37> If someone's work is worth 100 units/time period but society spends 200 u/t to make them feel good about themselves, then that's a net loss. And this isn't just an academic point; a society that eats itself from inside like this can't last and will be replaced by something considerably less warm and fluffy.

<comment><USER18> You're assuming that by providing a "place in society" society is indeed trying to pull the wool over citizens' eyes. I think it's possible for a society to legitimately find good places for everybody to work without it being haberdashery. Just automate all of the pointless, frivolous tasks, and find more meaningful jobs for everybody.

<comment><USER37> The post I was replying to made the point that unskilled jobs should _not_ be automated, but given to the "less able" to make them feel good about themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> we've traded focus & specialization for broad generalized learning in the hopes of producing 'well rounded' individuals (at least officially). While great in theory, in practice it fattens the coffers of our nation's largest (private) universities & secondary education systems.

i.e. apprenticeship v. general education

fact: public universities will increase tuition when the number of students graduating with degrees in <4 years increases.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why stop there - let's remove individuality altogether. With a proper mix of drugs, children could absorb the lessons at school at a much faster rate, and could take the role they are destined for with near 100% accuracy. Unwanted and misleading desires could be done away with. Imagine the benefits for society if kids were 100% docile and controllable.</irony>

<comment><USER18> Yeah. Because school is ABSOLUTELY a good way to promote individuality and unique thinking. Because most teachers DON'T push for students to adapt to a single way of thinking because it makes them easy to manage. Because students DON'T judge students for individuality, creating a lopsided social ladder that lasts easily into college. </unnecessary tag>

<comment><USER39> But they are not good enough, they did not succeed in quelling adolescent behavior.

<comment><USER18> I don't think that the adolescent phase is one of individuality. Quite the opposite. And while I don't completely agree with this article, I do think that a system that treats adolescents like adults would be an improvement.

Not one that makes them work and leave school, mind you. Just one that respects them aging. A part of me feels that if we let teachers swear in front of students, let them act like people than act completely neutral, and start teaching them about how to solve their own problems, we'd find that a lot of the problems in modern society would just vanish.

Every instance in my life that I've felt like rebelling against a system was an instance in my life when I was treated like an adolescent per se. And that happened very rarely: I was lucky enough to have teachers that usually took the time to treat me like an adult. Whenever I see a student in college getting violently drunk and acting like an ass, I would place money on that person originating by acting against some authority figure. (Indeed, I have friends whose families let them drink, and none of those kids are alcoholic whatsoever. I wouldn't call it a formal study, but I think trends say that kids get into stuff like that when they associate that with being grown up.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I agree with Newt Gingrich's assessment of the problem. However, I don't like this solution, particularly within the context of [http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/magazines/fortune/talent_col...](http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/magazines/fortune/talent_colvin.fortune/index.htm) (warning, very long article) and [http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=203...](http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2032)

Gingrich is right in that the institution is a failure. However, his proposed solutions merely reinforces those institution. A big part of the problem comes from the shift in meaning of the words "teachers", "students", "homework", "responsibility", etc. As the author from the Wharton article says:

"Consider this one example from my recent experience. I attended a conference of school counselors, where the latest ideas in the realm of student counseling were being presented. I went to a session on the development of self-discipline and responsibility, wondering what these concepts mean to people embedded in traditional schooling. To me, self-discipline means the ability to pursue one's goals without outside coercion; responsibility means taking appropriate action on one's own initiative, without being goaded by others. To the people presenting the session, both concepts had to do solely with the child's ability to do his or her assigned class work. They explained that a guidance counselor's proper function was to get students to understand that responsible behavior meant doing their homework in a timely and effective manner, as prescribed, and self-discipline meant the determination to get that homework done. George Orwell was winking in the back of the room."

I just thought of an alternative solution, one that does not necessarily require a lot of political clout. The solution is something parents can implement directly without having to lobby for legislation. Simply, the parents has their kids pass their GED by the time they are 13. They may be required by different laws to also pass the different standardization tests, but depending on the circumstances, studying for the material in the GED should be enough. This can probably be done over the age normally reserved for middle school.

A 13-year-old with a high school diploma (via GED) has a lot more social clout within the adult world than a middle-school kid. He may not be legally able to vote, or drive, or smoke, or drink, and he'd get in trouble with underage-sex laws. However, he would not be considered a high-school dropout.

The options open up from there. The parents probably should choose an apprenticeship, whether that be something as humble as a janitor, or something more aspiring such as a researcher, a programmer, an entreprenuer, a soldier, a fireman, etc. A more traditional college track would still available.

<comment><USER41> If the child has gone through all the effort of completing high school at 13, why - under your model - is the parent deciding what he/she should do after that? Shouldn't the child determine which area of study they would like to pursue?

<comment><USER40> If the 13-year-old already has his heart set on something, I'm not going to stop him. But I suspect, at least with the first generation, they're going to screw around ... just like the first two or three years of college. Chances are good that if the area of study isn't something he wants to work with, he'll figure it out fast and get on with working on something else.

<comment><USER41> I would think that screwing around for a few years is exactly what you would want a 13 year old to do.

Like you said, better finding your passions at 16 then at 22. Finding your passions though is an essential part of life and shouldn't be taken as "screwing around".

<comment><USER40> I think I didn't write the apprenticeship part very well.

Choosing an apprenticeship for the 13-year-old is meant to give them a nudge. It doesn't matter if they pick it up or rebel against it. What matters is getting out of the home to see the world. Travelling around the world (without family) accomplishes the same thing.

