Small payments sharply diminish gap in responses to partisan factual questions - <AUTHOR> http://www.nber.org/papers/w19080 <comment><USER3> "For example, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that the deficit rose during the Clinton administration; Democrats are more likely to say that inflation rose under Reagan."

These are both really tricky questions, because the questions described are derivatives of derivatives! The deficit is the time derivative of the debt; so it's possible that someone is hearing "did the debt rise during clinton" (which would be true). Likewise, inflation is the derivative of the value of money. So someone might be hearing "did things get more expensive over reagan" (which would also be true). The deficit/debt one is really tricky since they both start with the letter D and even though I know the difference occasionally in conversation I switch the two.

<comment><USER4> The point is that people tend to answer the question in a way that favors their party and disfavors the other party if you just ask them, but they're more likely to get it right if you offer an incentive to do so. This can't be explained just by "The questions are tricky," though that might be contributing factor that helps people fool themselves when they want to.

<comment><USER5> I'd offer that one issue with representative democracy is that the direct external payoff for voting well (by 'well', I mean taking the time to do honest research and keeping an open mind) is pretty much zero.

That leads to a contradiction -- we expect our elected politicians to do whatever the public wants, but we also want our politicians to be wise, forward thinking, selfless, and moral leaders. Those two desires can only be fully reconciled if the public itself has those qualities, but the public doesn't have much direct, quick feedback as to whether it's making good choices.

We also don't want to pay our politicians very much (politicians make orders of magnitude less than, say, business leaders) and still expect them to be fully independent, unbribeable, and only beholden to the public. You get what you pay for.

<comment><USER6> Nailed it on the head! Everyone wants someone else to pay for services. Nobody is saying "Raise my taxes - I appreciate these services". We're all complicit.

<comment><USER7> Very true. Coming from Quebec, Canada, I actually say that. It's more ingrained in our culture that what we are taxed for is services that benefit us all and that makes our societal environment more enjoyable.

Now in the US, I can't seem to find anyone who think this. My biggest issue is that I can't even find anyone who thinks that the government is the people. Everyone seems to think of the government as this black box that has a mind of its own and inflict laws and rules upon us. While I'm much more used to the common thinking that the people rule, and the government simply enact our rule. We elect it, we pay for it, and therefore it simply does what we elected and paid for it to do.

I'm not sure what makes up that difference, but it could be the bi- partisanery. It's a shame too, because it often fails to capture fine grain requirements. Like say I wanted a very liberal economy, while keeping gun rights strong and conservative norms in place? Or the other way around? There's no kind of choice like that. So you lysine end up for choosing based on your top issue only.

<comment><USER8> It's a pro-private, anti-democratic push by chicago school, objectivists, and other groups, to essentially slander civic institutions as terrible and "privatize" them with capital extracting robber barons. "Government" is a 4 letter word and some people are insufferable in their hatred for it - <USER2> that some private selfish interest of people would magically make the world ... look, it's all preposterous ... it's apologetics and denialism wrapped in the religious fervor of a mythical free market.

<comment><USER9> A huge part of the problem is that people think one system is better than the other when it's really a spectrum where both extremes are absurd. Suppose you want to have some roads, how do you do it?

a) Pure Communism. The state builds the roads. The state needs road workers and workers need food so the state grows food. The workers need steamrollers so the state manufactures steamrollers. The workers need asphalt so the state mines gravel. The entire economy is centrally planned and collapses like the USSR.

b) Pure Capitalism. A private company owns the road. You need their permission to leave your house, take deliveries, receive an ambulance, connect to the power grid, etc. They charge what the market will bear. Everyone becomes a serf of the road company.

c) Capitalist Social Democracy. The state collects taxes and takes bids for private contractors to build the roads, which the state then owns and allows all people to use at no charge.

Only one of those actually works.

<comment><USER8> C can be a problem. It's how the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about is structured.

"C" is what leads to things like corporate bail outs.

Parenti talked about this with Conrail in the 80s. It was a train system that was put in public trust because it couldn't make money in the 70s. Then after the public made it profitable, under Reagan, it was reprivatized - not because it didn't work, but because it did work.

"C" goes beyond this in corruption. You get "compromises" where you have private health-care paid by public taxes (obamacare) or medicare part D with prescriptions being covered but the government forbidden from negotiating the prices. Or you get private for-profit schools able to use government loans for tuition and getting to the corrupt state of affairs we have now.

No, "C" is a terrible idea because it's a giant funnel into the hand of corrupt bank accounts - it promotes the state to prop up forms of dysfunctional capitalism.

In fact if you look at the _total_ tax burden by country, including state tax and other things ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates)) You see that the US is higher than places like Luxembourg, Denmark, the Netherlands - way above France and the UK. We pay more and get less, and it's all because of "C".

<comment><USER10> But all those other countries you mentioned are also C, in a way bigger way. The US leans more towards B, in actuality, versus those other countries. Are you saying A is the solution?

<comment><USER8> Not really. If we can agree that people respond to incentives, then we should make sure the incentives of how we constitute civil society align with their purpose and that the purpose doesn't get perverted through gamesmanship.

For instance, arguably schools are primarily for education. So increasing the access to and quality of education is probably a decent goal.

For profit systems certainly have increased the access to, but arguably deceased the quality of, and arguably education is only incidental to the true project, which is profit.^1

It's this problem, where we entrust civic needs in private hands and hope the needs are satisfied incidentally.

The problem with communism is that it's somewhat the same thing. Instead of economic capital, they fight for political capital using a similar perversion of incentives.

I don't think there exists a Grand Unified Equation that works for all civic needs and I don't think that the best answers already exist.

Instead, I think it should be openly and honestly researched like all other sciences and leave the sportsmanship and team cheering world it currently occupies.

\----

[1] For-Profit schools may have their place. I don't know much about auto mechanics or plumbing, but I can imagine a certified for-profit program would be a fine way to do this. I can also imagine them cutting costs, paying off inspections, and passing everyone so nobody stops paying the tuition. The goal is to not make ripping people off and cheating them out of an education such a profitable and incentivized thing to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting finding. One of the problems with voting is that there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small. Therefore people vote for a candidate that makes them feel good, rather than a competent one. This is arguably the cause of many bad policies. Caplan discusses this issue in his book 'The Myth of the Rational Voter' [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter)

<comment><USER12> Counterpoint: [http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/rati...](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/rational_final7.pdf)

This paper argues that voting for social reasons ("this result will benefit society") is sensible even in large elections. The value depends on the percent turnout, but not on population size.

<comment><USER13> Voting theory models rational actors, not actual people.

Interestingly, fontback's hypothesis is exactly how they modeled the choice, with a financial incentive plus some "psychological incentive"

<comment><USER12> "there is no incentive or a very small incentive to choose the candidate with the best policies, because the chance of your vote making a difference is so small" is a theoretical argument about rational actors, not an observation about actual people. The paper I linked argues that it doesn't hold. It also argues that there's some real-world evidence that people vote for social reasons.

<comment><USER14> Regardless of how a person votes, they're voting for a feel-good reason.

Some people's identity gives them pleasure in voting for the candidate that rationally maximizes the Good, for some subjective measure of the good. These are the 'social preferences' Gellman talks about.

