Analyzing HN moderation and censorship - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/13/Analyzing-HN.html <comment><USER2> In this thread, some people are complaining of moderators downvoting (lowering the rank) of some submissions over others; and at least one person says "let the readers decide". I think that if I wanted a forum/news site where "the readers decide" and ONLY the readers decide, i'd go to Reddit. No thanks, i prefer HN due to the behind-the-scenes 'curation' or choice of content, which so far usually gives very interesting, sometimes _exciting_ news, posts, articles and "Show HN"s.

As for comment moderation, I think that HN is a community with the least amount of moderation i've seen. Which makes me really happy.

I have submitted only three or four things here, so I don't really know how nice (or not nice) is HN from the submitters' point of view.

<comment><USER3> I've found moderation on HN to be a bit heavy handed recently. Specifically when it comes to the issue of sexism in SV. No matter the opinion, posts on this seem to get removed shortly after reaching the front page.

Question for the mods: Why? It doesn't appear to be a bias towards either side. Is the perception just that people are tied of hearing about it? Why not let the users decide that?

<comment><USER4> Huge flame wars get a lot of upvotes and lots of comments -- but it's essentially the forum equivalent of candy. If you want your forum to have some nutritional value than you can't let the candy topics run rampant no matter how much people seem to want them.

<comment><USER3> I think that makes sense. But how much is too much? Say you have a very high post volume on one side of an issue, so you start moderating more heavily. Do you allow posts through representing the other side? Is that "fair"?

<comment><USER5> I believe there is an automatic penalty if the comment count goes above the vote count beyond a certain percentage

<comment><USER6> Makes sense. That's the clearest indication I've seen of contentious topics on HN (comment count higher than the topic vote count).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The voting ring detector is in need of a serious upgrade. There are so many cases of vote solicitation by people with meaningful social media following and their posts even make the front page. It's mostly the Product Hunt style "Hey we launched on HN, check us out" which is code for "upvote my post". People have stopped directly linking to the post submission for fear of tripping the voting ring detector, but they either just say "We launched on HN" or link to /newest. Seeing such posts make the front page makes me question the effectiveness of the voting ring detector beyond catching the obvious ones.

A shoutout to `minimaxir for being one of the only people constantly calling out others for such bs. As you can imagine, people get offended for being called out and I remember at least 2 instances of him being treated rudely for doing so on twitter.

If anyone comes across such submissions, please report them to the mods by sending them an email. I'll admit I have not been doing what I suggested, but going forward I will.

<comment><USER8> > _many cases of vote solicitation [...] and their posts even make the front > page_

That last bit is the critical one. Vote solicitation that doesn't go anywhere is an annoyance, but fake upvotes getting otherwise lame content on the front page is a threat. If you (or anyone) see cases of this, I wish you would send them to firstname.lastname@example.com. We investigate, and can usually figure something out one way or the other.

From my perspective—but of course we don't see everything—HN's anti-voting- ring software is now so strict that the main thing we have to do is turn it _off_ when a submission is good enough. It's not uncommon for there to be a high-quality project that someone has put months or years into, and then naively tries to promote on HN (edit: I mean by asking friends to upvote). Often people think that's what they're supposed to do. (If you think the opposite should be obvious, try communicating anything to a large-enough audience. The vast majority never get the message.) If we didn't override the voting ring detector in such cases, some really good work would be lost to the audience here, which wouldn't benefit HN. Of course this is rare enough; most ring-voted submissions aren't very good. But years of working on this problem have taught me that the best voting ring detector would not be one that penalizes submissions; it would just turn all ring-votes into no-ops.

<comment><USER9> Wait, are you suggesting that people _shouldn't_ post their own stuff to HN? Or by "promote on HN", do you mean posting on Twitter and telling people to go upvote?

<comment><USER8> Definitely not suggesting that! Sorry for the ambiguity. Of course it's fine for people to share their own work here (assuming it's on topic—but anything intellectually interesting is on topic).

By 'naively tries to promote on HN' I mean things like asking friends to upvote and passing links around on Twitter. Those tactics don't work (or at least as far as I know they don't) and usually hurt the submission rather than help it. Does that make sense?

<comment><USER9> Yeah, that's what I figured, but I wanted to clarify since PH actually does seem to do it the other way. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In my opinion, far more than moderation, HN is effected by who votes for the new articles. If you look at the "new" page then most stories never even get one upvote. Those who do go over there and upvote stories have far more power than those who only ever look at the front page. Sadly, it seems that there are too many stories on "new" for a person to sit there, read each one, and upvote, so the only real way to get a story on the front page is to get lucky or gang up with your friends.

<comment><USER11> And as mentioned, people will _definitely_ use the flag feature to get rid of controversial articles they don't like. Anything about sexism will get flagged into oblivion, for example.

<comment><USER12> Plenty of people who are deeply concerned about sexism in this industry _also_ flag those stories, because it only takes 2-3 misogynist trolls to create a 300-comment shitshow out of them. There are still kinds of threads that this site simply can't do well, and it's better we not pretend we can until the guidelines and mod tools evolve to actually make them work here.

<comment><USER13> And, to underline, we have a lot more than 2-3 misogynist trolls in these parts. Reflexive rich-white-dude defensiveness is perhaps HN's greatest challenge.

<comment><USER14> Hopefully they are just trolls, trolls just post comments that are inflammatory to get people riled up, not because they actually mean what they post. If they actually are misogynistic and think they their contributions are reasonable and welcome, that's a different problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another HN tool moderators use that isn't mentioned in the post is the second- chance pool, where moderators will rescue a post which did not receive many upvotes and give it placement on the front page for a bit of time.

<comment><USER16> Where is this documented? Not trying to be snippy - I have no idea what powers the moderators have in this realm. Maybe HN could benefit from some lobste.rs- esque moderation transparency.

<comment><USER17> Even though HN is a community, the front page is essentially the mods' personal judgment. They are the editors, and HN is a newspaper.

I like it this way. They have excellent taste. The community has repeatedly proven it cannot be trusted to upvote intellectually gratifying content. pg's original HN code contained a flag for "rally", meaning the story is a rallying cry, and is therefore penalized because it's so easy to mindlessly upvote it.

The results speak for themselves: HN is now almost a top-1000 site by traffic.

They had to be phenomenal. I don't think many people appreciate just how difficult this was to pull off, or how much they work their asses off every single day. If they ignored HN for even a week, it would deteriorate noticeably.

Yet technology is at least as important. The fact that our upvotes _do_ matter makes the situation unique -- although the mods can determine the relative weights of stories, we can still push a story upwards if enough of us are interested, and the story fits the site's original goal of gratifying intellectual curiosity.

There is no company anywhere in the world like this. At this point, HN practically _defines_ our culture. When news stories say things like "so-and- so story about <technology> has been making the rounds on social media," at least some of them are talking about HN now. And your coworkers probably hear about the tech they use at least partly from HN.

The sole reason they're in this position is because they deserve to be. I hope they stay selective. As to being secretive, we should let them choose. If they want to reveal, fine. If not, fine. They've earned it. Even still, they've been remarkably transparent.

<comment> aaron-lebo HN's cool but it's just one forum among a million others. The moderation is good though sometimes arbitrary. That's a lot easier for users to accept when they know why they are getting positively/negatively moderated, which is a good reason for more openness. But at the end of the day it's a forum, the moderators have the final say, that's the contract you agree to in using it.

<comment><USER17> If Dan and Scott were kings, they would be fucking epic. Best monarchs ever. It's hard to think of anyone who cares more about fairness, but clever enough to decide for themselves. And they're usually right. I think I can count on one hand the number of mistakes they've made that even remotely mattered. And from a strategic standpoint, that number is effectively zero.

There are probably a bunch of people behind the scenes, and they deserve lots of credit too. But there is something incredible about being able to post a dozen moderation comments every day for _years_ without ever being so mistaken as to provoke community backlash. It would be really easy for them to offer an offhand opinion, or just make a bad call, and suddenly have people up in arms about it.

They're also some of the most humble people. Both of them have done some really amazing work and have cool hobbies. But I've sort of had to pry that info out of them over years.

[http://github.com/gruseom/numen](http://github.com/gruseom/numen) \- Dan's project. JS REPL for emacs. It took another four years for anyone to even come close ([https://github.com/NicolasPetton/Indium](https://github.com/NicolasPetton/Indium)) as far as I know.

[https://github.com/sctb/lumen](https://github.com/sctb/lumen) \- Scott's project. A self-hosted Lisp that compiles and runs in both JS and Lua. The whole codebase recompiles in about one second flat when using LuaJIT.

But like, that's maybe 5% of the cool stuff they've done. There's just no outward sign -- they don't bother with blog posts or any kind of self- promotion.

So yes, all hail the kings of lisp.

<comment><USER18> [https://github.com/sctb/woe](https://github.com/sctb/woe)

Indeed this _is_ cool.

To compile on BSD, I used

       gcc -static -std=c89 -Wall -pedantic -o woe woe.c -lm

<comment><USER19> Do you mind opening an issue or just emailing me (scott at yc) the error you see?

Edit: fixed, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I never gave thought to the moderator position till this analysis.

I wonder if it is a full time job. Do other sites have full time moderators?

Moderators are needed, of course and im glad i am not one. But i can only imagine how much of a burn out job with little satisfaction it must be. Like data entry jobs in the past.