Staying within the comfort of the home _is_ screwing around ... even if it is "exploring" your passions. That's just extending childhood. So what I should have said is that after getting the GED (or equivalent) parents push them out of the nest, whether that results from choosing an apprenticeship for them, or having them travel around the country, or having them take college courses at college campus. That is what the old rites of passages (and the hero myths that go with it) accomplish: force the adolescent out of childhood, just as being born means going from the comfort of the womb to the bright, cold world. And of course, there are some who already know what they want and will already have plans in motion.

There is an obstacle with this idea is that many jurisdictions require you to be 16 to take it. Yet I remember hearing of college prodigies earning their degrees before that. It makes me think there is a way to hack it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think the problem comes from a certain form of parental neglect. I'm only 22 and have no children, but it seems to me like given our greater disposable incomes, a lot of parents think it is easier to raise kids by throwing money at their development rather than time.

You can't raise children on the macro-scale. You raise them at the micro- levels.

</comment><comment><USER43> It's all about responsibility. The guy/girl who has been working and starting companies is bound to be more responsible and accountable than their peers who are busy getting laid and partying. I totally agree that making adolescents more accountable would bring out the best in people and reduce social problems in that age group.

<comment><USER42> I wasn't aware entrepreneurs don't get laid. ;P

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> _"... Polling and focus groups, including participation as a permanent member of an ongoing polling project ..."_

So is this a Sub for these companies to target & market stuff? ~ <http://www.healthtransformation.net/cs/our_members>

</comment><comment><USER45> I'll speak for myself and say that I spent my teenage years sure that I could do so much more. Some of my best years were wasted listening to other teenagers tell me teir bad drinking stories. Boooo

</comment><comment><USER46> I think if going to school will be money-making profession, it will encourage corruption in the system of education.

<comment><USER47> So profit causes corruption?

<comment><USER18> It does if profit becomes a primary rather than a secondary motive. If you teach students "Learn to make things that people want," that would be fine. If you teach "Make money" and leave it at that, things would corrupt.

Similarly, anything that's left open to profit will corrupt. Look at the difference between Fox News and PBS. In some cases, not having to worry about money lets you be uncompromising in your delivery. I think schools would work the same way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Let's End Politics Stories on Hacker News.

<comment><USER49> While I generally agree, this is the sort of political article that is worth discussing in this forum.

<comment><USER48> I think it's got to be all or nothing, and I would vastly prefer nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

but in this case, replace 'hell' with 'serfdom.'

</comment><comment><USER51> Given the author's political leanings, I couldn't help wondering if this was a veiled argument for bringing back child labor. :-)

</comment><comment><USER52> Is Newt happy to lower the age of consent to 12?

</comment><comment><USER53> So-called "adolescence" has three stages: middle and high school, college, and the "failure to launch" years between 22 and 28-35, when traditionally adult accomplishments and responsibilities (homeownership, _responsibly_ having kids, career and financial independence) are essentially out of reach for all but the very wealthy.

The first two stages are an unnecessary waste for most people, since they end up going through a lot more schooling than is useful for them, and could be abolished. For the third stage, I really don't see an easy fix, because we're talking about an extremely deep social problem. Closing the high schools and the mediocre colleges is only going to dump people into the "failure to launch" period early and prolong it, possibly to an even later age than now.

</comment><comment><USER29> pure claptrap. if newt was less career-minded like he is proposing, he could have taken a history class and looked at mortality rates in the eighteenth century to realize why benjamin franklin was working at 13.

oh and aren't these alvin-tofler-acolytes the ones telling us we will change careers three times? that flexibility requires intellectual flexibility...you aren't going to have that if you mainline people into one job at 13. so what is it newt?

and his "stats" on rising teen pregnancy, drug use, stds??? not only bogus but 100% wrong.

newt is just a gruff dick who never smoked a bowl in college, never got a drunk grope from a gorgeous girl way out of his league, never woke up on the front lawn of the dorm still half wasted...and he wants to make sure _you_ never have fun too! college was the time of my life! i got a degree and learned a lot...but also had more FUN with booze and women than i did before or since? WHY IS THIS TO BE AVOIDED????

<comment><USER36> Why should working people be forced to finance this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Well Written... I find myself in complete agreement.

</comment><comment><USER55> Why isn't this man (Newt) president?

<comment><USER18> Because he's bigoted and intolerant when it comes to many other issues.</comment></comment>


Free Public Transport in Estonia - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/05/11/free-public-transport-in-estonia <comment><USER3> As an expat living as Tallinn resident for a couple of years, here are my two cents

1\. Having public transport has a remarkable effect on the quality of life - At any time of the day, I can hop on go to any part of the city without worrying about costs involved. I have started to go out more than sitting at home simply because it's hassle-free.

2\. Connectivity and frequency are quite poor if you don't reside in the city centre. It gets even worse (even in the city centre) at night. Majority of residents tend to live in the outskirts and they continue to use private vehicles in spite of free public transport.

3\. Short journeys that were covered by foot are now covered by public transport defeating the purpose. Most of the times, I use a bus for half a km even though I can walk that distance quite easily.

4\. The population is very low so one can easily find empty seats on most routes.