Some people's identity gives them pleasure in the tribe, and they want to vote for the people like them and around them to fit in, especially so they won't be confused with the Enemy.

Pretty much everyone has both tendencies, which are inherently in tension. This is cognitive dissonance. People don't like experiencing this, so they end up choosing to believe both in tribal politics and that their tribe is the rational one, which is the most convenient way to cut that Gordian knot.

Now, we can debate which tribe is more rational. I think currently in the USA the blue tribe has more people motivated by the desire to be seen as rational. Then again, we'd also predict that's what everyone thinks. So probably that debate wouldn't be productive.

This experiment is useful because it tells us that money is a very useful way to cut through the bullshit of tribal beliefs. It also might give us hints as to how to design our electoral system to tend toward more rational options.

<comment><USER15> > Pretty much everyone has both tendencies, which are inherently in tension. > This is cognitive dissonance. People don't like experiencing this, so they > end up choosing to believe both in tribal politics and that their tribe is > the rational one, which is the most convenient way to cut that Gordian knot.

And in addition, the more and more fiercely we tribally associate, the less and less we want to do with the other tribes. This has gone to the extent that certain fields of employment, or even fields of science are largely owned on tribal lines.

Conservatives largely outnumber liberals in fields like agriculture, while liberals dominate social sciences. This sounds fine, but peer review demands cultural diversity as well, or our own cognitive bias imparts blind-spots on the work. The only fix for those blind spots is cultural diversity, and the only way people can be happy with that cultural diversity is to re-tie their Gordian knots and learn to accept other people as other people, and not the devil monsters we tend to equate them as today.

<comment><USER16> Both you and the previous commenter seem to be talking about the polarization of politics as if it's an inevitable feature of human social interaction. But I think that's a little overly simplistic.

The current extreme polarization in the US is new and fairly unusual, in historical terms. It could be an inevitable phase that other counties will reach too, or it could just be a random artifact of the US's history and political system. Very few countries have a voting system that locks in the main two parties as strongly as the US, for example.

The idea that all politics is purely about tribal identity, and that "rationality" is a myth, would seem to suggest that we've never made any real social advances. But I'd count things like the outlawing of slavery as advances.

It reminds me of the extreme view of social structures in science (which Thomas Kuhn subscribed to, if I remember right), that all scientific "advances" and "revolutions" are just changes in fashion as one generation of scientists succeeds another. But each advance does in fact get us closer to the truth, even if we never quite reach it.

<comment><USER15> I don't think it's at all inevitable, nor do I disbelieve that political polarization is new. That said, tribal clustering is as old as time.

Without getting into the whys and wherefores, my main concern is that as we eliminate some forms of tribal clustering (ethnic, gender, class, etc.) we are simply replacing them with other forms, namely political affiliation or wedge issues. Particularly, I'm concerned with tribal clustering on wedge issues that don't affect the quality of work a person might do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Having skin in the game makes one thoughtful. Sometimes it works in debates too. "Let's do A, it's much better design." "Will you do the debugging and support for the feature?" "Ummm, maybe let's rethink this A, I see some flaws in it."

<comment><USER18> Could be. With no financial reward there's not much incentive to spend energy thinking about things: so answers default to supporting political views. Suddenly there's a financial incentive, and so people take a few more steps in their thought processes. (maybe, idk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The small payments ranged between 17 cents and $1. But how the payment calculations were described, based on weirdly complicated raffle entry odds for gift certificates or with different questions randomly worth 25 cents or 50 cents or whatever with various probabilities.

Frankly, I doubt most participants understood the payments guidance about what amount correct answers would earn them.

This could imply just putting a paragraph of confusing words with dollar signs mixed in before asking questions might also diminish political partisan bias in responses.

<comment><USER20> Probably not. The reason they payments appear to work to increase accuracy is because the possibility of a payment motivates critical thinking abilities-- what Daniel Kahneman, author of _Thinking Fast and Slow_ would refer to as "system 2".

As described in the book, system 1 is effortless and automatic; it produces the first thought to come to mind when attempting to answer a question. It is good at pattern matching and associative memory. However, when faced with a difficult question, often times the best it is capable of is to answer a different, easier question instead.

System 2, on the other hand, is the source of effortful, logical thought. It requires deliberate effort to engage and because of this is often described as "lazy". In everyday experience, we rely on system 1 most of the time, and most of the time that works well and is sufficient. An example is reading: an experienced reader rarely needs to sound out the individual letters of each word, instead perceiving entire words and phrases at once; that's system 1 at work.

Now, if you ask someone to answer an objective question that has a partisan aspect to it, system 1 will immediately provide an answer (without you even asking it to, and regardless of whether system 1 is actually capable of providing an accurate answer). In this case, it's likely that system 1 is actually answering a question which is superficially similar to but not the same as the one that was asked (e.g., "is this my tribe" instead of "did deficits increase or decrease during the Clinton administration").

At this point, unless a person chooses to engage system 2, they are likely to accept the only answer at hand, the one suggested by system 1. The possibility of receiving a payment for an objectively accurate answer provides motivation for engaging system 2.

<comment><USER21> This is kind of tangential, but is Michael Lewis' new book _about_ Kahneman worth reading if you've already read "Thinking Fast And Slow"? I'd certainly recommend the latter - it's a very interesting book.

<comment><USER22> I listened to an interview he had with Nate Silver, and my impression was that he focused a lot on the (rather fascinating) personal relationship between Kahnemann and Amos Tversky. So, as a character study, maybe very interesting; not sure about its merit as an educational non-fiction piece.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If someone asks me my opinion about something I'm much more likely to say what I know they want to hear if they offer to pay me to say that, and I'm less likely to debate with them instead.

If they aren't paying me, I'm more likely to say what I really think.

<comment><USER24> Well, the _concept_ here is that they're asking very simple unambiguous factual questions, so if you know what they "want you to say," then you at least know the truth, even if you don't believe the truth.

That is: If I ask you what's 3x3, for you to know that the answer that I want is 9, then you must know the truth.

But I suppose there is some room for nuance. Like, take asking this question: "Has a human walked on the surface of the moon?"

Let's suppose that Alfred answers that question with "No."

Then you offer to pay Alfred if he answers the question correctly, and he changes his answer to "Yes."

So, does Alfred _actually_ know that people walked on the moon, and before he was just trolling or trying to get into the in-crowd of moon-landing deniers? Or is it that Alfred _actually_ , _sincerely_ believes that the moon-landing was a fake, but he knows that you likely believe that the moon-landing was real, and wants the payment?

<comment><USER24> That said, I don't really believe the moon-landing thing.

Here's my logic:

I'm talking to Alfred, moon-landing-truther. Alfred, I feel, is open in telling me how it works. He knows that I believe that the moon landing is real. He acknowledges that there is reason for me to believe that it is real -- he understands the conventional narrative. He explicitly argues his own (crazy) counter-narrative that subsumes the conventional narrative, reinterpreting the facts that I use.

I've never heard anyone articulate a conspiracy theory around the example questions this study gave. Nobody has ever said to me -- not even online -- "Sure, it _appears_ that inflation decreased during Reagan, but actually, here's the reason why that's a lie," nor "Sure, it _appears_ that the deficit shrank during Clinton, but that's a lie."