To compare and contrast, if you are a construction worker making residential housing, you and see its effect on people and humanity. Year after year and perhaps decade after decade you can drive by and know your work helped a family. Yet the effort of a moderator goes away within hours and is hard (for me) to see the long lasting value.

This write up helped me think about a topic i never thought of before. Thanks

(HN moderators: i know u make this site a good read. Thanks)

<comment><USER21> _Moderators are needed, of course and im glad i am not one. But i can only imagine how much of a burn out job with little satisfaction it must be. Like data entry jobs in the past._

I'm one of the moderators over on reddit.com/r/AskEngineers.

It is work... that I don't get paid for. Or any kind of reward, really.

But I'm doing it because I want to promote high-quality discussion on various engineering topics. I'm glad when we can help each other out by answering questions.

To be a moderator, ideally you're in it for the long term, by trying to guide your community in a good direction, educate people, uphold standards of good and civil discussion.

<comment><USER20> Do you manage time so that there is planned downtime? Like no moderating weekends or 8/40/5? Or is it a mostly 24/7 look-at-all-new-posts thing

<comment><USER21> There's only 65K subscribers, so it isn't a huge sub compared to others. And /r/AskEngineers is a pretty well-behaved bunch for the most part, so it isn't too hard.

I'm usually checking the new queue and moderation queue a couple times per day.

It's good to have multiple active moderators, who are in different timezones to provide better 24/7 coverage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was actually going to build a tool that scrapes HN every couple minutes and looks for stories that were hot (on the front page) and then drops by 20+ slots. I've happened to be involved in a couple threads where this inexplicably happened, and I was unhappy to see the discussion being muted (people previously involved continued commenting, but no new people saw/joined the thread). I was going to show the buried posts on a site called toohotforhn.com, so that people could go to find the discussions that they might have otherwise missed. These days, much of it is around silicon valley and the treatment of women/minorities, but it could also include stories that are negative on YC companies that get buried (inadvertently, perhaps) as well.

Others have pointed out that if you want more discussion on X, you can go find it elsewhere. The point is that I want to see what HNers think about X — which is why I think a tool like this would be useful.

<comment><USER8> Why don't you just look at [https://news.ycombinator.com/active](https://news.ycombinator.com/active)? (via [https://news.ycombinator.com/lists](https://news.ycombinator.com/lists)). Most if not almost all of those stories show up there.

Btw since you brought up the point, we moderate stories less, not more, when they're about YC or YC-funded companies. That's literally the first rule of HN moderation:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20yc%20less%20not%20mo...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20yc%20less%20not%20more&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

That doesn't mean we don't moderate them at all, since the internet would drive a truck through a cheap ploy like that. But we do err on that side, since keeping the good faith of the community is more important than any particular story.

<comment><USER22> Checking /active makes sense, but once the rank for a story plummets, there's essentially a cap on comment activity. New people don't get brought in, and over time the existing commenters dwindle. So I'm not sure that would quite accomplish what I'm looking for.

Regarding YC companies, I totally understand and trust that you and other moderators are not killing negative stories on YC companies. But I've noticed that sometimes these stories just disappear, and I don't know if this has anything to do with the fact that YC founders likely have high karma and are likely friends with other users with high karma. This is why I used the word "inadvertently" in my description of this — I truly think it may just be an artifact of how the algorithms interact and the fact that YC founders may end up having more clout than the average commenter. Basically, I don't know what powers are unlocked at different levels (I know new users can't downvote comments, for example), and I wonder if high-karma users have powers that I (~2700) do not have. And even if they don't have explicit powers, does their downvoting or flagging have a much bigger impact on whether comments or stories are killed?

Thanks for weighing in. You and the other folks who handle hn@ emails have always been prompt when I emailed with questions.

<comment><USER8> Higher karma doesn't unlock any powers after the downvote threshold (500).

If you have concerns about any specific stories I'd be happy to take a look. It's best to email email@example.com because we don't see most comments that get posted here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The harsh and angry negativity of some comments in this thread is difficult to understand. As others have pointed out, and as should go without saying, this is a private site with whichever ruleset its owners choose to impose, take it or leave it.

And besides, the mods are making a tremendous job of it. I wildly disagree with lots of their decisions, and probably with great part of their general outlook on life, but I really can't fault their taste or professionalism, so thank you, guys.

The one cowardly thing going on here is the doing of users, not of moderators: The sad and unworthy tendency of some to downvote comments to oblivion purely for opinions expressed. Now _that_ is a kind of grassroots censorship which we could do without.

<comment><USER24> >"The harsh and angry negativity of some comments in this thread is difficult to understand. As others have pointed out, and as should go without saying, this is a private site with whichever ruleset its owners choose to impose, take it or leave it."

I find this comment difficult to understand. The success and value of a site like HN largely depends on a community who submits stories and engages in discussion about those stories.

Stating "This is a private site" and "take it or leave it" is not only unnecessarily dismissive but its a false dichotomy. Liking something and wanting to see it improve are not mutually exclusive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> _Here are some posts whose flags I consider questionable:

Harvey, the Storm That Humans Helped Cause (23 points)

ES6 imports syntax considered harmful (12 points)

White-Owned Restaurants Shamed for Serving Ethnic Food (33 points)

The evidence is piling up – Silicon Valley is being destroyed (27 points)_

Personally I'm glad all of these posts were flagged.

<comment><USER26> You might disagree with them, but were they violating the guidelines? Rules should not be selectively enforced, and made-up rules should _definitely_ not be enforced.

<comment><USER25> I think they were violating guidelines in that they qualified as off-topic. Is that worth a flag? I'm not sure.

But I don't think they should have been flagged "because I disagree with them."

<comment><USER26> They're not off-topic according to the guidelines so far as I understand them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The website that publishes my stats ([https://hn.0x2237.club](https://hn.0x2237.club)) is getting smashed. This is largely because collecting stats is expensive and I devote most of the CPU time to that. Rest assured, stats are still being gathered, and you should be able to browse them when it cools down a bit. Sorry for the inconvenience!

</comment><comment><USER27> Then, there is the case of 'On Whose Authority ([http://z.caudate.me/on-whose- authority/](http://z.caudate.me/on-whose-authority/)), the HN discussion of which was killed while the discussion of Rich Hickey's response ([https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/73yznc/on_whose_au...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/73yznc/on_whose_authority/do1olag)) was ongoing and both were on the front page.

<comment><USER12> Interpersonal drama gets flagged off the site routinely. You see the same thing happen when a "story" is really an extrapolation of one person's tweet. I remember flagging that post myself.

<comment><USER27> Did you also flag the response?

<comment><USER12> I don't remember, but if I saw it, I did. I try to flag all drama stories.

<comment><USER27> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15425632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15425632)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Article doesn't mention what I believe is one mod tool: shadow banning accounts based on IP. I had a bunch of accounts get shadowbanned for no evident reason and after a while I deduced it was based on using the account from a particular cafe's WiFi. I just created this account and if I go use it from that place I will be banned again by some automated process.

<comment><USER29> Why did you have so many accounts in the first place? How many is "a bunch"?

<comment><USER30> I spend enough time slacking off with just one account. I can't imagine getting anything done at all with two or three.

Perhaps that is done to avoid the rate limiter?

I can usually only make _five_ posts in one 8-hour span, and then the sixth attempt says, "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks. Also, don't count the number of posts tptacek can make in one thread in one hour and compare it to your total for the entire week, or it might raise your blood pressure."

I am barred from having more than half a conversation in one day, while it seems that [some] others can post as often as they can hit "[reply]". So yes, I do feel censored on HN. The article didn't even mention the post-rate limits.

<comment><USER31> I've seen threads where he and his possey made up 50% of the comments, controlling the narrative and rallying their forces to down vote flag those who had the tenacity to disagree with them.

Also since you mentioned a particular user your comment will be removed. Funny how that works.

<comment><USER30> I'm glad to see parent comment back from [dead], because I have also noticed it. That's why I mentioned that particular account in the first place. You can search _in this very thread_ to see (as of now) _27 posts_ by that account, one admitting to robot-assisted vigilantism against certain types of users-- namely racists, misogynists, and homophobes. One of the other matches mentions that he can occasionally be quite mean.

I can recall at least one instance where he replied to me directly, and I wanted to engage, but couldn't, because I was "posting too fast".

It's the network neutrality issue writ small. Some people have fast lanes on this site, and others have slow lanes. I don't like it here, and it _annoys_ me when I notice it. If it becomes the status quo for the whole network, you can be sure that I will be engaging in "shovel vigilantism" in the dark of some nights. Freedoms of speech and publication are no longer supportive of liberty and equality when certain favored people are allocated 10000 times as much speech as most other people are usually allowed, and drown out all other voices with their _sheer volume_ rather than the _merit of their claims_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Each news outlet serves some purpose, that's why people bother to maintain it; so it has some degree of editorial policy (determined by the collective action of the editors).

I for one think that I am spending too much time here (relative to the stuff that I learn). (Lets see how long I can keep off site, after all this _is_ adictive ;-)

I would appreciate it if someone would come up with a filter, HN on tech subjects only, and no politics and business stories - a mere title line is not enough to figure out the context (but they do that on purpose, to involve more people that way, don't they :-) actually I guess that would be easy to do with NLP tagging...