<comment><USER4> Re: 2 - I can't agree. Yes, the trams and trains stop running soon after midnight and start up ~5am or so, however that is pretty good time coverage. Many people in Tallinn don't own cars, and use the free public transport a lot, plus the coverage up to the city limits is also quite good: [https://www.visittallinn.ee/static/files/063/2018_tallinn_tr...](https://www.visittallinn.ee/static/files/063/2018_tallinn_transportation_map_eng.pdf)

One 'problem' here is that Taxify / Bolt is so cheap. I'll not even think about dropping 5EUR on a fare if it means slightly less hassle / time getting somewhere.

<comment><USER3> I cannot imagine going out at night if there was no Bolt/Uber. I pretty much have to walk home or some distance to get a bus. The weather doesn't help either - standing at a bus stop in winter when the next bus is in 20 mins or so is not a pleasant experience.

<comment><USER5> My 20s weekends consisted of getting the bus into town, getting drunk or going to a movie or club, then getting the night bus home. Some of the most entertaining times were actually on that journey home - as just about everyone was having a good laugh, singing badly, or talking to everyone else. Standing at the bus stop is no worse than queuing at the taxi rank or waiting for the Uber to show up once the bar or club has closed.

<comment><USER6> Sorry but I won't spend 30 minutes waiting outside in snow, then getting on a bus for 10 minutes, then waiting some 10 more minutes, then getting on a bus for 15 minutes and then 25 minutes of walking through snow, when I can just be there within 15 minutes by car. It's not far, it's just uphill (the bus is too long to fit on these narrow uphill roads).

I can't wait for autonomous cars. I just hope that someone in charge will realise that not everyone lives near a frequented bus stop before they limit all transportation to public transport (as they plan in many places). I noticed that many people talking about the great benefit of public transport live in the wider city centre - but most people live outside that!

<comment><USER7> > I can't wait for autonomous cars.

So that the US can build more ugly boring car suburbs ? Autonomous cars have the potential to make american cities much worse transit-wise.

<comment><USER6> Sorry but IMHO your perception of beauty has no priority over allowing people to live a fulfilling live...

<comment><USER7> And one can argue fairly easily that not spending life in traffic is more fulfilling.

<comment><USER6> That's what autonomous vehicles solve. So we're back to square one - <USER2> perception of beauty is not a standard.

<comment><USER7> But autonomous vehicles will mean a flood of them on the highway... Stuck in traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My city started to provide free public transportation every Saturday. As result, more people visit central shops and restaurants in historical center. They discuss now to make it too on Sundays.

<comment><USER9> That makes a lot of sense. I imagine public transport is largely underutilized on weekends without everyone trying to get to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The reason why free is good in public transport is because more people move around for work and fun, better it is for the whole area. Abusing the system is not a problem. It improves the quality of life even if it's done just for fun. Free electricity or water for residents would lead to waste.

You still want to maintain the markets. Giving every resident free card to use in public transport does that. When government pays according to the use, bus companies will respond to user demand. The local government can still subsidize unprofitable routes etc. but it's good that those things must be decided separately.

<comment><USER11> > You still want to maintain the markets. Giving every resident free card to > use in public transport does that.

Why not give them money instead? They can choose to buy a ticket or choose to ride a bike/walk and use the money elsewhere. You might keep the market for public transportation (though I have my doubts: why would the provider need to respond to demand if he's paid no matter what?), but you're strongly intervening in the transportation market in general.

<comment><USER12> Why does one preclude the other? "Free public transport" and "give poor people money" can both be excellent policies, there's no reason one should only pick one.

The point with specifically making public transport free is because using public transport instead of using cars is A Good Thing. It's like a reverse pigouvian tax: we want to encourage people using public transport, so lets make it free. Instead of charging for it, tax something we don't like (i.e. cars) and pay for it that way.

<comment><USER11> We're not just making cars relatively worse, but also walking and cycling, and we're encouraging (medium distance) travel in general. I don't know that this is a good idea, though I do agree that if you want to encourage travelling, it's fair to not only make it available to the rich.

I'd much prefer people to use any form of transportation when required and not spend their leisure time by descending upon the inner city, but that's a personal preference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The brilliant thing about making public transit free is that unlike many other things that can be government subsidized, free public transit can't be stolen or arbitraged.

<comment><USER14> Yeah I grew up hearing that "The optimal price of public transit is free".

The one pitfall I was told about was something called a "free-rider problem", which in this specific context doesn't have its normal economic meaning and refers to people taking up public-transit resources while not actually trying to get from Point A to Point B.

Just for example, if your transit is clean, safe, supervised, a moderate temperature, and has long journeys, what fraction of its users will be using it to get somewhere vs. using it because it is a safe place to be?

In the Bay Area, there is "Hotel 22", the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority #22 bus from Eastridge Transit Center to Palo Alto Transit Center, about a two-hour ride running 24 hours a day (see e.g. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11249291/The- dark-side-of-Silicon-Valley.html) or [https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/10/31/homeless-turn- overnig...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/10/31/homeless-turn-overnight- bus-route-into-hotel-22/) \- a safe warm place to sleep for $6).

In Pynchon's "V" there is Benny Profane "yo-yoing" on the 42nd Street Shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square, but his contemporaries were certainly finding shelter there: [https://harpers.org/archive/1956/03/subways-are-for- sleeping...](https://harpers.org/archive/1956/03/subways-are-for-sleeping/)

These aren't necessarily _bad_ side effects but understanding how folks will use the system when it's free is an important part of making the policy decision to make it free.

<comment><USER15> Ahh, there it is, the US can never have nice and clean things because of its massive inequality. Judging by European countries it would seem like there are ways to fix that.