The closest that I've heard is two things:

1\. A general belief that the media or the establishment lie or shill for Team X, without specifics.

2\. Not on "inflation during Reagan" or "deficit during Clinton," but I do sometimes hear conspiracy theories that inflation is not _actually_ currently low because the way that they calculate it and handle new inventions is a cheat, or that unemployment is not _actually_ currently low because the proper measurement of unemployment is workforce participation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Related: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences)

and

Ecclesiastes 1:2 - All is vanity

</comment><comment><USER26> wonder if there's a way to tease out what I believe versus what I think you want to hear.

<comment><USER27> Which is scary, given that the survey was about factual information. Welcome to the post-truth world I guess.

"I think want me to say the unemployment rate is X, so I'll select that, but I believe the unemployment rate is actually Y"

<comment><USER28> When you write it that way it sounds crazy, but if you believe the unemployment rate should be the U6, then we will have real disagreements over that fact.

When the media is just the media, no longer the mainstream media, but just the media with just another (biased) agenda and world-view that is no better than any others, they end up acting like spoiled children. I hope HNners are smart enough to realize that all medias are biased in some ways (some more than others) and that fake news/post truth are just another political term (unless you are talking about the spam that floated on Facebook with completely fake headlines, not justified by the content).

<comment><USER29> Whether the unemployment rate discussed and optimized for _should_ be U-6, or any other particular measure, is a disagreement about opinion, not about fact.

Claims that the U-1 is falsified/manipulated for political purposes, or that the "real unemployment rate" is actually much higher than even the U-6, are much more clearly false.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It could also be that people respond based on what they think the "official" answer is when paid; otherwise they answer what they actually believe.

For instance, there are official measurements of debt, deficit, and inflation. But some might believe that unfunded liabilities are debt, or that inflation is higher than the official number.

</comment><comment><USER31> A related finding was that the more scientifically educated an American conservative is, the more likely they are to deny various elements of climate change. The conclusion of the researchers was that the smarter respondents knew what they were supposed to say better as well as knowing the real answer better.

</comment><comment><USER32> So I guess this moves the mindset from "argument" towards "truth finding".

Assuming that's true, how could we use that effect for, say, good?

<comment><USER33> Reducing the tendency of people to lie on survey polls is an obvious applications. You could ask people to predict how popular a candidate is, with a payoff tied to prediction accuracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Some issues dismissed as partisan anti-factualism actually mask layers of nuance.* Political discussion is almost entirely about stressing different layers of nuance and dismissing or eliding the nuance of your opponents as irrelevant.

So if you were to ask someone in a survey for their opinion, they might respond according to their preferred level of nuance on the politically charged topic, throwing a monkey wrench if the underlying presumption of the question is overly simplistic. They might provide a contrarian response because they see the question as loaded, as in "Did you stop beating your wife?"

An incentive though turns the game into a Keynesian beauty contest, and makes people fall back on the perceived popular answer, even if they don't think it's right.

* All the examples of this are incredibly fraught and risk sidetracking the entire discussion. Kindly only read these if you can charitably look for the meta-rhetorical point. But imagine:

Did Trump support the war in Iraq? Depends on whether a half-hearted 'yes' on Howard Stern really counts.

Did Bill Clinton lower the deficit? Depends on how much you believe the Republican House forced his hand and was the real actor.

Did Reagan end the cold war? Depends on how much you want to credit internal political factors or the role of Gorbachev.

Were WMDs found in Iraq? Depends on whether you count sarin-tipped warheads found in 2005, seed material found at Tuwaitha, or if you're referring exclusively to the Hans Blix UN investigations or assembled nuclear munitions.

The study designers tried to use careful phrasing to avoid some of these problems. Even so, there are some questionable ones. "Did inflation rise under Reagan?" Of course it did! At least once every year! Just not overall...

</comment><comment><USER35> OK. So Trump is the coming president, and GW is real and Trump will not handle it properly. So it is very likely GW bad predictions are going to happen. My question is: why there is no massive sell of beach houses?

a) Most beach house owners are GW deniers. b) Most beach house owners have strong confidence of the future government. c) Most beach house owners are extremely rich so they don't care.

How about those who are GW believers, and seriously think it is critical timing for action rightnow, and have uncertainty about future government, and are not extremely rich. Are they selling houses and moving to inland?

I think it is a pretty good test of how many people seriously believe GW. Do not tell me the incentive of home value is not strong enough.

<comment><USER36> Individuals are pretty poor at making personal decisions on the basis of risks that are well-proven numerically but not tangible from personal experience.

Why do millions of Americans still smoke cigarettes? Do most smokers have awesome health plans and optimism about medical research so they assume that cancer treatment will be pleasant and affordable in the future? I think it's a pretty good test of how many people seriously believe cigarettes are carcinogenic. Do not tell me the incentive of a miserable premature death is not strong enough.

<comment><USER35> There are people keep smoking, but there are also people quit smoking because of knowing it's unhealthy.

My question is why don't we see massive sell of beach houses. My question is NOT why there are still people not selling their beach houses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's worth noting that, unless you're very careful, tying incentives to answers doesn't filter for "what are the facts" as much as "what do you think I think are the facts." These can be similar but are not the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER11> For all of you reading whose political knowledge is a little rusty, here is a quiz for you: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/how-well-do-you- know-b...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/how-well-do-you-know-basic- us-politics?utm_term=.luy4rbRzY#.nlB7odpBM) Unfortunately there is no reward for correct answers!

<comment><USER38> That doesn't strike me as being a very useful quiz. Would doing well on that really imply a stronger knowledge of policy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> So what you are saying is that partisan hacks are aware they are full of crap, and will openly profess the those very things that they know are bullshit UNLESS there is a direct financial incentive for them to give the factual answer? That is depressing.

</comment><comment><USER40> "The experiments show that small payments for correct and "don't know" responses sharply diminish the gap between Democrats and Republicans in responses to "partisan" factual question"

<comment><USER41> This study fails to impress me as anyone with some intelligence would always pick "don't know" since it's a guaranteed payment.

<comment><USER42> They performed this with and without that payment.

"This paper reports results from two novel experiments designed to distinguish sincere from expressive partisan differences in responses to factual questions. In both experiments, all subjects were asked factual questions, but some were given financial incentives to answer correctly. ... In our second experiment, we therefore implement a treatment in which subjects were offered incentives both for correct responses and for admitting that they did not know the correct response."

<comment><USER13> But if there's no payout then there's no incentive to say don't know. Whereas if there is a payout then the optimal strategy is clearly "dont know", assuming equal payouts for correct and dont know. Why would you take the risk of being wrong?

<comment><USER43> Quote from paper:

> The amount paid for "don't know" responses was also assigned randomly, and > was a fraction of the amount offered for a correct response: 20% of the > payment for a correct response with probability .33, 25% with probability > .33, and 33% with probability .33.

<comment><USER13> Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for but it's hard on a phone.

Qwrusz's comment may be relevant here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It would be interesting if people had to put their money where their mouth was more often. E.g. if a politician makes a claim about the past or the future, there should be a way to hold them accountable to it.