One thing that I dislike with both HN and reddit style moderation system is that the subject of the editorial action has no idea that he/she has been edited out. I think that actually gives the pleasant feeling of being in an insane asylum. Anybody can relate ti this sentiment?

</comment><comment><USER33> A larger wordview beyond a group think bubble of SV is needed to represent the tech industry. A lack of transparency always ends up empowering people behind the scenes who then have to make casual judgements of entire swaths of people and opinion. This is bad both for moderators and discussion.

Fortunately its relatively easy to launch a site like HN. A problem is a solution waiting to happen. If there is competition and it affects HN they are not going to sit back, there will be more transparency. However good something is competition is essential to keep people on their toes, so there is a largish lacuna here for the health of the industry.

Having said that any popular site will have the exact same issues HN does, so if the point is merely to change decision makers by those jockeying for influence then its a pointless exercise of exaggerating issues to gain influence, ironically how most new products are launched on HN these days.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've noticed that a lot of submissions have had their titles changed recently (past month or two). I wasn't aware that users were allowed to change their own titles - I was chalking this up to moderators "curating" articles.

How often do users change the titles of their submissions? There's no way to tell.

</comment><comment><USER34> This a great analysis. I would love to see a public page displaying title changes so that I could click "request explanation" and the mods could offer an explanation for those every day based on reader interest.

Whatever is going on to achieve it, HN is a great online community, and so maybe that is due to the moderation. Sometimes I wonder if it might be _in spite of_ the moderation, but who knows :)

the precipitous drop that happens to stories after their titles have been changed shows a very strong editorial bias going on. I think there is a general strategy of keeping highly controversial political topics off of HN.

The question is, when does this sort of censorship constitute an ideological crackdown in its own right.

</comment><comment><USER35> What I personally dislike is the "spam filter". I sometimes hit it when participating in multiple threads and it says "You're submitting too fast, please slow down" \- and it does not reset itself after sometimes over 8 hours.

<comment><USER8> That's a sign that your account is rate-limited. We rate limit accounts when they repeatedly get involved in flamewars or regularly break the site guidelines or post lots of low-quality (for HN) comments. It's a crude tool but one of the few we have to prevent such things from overrunning the site.

I took a quick look at your recent history and it seems fine, so I'll take the rate limit off. But to prevent it from kicking in again, please stick to civil, substantive comments that scrupulously follow [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). I recall that we had to ask you many times in the past not to violate that, but hopefully it's all in the past now and things will be nice and guideliney going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I always felt like there was something weird about rankings when it came to HN.

I recall submitting something that got around 7 upvotes in 30 minutes but it got dead and buried and never presented itself on the front page. The content wasn't edgy and it wasn't clickbait.

But a few days later I saw an unrelated post with 2 upvotes after 1 full hour and it was magically on the front page.

If a post with 2 upvotes after 1 hour can be on the front page but a post with 7 upvotes in 30 minutes is not, then surely there needs to be some type of manual intervention happening. Glad to see there's data showing this now and I'm not going crazy.

</comment><comment><USER37> Interesting to see the ability to take away downvoting is not mentioned. After downvoting one person (who made multiple offensive contributions) in a single thread, I noticed later I could no longer downvote comments (but the downvote button still appeared). Ultimately, I think the secretive and subjective approach to moderation at Hacker News has resulted in a positive outcome, but it's still surprising to run into the limits on occasion.

</comment><comment><USER38> There are two other features not listed: submission throttling for comments (which I suspect mods have some influence on) and slow banning (making the site slow for flagged users).

For a different approach to moderation, check out Lobsters.

<comment><USER8> Re rate-limiting see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15513929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15513929). Slow-banning was dropped years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > title change and derank

I don't understand why the articles shown that had to their titles changed also were deranked.

</comment><comment><USER40> I used to worry about downvotes, now I find solace in having annoyed the downvoters.

<comment><USER41> I agree that if you never get down votes, then you're not adding maximum value.

<comment><USER40> That was inspiring! Thank you for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Moderators don't "censor".

They _moderate_.

</comment><comment><USER43> "Censorship by moderators"

How about:

"Curation by moderators"

<comment><USER44> "Censorship by Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China"

How about:

"Curation by Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China"

<comment><USER45> There's a difference between a state actor controlling the whole of the public arena and a private individual controlling their own privately-sponsored forum; the latter allows you to crack open a blog and flog whatever opinion you want, and the former does not. I admit there's some gray area for something like google, which by virtue of its size and role as intermediary has censorship abilities approaching governmental levels.

Freedom of Speech is a restriction on the government, not a duty on the part of private individuals to let you come in and piss on their living room carpet.

<comment><USER26> This argument is touted around a lot to justify censorship by private parties. Don't be misled - it _is_ censorship. The law doesn't protect this kind of speech, which means they are _legally permitted_ to participate in censorship, but it is censorship all the same. Yours is a common and poor argument for justifying this behavior. There are plenty of things which are both _legal_ and _immoral_. I would prefer to participate in a transparently moderated community where the rules are clearly defined and aren't selectively enforced. This makes for a better community.

They don't have a _legal obligation_ to behave this way, but that needs to stop being used as an excuse to shut down discussions on how to make the community better.

<comment><USER46> This ends up being a debate about word choice, and I normally hate that. But there is good reason to distinguish the two carefully, and the easiest way to do that is word choice.

I cannot, by definition, censor someone. I can ban them from my systems, kick them out of my home, refuse to listen to them and tell all my friends to ignore them, but I can't censor them, because I do not have the power of the state behind my decision. The difference is I can do all of those things, but nobody else needs to put up with my antics. If Dang banned you, you can still talk on thousands of other places.

I absolutely agree with you that this argument is used to shut down discussions, but that doesn't mean the distinction isn't important. Just listen to all the dishonest, deceptive bullshit we hear from politicians defending themselves by whining about the First Amendment when criticized, as if their right to speech is a right to be free from criticism. The problem being, of course, that people who don't necessarily know better fall for it and suddenly believe false things about how free speech works.

<comment><USER26> >I cannot, by definition, censor someone. I can ban them from my systems, kick them out of my home, refuse to listen to them and tell all my friends to ignore them, but I can't censor them, because I do not have the power of the state behind my decision. The difference is I can do all of those things, but nobody else needs to put up with my antics. If Dang banned you, you can still talk on thousands of other places.

I would argue that this is definitely censorship. Just because you can go somewhere else doesn't mean you aren't being censored - you are being denied access to the HN audience. Somewhere else isn't going to have the same audience. And that audience isn't making the decision - a small number of moderators are. But you're right that this is just down to pedantic word choice, feel free to discard this thread of the discussion if you'd rather not push the matter further.

>I absolutely agree with you that this argument is used to shut down discussions, but that doesn't mean the distinction isn't important. Just listen to all the dishonest, deceptive bullshit we hear from politicians defending themselves by whining about the First Amendment when criticized, as if their right to speech is a right to be free from criticism. The problem being, of course, that people who don't necessarily know better fall for it and suddenly believe false things about how free speech works.

I'm not here touting free speech like it's a legal right I have as a submitter and an obligation HN has as a publisher. Instead I'm touting it as a damn good idea that makes for a better medium for discussion and suggeting HN embraces it anyway.

<comment><USER46> > feel free to discard this thread of the discussion if you'd rather not push > the matter further

Think you're right. You completely ignored my point, so this is pointless. But the root issue is not different than, either through ignorance or deceptive calculation, claiming that copyright infringement is theft. It is a category error that negatively effects people's understanding of what's going on, so it matters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Moderators should in no way be able to bury posts or even nudge them downwards. This is a cowardly way to try to control discussion. If it isn't explicitly against the site rules, let the readers decide.

<comment><USER48> I've long come to accept that HN is a curated source, the voting is a kind of false-democracy to make it appear more democratic than it is.

Yes, likely >90% of the site is done through voting, but a significant amount of pruning and bumping clearly also occurs.

<comment><USER12> It's not a democracy at all. User votes are one signal the site uses among many. It's been like that since day one.

<comment><USER49> Sure... it's still mostly about votes right?

"Popular things go to the top" is a pretty good first approximation of the algorithm. You have things getting flagged to death for generating bad conversation/flamewars (kinda like parents telling kids to stop playing rough since people are getting hurt). There's the hiring posts. At least to me, it's always felt like moderation is happening at the margins.

<comment><USER12> Votes are a powerful signal here because they're the easiest signal to automate. That leads people to believe their HN votes are more sacred than they are. There has never been a point in the history of the site where it's ever been unclear that the site is ultimately run by the mods.

People complaining now should find someone who's been on here for a long time and ask what it was like under Paul Graham. Hint: not better.

<comment><USER13> I've given the mods here some grief and I think there's a lot of room to improve, but Thomas is one hundred percent right here. Graham's I-don't-have- time-for-this moderation was a much, much worse thing for the community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Paywalled articles are explicitly _not_ against the rules.

<comment><USER50> "It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds."

With the weakening of the Google workaround that's baked into the HN header, more and more submissions are going to run afoul of that condition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's ridiculous that mods can hide my comments but I can't delete them. If a post is removed, I should have the anility to revoke my license to tue copy and have it removed. Would DMCA cover that?