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of a comment I saw on HN a while ago about an American shocked that other countries have public toilets that aren't covered in shit, blood and needles. It seems like so many Americans are not even aware that the problems they face are not global and they just take it as a fact of life.

<comment><USER16> This is absolutely against my experience. When I visited the US last year I was surprised by how clean and well maintained public toilets were. I am not used to this, as in Germany public toilets (if they even exist) are totally disgusting.

<comment><USER17> The pay public toilets I used in German train stations (Freiburg, Munich Hauptbahnhof) were clean and fine.

<comment><USER18> I think "paid" is the significant word here.

That said, the toilets on German trains (not in train stations) are generally ok as well, even though they're not paywalled.

<comment><USER19> Well, they're paywalled by the train ticket, no?

<comment><USER20> Probably not, because in Germany you can walk on the railway platforms even if you don't have a train ticket, so the toilets should be free access, too, and probably this is why many railway stations have pay toilets only.

<comment><USER21> Yes, but the post you're responding to, was responding to this:

> German trains ( __not in train stations __)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Idea of free public transport (for rural areas: to add mobility to shrinking (age) and city-moving population) is interesting, to combat the otherwise natural process of urbanization and centralization.

Same for the cities that actually have meaningful public transit needs and solutions (Tallinn, maybe Tartu and Pärnu). Implementation as a "FREE stuff, vote for me" is total fail - bad timetables, pointless long routes etc.

Flexible and on-demand transportation is required for rural areas (right now money gets wasted on subsidies rather than real problem) and for dense areas different approaches than just throwing money at a sub-optimal solution (maybe "use a bicycle" would be better than "success if you don't take a car but take stinking and smoking bus instead").

</comment><comment><USER23> Fully free public transport isn't that rare in the US: My home city, Missoula, Montana, has had it for years.[1] No passes, no metering. Wikipedia has a list, of course. [2] However, some of those routes aren't fully free, just free to some and, therefore, still incur metering costs. I wonder how much metering a bus route costs, overall, inclusive of enforcement of laws against "turnstile-jumping" or whatever you'd call it.

[1] [https://www.mountainline.com/mountain-line-to-operate- zero-f...](https://www.mountainline.com/mountain-line-to-operate-zero-fare- beginning-january-2015/)

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

</comment><comment><USER24> [https://outline.com/WLYEMW](https://outline.com/WLYEMW)

</comment><comment><USER25> Estonia seems to be a great country for these sorts of initiatives. Is it because vested interests are less of a thing there? Also being small might help, I suppose, more agile perhaps?

<comment><USER26> The small <-> agile thing is very real. I've seen it take very little time (2-5y after conception) for big ideas to be implemented in reality, countrywide, whereas doing it somewhere like the US would be next to impossible.

<comment><USER27> What forbids to do it on a state level? City level?

<comment><USER25> Depends on how much local autonomy there is which in turn depends on how much taxation is raised by local government. In some countries local governments are funded from central taxation and are more or less instructed on what they can or can't do with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a good example of policy makers not falling for the fallacy of "efficient public transport system = financially self-sufficient". A good public transport system has to be cash-negative because of its positive externalities. If it's cash-positive, it's either too expensive, under- investing, or both. It's a government's job to price the externalities in by reaping the fruits of economical growth (via taxes) and investing it back into public transport.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am a huge fan of public transportation, and I think using it should be as easy as possible. But here is a possible problem with this idea: if you make public transport free, you change the social structure of the riders. As the cost of public transportation does not depend on income, free rides have far greater benefits for the lower classes, and this may lead to public transportation having the image of "transportation for the poor", which may then lead to vast parts of society avoiding riding on it. After some time, it may even become a stigma, and the lower classes will also avoid using it.

I fear that free public transport may lead to lower passenger numbers in the long run, except in areas with a homogeneous population.

<comment><USER30> In Tallinn's case this doesn't seem to be true. What's more, having lived in Tallinn for decades, I can say that the poorest of people have been always riding for free (illegally) - it's either worth the risk of having to run away from ticket checkers or they're so poor that they deal only in cash and don't have a bank account that the government can take fine money from. Thus making the transport free in Tallinn hasn't really changed the demographics of passengers.

There's no fear of safety in the public spaces (including transport) in Tallinn either. It's standard practice for kids to go to school alone. So you have 7 year olds waddling around the city on their own, taking various public transports etc, and everyone is happy.

Additionally, if the wealthier people are too snobby to ride with lower classes, then there's always the possibility to raise car taxes. I think that's a much better solution compared to depriving lower classes of mobility.

Also I think you might be hanging out with very wrong crowds if you think that _the majority of society_ would not go on public transport because some lower class people might be on it. _(Ed: I see you changed it to vast parts instead of majority now. Better, but I 'd bet still overestimated.)_

Then there's the completely bonkers idea that lower class people themselves stop riding the bus because lower class people are on it. There are many reasons why I think that's never going to happen, but the biggest one is practical - poor people have no alternatives! A minimum wage worker needs to get to their workplace or they won't have food. The idea of them skipping the busride because there are other similar people on the bus is ridiculous.

<comment><USER3> "So you have 7-year-olds waddling around the city on their own" This. I have seen so many kids going to school alone in Tallinn - quite the opposite of the current generation's helicopter parenting.

<comment><USER31> Those kids are in the current generation, or am I missing something?

<comment><USER30> You could read it as kids being the next generation, young adults being current generation, and helicopter parenting happening en masse in places other than Estonia.