<comment><USER45> This is the basis for prediction markets like Gnosis and Augur. Would be interesting to see how they play out in practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've wondered why partisanship doesn't exist to nearly the same extent in business and consumer behavior. This explains a lot.

</comment><comment><USER47> Let's start taxing candidates for mis-truths spoken in presidential debates!

</comment><comment><USER48> Good thing voters are incentivized to vote correctly like they were incentivized to answer correctly in this survey. Oh, wait.</comment>


QStringView Diaries: Zero-Allocation String Splitting - <AUTHOR> https://www.kdab.com/qstringview-diaries-zero-allocation-string-splitting/ <comment><USER2> Hey that's pretty neat! It does feel a bit sad to vend a heap-allocating vector of string views when it's only used for iteration.

Definitely gonna do something similar for my own C++ toolkit. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> This could simply be done as an iterator over a string. Why all the fancy schmancy C++ features?

EDIT: I'm starting to suspect it actually is just an iterator. So why not say that? Instead of mentioning the ranges library, coroutines, generators ...

EDIT: Ok, so ranges make sense. Coroutines still seem overkill to me though.

<comment><USER4> Ranges are a (start, end) pair of iterators that support begin/end -- think of them like a subset of containers that just provide access to the iterators over them. They also support the end iterator being a different type to the sstart iterator, supporting things like sentinel iterators (e.g. null pointer checks).

The next standard library supports using the standard algorithms with ranges, so you can say things like `std::sort(v)` instead of `std::sort(v.begin(), v.end())`.

IIUC, views are ranges that can adapt the results of the underlying object without changing the contents of that object, such as a lower-case view, or a reversed view. These work by doing the lower-case conversion on dereference, or swapping the increment/decrement operations.</comment></comment>


RM-Manage: Rails Performance Monitoring Service - <AUTHOR> http://fiveruns.com/products/manage

<comment><USER2> great service -- been using fiveruns for a few weeks...

<comment><USER2> not sure why that got modded down...</comment></comment>


How Close Is a Workable Brain-Computer Interface?  - <AUTHOR> http://technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25854/?p1=Blogs

<comment><USER2> not sure why they aren't taking a real-time fourier transform of the signal and using that. The data bandwith would be orders of magnitude higher.</comment>


GWT Table & Form – Cool CSS effect - <AUTHOR> http://etapix.com/?p=259

<comment><USER2> Bad article. There's no demo, the code is formatted by WP ("stylesheet" instead of "stylesheet") and the line numbers won't even match.

<comment><AUTHOR> bad article because of lack of demo or because it's misguiding? I disagree with you as this was not meant for you to download an eclipse or netbeans project but show you how to do the CSS effect using GWT instead of straight JavaScript.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> @rsoto You can copy and paste the code in your java or html editor. There's a demo and link is provided unless you were expecting a video demo. I am sure the code will help alot of developers trying to do the same effect.</comment>


People in the USA no longer share a common lived experience - <AUTHOR> http://larrysummers.com/2019/10/10/we-no-longer-share-a-common-lived-experience/ <comment><USER2> I humbly offer an alternate title:

"Larry Has No Common Lived Experience with People Outside His Bubble"

Comparing Arlington, VA or any of the top-earning metro areas to Flint, MI makes little sense to his argument. There are thousands of communities that he could compare to Flint and find much in common.

A more compelling argument might be: 100 million people throughout the USA similarly struggle to make ends meet. They unemployed black man in Flint has a great deal in common with the under-employed white woman working at walmart in Peoria, Larry just can't see it.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience? Even in purely economic terms anyone who wasn't a white male would disagree that there has ever been a time when this was true.

<comment><USER4> > _Agreed. When have we ever had a common lived experience?_

In eras with much less inequality? In eras without so easy access to echo bubbles? In eras when you couldn't as easily have news tailored to your preferences/prejudices?

The "the world was always exactly the same" / "we never had it as good as today in any aspect" argument is getting tiresome, on top of being ahistorical.

<comment><USER5> I challenge the notion that there was ever a time in history in which there was more equality between every segment of society in America than there is now. Can you name a single time? If there was once a time when white men were more circumstantially equal, then the distance in circumstances between men and women was further apart, or even further apart between whites and minorities.

I can't think of a time in world history when some group of people wasn't getting preferential treatment and some other group was getting the proverbial shaft.

<comment><USER4> > _I challenge the notion that there was ever a time in history in which there > was more equality between every segment of society in America than there is > now. Can you name a single time? If there was once a time when white men > were more circumstantially equal, then the distance in circumstances between > men and women was further apart, or even further apart between whites and > minorities._

There are different kinds of equality (equality between the sexes, races, economic, etc).

Economic inequality, which are talking about here, was less in decades past: "The Great Divergence is a term given to a period, starting in the late 1970s, during which income differences increased in the US and, to a lesser extent, in other countries":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_(inequality)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence_\(inequality\))

> _I can't think of a time in world history when some group of people wasn't > getting preferential treatment and some other group was getting the > proverbial shaft._

Which is neither here nor there. Even at that, there have been periods and societies much better than 2019 US in almost all of those aspects.

The very concern of "white" vs else is a US one, due to its "melting pot" nature (and the very recent historical baggage of slavery, segregation, etc. Other European countries for example where done with that shit for centuries, not merely until the ...70s). And of course, in more homogeneous societies (all white, all asian, all black, etc) those things weren't a concern.

<comment><USER6> But this is precisely the sort of analysis that writes over racial minorities, women, the incarcerated, and gay people.

Yes, economic inequality is greater now. But "let's just ignore the other kinds" while lamenting the loss of shared experiences snacks of blinders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Invest more in education" seems to be a bad pattern.

We need to invest in job creation; a lot of those newly "educated" people have only raised their fixed costs while competing for the same jobs (that don't require the degree)

</comment><comment><USER8> What about consumerism? Things like going to the mall, Center Street, your nearby strip mall, huge grocery store, and amusement parks. All these things have a distinctive North American flavor and are quite homogeneous across the US and Canada.

<comment><USER4> > _Things like going to the mall, Center Street, your nearby strip mall, huge > grocery store, and amusement parks. All these things have a distinctive > North American flavor and are quite homogeneous across the US and Canada._

And all of those things have been in decline, especially malls and "center street"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not true. The sole, unifying common and shared American tribal experience continues to be high school.

<comment><USER10> Don't you think highschool is a bit different in NYC compared to Nebraska?

<comment><USER11> Not significantly. I did high school in a farming town in rural South Jersey and a Phoenix suburb and didn't notice that big of a difference other than that the building was newer and nobody wanted to spend time outside.

<comment><USER12> > I did high school in a farming town in rural South Jersey and a Phoenix > suburb and didn't notice that big of a difference

I did public high school in one of the bigger cities in California's Centela Valley and in a relatively affluent suburb on the fringes of the Bay Area (and, for a brief while, a third place less than 50 miles from the second) and noticed huge differences at all three that had nothing to do with physical infrastructure or climate.

<comment><USER9> In what ways were there "huge" differences? No cliques? No sports teams? Vastly different curricula?