<comment><USER52> There's the EU right to be forgotten if a company does business in the EU, and the ability to ask the mods to delete things, which they do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Also posts I made were deleted, not even allowed to be seen even as 'dead'

<comment><USER19> If you would email us links to those comments at email@example.com we can take a look. That's not a moderation practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> >Consider appointing one or two moderators from the community, ideally people with less bias towards SV or startup culture

While I agree that this would be a great idea, it's laughable in that, as a service run by Y Combinator, it's always going to be for startup hucksters primarily and for the rest of the tech industry and Internet at large secondarily.

<comment><USER12> This site is overwhelmingly populated by people outside of startupland.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I am being auto shadow banned. Just look at dead comments to know how heavy moderated opinion is on HN.

HN controls what views they allow on their forum, certainly not a place to have a free and open discussion.

</comment><comment><USER31> Shadow banning isn't rare.

I've had accounts banned for no apparent reason, or for laughable reasons that are not even in the poorly written guidelines.

Moderators also have been repeatedly caught about heavy handed moderation. They control the platform, they control the message, they do not allow meta discussion, why believe anything they say?</comment>


High school student near Seattle builds coronavirus data website - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2020/high-school-student-near-seattle-builds-website-serve-leading-place-coronavirus-information/ <comment><AUTHOR> The website is [https://ncov2019.live/](https://ncov2019.live/). Looks like he submitted it on HN a month ago [0].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22280691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22280691)</comment>


I Got Paid to Improve Rich Kids' Personalities on Their College Applications - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xzpb3/how-rich-kids-pad-resumes-to-get-into-college <comment><USER2> > The fact of the matter is that these kids don't have passions, so they are > trying to do what others did with the test scores and buy their way in. > Trying to fake passion is hard. It's upsetting that people would pay good > money rather than trying to cultivate it themselves.

I didn't have any "passions" when I was 17. I know few people that did. Instead of mocking "rich kids", why don't we ask why a college should care about our personality or passions. Some people just want to go to school, find a career, start a family and live a normal happy life.

<comment><USER3> A college should care about personality and passion because the college's prerogative, if it's so inclined, is to cultivate culture. Consider a student body where no one has any passions or personality. Seems pretty grim to me.

That said, I don't think it's reasonable for colleges to insist that _every_ entering student already be well-formed. After all, acculturation is one of the things that happens (or is supposed to happen) _in_ college.

</comment></comment><comment> dfeojm-zlib It's not what you know, what you achieve or what you can do; it's who you know, who your parents are and how much money they have. Basically, the same as the criminal justice system.

I don't think "personality" rates very high in the interview process; it's really more about legacy, money and other pedigree qualities. They may swear up-and-down about diversity and other feel-good, aspirational virtues, but they're a business bent on exclusivity, first and foremost.

</comment><comment><USER4> The person who wrote this, who is pretty clearly very fond of themself, seems about as dull as the kids they are disparaging. Who brags about being in varsity swimming and making highschool honors as an adult?</comment>


The 'Busy' Trap - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/?smid=re-share

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4184317>

Was only posted to the homepage 2 days ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. It's my first posting, though my 2nd time in the last year that I've tried to post. The first time, HN automatically told me my link had been posted before, so I assumed if the link had already been submitted, I would be informed by HN's algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> related

Google Tech Talk, "No Time to Think" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHGcvj3JiGA>

<comment><USER3> For me, I need more time to not think.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why did Evernote fail? - <AUTHOR> We recently saw news of layoffs at Evernote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18019219
It seems like they've been trending downwards for quite a while.
I have noticed that there are a myriad of notes apps options (like Bear, Notion), but none of them seem to be thriving where Evernote should be leaving space. In your opinion, what do these notes apps (especially Evernote) fail?
What should they be trying to build and what did they build instead? What did they not understand about their users? <comment><USER2> That's a big question but let me start with a prediction: Notion is a fantastic product that will take off more than Evernote.

The reason Evernote became so popular is that they build a great product for the time. What Evernote was capable of 10 years ago (rich editing of HTML, storing PDFs, search across notes) was unique and very hard to do.

Additionally they quickly adopted their product to mobile explosion, made iOS and Android apps.

The reason they are loosing ground is because what they do is no longer so hard to replicate and they software stagnated and even got worse (my personal opinion of e.g. their redesign of web UI).

Notion showed what a note taking application built with modern technologies can be. The model (nested pages vs. flat collection of notes in Evernote) is better and they are more ambitious (see e.g. table integration). Notion is just getting started while I can't name one important improvement in Evernote in last 5 years.

<comment><USER3> I thought Notion was just for teams. Do people really use it individually?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Suits who don't love the product in charge. That's it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if that's true, what exactly are they doing wrong?

<comment><USER5> Their product is kind of sloppy with uncomfortable UX. In general the direction of their product seems lacking. For example, they have a mostly- broken chat feature that I doubt most people use. Why have it at all? It just makes the product look lower quality. Also, I find it's not intuitive or easy to organize/search notes in Evernote. To me, there's little benefit of using Evernote personally when I can just use the Notes app builtin to macOS, or iA Writer which now supports tags and has a BEAUTIFUL interface.

For teams, why would I use Evernote when I can use some kind of internal Wiki or Google Docs for easy collaborative editing? Otherwise some project management software like Trello or Asana for anything team related would fill any other potential needs. I certainly won't be using Evernote for their builtin team chat feature.</comment></comment></comment>


Free as in? - <AUTHOR> http://www.relativesanity.com/articles/history-repeating

<comment><USER2> > Freedom isn't freedom from all consequence: it's freedom from state mandated > consequence. It's the ability to say what you want and not lose any of your > rights as a result.

A classic libertarian error. To me, freedom is freedom from social coercion whoever it is from. People are free to a greater or lesser extent within relationships, within families, within communities, within economies and within non-state organizations.

There is nothing special about the state in this regard.

<comment><USER3> The context is America's constitution, in which case it specifically is freedom from state mandated consequences.

        there is a worry that his stepping down represents a degradation of his right to Free Speech, as enshrined in his country's constitution.

Under that context, the article is spot on. If you widen the sorts of freedoms your talking about, as I think some of the people were when talking about this situation, then it all becomes a big tangled mess. If you give one person freedom, you're taking it away from someone else.

It is perhaps a worthwhile discussion to have, but it's still important to note that specifically the American constitution doesn't protect you from people telling you you're being a bellend.

<comment><USER4> Under that context, it sounds like a straw man. I have literally not seen one person concerned about his Constitutional rights being violated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> History will judge Eich just fine. He's a great technologist, and the Open Web owes a huge debt to him. He's probably done more for equality and inclusiveness than anyone who protested his appointment.

That's the real tradgedy here: the world, and Mozilla, lost a great ally (for now.)

<comment><USER6> Noone disputes his tech skills or contribution. You're missing the point here.

<comment><USER7> His tech skills and his contribution are all that matters when it comes to leading a tech company. You're the one that's missing the point here.</comment></comment></comment>


Java Web Framework Tournament 2008 - <AUTHOR>

Found this today, really really liked it thought I'd share it.
I notice most people here are not big Java fans, but this is still really good.
The first round:http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/tournament-1st-round/
The second round: http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/tournament-round-2/
The third round (quarter finals): http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/tournament-semifinals/
The fourth round (semi-finals): http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/java-tournament-final-four/
The fith last and final round: http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/java-tournament-championship/
I think all debates should end like this! <comment><USER2> Clickable links:

The first round:[http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/tournament-1st-...](http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/tournament-1st- round/)

The second round: [http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/tournament- roun...](http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/tournament-round-2/)

The third round (quarter finals): [http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/tournament- semi...](http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/tournament-semifinals/)

The fourth round (semi-finals): [http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/java- tournament...](http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/java-tournament- final-four/)

The fith last and final round: [http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/java- tournament...](http://audiblesmirk.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/java-tournament- championship/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This just proves there are way too many frameworks.

</comment><comment><USER4> not a big surprise, jRoR wins.</comment>


Fixing Twitter's Design with uBlock Origin - <AUTHOR> https://schleiss.io/fixing-twitter-design-with-extension/ <comment><USER2> Simply disabling javascript redirects to an older, much cleaner version. Also without massive use of white space.</comment>


The Mobile Playbook - <AUTHOR> http://www.themobileplaybook.com/ <comment><USER2> Does Google really know how to "win with mobile"?</comment>


Let's Be Honest with Ourselves - <AUTHOR> http://empathicresponse.com <comment><USER2> HOLY ADVERTISEMENT, BATMAN

</comment><comment><USER3> this is just a "read my book" post

<comment><AUTHOR> Not a book, but a deck of 100 cards. It's psychoanalysis by word association, based on the Association Method by CG Jung.</comment></comment>


Stock Market: What Happens If Tesla Enters S&P 500 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-31/stock-market-what-happens-if-tesla-enters-s-p-500 <comment><USER2> The S&P 500 made sense when tracking all public companies would have been too much work, but this kind of bookkeeping has gotten much easier. For example, Vanguard offers a low-fee total stock market index: [https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual- funds/profile/VTSMX](https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/VTSMX)

If your model is "buy everything" then you avoid many awkward situations like this one.

<comment><USER3> Kindof. The mere fact that the S&P 500 exists causes the potential jump in price for that one stock, but since you hold everything in VTSMX, you also see the jump in TSLA.