As an Estonian currently living in Demark, the contrast is very stark. Kids in Copenhagen don't have any freedom at all. Parents are climbing playground equipment alongside them, touching their playballs every 10 seconds etc. On top of that they are holding protests that this isn't enough.

> _aim is to persuade the government to introduce a minimum ratio of 1 adult > to 3 children in nurseries (roughly 0-3 year olds), and 1 adult to 6 > children in kindergartens (roughly 3-5 year olds)_

[https://outline.com/KRFf33](https://outline.com/KRFf33)

<comment><USER32> That's very odd, and very un-Scandinavian. Here in Norway small children take buses to school. Even on the same buses as high school students which I think would not be reckoned safe these days in my birth country (UK). Quite a few do get delivered by car though. But schools and society generally encourages children to walk or cycle to school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> There was one additional reason why city wanted to create a free public transportation only for local residents. So that all the people who were working in Tallinn, but whose(?) place of residence was outside of city, would register themselves as Tallinn's official residents, and that means more tax payer money coming to city budget. Win-win.

Edit: improved spelling

</comment><comment><USER34> Everyone gets a seat because the whole population is around million and the capital 400K. It's less complex to manage than, say, London. Less dense.

The whole idea was a mayor's election campaign. Rest of the parties were all against it.

Referendum: ask any population if they'd prefer free transport. There: 75.5%.

The money comes from somewhere. Although Estonia had average less national debt, their infrastructure (health service, education etc) is post2008 screwed like everywhere else.

<comment><USER35> The money certainly comes from somewhere, but is it more efficient this way? No ticket sales overhead, no enforcement overhead, etc. Seems smarter given that public transport is something that you would want the population to use instead of their own vehicles.

<comment><USER36> > No ticket sales overhead, no enforcement overhead, etc.

There are still ticket sales in this (and most like this) programs. Usually they only apply to nationals/residents of the city/town, and others have to buy tickets.

<comment><USER35> It seems like a missed opportunity if they're doing it that way. They get a bit of revenue, but they could otherwise have been more tourism friendly and done away with unnecessary ticketing infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It is worth noting that as far as I know enforcement of ticketing was _super_ low in the first place. To an extent this is just accepting the reality that some people will just bunk the fare given that the system is self-managed, i.e. you validate your own ticket. When I've been in Tallinn in the past I've seen people not pay as a matter of habit.

This is arguably the logical outcome of public transport. Ticket inspecting is expensive, inefficient and barely effective (without effectively doubling the staff costs of each service) and stopping the bus for the drivers to collect fares impacts the efficiency of the service (e.g. the "classic" old person paying in pennies slowing the bus down).

Given that transport is often heavily subsidised by the government anyway this is just giving up on the problem as its hard to find a cost-effective means of enforcing the collection of fares while keeping those fares affordable.

</comment><comment><USER38> This seems like a very good and logical idea in places that have the capacity, especially those with high poverty rates. In some places, however, such as here in New York, free public transportation would make a bad problem already worse. Our public transit systems are badly over capacity already and literally falling apart at the seams, with much of the infrastructure being literally over 100 years old. The systems simply weren't designed to carry this many people, and making these systems free would make accelerate the decay and make the overcrowding even worse.

</comment><comment><USER39> It is not free, Estonians pay for it with raised taxes.

Good for the ones with low income you would think, except of course those with low income that does not use public transport but still has to pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER40> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19886337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19886337)

</comment><comment><USER41> Tallinn resident for the past 30 years, here.

I don't know what the heck this article is talking about.

> The buses are on time, the trams are shiny and new, and passengers usually > get a seat.

The buses are not on time. They are constantly leaving early, a problem that has been brought up numerous times but just doesn't get fixed. The trams and buses are indeed new(ish) but not shiny. There is a problem with funds allocated for cleaning the public transportation. Although it's not the worst by far, but it's also not a rule that they are clean. Especially in the winter. [1][2][3]

> Tallinn's city government came up with the idea of free transport after the > 2008 financial crisis. Estonia was hit badly, and even though the city paid > more than 70% of public-transport costs, ticket prices were still too high > for poorer residents.

No, it was for the 2009 local election campaign. Initially the idea was to keep it for a short duration. Literally no-one had complained about the ticket prices. They were not expensive, even if our economy was in a bad state. The same party did this same ploy for the rest of the country too. Literally no- one asked for this and cost is not the biggest problem, by far.[5][6]

> Since Estonia regained independence in 1991, car ownership rates have > doubled.

Interesting side note, ever since the Tallinn introduced the free public transport, car ownership rates have soared.[4][8]

> Opponents branded the idea populist and unaffordable. Estonia was pushing > through tough austerity measures at the time, including a 10% pay cut for > public-sector workers. Critics predicted the transport system would become > overcrowded and underfunded. The row was only resolved by a referendum.

A referendum where 20% of the eligible population only voted.[7] The referendum was phrased in way where saying "no" didn't make sense. It was a populist move and the voter turnout mirrors that. Also, I can't remember any other referendums happening in Tallinn.

> Surprisingly, though, instead of collapsing, public transport has improved, > despite a €12m hit to the system's finances from lost ticket sales. > Tallinn's population has grown, leading to a boost in local tax intake. > Additional revenue comes from tourists and non-Tallinn residents, who still > have to buy tickets. The use of public transport in Tallinn has gone up by > 10%, while the number of cars in the city centre has gone down by 10%, > meaning less congestion.