<comment><USER12> Violence, race relations, involvement of street gangs, degree and nature of law enforcement presence and regular interaction on campus, nature and pervasiveness of drug culture, diversity of academic and extracurricular opportunities; some of these in exactly the way you'd expect based on relative wealth and demographics of the various districts, though the differences in the last went the other way, I suspect because they were controlled more by the size of both the school and the district.

Some of that (most except the last and possibly the penultimate) probably would be attenuated (though still present) in the experience of middle class and higher white students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Inequality will do that for you...

Not knowing "how the other half lives" was always a thing, but at least back in the day was easier to see if one cared.

Now with so much of life spend in the artificial world of echo bubbles, the internet, social media, secluded communities, gentrified areas, coasts and inner states, etc, that's increasingly more difficult.

</comment><comment><USER13> If his idea helps Louisiana kick the habit of corporate tax giveaways I'm all for it (and yes I know what economic theory says about corporate tax and deadweight loss getting passed to consumers, these recipients are not consumer products companies by and large)</comment>


The Oxbridge Fallout Effect - <AUTHOR> http://twak.blogspot.com/2008/03/oxbridge-fallout-effect.html

<comment><USER2> I grew up in and around Oxford. In my summer I worked for a laundry service that cleaned the sheets of Oxford students. I know for a fact that they often made the wrong decisions in many different ways.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any group is surrounded by people who cop the attitude but don't have the talent. Think of all the wannabe rockstars who focus on the drugs and the groupies, or the people who can't write, but mimic Sartre in coffee and cigarettes.

In the case of Oxbridge (and others?) the opposite effect is also important. There are a lot of smart people around those towns who aren't connected to the university. Often they don't get the respect they deserve from university folks, because they don't have the attitude and the style and the in-jokes.

</comment><comment><USER4> I go to Oxford, and that post is a gross and in many cases largely inaccurate generalisation. I'm sorry the oxbridge guys and girls you've known are so insufferable. I think you're significantly off the mark taking that experience and making a generalisation that encompasses two entire campus-worths of students. It's a bad depiction that's likely to keep the myth going and put off intelligent but maybe from a state school or that are not the most cocksure (intellectually or socially) of people - but people who could contribute a LOT to the university over time.

People have to know that it's OK to come here and learn new stuff, and be bright and contribute something back in your projects, and later, a PhD; you don't have to come, be socially accepted, show off all the time, and mentally abuse people in debates down at the Union or even just at the bar. Surprised this is front page of HN, tbh. Not sure what values it adds to anyone.

<comment><USER5> yes, it's a generalisation. yes, oxbridgians put both legs into a trouser. however the system does build up palpable differences in ability between a general oxford student and someone just as smart who ends up somewhere else.

But the bulk of the post is about the effect of working with well schooled individuals - if you're not as smart then copying their mannerisms can often be a world of hurt for all.

<comment><USER6> > the system does build up palpable differences in ability between a general > oxford student and someone just as smart who ends up somewhere else

I think this is just plain false. There are plenty of truly smart people at all universities and the quality of teaching doesn't vary much across universities. The only real difference between Oxbridge and rest is that they're harder to get into. Once you're in they're much the same.

The benefit you will get out of any teaching institution will directly correlate with the effort you put in.

<comment><USER5> So, moving away from the point of the post- yes there are many smart & cool CTOs, CEOs & MDs that didn't go to Oxbridge.

But what you learn at uni is proportional to delta^2 in the intelligences of the people around you. If it's harder to get in, the people are smarter, and you learn more. There's less drag, classes move faster. You don't need to be a-CEO-level-handshaker to meet the right people, because there are so many. Oxbridge have obscene resources - classes to print your own chips or 1:2 tuition that the next layer of universities down don't get.

There is a mini-valley-effect going on there, that makes it much more likely for someone to act smart if they've been to an elitist university.

Yes I'm bitter. (Yes they rejected me)

<comment><USER6> Congratulations and welcome to the club. I was rejected too and to be honest I think they made the right decision. When I applied 5 years ago I definitely wasn't the academic they were looking for.

Anyway my point is just that I wouldn't put too much stock in the fact that just because these institutions are filled with arguably the brightest people in the land that this will automatically propel you upwards. I personally feel that the value of a university is very closely tied to its curriculum, not its resources or people.

(anecdotal evidence: I know some people who went to universities with more stringent entry requirements and left there only knowing how to program in Pascal. In my university they now teach Haskell, Prolog and Java in year 1).

If you still feel very strongly about the benefits of networking in Oxbridge you can always apply to do an MBA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> you just made my day by posting that link - how did you find that post? (was a late night rant commenting on office politics). Very nice to see :) but maybe typical of hn's fall from grace from "how to be the best" to "how to compete with the best"</comment>


Why hasn't anyone just automated twitter yet? There should be a twitter for people who don't wanna type, it just senses what yer doing. - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> well theres this...

<http://ifthensoftwarehq.blogspot.com/2007/04/twitteromatic.html>

But i dont really want to annoy people, just want an app to do the work for me. Occasionally pester me with a "what are you doing" snags my url and creates a post.

</comment><comment><USER2> <http://neurokinetikz.com>

:)</comment>


Visa confirms Coinbase wasn't at fault for overcharging users - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/visa-coinbase-not-at-fault/ <comment><USER2> Having many friends that worked out at Visa, that place is a fucking train wreck in IT (mostly due to the politics, well that and the attempted outsourcing). Not surprised in the least.

<comment><USER3> Their PKI is apparently none too good as well: [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.security.policy/NNV3zvX43vE/rae9kNkWAgAJ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What terrible press for Coinbase. I'd be furious at Visa if I was working there. A suspicious person might even suspect sabotage?

<comment><USER5> Hanlons razor.

It was probably just stupidity.

<comment><USER6> Hanlon's/Occam's/etc. razors are just heuristics.

<comment><USER7> And accusations of sabotage without proof of any sort is baseless conjecture.

<comment><USER6> Heinlein's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice."

More on common razor heuristics:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_%28philosophy%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_%28philosophy%29)

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_razor](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_razor)

<comment><USER8> A better way to state it, IMO;

Stupidity should be assumed. Malice demands evidence.

But it comes down to intent. Impute intent only when indicated. Which when you think about it is only fair. It's self-evident Visa fucked up, but a claim it was malicious must be substantiated or it's just trolling.

<comment><USER6> I am not saying somebody at VISA did it intentionally, I just don't understand why am I supposed to assume they didn't given whatever popular logical razor that can't be a tautology on its own.

<comment><USER8> Because supposing malicious intent without any evidence to support the conclusion is uncharitable at best, and libelous at worst.

It's a philosophy which many people find beneficial, to try to shape your thinking in a way that you set a higher bar before believing something negative was done intentionally rather than unintentionally.

The inverse (converse?) is also be true — when lacking conclusive evidence either way, assuming positive things are done intentionally and not unintentionally.

Another way to think about it is; what's the cost of being wrong? It's as simple as giving the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER6> > uncharitable at best

I am fine with that. I am not going to assume "good intentions" by default, but case by case as I see fit. Even if my biases get in the way (like with any untrained human). If there is a non-zero probability of somebody intentionally causing something, i.e. it cannot be counter-factually refuted, then it has to be handled as one possible explanation, however unlikely it is.

