What professional philosophers believe – Survey results - <AUTHOR> http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl <comment><USER2> There's quite a bit of further discussion (including explanations of a number of the questions) scattered across a couple different LessWrong threads.

Explanations of many of the questions: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/emj/poll_less_wrong_and_mainstream_p...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/emj/poll_less_wrong_and_mainstream_philosophy_how/)

What do professional philosophers believe, and why? [http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/hbw/what_do_professiona...](http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/hbw/what_do_professional_philosophers_believe_and_why/)

Here's a list of links to more discussions: <http://philpapers.org/bbs/thread.pl?tId=420> I haven't actually gone through these, though.

You might also want to check out:

Survey of eating habits among philosophers: [http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/philosophers-e...](http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/philosophers- eating-ethics-a-discussion-of-the-poll-results.html)

Survey of beliefs among economists: [http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/02/news-flash- economists...](http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/02/news-flash-economists- agree.html)

<comment><USER3> _Survey of eating habits among philosophers:[http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/philosophers-e...](http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/philosophers-e..). _

I assumed they all starved because one guy never passed the fork.

<comment><USER4> It's well know that most philosophers were heavy drinkers, I mean... Immanuel Kant was a real pissant, Who was very rarely stable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's one of my favorites. Glad to see the pros are evenly split, because this one really toasts my brain too.

Teletransporter (new matter): survival or death?

Accept or lean toward: survival 337 / 931 (36.2%) Other 304 / 931 (32.7%) Accept or lean toward: death 290 / 931 (31.1%)

<comment><USER6> I lean towards a sort of death. But perhaps we're all dying and reanimating in between each Planck time instant anyway, in which case we shouldn't worry about it too much :)

<comment><USER7> That quite defines how I think about it. The current "me" is as different from the me within a second from now as from a theoretical me at the other end of a teleportation device that delivers me there within a second. The three selves are all distinct from each other and in fact are as distinct (and as close) to each other as from any other human being, with the caveat that the 'me's a second from now inherit all the memories and physical state from the current me, whereas a different person does not.

But in terms of selves, of consciousness, they're all isolated phenonema. I think consciousness is merely an illusion, we think we have continuity because we inherit the memories and thought processes from the self from the moment before, but all that exists is a moment of awareness (the "now"), which is analogous to a clock of a computer processor.

<comment><USER8> Depending on granularity, your comment was written by a number of people approaching infinity?

<comment><USER7> Yes. And I really do think it approaches infinity, or else our wetware has a limited clocking speed and that would define a single atomic moment of awareness (seems more likely since we're highly advanced computers, but computers nonetheless.) Even as I was writing the comment several clocks might have been spent not on it, but picking up ambient sound and other stimulae. To the extent that I'm half conscious to these other things, I was actually fully conscious to them though for only a few number of clocks, whereas things on which I seem to be fully conscious are demanding the majority of my (multi)processor clocks. There's the case for whether we can truly multitask-- are we multi-core? We definitely are as to the many functions done subconsciously, but what about the conscious regions of the brain? But to simplify the thought experiment, we can simply think that we can only really spend any single moment of awareness on a single atomic thing, and like a computer we juggle attention between various things so fast as to make it seem we're doing them all concurrently (like the various applications simultaneously running on a computer.)

The upside, of course, is that my philosophy frees me up for gultfree teletransportation. Bring it on!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What should hackers expect regarding the subjectivity/objectivity of aesthetic value? Should we have expected that particular choice to have broken down into thirds? What does it mean that it did break down into thirds?

Even with a minor in philosophy & a degree in linguistics which involved a good deal of philosophies of language and mind, i'm not sure what to make of the results of this survey. Anyone have a better perspective on what the deal is here?

<comment><USER10> That was one of the most surprising results for me, I wasn't aware that objective aesthetics was even taken seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Time to reread my favorite pg essay: <http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html>

<comment><USER12> It's a great essay but this passage highlights to me the sillyness of philosophy:

> I learned that I don't exist. I am (and you are) a collection of cells that > lurches around driven by various forces, and calls itself I. But there's no > central, indivisible thing that your identity goes with. You could > conceivably lose half your brain and live. Which means your brain could > conceivably be split into two halves and each transplanted into different > bodies. Imagine waking up after such an operation. You have to imagine being > two people.

Take a living person and excise part of their brain, and they will continue to live. There have been accidents, injuries, and surgeries that have proven that. I don't know about fully half, but I would not be surprised if it worked.

BUT - take half a brain and transplant it into a different body? There is zero evidence today that that is even possible.

One might say that such technology just hasn't been invented yet. True. But maybe it will never be invented; and thus it's really science fiction disguised as philosophy. I think quite a lot of philosophy ends up being disguised fiction--science or otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's great to see numbers but the reality is to get exact answers from any professional Philosopher you would need to let them rewrite the question every time. Working with pro and academic Philosophers on symposiums taught me that even the folks in the same micro sub-field with each other have these chasms of interpretation that led to huge difference in expression.

</comment><comment><USER14> A lot to dive into there, but the God results immediately jump out at me.

<comment><USER15> People who tend to be interested in philosophy and are theists probably tend to go into religion rather than philosophy.

<comment><USER9> That's one hypothesis. An alternative hypothesis would be to suggest that the more educated one becomes in philosophy the less that religion makes sense, and the clearer it becomes that there is no evidence for theism.

(Note, I'm not advocating for either of these hypotheses, but correlation is not causation.)

<comment><USER16> I seriously doubt that. Most "professional philosophers" these days are doing analytical philosophy, and it's been at least 500 years since a non-crazy person has been persuaded one way or the other about God by studying logic.

I suppose Georg Cantor might be an exception to this.