Worse, since you own every stock (not really, but close enough), you now have the 500 companies representing about $27 trillion of market cap, and then thousands more representing only another $8-9 trillion. So any change in the smaller companies is dwarfed by one good (or bad) day of AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, etc (as happened yesterday).

So if you want the whole stock market, buy it in multiple pieces - a large cap, a small cap, and a mid-cap funds.

As to your bookkeeping comment about being easier, you are absolutely correct. In fact, a competent financial advisor has the tools to trade the S&P themselves for clients (literally buying all 500 stocks individually and in correct proportions to the index).

Market cap source: [https://siblisresearch.com/data/us-stock-market- value/](https://siblisresearch.com/data/us-stock-market-value/)

<comment><USER2> _> So any change in the smaller companies is dwarfed by one good (or bad) day of AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, etc (as happened yesterday)._

This doesn't seem that bad to me?

Imagine that you own FOO and BAR. They're each 1% of your holdings and each 1% of the US stock market. Now they merge. How much of your holdings should be the new company FOOBAR? Seems to me like it should be 2% now that FOOBAR is ~2% of the market.

AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, etc each represent a large number of products and businesses, and I don't see why you'd want to decrease your exposure just because they trade under a single stock symbol.

<comment><USER4> One of the commonly expressed intents for buying indices is lazy diversification. By having vastly unevenly-weighted indices, one fails to accomplish that aim.

Assuming diversification is the goal, your comment would only be true (that 1+1 and 2 are equivalent) if the constituent parts of hyper-scale companies operated independently. In reality, I'd say that rarely happens.

At best, you get something like Facebook (there can only be so many true chiefs). At worst, you get something like GE (cannibalizing viable businesses to feed others).

And all of this is to say nothing of that fact that, historically, Amazons don't become 2x Amazons with the frequencies that {mid-cap} become {large cap}, simply by virtue of total addressable market maximums in mature business areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see an edge here. It could very well be that the stock sells off when the announcement comes because it has been well anticipated. This is not a risk-free trade as some make it out to be. Proceed with caution.

</comment><comment><USER6> More in-depth analysis by Rob Mauer:

\- Part 1 [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JN8PNPBkaWc](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JN8PNPBkaWc) \- Part 2 [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3v-FFbdd_VM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3v-FFbdd_VM)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if it would be good time to do another equity raise. They raised 2 billion dollars earlier this year at a price of 767 (1,430 now) to fuel their growth because they thought there share price was high then.

Once the inclusion is announced, it seems like a perfect time to me to announce another massive capital raise to further fuel their growth now that their share price is almost double from their previous raise and the index funds are going to have to buy about $35 billion to $40 billion of shares to get to the proper weighting according to the article. Why not do a massive capital raise which the index funds will buy a ton of to help get them to the proper weighting.

<comment><USER6> They don't need to, and it would make no sense to further dilute current shareholders. They have enough cash for operations and investments, free cash flow is increasing fast and will continue to do so, it makes no sense for shareholders to do a secondary to be included in the SP500 (the SP500 board may ask Tesla to offer liquidity but that is the index funds' problem not Tesla's, and such a concession would only benefit front runners instead of long terms investors). Besides, if market cap continue to grows as expected, SP500 will have to add TSLA at any price (otherwise the whole concept of SP 500 Index would be at risk). Also, many are waiting for Batter and Powertrain day to assess Tesla's ability to ramp production to 10+ million EVs in ~2030) so unless those plans disappoint, raising equity before September would be a let down.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't seem to me like current shareholders are paying a lot of attention to the fundamentals, and will be just as happy to bid the price into the stratosphere after a further dilution as they were to bid it into the stratosphere after the most recent dilution.

The fact of the matter is that the entire purpose of the stock market is _supposed_ to be to direct capital into productive investments. There is absolutely no way that Tesla management can look at the next 10-20 years of global economic and business developments (a period in which Tesla will likely be fighting for its survival as traditional automakers finally begin to compete in the EV space) and conclude that "gosh, there is no set of circumstances in which we could execute better with a few billion dollars of additional reserve capital in the bank."

<comment><USER9> I think the Feb raise by Tesla was probably done because they (Musk) thought that COVID-19 would hit the US and cause a lot problems, unlike most people at the time. Diluting his holdings to put $2 billion in the bank for Tesla to get through the COVID problems seemed like a good idea. Now it looks like Tesla is not going to be hit as hard as he predicted and Musk would like to keep his percent ownership in Tesla as high as possible. He has said that when he needs personal cash he borrows against his stock holdings rather than selling them(at the tune of about $1 billion at the moment, iirc).

Musk has also said that growth in his companies are mostly people constrained and not capital constrained. His companies can raise capital any time they decide it is a good idea.

<comment><USER8> I guess I'm old enough to remember 2019, when Elon Musk raised the specter of the company running out of cash if they didn't engage in massive cost cutting [1,2]. Or even 2018, when Tesla's stock price crashed because Musk was joking about bankruptcy [3].

But leaving recent history aside: the fact of the matter is that Tesla is now valued at 136% the market capitalization of Toyota, an organization that currently ships about 50x more vehicles each year than Tesla does.

The only possible way for Tesla to achieve earnings from car sales that justify this stock price* (on a reasonable time scale) is to build out their manufacturing capabilities at an unimaginable scale and pace. The amount of capital that this will require is vastly higher than anything Tesla has raised before. And since the period we're discussing is long enough that we can't predict global market conditions, Tesla may find themselves doing this remarkable build-out during a period where capital isn't easy or inexpensive to come by.

* I'm assuming here that the market cap of Tesla reflects some realistic theory about future earnings, and isn't just a massive and unjustified bubble. Which it probably is.

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629166/elon-musk- tesla-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629166/elon-musk-tesla-money- changes-cfo-employee-expenses) [2] [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-may- avert-bankruptcy-bu...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-may-avert- bankruptcy-but-it-will-still-needs-1-billion-in-cash-201304219.html) [3] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-shares-sink-as-musk- jokes...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-shares-sink-as-musk-jokes-about- bankruptcy-1522682691)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Vanguard has a search page where you can see how much Tesla (or any other stock) is in various Vanguard funds and ETF's. For example, it looks like it's 0.3% for VTI. [1]

[1] [https://advisors.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/advisor/analysi...](https://advisors.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/advisor/analysistools/holdingssearch?searchinfo=TSLA&isin=&orgCode=&selectedFunds=)

</comment><comment><USER11> For more on S&P, an interview with one of the committee members:

> _Today on the Rational Reminder Podcast we have joining us Dr. David Blitzer > who is the Managing Director and Chairman of the S &P Dow Jones index > committee. He has been there from the time when indexes were barely even > being traded and the first time S&P Futures began trading, and since then, > indexing has turned into the massive phenomenon we all know today. Indeed, > S&P indexes were (and still is) at the center of this explosion. Today Dr. > Blitzer talks to us about the early days of indexing and shares some of his > ideas about why indexing became so popular. We also discuss the possible > reasons why some people still choose actively managed funds and the effect > that the abundance of research has had on their dwindling appeal. Ever > wondered where the rapid growth in indexing will end up? What happens after > indexing? Can indexing become too big? Be sure to join us for this > masterclass on indexing!_

* [https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast/54](https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast/54)

Blitzer recently retired:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Blitzer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Blitzer)

</comment><comment><USER12> My take:

\- Buy some TSLA now that its price has fallen recently.

\- Try to find out what other S&P 500 stocks would hedge fund managers have to sell to make room for TSLA. I suspect these won't be best-performing or long- term most promising stocks. Sell / short them now before they plunge, if you hold them for whatever reason.

<comment><USER13> The S&P committee can ask Tesla to issue shares to be sold directly to large funds so that the price doesn't move too much. This could be an opportunity for Tesla to raise 10 to 20B, which wouldn't be such a bad move, as it would allow them to erase all their debt and build more gigafactories or make acquisitions. So there is no guarantee that the stock price will go up even if Tesla gets included.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> An observation someone made before the recent Q2 results were announced:

> _They will almost certainly make a profit [this quarter]. Last year they > lost $400 MM in Q2. This year they sold almost exactly the same number of > cars. They sold them at lower prices. They operated two car factories > instead of one, which drives up fixed costs. There is no reason they should > genuinely do better this year than last. But, since we are all willing to be > blind to this obvious book cooking, they will, for sure, announce a profit._

* [https://www.thebeartrapsreport.com/blog/2020/07/19/gaming-th...](https://www.thebeartrapsreport.com/blog/2020/07/19/gaming-the-sp-500-inclusion-process/)

<comment><USER14> I think "book cooking" is a bit exaggerated.

They received a larger amount of government incentives, and more cars sold means more software sold (autopilot, etc), which has huge margins.

That's, in my humble view, the main reason why they managed to make a profit, despite the larger capex you have mentioned.

I'm not a Tesla fanboy but I have to admit that, besides the currently hyped stock price, I think it's a company that will do well in the long run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does this mean if I bought an all-cap etf, I won't be overpaying or get front runed? VTI for instance already holds Tesla shares.

<comment><USER16> Your not over paying or getting front runed regardless, so I guess the answer is yes.

<comment><USER17> Just FYI, if you are buying on Robinhood or similar service, you are getting front-runed. That's why it's free.