Haven't you ever seen how people cook the books for businesses to appear flawless? Ohh, that small mistake? Just an error, don't look too much into that! Let's have a drink and here is your ticket to a strip club to entertain you! Have fun!

<comment><USER9> > i.e it cannot be counter-factually refuted, then it has to be handled as one > possible explanation, however unlikely it is.

ergo, we must accuse all others of whichever crimes are not literally logical impossibilities.

<comment><USER6> Nope, just keep it in your list of probable reasons. Like when you do particle filters, you have your most probable states but nevertheless keep probabilities that you are wrong and you are in fact in any of the other possible states.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where's the statement directly from Visa or Worldpay? All we have is a blog entry in Coinbase's blog. "Joint statements" that only come from the beneficiary of the statement are always suspicious. Visa has both a press release site and a number of blogs. None seem to mention Coinbase.

<comment><USER11> If you look at what actually happened, it's pretty obvious that it was Visa... they were trying to retroactively change how they applied cash advance fees for the past month, and something went wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe people jumped to conclusions in blaming Coinbase because of all the horror stories about them? It seems like every other day someone is posting up a blog post or story about them locking an account or disappearing transactions, inconsistent ledgers, and months without adequate resolution. It seems in many cases people have been forced to publicly shame them in order to get help.

This one maybe wasn't there fault but they certainly have a checkered past.

</comment><comment><USER13> Have the solved the issue of people never seeing their money they've sent via wire transfer?

<comment><USER14> Report the issue with CFPB ([https://www.consumerfinance.gov](https://www.consumerfinance.gov)). I waited for ~3 months with barely any info from Coinbase's side. After reporting it, the issue got resolved in a timely fashion.

<comment><USER15> I find it hilarious that people "investing" in decentralization have to turn to a central authority to be protected.

<comment><USER16> Only when they're stuck dealing with centralized entities.

<comment><USER15> Isn't it a failure of a decentralized system the fact that most, if not all, persons using it end up depending on a centralized system?

<comment><USER17> > Isn't it a failure of a decentralized system the fact that most, if not all, > persons using it end up depending on a centralized system?

The centralized system you refer to here is the status quo (banks, fiat currencies, etc.)

For all practical purposes, you can't bootstrap a new decentralized monetary system without depending on an existing one -- value needs to be transferrable between the two entities until most of the world has migrated.

This isn't a failure of decentralized systems -- it's just the cost of any large-scale transformation with huge powerful incumbents.

<comment><USER18> > _This isn 't a failure of decentralized systems -- it's just the cost of any > large-scale transformation with huge powerful incumbents._

This is equivocation bordering on intentional dishonesty. GP is saying that without engaging the incumbents, the decentralized system would have absorbed his money and given him nothing in return. That is in no possible way a win for decentralization.

Crypto proponents assert that the world is better without centralized currency/money systems. Yet when push comes to shove, people have been forced to engage with the centralized systems in order to force the people behind the decentralized systems to do the right thing.

<comment><USER16> > without engaging the incumbents, the decentralized system would have > absorbed his money and given him nothing

I don't see how that follows, given that the failure was at VISA, a centralized system, in its interaction with Coinbase, another centralized system. The decentralized cryptocurrencies continue to work as designed.

<comment><USER19> > The decentralized cryptocurrencies continue to work as designed.

Well then they aren't very well designed, are they... I mean, if they don't interface with the real world in a workable way, who's at fault?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there somewhere a link to a Visa statement? The one referenced seems from the Coinbase blog. I couldn't find any information from Visa, besides the one public post they made saying they aren't at fault. Its quite the tragedy for some people apparently.

<comment><USER21> The article clearly states: "The following is a joint statement from Visa and Worldpay, which is Coinbase's payment processor partner. While Coinbase initially distributed the statement on its own blog, we've also received the statement directly from Visa." In that statement: "This issue was not caused by Coinbase."

<comment><USER20> Will until a statement comes out from Visa it wasn't them. I'd expect a joined statement be published on visa and wordplay as well - not solely on Coinbase. It least coinbase should push for that, otherwise to me it's a pretty weak post.

<comment><USER21> A statement did come from Visa to the news agencies; they clearly don't feel the need to add anything. As I quoted, "we've also received the statement directly from Visa"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Visa confirmed this... on Coinbase's blog. Why didn't they post it on their own website?

<comment><USER23> Because it's really bad press.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Visa has vested interest in cryptocurrencies never getting anywhere. They have a motive to make them seem like a dangerous investment. I'm not saying that a purposeful action happened here, but it is a possibility.

</comment><comment><USER24> Does anybody know what happened with the people on Reddit trying to organize and armed group to head to Coinbase to confront the CEO?

<comment><USER25> Wouldn't surprise me if it was an organized (paid) troll campaign trying to stir up anti Coinbase sentiment. Small block fanatics have had it out for Coinbase ever since they published a blog post advocating for raising the block size. Ever since any hit of a problem they go out of their way to blow the issue out of proportion.

<comment><USER26> Perhaps the excessively angry reactions are just a natural response to the very poor customer support that these companies offer?

Often it feels like overreacting is the only way to extract a response from SV companies. Reminds me of the upwork story a few days back.

<comment><USER27> I think we can all agree there's a huge difference between overreacting and plotting to arm yourself and storm Coinbase's headquarters to "talk" to the CEO.

<comment><USER26> I think this only holds true if you assume the "plotters" were serious about their intentions.

Otherwise they were just silly people venting on internet forums. That certainly seems like a fairly standard form of overreaction.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending this behaviour. I'm just more interested in if there's something that SV firms are doing that's exacerbating it.

<comment><USER28> The problem with the broadcasting intentions on the internet is that even if you're not serious about your intentions, you could influence other people. Look at the guy who went into Comet Pizza with a gun, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> And this is one of the major points of cryptocurrency as a replacement for the current payment systems. In the end we don't want Banks, Visa, Coinbase, etc.. because they F __* with our money.

<comment><USER30> Are you for real? There's major headlines about screw ups with crypto codebases and exchanges constantly.

<comment><USER31> The headlines are practically always either about centralized bank-like exchanges that hold crypto on behalf of others losing it, or about people losing money they put into a badly-written Ethereum contract. The number of situations that people lost properly-handled cryptocurrency (they didn't send it to the wrong address, they had a backup, and they used a hardware wallet or malware-free computer) with a mainstream client have been practically non- existent.

<comment><USER30> You realize the user hostile nature of basically all crypto currencies is not a feature right?

<comment><USER31> "You should have a backup and double-check the address you send to" is a user- hostile high bar? I mean, maybe for non-technical people, but I'm not exactly recommending bitcoin or any cryptocurrency to them. Something can have its uses without having to be everything to everyone.