Again, not entirely true. I don't know where the decrease of 10% cars figure comes from and also the city center is so small, even if it were true, it's literally a drop in the ocean. I have to pass the city center every day, actually the way the transportation lines are built up, most people have to pass the city center.[4][8]

> Free public transport on its own is not enough to stop people driving, > though the evidence is that it helps. In Tallinn higher parking fees and > reduced space for cars also played a part in cutting city-centre traffic: > on-street parking now costs €6 an hour, and some parking spaces and car > lanes have been replaced by bus lanes. Officials say providing a free > alternative allowed them to avoid a backlash when driving in the capital was > made more expensive and less convenient.

Yet the car ownership keeps growing. You'll see the problem clearer when you compare transportation lines from the Soviet era (30-50 years ago) and realize the lines have barely changed. Yes, there are some new lines but there are buses that drive the same route for decades now, when the jobs have shifted locations.

Also, by funding the "free" public transportation, Tallinn has left schools and kindergardens underfunded. I do agree that people have definitely gotten used to it and it is comfortable. I like that they have also included trains within city limits to this. People are riding trains and we are actually buying new trains.

TL;DR: * this article is mostly a fluff piece

* spend a day in Tallinn and ride the trams and buses and then to same in Helsinki. We have much to strive for

* it isn't free, we all pay for it and get a crappy experience

* the city has awful pedestrian roads (they are narrow and cars are king) and non-existent bike lanes (especially in the city center)

* they need to modernize the routes

* etc, there's literally a 1000 page book that can be written about Tallinn's transport woes

[1] [https://www.postimees.ee/1790081/bussid-ja-trollid- valjuvad-...](https://www.postimees.ee/1790081/bussid-ja-trollid-valjuvad- peatustest-liiga-vara)

[2] [https://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/rahvahaal/eksperiment...](https://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/rahvahaal/eksperiment- paljud-tallinna-bussid-soidavad-pidevalt-graafikust-ette?id=69971065)

[3] [https://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/rahvahaal/anna- teada-...](https://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/rahvahaal/anna-teada- uhistranspordist-mis-lahkub-peatusest-liiga-vara?id=69733639)

[4] [https://longread.delfi.ee/artiklid/tallinnasse-voorib-iga- pa...](https://longread.delfi.ee/artiklid/tallinnasse-voorib-iga-paev- juurde-50-000-autot-linn-jaab-neile-kitsaks?id=83978754)

[5] [https://news.err.ee/833235/survey-free-bus-plan-unpopular- am...](https://news.err.ee/833235/survey-free-bus-plan-unpopular-among-target- rural-demographic)

[6] [https://news.err.ee/861958/county-buses-often-overcrowded- si...](https://news.err.ee/861958/county-buses-often-overcrowded-since-free- transport-introduced)

[7] [https://news.err.ee/103737/75-vote-for-free-public- transit-i...](https://news.err.ee/103737/75-vote-for-free-public-transit-in- tallinn-referendum)

[8] [https://blog.stat.ee/tag/auto/](https://blog.stat.ee/tag/auto/)

<comment><USER30> > _The buses are not on time._

As a fellow long-time Tallinn transport user, I can say that this statement can be both true and false. It's true in the strictest sense that yes buses sometimes don't come exactly at the scheduled minute. Also very rarely, but it does happen, a bus doesn't come at all and you need the next one, which is usually 5-10min of waiting.

However when we compare it to other places, I think Tallinn is actually very much among the leaders in reliability. Take something like Italy. It's a miracle if anything arrives as scheduled. Buses are +/\- 3min wrong as a standard and often much more. Even the Rome metro doesn't run on schedule! That one is the most bizzare to me, the metro train could just sit in a station and not worry about traffic. However they don't and just speed along, going ahead of schedule.

Then there's the cross-country or even international buses that go through Estonia. Very much on time, sometimes +/\- 5-10min of their schedule. Now compare this to something like the US greyhound buses in the northeast. Want to go from New Haven to Boston? Better be prepared for the scenario where your bus is delayed 2 hours because of traffic near NYC.

<comment><USER41> I agree. Italy is definitely a wildcard

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is it free even if you have to pay for it?

<comment><USER19> For that matter, is anything free when TANSTAAFL?

The concept still makes sense in context; it's free for people in the user role, even if they also have the taxpayer role.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How you get recruiters to run after you instead of the other way around? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Linkedin. There are some options that you can enable that will put you on the recruiting radar, and depending on your profile, you should see an uptick in linkedin messages from recruiters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you share what are those options please? and can I tweak them to show myself to recruiters from certain cities?

<comment><USER3> From the mobile app tap on the photo icon in the top right. Scroll down and find career interests. You'll be able to toggle on/off to let recruiters know you're open to new opportunities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> See profile of senior developers in big companies (that's easy to find through Linkedin search) and copy the layout of their profile / the way they describe their job experience.

Have lot's of keywords that are relevant to the job you're looking for (and experience on it)

I get at the very least 1 recruiter contacting me per week... am not looking and don't have the "open for contact" option enabled in Linkedin

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, I never thought of this. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Uploading your CV to a job board is still a good way to show you're active, recruiters (in house and agency) will get daily alerts to new CVs matching keywords they've preset.

</comment><comment><USER6> Be careful what you wish for. Beating them off with a moldy stick these days.</comment>


"Ethics" and Ethics - <AUTHOR> https://ia.net/topics/ethics-and-ethics <comment><USER2> While the topic interests me greatly I think the article falls in a trap. One I found myself in for a number of years: getting lost in details.