<comment><USER15> That sounds super illegal: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBBO](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBBO) do you have a source to back up your claims?

<comment><USER17> It would be illegal if Robinhood did the front running. They don't. Instead they sell your trade to a HFT firm to execute. What do you think is going on at the other side of that trade.

They're dancing around the legal definition of front running, and they've gotten their hand slapped in the past for it. (E.g. they were fined $1.25M in 2019 for actual front running per the legal definition.)

<comment><USER15> >It would be illegal if Robinhood did the front running. They don't. Instead they sell your trade to a HFT firm to execute.

I'm skeptical that this interpretation/loophole actually exists. If you're executing the trade, you're the broker. Shuffling it between firms doesn't absolve you of the responsibility. The fact they got fined means it clearly didn't work.

<comment><USER17> What they got fined for was playing brokers off each other for the same order in order to maximize their fee. This violates the best execution principle. Now they give each order to one broker only, irregardless of the fee.

But why is the broker giving a fee to Robinhood to handle the trade? That only makes sense for them to do if they have the stock available at a lower price point than the Robinhood user is getting--had the order gone straight to market it would have cleared at a better price.

The broker is paying Robinhood for the burden of handling the order. Why? What's the profit for them? If they just sent your order to the market and it cleared at the market rate, there is none. Instead they do a number of tricks that are designed to profit off of foreknowledge of the order before it hits the market, while trying not to run afoul of front-running regulations. When they succeed, they do so by taking money that you left on the table.

All that said, I still use Robinhood. I don't trade at high enough volumes to get upset over these hidden costs, and I'm under no illusions that other retail brokerages aren't doing exactly the same thing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Humans Have Color Vision - <AUTHOR> http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/06/why-humans-have-color-vision-and-other-qs-as-with-neuroscientist-mark-changizi/

<comment><USER2> _"Why do humans see in color vision when many animals don't? ... My hypothesis was that it was about sensing emotions or health on the skin of others."_

Reminds me of one of my favorite books since childhood: "Darwin's Radio" by Greg Bear.</comment>


Ask HN: What Can You Do with a BA in English? - <AUTHOR> My Brother recently returned from teaching English in Japan for the last 5 years.  He's in his mid 20's and eager to attempt starting a Career in tech.
Outside of suggesting that he "Learn Python", I'm really not sure where to direct him.  I'm not sure what type of entry job he could look for with a startup or major corp.
So - What can you do when all you've got is a kickass GPA from a good school and 5 years of international work experience? <comment><USER2> Nobody cares what your undergrad degree is in, maybe with the exception of your first job search. He needs to acquire and demonstrate some skills and build 'career capital' (including valuable relationships); it does take time to get traction.

Personally, I think non-STEM degrees demonstrate intellectual ability and curiosity to think about the vast majority world that is not defined by algorithms. It suggests someone who wants more from his intellect and the world than a job. He should use it to differentiate himself.

<comment><USER3> That path worked for me, from English to being director of engineering at a tech startup. My English background has been useful in building out a sentiment analysis engine to glean actionable insights from business reviews. An intimate knowledge of English language constructs isn't something that you find in every engineer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Write documentation, get an MBA at night, VP of international sales.</comment>


Firefox extension liberates US court docs from paywall  - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/recap-firefox-extension-builds-crowdsourced-pacer-mirror.ars <comment><USER2> I sent this link to a friend of mine who's a corporate lawyer for a large international firm - her first response was "PACER sucks so hard right now; maybe this will make it better", followed a few minutes later with "this is pretty cool, but I think IT would flip if I installed it."

I think these comments were pretty indicative of what the RECAP people need to do in order to make this really successful. My friend is exactly the kind of person they would love to use this plugin - she has an essentially unlimited PACER budget, and pulls 20 or so obscure cases a day out of it. She wants to use it, but firm policy stands in her way.

Based on this, maybe the following would help its expansion:

\- For the lawyers, add some functionality to it. As opposed to making it just a plug-in that copies data to the Internet Archive, make it a mini PACER- specific browsing environment, something like ScribeFire or Firebug. I don't know what PACER is missing (she says there's no built-in _Find_ , for example), but I find it very hard to believe that if you pointed a decent UX designer at PACER for a few days they could find some things that could be fixed by a plug-in. Add some value, and get PACER's daily users (the line attorneys) on-side.

\- For the firm, have someone whose job it is to bring large firms on board - don't just rely on viral marketing to penetrate a large organization like an international firm. Explain how it will only make lawyers more productive, how it will cost them nothing, how no identifying data will leak out about their searches (and provide an external legal & technological opinion to back this up), and how they can consider it as an aspect of their pro-bono work. Add some value from the firm's perspective, so the have a reason to spend some money (in the form of time) to getting this installed.

\- For the firm's IT department, produce a guide to the source code (so they can understand it if they want to), and a report from an external consultant that did a code review of it that explains how there's no security bugs or possibility of extra charging.

Getting small firms to use this will provide some benefit, but I suspect the real win would come if a few big US firms (on the scale of Clifford Chance/Linklaters/Jones Day) added this to their official corporate desktop images. These are the guys that have unlimited PACER accounts, and that access somewhat more obscure cases that smaller firms wouldn't need access to (and would probably already find in the index).

<comment><USER3> Large law firms are going to be a difficult target.

1\. They would be concerned that disclosing to the RECAP people exactly what research they've been doing on PACER could violate client confidence. (They might be wrong, but someone somewhere is going to raise this as a legal risk sufficient to tank the whole idea).

2\. The idea of giving away for free something that cost them money is just not part of the DNA.

3\. Windows and Internet Explorer dominate, so a Firefox extension is just not going to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> See here also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=763039>

</comment><comment><USER5> This has a great deal of potential to make knowledge of the law and an understanding of the way government truly works more widely available.

</comment><comment><USER6> What about sites like <http://openjurist.org/> ? Disclaimer: I've currently working on improving this site

</comment><comment><USER7> If they have problems getting enough users to participate, accounts could be created and associated with the plug-in, then donations to a foundation could fund reimbursements of say, $0.04 per document.</comment>


The Differences Between the Plane Crash in Tapei and the Miracle on Hudson - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/23/dominoes/fear-in-the-cockpit <comment><USER2> It's hard to imagine how safe US passenger airlines have become. From the start of 2002 to now, there have been only 115 airliner fatalities in the US. That's 8.7 deaths per year. That's one death per 68,965,517,241 airline passenger miles flown.

It's an incredible human achievement.

I make a hobby of reading through NTSB avaition an maritime accident reports. It's a fascinating look at how to create almost failure free systems out of mechanical things that break and humans that do stupid things.

<comment><USER3> An interesting facet of this is that even though the death rate is extremely low, the authorities still want to get it to zero. And it's becoming _really hard_ , because failures are no longer happening often enough to be able to analyze them properly.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure it is more difficult, but you should be able to measure significant non-fatal events.

For instance hospitals (and some industries) measure sentinel events [1][2]. Sentinel events cause death or serious permanent injury, or events that _could_ cause death or serious permanent injury.

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

2: I couldn't find a reference for industry, but I know they are recorded because I went through the training.

<comment><USER5> The US instituted what's called the 'Aviation Safety Reporting System' in the mid-1970s, which is a program administered by NASA. Any airline employee can file confidential reports about near-misses or other safety issues to an independent party, which then analyzes and aggregates the info to make safety changes.

I think it's a large part of why the US airline industry has become so much safer over time. Having a lower-bound number for altitude overshoots or communication problems is immensely useful for policy.

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

<comment><USER6> The general ASRS reporting form can be filled out by almost anyone, not just an airline employee. Most typically it's pilots, including general aviation pilots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this is a bit of an unfair comparison. Sullenberger had 3000 feet at time of engine loss and Transasia had a max altitude of 1050 feet, and lost the first engine at around 3-500 feet. Yes it was their own fault but no engines at 1000 feet is a different story than 3000, and you could even argue that single engine failure just after takeoff requires more taxing immediate action - possibly especially in a turboprop where I think you have to feather.

Also, as the article mentions, the river is much less suitable for ditching than the Hudson.

*edit apart from the comparison, I think it's a pretty good article.

<comment><USER8> It is an unfair comparison but not in the way you suggest. Sullenberger was going to have some sort of plane crash, he didn't have any good options, he was over Manhattan without the ability to reach a runway by glide and no engine power.

By contrast the Taipei flight has a perfectly good working engine and should have had no problem reaching a runway and landing with minor drama at worst.

There is no question that losing an engine in a twin prop plane on takeoff is among the more gnarly problems you can have but there is absolutely no reason the plane had to depart from controlled flight.

It is pilot error that caused the deaths of dozens of passengers, period. Without said error that plane would have been able to land at an airport and taxi back to a gate.

(Source - I have a pilots license)

<comment><USER9> Although it happened on takeoff, they were at about 1000ft, so it's not an immediate "do or die" moment. They should have been trained to calmly identify the failed engine before feathering it. Many high-time pilots say that the first thing you should do when an engine fails in cruise flight is _absolutely nothing_. You need to relax and calmly assess the situation. Although they weren't in cruise, they certainly had enough altitude to be able to take 10 seconds to calm down and properly identify the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > What's the difference between Sullenberger, who was able to innovate > solutions in the face of imminent death, and Liao, who apparently panicked > and shut down the wrong engine?