<comment><USER30> The comment I was replying to was saying we need to replace banks with crypto. The user hostility is one reason why that's nowhere near happening.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Funding Breakthrough Research: Promises and Challenges of the "ARPA Model" [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.nber.org/chapters/c14096.pdf <comment><USER2> Cf. → [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17333424](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17333424)</comment>


Boston's most radical TV show blew minds in 1967 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2018/03/01/boston-most-radical-show-blew-minds-stoned-generation/krAJFSHtyGcl4p9RHQc8KO/story.html <comment><USER2> Speaking of radical TV from 1967, this was pretty radical, and still worth watching:

[https://dangerousminds.net/comments/this_is_marshall_mcluhan](https://dangerousminds.net/comments/this_is_marshall_mcluhan)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9404250](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9404250)

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me a lot of a bit from Edmund Carpenter's anthropology book They Became What They Beheld (1970). I'll have to copy it out of the book so please forgive any transcription errors:

"In the 1968 elections the McCarthy campaign staff was approached with a suggestion for crossing media. In the United States no law prohibits the mating of radio and TV. In Southern California, for example, Spanish-speaking sportsfans watch the picture on TV but listen to a Spanish-speaking sports broadcaster on radio.

So it was proposed that the New York-New Jersey area be offered a night of radio sound & TV picture. Five commentators were to provide the audio; John Culkin, Jean Shepherd, Marshall McLuhan, myself & Tony Schwartz, who originated the idea and had a sound studio equipped to handle the project. A bank of small TV sets offered simultaneous coverage of all principal TV stations in the area; each would be kept on its particular channel. From these the connentators would select programs shown on a master TV set & toward these programs would direct their comments.

The plan was to announce in the New York-New Jersey newspapers that at 7 P.M. on a certain night a local radio station would provide that evening's TV audio. For example, the audio for a TV cigarette commercial would be one minute of coughing via radio. If there was a laughshow, it would be pointed out that the laughtracks were copyrighted in 1935 & that most of the people one heard laughing had been dead for some time.

Then listeners would be asked to turn to a channel showing Walter Cronkite, at which point they would hear a taped "countdown," first in English, followed by a A-blast; then in Russian, then Chinese, each followed by blasts & more blasts & finally only a child's cry.

Finally, and this was the point of the whole project, listeners would be encouraged to turn to a channel with Hubert Humphrey speaking. Instead of his speech, however, they would hear - on radio - the four letters he wrote to his draft board gaining exemption from duty in the Second War - one letter citing two lectures he had delivered to an ROTC class, while in the background would be played Hitler's ranting, bombs & screams; then Humphrey's pro-Vietnam War speeches - "A glorious adventure and great fun, isn't it?" \- while in the background the guns & screams continued.

The McCarthy team, mostly literate men, saw something profoundly immoral in the suggestion. New forms always seem immoral or chaotic since they are unconsciously judged by reference to consecrated forms. But a curious contradiction arises: New forms are condemned, but the information they disseminate is believed, while the old & valued aren't even seen."

<comment><USER4> Wikipedia reports quite a different story about HH and WWII service [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Humphrey#Marriage_and_e...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Humphrey#Marriage_and_early_career)

<comment><USER3> I'd make a couple of guesses there:

#1. Edmund Carpenter's writing style always seems a lot like he's writing things from memory and potentially embellishing a bit along the way to make a point. Fact checking for writer and reader wasn't so easy in the pre-Internet days.

#2. This was a proposition from the opposition, and even Wikipedia says "all through his political life, Humphrey was dogged by the charge that he was a draft dodger", so the team may have intended to bend the truth on purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These should be put online before they are lost, seems like it was an innovative time in TV

</comment><comment><USER6> Where can I find this show / episode? I've been looking but to no avail...

</comment><comment><USER7> experimental media is important, and so is a public-media world it can exist in. support shows your local public stations motives other than profit are necessary for culture.

<comment><USER8> Is TV important for this, nowadays when we have YouTube / Vimeo / Dailymotion?

<comment><USER9> No but who's going to fund the non-commercial streaming videos?

Public (in the American sense, viewer supported) broadcasting like NPR and PBS develop excellent digital content that we would not otherwise have because it's not advertiser friendly.

If you hate clickbait, fake news, and spam, you should support public media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unrelated:

      You're using a browser set to private or incognito mode.
      To continue reading articles in this mode, please log in to your Globe account.

Haven't seen this one before. No, I don't want you tracking me, and no, I'm not going to view your article because of it.

<comment><USER11> You can still get around it by disabling javascript completely. Will load a text only version.</comment></comment>


Paribus (YC S15) saves you money when items you purchased online drop in price - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/tech/just-saved-146-amazon-purchase-without-lifting-finger-191223254.html <comment><USER2> If a kid screams in the restaurant and they have a policy of giving him a free lollipop to calm him down, that doesn't mean we need an app to keep track of the restaurants you've visited without claiming your free lollipop and then hire a company to go around with an automated screaming device to coax dozens of lollipops out of the local businesses.

This seems like the kind of company that would spoil this particular form of customer service. It just seems like greed more than any real value.

Now, those old scummy companies that used to offer rebates while employing actuaries to calculate percentage chance that you won't cash the rebate, intentionally make the process difficult, and then profit? Go ahead and run those guys into the ground. If someone could upload a scan of the rebate and have you guys do the rest, I wouldn't mind that.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a good point.

But I'd challenge you on your assumption that this is a bad thing for stores and consumers.

It's a powerfully negative experience to buy something, and then find out within a few days (or hours) that it's selling for far less. It happens millions of times per day (www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2014/11/20/amazons- pricing-strategy-makes-life-miserable-for-the-competition/), and most people don't find out. But the reality is that it's happening.

A customer could return it for free (and re-buy it -- many states require this by-law). Or a store could do good by the customer and give a price adjustment.

It turns out that when stores do good by customers when this happens, shoppers become far more loyal (and spend FAR more on average too, growing store top- line & often net bottom line). This is part of the secret of Amazon Prime.

While I can't claim that it is the right or only view, I fully believe that stores will benefit far more than the costs.

*Revised based on mquander's feedback

<comment><USER2> I love a good story, but I think you're embellishing this one a bit much. It sounds a little like "We're rescuing victimized consumers from abusive companies employing teams of uptight actuaries intent on nickel-and-diming you wherever they can".

They might very well be conniving, but your app to me feels more like those people that save up a bunch of coupons and walk out with a cart full of groceries and the grocery store actually owing them money. There's nothing wrong with that: I have no doubt that the CEO of Fred Meyer still rues that day in college that I walked into one of his aisles and walked out with a bunch of cartons of eggs.

People aren't victims when a company offers a product at a price that the customer is willing to accept. I'm sure you have a fine app that will save some people some money, but we're not rebels striking an uprising against our grocery store overlords who dare to sell overpriced eggs to underprivileged American consumers.

(edit): The parent post has been edited to sound less like a movie trailer, so my post may now sound out-of-place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> One data point: I signed up for the service ~ 6 months ago. I do ~ $200 in Amazon purchases a month.

I got my first rebate last night: 50 cents back on some RAM that had dropped in price the day after I purchased it. For anyone who is concerned about email permissions, here's the email (automatically sent from my personal account) to Amazon:

Subject: I was charged more than current price

 _Hey,

I am writing you to ask for a price adjustment review on a recently placed purchase. Please reference: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/xxxx](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/xxxx) and xxx.

I ordered a Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3L-1600 SODIMM Memory for Mac (CT2K8G3S160BM ) for $66.99 on January 10.