Given a certain situation where a company is acting in what you perceive as being a non ethical way there is absolutely zero chance of you finding out the causes, never mind solutions. Even for a "small" 400 people company there are so many variables, interconnections, processes, etc, that a human mind cannot create a reasonable working model and then debug it even if all the cards are on the table facing up. Which they are not.

Instead what I think works is looking at the big picture: do you agree with the end result? Is the service/product of decent quality, are customers happy, are they being taken advantage of, are workers ok, etc. If not, the same beast will eat you too and any thought of changing it is pure fantasy.

This way of thinking too has obvious problems. If you apply it to government departments for example you would quickly leave only the cynics there making it worse. In some cases you have to work from within. But in many cases draining the brains from a tech company will kill it fast enough.

But an even deeper problem seems to me that modern people are quire amoral. They keep buying/using service/product or work for a company if it benefits them financially while complaining in small talk discussions.

</comment><comment><USER3> _If you work at Facebook these days, people don't like you very much at the bar, the wedding or on the train. That you earn a lot doesn't really help you when everyone dislikes you.

"You're an asshole."

"No, I'm right, I earn more than you."_

I'm not a Facebook employee, but: I doubt it? The vast majority of people have no problem with Facebook or what it does. People with a big focus on privacy don't like it, but the existence of Facebook as a profitable enterprise is proof that there are plenty of people outside this set.

I think the big issue that is often swept under the rug here are that different people have different morals, especially at the margins. Sure, almost everyone agrees on murder. But there are legitimate disagreements in the privacy space, especially when no concrete harm has been demonstrated.

For example, my personal moral stance on privacy is that, if someone is voluntarily using a platform, and that platform had terms that include some items which would tend to reduce the person's privacy, that's fine. As long as there is responsible disclosure, adults should be free to use or not use services as they see fit.

<comment><USER4> > The vast majority of people have no problem with Facebook or what it does. > People with a big focus on privacy don't like it, but the existence of > Facebook as a profitable enterprise is proof that there are plenty of people > outside this set.

Most people don't have enough knowledge to make an ethical judgement about it. So we do what's convenient and assume it's ok.

That's why I prefer to have proficient regulatory bodies with domain expertise to set rules, rather than expect for market forces ("vote with your dollar") to select for ethical options. Consumers can't be expected to make those choices, not at scale.

So I'm not convinced that "privacy" is really so controversial, even if people keep using Facebook. They don't know how facebook works, or in which ways its business practices "innovated" beyond the status quo that preceded it. Also, most people aren't interested in taking part in a futile boycott of something, even if they'd prefer for it to be restricted/banned for everyone.

<comment><USER3> > Most people don't have enough knowledge to make an ethical judgement about > it.

I can't say I agree. People are more than sufficiently knowledgeable to form broad strokes viewpoints about the morality of Facebook. Of course, the details would need to be fleshed out if it were determined that FB were operating outside the popular moral framework. That's what regulatory bodies are for.

The formation of a regulatory body should be contingent on the presence of a widely held moral viewpoint. If such a viewpoint is not widely held, then the regulatory body does not reflect the will of the people, and its mandate is suspect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article is meandering, but I think at its core it has some key points that are worth considering, at least to me:

1) Organizations are built of individuals, and while the individuals can hold strong moral standpoints, it is difficult for an organization as a whole to do so. It is also difficult for individuals to promote taking a moral standpoint as an organization, or in many cases to even notice the incongruity between their personal morals and the morals of their organization.

(This points reminds me of the banality of evil. And I think it is a valid point, and something we should be on guard about if we want our personal values to match the values of the products we create.)

2) It is easy to dismiss moral concerns in business as being something that the market will figure out for you. That is not necessarily the case.

(I have found throughout my own career that many companies are willing to appeal to a morality that is somewhere along the lines of "whatever we can get away with is our moral boundary." Measuring the morality of a decision by public approval of/success in sales as a result of that decision. That is far removed from actual moral judgment, particularly when public approval is so easily swayed by factors that are separate from whether the subject in question is helpful or even actively harming them. See cigarette lobbying until their false claims were finally debunked and their lobbying efforts exposed in the 90's. [As a side note, I'm curious who would argue that the efforts the cigarette industry made throughout the last century to spread misinformation should be considered "free speech" and their ability to do so a preservation of "personal liberty"? Let's see what pops up in the comments.])

3) We have a duty to think more actively about whether our morals align with the morals of our company, and to make that known if we would like to see that change.

There are other points that might be more interesting to those with a design- oriented focus toward the bottom of the article, but these three were the points that I took home from it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Freedom of speech and individual liberty are absolutely moral and ethical values. They just don't align with the politics of the author.

The moral crisis is people trying to reign in those values, not in the construction of platforms that enable them.

Calls to further regulate content on the internet are immoral to many.

<comment><USER5> Nothing in this article mentions anything about government regulation: it is talking about self regulation, and asking your company to consider its moral principles in the face of psychologically manipulative practices. Did you read the article? Or are you choosing to falsely equivocate self regulation based on principles held within a body of employees or an organization with government regulation?

<comment><USER6> I'm saying that techies aren't as amoral as this article claims. It choses to ignore popular ethical positions and instead claims people are operating without morals.

<comment><USER5> When I read it, it felt more about the banality of evil than an explicit choice to be amoral - he actually explicitly goes into it a few paragraphs down. And it is a genuine problem in our industry. It's very easy for us to have our heads down and not think about how our personal morals misalign with the morals of our company (the latter of which often doesn't have a stated set of principles aside from the examples in the products, services, and marketing it creates). We can be moral people as individuals, but overlook it at an organizational level.