They mentioned Sullenberger's experience, but he also had more than twice the altitude when he lost engine power. Still an emergency, but he had a bit more time to think about it.

<comment><USER3> That's just the thing, though: Liao had all the time in the world to think about it. There was no imminent danger, until he created it. Losing an engine on takeoff is a bona fide emergency, but the only immediate actions you need to take are to keep the airplane straight and keep your speed up. For everything else, you can take your time and analyze.

Sully, on the other hand, had a minute or two before he was going to run out of altitude, no matter what he did. Every moment counted there, in a way that it definitely didn't count in the Taipei crash (until the pilot made it that way).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This video [0] of a bird strike on a 757 always makes my heart beat faster.

For the first time, I just counted the timing. Bird strike is at ~10 seconds. Pilot waits until ~20 seconds to call "Mayday". Only at ~32 seconds does he shut down the damaged engine.

If the Taipei pilot had taken the same time to get his bearings before acting, everyone might have survived.

In terms of the value of training, I love how cooly the air traffic controller responds to the Mayday.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm glad the article touched on experience, as there is compelling evidence that it is a critical factor in safety:

[http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline- safety](http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/foreign-airline-safety)

<comment><USER13> It is indeed, but according to the article, the Taipei pilot had five thousand hours of flight experience. If five thousand hours of experience is not sufficient answer, it's time to reevaluate the question.

<comment><USER3> There's more to experience than just time. Variety counts for a lot as well. Sully, for example, had glider experience, which was certainly helpful when his Airbus suddenly became a glider.

There's a saying in aviation that one pilot may have a thousand hours of experience, while another pilot may merely have a hundred hours of experience repeated ten times.

<comment><USER14> I would agree.

Capt. Sully is known for being involved in aviation safety before Flight 1549 put him on the front page. It was like decades of training and experience, was leading up to that one day in January 2009 when Flight 1549 was able to land safely in the Hudson.

Some career pilots have very little stick-and-rudder (& thrust lever) experience, and fly on autopilot for thousands of hours. Shutting down the wrong engine is either very poor piloting, or a systemic training issue.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure about it being poor piloting or bad training to shut down the wrong engine. My kind of flying involves no engines at all (I'm a glider pilot), but my understanding is that shutting down the wrong engine after an engine failure in a multi-engine airplane is a somewhat common mistake. Experienced pilots do make basic mistakes, sometimes even more often than inexperienced pilots, because they let their guard down.

I believe the true failure here wasn't shutting down the wrong engine, but trying to shut down the bad engine _at all_ while still so low. Shutting down a failed engine is not a priority. It can windmill and tear itself to shreds for a little bit while you keep the airplane flying, get to a safe altitude, and figure out what to do. Multi-engine pilots I've talked to about this have said that it's standard procedure not to shut down a bad engine below a certain altitude, precisely so you're not screwed if you go for the wrong one by accident.

A common cause of aviation accidents is a pilot responding to an emergency by making it worse. A safety class I went through recently presented a case where a pilot thought he was low on fuel, decided to land at a nearby airport, botched the landing by coming in high, fast, and downwind, and crashed off the end of the runway. Turned out the fuel gauge was faulty. There's a famous C-5 crash that's similar to this Taipei crash, in which an engine failed, the pilot shut down the opposite engine by mistake, and then botched the landing because he flew as if he still had three engines instead of two. A semi- frequent cause of glider crashes is a pilot failing to lock their canopy which then comes open in flight, and the pilot tries to fix it instead of flying the airplane. They key isn't to ensure you do the right thing fast, but to make sure you prioritize and don't do _anything_ fast that isn't immediately necessary. Engines fail? Find a spot to land, right now. _One_ engine fails? Keep climbing and breathe, _then_ take your time to decide what to do next.

<comment><USER14> For turboprop aircraft, if the engine is producing power (eg. oil leak) then keep it running until at a safe altitude. If the engine isn't producing power, then the prop may need to be feathered to keep the aircraft climbing.

Certified passenger turboprop aircraft (ATR-72 included) should be able to maintain altitude, without feathering the failed engine.

I was thinking of British Midlands flight 92, where an experienced crew that were new to the 737-400 misread the vibration instruments, and shut down the wrong engine, at altitude. Poor training on the -400 differences was a major factor.

Experienced pilots do screw up occasionally, but good CRM usually avoids a mistake snowballing into a fatal crash.

In a Cessna 150, I had the window come open on takeoff. Same aircraft, same instructor, same thing happened to my dad years before. He told my dad to "Fly the plane".. I knew not to close the window until at a safe altitude. He just smirked a little.

<comment><USER15> >where an experienced crew that were new to the 737-400 misread the vibration instruments,

That's not quite what happened. The vibration instruments on earlier models were known to be unreliable, so the pilot tried to figure out which engine had failed using other indications (I forget which).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It makes me wonder if there's any medical way ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation) ?) to jam the fight-or-flight mechanism, and force human pilots to stay cool as a cucumber?

<comment><USER17> There is - experience in critical situations of similar nature. Experience makes it less severe and more manageable. Couple personal examples.

I did teakwondo and kickboxing. When I was starting Teakwondo (~16 year old) first sparrings were dominated by fear and anxiety. I didnt know how to act, what to expect, I was physically shaking. Fast forward few months and I was in control, anxiety turned into excitement, fear into caution. My body and mind learned to use that sudden adrenaline injection to my advantage. Two years later I moved to kickboxing. Its very different sport, more violent, faster and can be significantly more painful in the ring, nonetheless my experience from teakwondo translated perfectly. Since then I had couple of dangerous situations on the street (drunk idiots, football fans etc) and again I was in control of my body and reactions, my previous experience of being punched repeatedly in the face inside the ring helped me stay calm :)

Second example is virtual. Eve Online is a space themed MMO. Everything you own in the game has to be earned or paid for with real money, and all losses are persistent and final. Someone kills your ship worth two months of heavy missioning? its GONE forever. This design choice makes Eve Online the only computer game inducing real fight-or-flight reaction that I know of(outside tournaments/leagues). Losses can be as small as 10 minutes of your time (couple of cents), and as severe as $1000 blink mission ship you spend whole last year to build. First PVP fights in Eve were exactly the same as my first sparring 10 years before :) heart pounding, hands shaking, sphincter gripped tight etc :) and mistakes ending in expensive wrecks. It took some time and experience to fully take control of the situation.

Can write something about bike riding(crashing), but it will be the same story again :)

I wonder if pilots with military background, trained in battle sims in high pressure situations, are significantly better at handling emergency. My own experience makes me think definitely yes.

<comment><USER18> Motorcycle riders have the same issue. On a sportbike, if you enter a turn and your radius is not tight enough you will exit pavement before the road/track straightens.

Human instinct is to slow down, but on a bike this will have the effect of widening your turn radius—totally counterproductive. To tighten the turn radius, you need to accelerate and lean in (which you can do unless you're already dragging a knee).

<comment><USER19> I'm sure there are a million examples but I find snowboarding very similar. If you're going too fast the instinct is to lean back but that makes it extremely hard to turn into the mountain, but if you lean forward you can take the weight off the back foot and whip it over to turn into the mountain and weave some of the speed off.

Or when you're on ice and you really want to turn but just have to keep going straight until you hit a patch where you'll get some grip from the mountain cover.

<comment><USER20> yeah, I learned this very quickly when I started skiing.. lean back when you feel like you're going too fast and it's out of control time. I overcame that instinct very quickly!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Trying to explain aircraft accidents is hampered because the sample size is so small (literally anecdotal they are so infrequent), so making "inferences" about general rules from this is really unlikely to work. However, the psychological and social utility of explaining disasters to create the illusion of control is something which works. Also the investigations by the FAA and other bodies create reforms which improve safety. It somehow makes it easier to deal with if tragedies can be "resolved" by understanding what caused them, I guess it's part of the way that communities deal with tragedy. The ancients explained it by inventing elemental gods. We explain it with "rigorous investigations". I suppose because we're wired to try to learn from things which are dangerous, because that might help us survive.

Also, as tragic and sad as the crash in Taipei is, the swerve of that little yellow car in the dashcam still, and imagining the occupants' reactions as a they swerved to avoid the plane that was crossing in front of them, is quite priceless.

<comment><USER22> Our 'rigorous' investigation resulted in safer airline travel.

Our ancestors' attempt to explain it by inventing elemental gods and pleasing them...does nothing.

<comment><USER21> Exactly correct. It does result in safer travel, and worship of idols probably does not result in this! So there's a mix of tangible and intangible utility. :)

The entire public discourse of investigation, of which the actual result producing investigation is just a part, serves a narrative purpose akin to the ancients' gods. To some extent there's a spectacle of rigorous investigation and explanation in public discourse, and to that extent it's like worship for harvest. It makes us feel things are getting better when perhaps there are areas where we have little control. So there's a social utility and an engineering utility. That's the thesis anyway! Maybe it's all social or all engineering, tho I think each of those less likely than providing both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management)

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder why it wasn't possible to restart the mistakenly shut down engine. The article states that in first seconds after the shutdown, the pilots were unaware of their mistake. They then noticed the plane stopped climbing and actually went down even when pulling up the nose (which is counterproductive in that situation).