However this afternoon I noticed that the price is $0.50 less than the amount I was charged, as it decreased to $66.49. As I bought the item recently, and the price has been significantly discounted, would it be possible for you to please start processing a post-order price adjustment refund?

Many thanks for your outstanding customer service.

Best, Roy Murdock_

The service also attaches a screenshot of the shipping confirmation to the email automatically, which is pretty cool.

I suspect that I would get more value from the service if I purchased a higher volume of commodity/low price goods on Amazon, especially computing parts that are essentially guaranteed to go down in price within the near future. Overall, it's great to have this sort of protection from dropped prices and is definitely worth the email access permissions in my opinion - but at the first sign of a data breach or privacy issue, I will drop the service immediately. I am not affiliated with Paribus in any way.

<comment><USER4> Is there a way you can set it to ignore meagre price drops?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was using this for a couple months and it saved me a bit of money, but in the end I couldn't get over the idea of a third party having total access to my email account -- which is total access to every account I own (banks, social media, everything). It just weirds me out. I canceled the service and changed my email password.

<comment><USER6> May be create a separate email id just for Amazon?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I couldn't sign up using an email address that has a + in it. (My amazon email is email@example.com). Could you get paribus not to flag it as invalid?

</comment><comment><USER8> It would seem that other than being a little more automated (giving anyone access to my email however is a deal breaker in my book), this Paribus service wouldn't seem to have any real advantages over (what appears to be) a competing service from Citibank: [https://www.citipricerewind.com](https://www.citipricerewind.com)

A compare/contrast on the Paribus website would be helpful.

I see statements that Paribus doesn't sell customer data, but on the Paribus blog, I see analytics run against what appears to be customer data. That dichotomy concerns me.

Are there any limits on how often a customer can request a rebate? What happens if the customer hits that limit? Will a company "fire" a customer, as can happen to people who return items too frequently?

I'm also surprised to see that Citibank has a patent in this area…

</comment><comment><USER9> One major caveat that I just recently discovered - purchases made through Amazon are only covered if they're actually sold by Amazon, not through a third-party reseller and fulfilled by Amazon.

If you change your purchasing habits to choose items only sold by Amazon, you could quickly exceed any possible savings by paying the higher direct price than you'd pay for the same product (with the same shipping time) that you'd get from a third-party merchant.

Just an FYI if you're thinking about signing up for the service.

</comment><comment><USER10> This thing needs a fucking threshold mechanic. I just signed up and it sent 3 refund requests all for around 50 cents. That's just embarrassing. I contemplated cancelling my account before I realized the damage (the emails) had already been done. If it does this again before a threshold mechanic is implemented, I'll be definitely closing my account.

</comment><comment><USER11> While this is cool, isn't the concern that a retailer would get upset and change a policy to prevent this from happening? What's the end game here?

<comment><AUTHOR> Founder here. Definitely a common first reaction, but we've found that on average shoppers become far more loyal (and spend more, growing store top-line & often net bottom line) when this happens.

You might think we're crazy, but we fully believe (and have data to back up) that we're helping these stores far more than the costs.

<comment><USER12> You should take it a step further and help the retailers add this as a feature to their own apps -- having a store app should include a promise that if the store lowers prices, it will refund the difference for purchases in the last week (or whatever time frame) to loyal customers, perhaps through a store credit. It's a dandy reason to drive adoption of the app.

One thing you should listen to is the number of people who want a reserve price (transaction threshold). This price setting is pure economic gold as information goes -- it tells you their risk aversion (probably) and the shape of their utility curve for extra income. I'm sure it correlates with income, and gives independent verification of income, statistically.

If you have 5 big retailers using your app feature internally, offer to build them a network they can join, to make their rebate offer even more attractive to participants.

With the stores' aid, you can circumvent the problems with email permissions, which frankly are going to limit your adoption. You are far better off working with the stores in a partnership I think, and helping them to understand their own customers' reserve price (and hence propensity for returns and chargebacks, which they surely care about), than being a 'gotcha' adversary.

Added link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis)

<comment><USER13> Selling this as a service to the merchants seems like a great idea. It would feel less creepy than allowing Yet Another App access to my inbox and credit card details.

Supplying merchants is also likely to provide a more _predictable_ income.

However...

Are giants like Amazon really likely to listen to a pitch from a startup, even one incubated at YC? (No snark, genuine question.)

There is another option: open source the product and give it away, charging for the hosted service. Obviously this may not be an option for Paribus, which would be a shame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Seemingly really cool service.

I don't know if I want to authenticate my email address with them though.

It seems to me like Amazon/Best Buy/etc next move will be to add a provision that "You must submit a claim not through an automated service"

<comment><USER15> > It seems to me like Amazon/Best Buy/etc next move will be to add a provision > that "You must submit a claim not through an automated service"

So their service will auth against your Gmail account in order to place a Draft there for you to send ;)

<comment><USER16> although if you're giving the service free reign of your email, it could easily look for those confirmation emails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been on the service for a few months as well and have been refunded ~$100.

Another possibility- Amazon just coopts the idea and rolls it into a feature of prime, ala Orbitz.

</comment><comment><USER18> Instead of linking to my email address, which I would never allow, let me just forward the relevant emails to you, i.e. to a special email address linked to me account.

It's pretty easy to add a rule in most email providers that forward only message matching certain patterns - you could even provide documentation of what patterns to include.

<comment><USER19> If i understand what you mean correctly, this is what tripit.com does (and they do it very well). I just forward plane/hotel bookings and it get imported into my account straight away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've used Paribus, and although I'm not usually a fan of letting services connect to my email (even the one I use for shopping), I like it. I've received a few refunds from products that I have pre-ordered and then watched the price drop the day after it came out. Amazon has been happy to honor all these requests so far.

<comment><USER21> Create a completely new email account _only_ for Amazon. Connect it to Paribus, and then forward it to your main email account. Your privacy concerns will be limited to whatever Paribus does with your Amazon purchase history.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> How is Paribus taking that 25% cut? Do I have to put my banking details in the app?

<comment><USER18> They charge your credit card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm currently subscribed and using it. I'm an amazon prime subscriber who makes several purchases a month and so far it's returned $1.68 back to me. As a free service, awesome.

<comment><USER24> It's effectively free since their obtaining refunds on your behalf that you otherwise might not have, but it's not technically free since they take a cut of the refunds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> How does this compare to Walmart's savings catcher? [https://savingscatcher.walmart.com/](https://savingscatcher.walmart.com/)

It appears that savings catcher is only for current prices, not prices that drop later.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been using this since April, and do a ton of shopping on Amazon. I've saved $27 since joining, and since I wouldn't have checked those, I consider it free savings. One negative is that it doesn't support the 2-FA for Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've used it and am awaiting the result of a $26 dollar request from Target. (dropped prices on barstools)

</comment><comment><USER28> Does Paribus get anything out of this besides data? Do company's buy Paribus's data?

<comment><AUTHOR> Founder here.

We are not selling data. Our model is to charge a portion of refunds that we actually get for you (that way we share same incentive as our users)

<comment><USER29>
        > We are not selling data

Yet. Do you offer an iron-clad guarantee you won't in the future? Otherwise it seems like the first thing you'll do if investors start to put pressure on you...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Will this work with amazon uk?</comment>