But none of that really comes into play with liberty and freedom of speech in a way that I can mesh. That much is a tangential subject. I'd be more concerned on that end if the article's conclusion was that the government should tell us what is moral, but it is asking us to think more about what we consider to be moral.

If your morals tell you that the way your company makes money is okay, then your morals are in alignment and the article doesn't really apply in your situation.

<comment><USER6> > _If your morals tell you that the way your company makes money is okay, then > your morals are in alignment and the article doesn 't really apply in your > situation._

Yep, this is the point I was making. I think a lot of people are in this situation. It's not that they're cogs in an amoral machine, it's that they are actually morally aligned with their company and striving to make the world a better place (in their vision).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Gap in Entrepreneurship That No One Wants to Publicize - <AUTHOR> http://jasondoesstuff.com/gap-in-entrepreneurship/

<comment><AUTHOR> Also may be related article, "Unicorns vs. Horses Why I want to be In-N-Out Burger, not McDonalds": [https://medium.com/@awilkinson/unicorns-vs- horses-f81d8dd61f...](https://medium.com/@awilkinson/unicorns-vs- horses-f81d8dd61f17)

</comment><comment><USER2> "Where's the article about the mom and pop granola company in Michigan that started in a quaint kitchen and is getting national distribution?"

My local newspapers have far more of these stories than stories about Elon Musk.</comment>


Remote Code Execution in Firefox beyond Memory Corruptions - <AUTHOR> https://frederik-braun.com/firefox-ui-xss-leading-to-rce.html <comment><USER2> > Both [these bugs] were fixed in Firefox 56, which was released in the fall > of 2017.

Might be worth clarifying this a little higher up on the page.

<comment><USER3> I wish more websites would include a publishing date right at the top (like some newspapers). I think that they don't care if the information is outdated as long as it brings in visitors. Too many websites do this.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > _It was the year 1997, and people thought XML was a great idea. In fact, it > was so much better than its warty and unparseable predecessor HTML. While > XHTML was the clear winner and successor for great web applications, ..._

While just the opener for discussing XXE-style and injection attacks in XUL, I'm not sure this isn't satire. Neither was nor is HTML unparseable, nor has XHTML and XML on the web replaced it. XML was just a proper subset of SGML doing away with element-specific markup declarations/parsing rules such as required for `img` and other elements in HTML, and also with tag inference/omission (also as required for parsing HTML).

<comment><USER4> It might look like satire, but that's how it looked in 1997 (as late as 2005 or so, maybe even later).

HTML in the wild was a mess, and required a lot of error recovery and empirical quirks. Browser vendors were all on board with the idea of rebooting it as well defined XHTML which has XML structure and HTML semantics. There was quite a bit of work towards that goal.

But the actual content creators did not care, and vendors relented. HTML in the wild is not quite as bad as it was and is much more easily parseable as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _HTML in the wild was a mess, and required a lot of error recovery and > empirical quirks_

> _HTML in the wild is not quite as bad as it was and is much more easily > parseable as well_

I beg to differ with the "HTML in the wild" concept and need for heuristics. HTML, including HTML5, was and is easily parseable using SGML, the markup meta-language on which HTML versions up to HTML 4 were specified. My DTD for HTML 5 (W3C's current HTML 5.2) can parse up to 97.31% of the test suite normatively referenced by the HTML spec (the rest being somewhat in a grey area containing constructs to make test automation happy, which is designed to never fail, but rather to produce _something_ still in a predictable way) [1].

[1]: [http://sgmljs.net/docs/sgml-html- tutorial.html](http://sgmljs.net/docs/sgml-html-tutorial.html) (reported on the slides reached via the "TALK" link)

<comment><USER5> "the HTML spec" is definitely not the same as "HTML in the wild", so your comment has relatively little to do with what the parent comment is saying. Real web pages contain all sorts of sins (or at least did, back in the 90's) such as unclosed tags and missing elements that are "required", and browsers were expected to parse those pages because other browsers did. As a simple example, foo is not valid HTML 4 (or even SGML) because the tags are not strictly nested, but it would be suicide to make a browser that rejects pages containing that.

<comment><USER6> "it would be suicide to make a browser that rejects pages containing that" Nonsense, browser should have never supported it. We can't decide after the fact yes indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't use .innerHTML ! Nost just for security, but also for convenience. Use document.createElement, and node.appendChild; this is much more powerful as you can abstract views and components into pure functions.

<comment><USER8> innerHTML might be faster (was true a few years ago).

<comment><USER9> That hasn't been true for many years — see e.g. [https://segdeha.com/experiments/innerhtml/](https://segdeha.com/experiments/innerhtml/) for the Firefox 3 / Safari 4 era — and when it was, it was only in the case where you were blasting out huge amounts of changes at a time. For anything less than a complete rewrite of a large DOM hierarchy it was almost always faster just to update the elements in question using the DOM.

As an example, there was a lot of cargo cult performance discussion around React in the first few years. A coworker was really excited about it but the first time we did a benchmark for code which updated a report table, React was 5 orders of magnitude slower because it used innerHTML instead of the DOM and even with keyed updates that was doing tons of extra work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What was the piece in firefox that was being retired when many add-ons no longer worked? Wasn't that xul?

<comment><USER11> That was just the first step. Firefox first had to disallow XUL/legacy extensions before they could remove APIs that others used to depend on.</comment></comment>