How long would it take to restart an engine and gain speed again?

<comment><USER25> You can't always restart a turboprop in flight. You need enough air moving over the blades (e.g. you have to be moving fast enough). How much airflow depends on the engine; every one is different. If you've got the airflow, it doesn't usually take very long but spooling up turboprops to the point where you're generating lift isn't instantaneous. More importantly you have to identify the issue, figure a remediation plan, and execute before you hit the ground. It's how much time you have before you hit the ground that's generally the limiting factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Proof, yet again, that computers should be flying planes.

Humans are absolutely terrible at two kinds of tasks: 1) boring, rote tasks that require continuous attention for long periods of time and 2) high-stress, quick decision bursts.

Which pretty much describes flying a plane.

<comment><USER27> Can a computer land in the Hudson? To generalize, how does the computer decide where to land?

<comment><USER28> > Can a computer land in the Hudson?

Well it did. One of the (probably lifesaving) actions that Sullenberger did was to deploy the RAT which meant electrical power was maintained. This was not a checklist item, merely something he though useful. This meant the computers were still firmly in control when the aircraft ditched and the stall protection they gave certainly helped the ditching.

Interestingly after the accident the NTSB and Airbus made a number of ditching simulations and it showed just how hard it was for pilots to achieve the correct entry mandated by the ditching certification (minimum speed, -1 degree approach). However one pilot, an Airbus test pilot, managed to do much better than this by levelling out at high speed and very low using the radar altimeter. He the allowed the speed to decay until the aircraft touched the 'water'. This unusual proceedure probably couldn't be done by many pilots but it could be done by a computer.

<comment><USER14> RAT is automatic. APU was started manually which allowed full electrical power and flight envelope protection.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I block HughesNet satellite provider? - <AUTHOR>

HughesNet is a satellite internet provider so I assume that traffic from their IP addresses is some proxy for their clients. Now these proxies seem to be broken as they don't seem to process relative links in css and javascript files correctly.
Our pages www.example.com include css and js files which are located on other hosts such as, static.example.com. These static css/js files include a relative link to static files ex. url(../i/corner.gif).  Everything works correctly, but the ip requests of  from HughesNet are requesting 1000s per minute of www.example.com/i/corner.gif
and all other static files that we use.  In fact they are requesting things like  www.example.com/google_ads.js which are files that are relatively linked from the google ads includes. Clearly these guys are doing something wrong. As you can imagine they request these at once, so I see things like 100 request in the same second to my web server.
What do you suggest? <comment><USER2> Why are you asking us?

Contact Hughes network administrator. They probably have a prefetching web caching server, that may be misconfigured or have a bug when interacting with your particular web server with your particular configuration...or your site may have some cache-control data botched. Or a little of both.

You have the offending IP addresses...look them up at ARIN.net, and find out who is responsible for their network. Send them an email with what you've just told us.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be their systems that are misconfigured.

Well I'm asking for a couple of reasons.

1\. To get advice like yours, which I followed in addition to sending emails to their main site.

2\. This is a somewhat interesting issue in that more and more sites simply pass every request to their script engine and then process the URI to determine what to do with it. This seems to be true on HN also as you get a response to every request.

If you go to <http://news.ycombinator.com/test.gif> this is being processed by the back end most likely. Now multiply this by 10 or 20 such requests for every 1 real page load from one of these misconfigured systems. This of course wastes a bunch of resources. In the least it may start sessions that don't need to be started, at the most, even db connections are made before module information is determined and the request can be rejected.

This is not just some single person on the net with a misconfigured cache/proxy but an ISP. This potentially means that all users using their ISP are causing much more load on sites than they need to be.

Is this trivial? It may seem so. In the old days this was a non issue. The server did not have that file and minimum resources were used to send a 404 response. Today, it's probably less likely, as your web app may be launching bootstrapping code, starting sessions, db connection, just to determine that this is a bad request.

3\. It's a warning for all us developers, that misconfigured systems like this do exist out there and you can take measures in designing your site to handle these with minimum resources.</comment></comment>


Google's censored search engine could actually help Chinese citizens - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-be-so-quick-to-write-off-googles-censored-search-engine-for-china/2018/08/16/208a518e-a09a-11e8-b562-1db4209bd992_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.741b4e4b6786 <comment><USER2> Tacit acceptance of censorship -- is this the logical destination of "don't be evil?" As if the Chinese people don't deserve truth and dignity; basic human rights. Along this spectrum of logic we would also argue that the North Korean "internet" is a good thing, as is all controlled media and news, too.

I find it repugnant to see the people in relatively free Western nations pull the ladder up after them; as if others don't deserve what we have (but now obviously take for granted). That's a form of soft bigotry. A condescending pat on the head and a tut-tutting, as if the simple people of China couldn't handle freedom and/or don't want it. The Tiananmen Square Massacre wasn't all that long ago, so we know that the latter is not true.

Obviously this decision is driven by money -- access to markets -- but what else? What is the ideology that makes this acceptable and justifiable in their minds, because I cannot understand it.

"Do you participate, or do you stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be?" \-- Tim Cook

Partnering with evil is evil. Empowering evil is evil. As is ignoring it.

Does anyone doubt that a report of all searchers for forbidden knowledge will be generated and turned over to Chinese leadership for "followup"?

But there's undoubtedly a lot of money to be made so what do I know.

<comment><USER3> _What is the ideology that makes this acceptable and justifiable in their minds, because I cannot understand it._

It's cultural relativism. Since every culture can only be judged within the value structure defined by that culture, every culture is good by default.

It tends to go hand in hand with the view that Western countries are destroying every other culture and thus are evil. It's a sickness spreading throughout the West, but in the US in particular.

<comment><USER4> That's not what cultural relativism is and that's not why Google is thinking about taking this step.

They are thinking about taking this step because:

a) they are a business, China is a huge potential market they will lose if they don't try to compete for it, and

b) they believe their product does good in the world, and therefore they think a partial good (partial access to Google) is better than no good (no access to Google).

Whether b) is true or not is obviously in the eye of the beholder. I tend to think it's closer to a rationalization of a) than a sober evaluation of the objective truth.

For those wondering what cultural relativism actually is, it is a useful mental tool for thinking about the evolution of cultures other than your own. It is not moral relativism, nor is it a hatred of the west.

<comment><USER2> >they believe their product does good in the world

Perhaps, but good, for whom? It is useful to ask "What class of people benefits? Who is harmed?" and is the net change worse that if we did not meddle? Does it give power to some, at the expense of others?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do people assume China will be OK with Google notifying users results are censored?

China can make arbitrary changes to their rules at any time and force Google go along or go home. Google is free of this pressure by not participating but the more revenue they have in China the tougher it will be to say no.

<comment><USER6> Yeah this article's reasoning is some next level BS. Of course Google will bend it's western norms and policies to whatever the Chinese demand. Even more so after entering China, they wouldn't simply decide not to comply and pack their bags writing off billions in investment.

<comment><USER7> They already did so once, which is not something other tech companies are able to say.

I don't have very high hopes of Google somehow breaking Chinese censorship, but simply writing off their effort seems unfair.

<comment><USER8> > but simply writing off their effort seems unfair.

Their efforts seem obviously futile, and open up the risk that the Chinese government will use it's new leverage over them to get them to to bad things. For instance, Yahoo once handed over the emails of two Chinese pro-democracy journalists [1], resulting in them getting 10 year prison sentences in China. Once Google is getting revenue from China, it will be a lot harder for them to say no such demands, especially ones they can comply with in secret.

[1] [https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3862513&page=1](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3862513&page=1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bullshit article. Apparently the author doesnt know what "authoritative government " means.

All the Chinese government would need to do is fine google, and pull the plug on google. Simple as that. When it comes to China's censorship laws, it's very hard to overcome them if damn near impossible.

And quite frankly, most Chinese citizens could care less. Baidu and other services gives them what they need. Those who care get a VPN, and that includes Chinese businesses.

Author has never stepped foot in china or talked to its people. Google doesn't stand a chance if they go against censorship laws, and they know it. They don't care.

<comment><USER10> I don't know what "authoritative government" means either... was that supposed to be "authoritarian"?

I am not sure I follow the argument, though - yes, it's true that the Beijing could just pull the plug on Google Lite(tm), but there would be some international PR damage. I doubt it would stop them, but it would at least influence the decision.

But I do agree that the overall sense I get of Chinese citizens is not that they are chafing at the level of control they live under, it's all bread and circuses, cashless WeChat fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think it is ironic that Google et al like to point out when governments are asking them to censor something, but make no mention of when they themselves are censoring something.

"Governments are the real bad guys here. Trust us."

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised to see as liberal a paper as The Washington Post supporting this. Or really any news source coming out of a democracy.

<comment><USER13> Really? There's a fundamental and very uncertain question here about isolation vs partial engagement that plays out in all sorts of international relations. The discussion above captures it well enough. I personally have absolutely no idea what the best answer is, and I'd be surprised if most if the other readers here do either.

For a. Example of the engagement question, see the Golden Arches theory (and disagreement): [https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/wiki/IPE/Golden_Arches_Theo...](https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/wiki/IPE/Golden_Arches_Theory_of_Conflict_Prevention)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any excellent books on Web and Mobile UI design? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Can also be online blogs,articles, or video tutorials. Thank You!</comment>