<comment><USER17> Gödel had an unpublished ontological "proof" [1] that's fairly simple to understand. It hinges on two things: 1.) accepting a logical system in which possibly necessary truths are necessary; 2.) accepting his argument that it's _possible_ for god to exist.

But I guess you said non-crazy.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6dels_ontological_proof>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> it would be interesting to have social games that could extract answers for these questions from ordinary people who don't know what the terms mean

<comment><USER19> Why "social"?

<comment><USER20> MVP. Mobile and disruptive come later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21>
        Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?

        Accept or lean toward: [..]
        Accept or lean toward: metaphysically possible 	217 / 931 (23.3%)

Uhm.. ? :)

What does "metaphysically" mean in this context?

<comment><USER22> Phil major here.

Imagine a being that acted exactly like a human, it spoke, laughed, etc. - everything that you'd imagine a human being to do. However, it does not actually feel or think.

For example, if you were to prick one of these "zombies," they would say "ouch," recoil, perhaps berate you, but the zombie does not actually feel pain - it's a purely mechanical process.

Metaphysics is concerned with the nature of being, properties, identity, etc. What one means by whether such zombies are metaphysically possible is really an answer to the question: are such zombies really any different than how we are?

For more: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie>

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the explanation! Now I'm way interested in reading more about these zombies.

<comment><USER22> For those of you interested in learning more, look up these terms (I studied philosophy related to Complex Systems, and zombies were a central question in my thesis):

John Searle's Chinese Room, Turing Test, physicalism, Conway's Game of Life

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> In the question, "communitarianism, egalitarianism, or libertarianism", 40% said "Other".

I'd really like to know if any one idea dominates here - for example, if 38% of philosophers espouse totalitarianism, that's worth getting into.

<comment><USER25> If you flick the setting at the top to "fine" you get a deeper breakdown. I won't paste it here as it would be quite tedious to format it here.

<comment><USER26> Tl;dr: they're distributed among "unclear", "more than one", "intermediate view" and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I take "other" to mean "Well, it's complicated."

I'm most surprised to see deontology so high (nearly as high as consequentialism) under normative ethics.

<comment><USER27> "other" at coarse granularity, or "other" at fine granularity?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Surveys of philosophers: normative or informative?

<comment><USER29> Neither.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was surprised to see so many leaning towards the switch in the Trolley problem. I still haven't made my mind on that.

<comment><USER31> I think it's interesting that self driving cars will have to decide this themselves someday. What do you think we'll have them do?

<comment><USER32> Humans fail(1) quite a bit on this problem when it comes to animals. One case I remember was a driver who avoided a dog on the highway which resulted in the driver and 3 teenage girls dying.

I am not sure what a self-driving car is going to do.

1) "fail" as in get the car load of people killed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm surprised how popular compatibilism is. It seems like a complete cop-out to me.

</comment><comment><USER31> By the way, what happens if you do a coin flip for newcomb's paradox? The entity can't predict that.

</comment><comment><USER34> The contrarian in me can't help but think that the least popular answer is the "right" one :-)

<comment><USER35> I get you are joking but... That's just as bad as thinking that the most popular answer is the right one. The best you can do is to decide which one is best by analyzing the contents, not the % values.

<comment><USER34> Agreed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was hoping to see absolute or relative moral values, but couldn't find it on there.

<comment><USER37> No, but there is a question concerning moral realism. Since moral relativism is a type of moral anti-realism which is entertained by 27.7% of respondents, it follows that less than 27.7% philosophers are relativists.

<comment><USER38> Many formulations of relativism are actually pretty unpopular when compared anti-realism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm surprised scientific realism fared as well as it did.

</comment><comment><USER40> Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

<comment><USER41> Sounds like nonsense to me.

 _Quid latine dictum sit, altum viditur_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you have a good understanding of consciousness / mind, you can derive the answer for most philosophical problems from that.

<comment><USER18> The success of science in explaining everything else, however, means that practically we can treat the mind as an epiphenomenon.

<comment><USER42> What do you mean by "practically we can treat the mind as an epiphenomenon"?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What can we do to help Puerto Rico? - <AUTHOR> Passively watching this evolving crisis from home is hard. There is a lot of brainpower here. Is there anything we (coders, techies, etc) can do to help? Any creative ideas? <comment><USER2> Replacing the orange baboon with any other baboon would probably help a lot.

<comment><USER3> Look at yourself:

[https://i.imgur.com/kLUVcdp.png](https://i.imgur.com/kLUVcdp.png)

<comment><USER2> Compare me to Trump.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> TANSTAAFL. Long term, Tariffs on foreign trade would probably benefit Puerto Rico because its industries would not be subject to them and that might offset the logistical disadvantages of its location relative to US markets...i.e. under NAFTA goods from Canada and Mexico can be shipped by rail and truck and under other globalization policies large scale trading nations such as China benefit from massive economies of scale. As US relations with Cuba normalize, Puerto Rico will probably struggle more economically.

So political will that is perhaps not directly in one's best interest as a consumer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Help clear the lies that make slow and ineffective response politically palitable.

Learn and tell the truth about what's happened to them.

I remember working for a bit for Big Pharma, a couple of decades ago, when Peurto Rico was "the future" for them and they were going to... "modernize", or something, the island's economy.

Uhuh...

(To quote a song, maybe a bit out of context, "same as it ever was".)

[http://billmoyers.com/story/vulture-capitalists-circle- puert...](http://billmoyers.com/story/vulture-capitalists-circle-puerto-rico- prey/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Donate: [http://unidosporpuertorico.com/en/](http://unidosporpuertorico.com/en/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Donate money. A dollar goes a long way there.</comment>


For Japanese Linguist, a Long and Lonely Schlep (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2012/04/16/150723840/for-japanese-linguist-a-long-and-lonely-schlep

<comment><USER2> Tangentially related: there's a good recent Japanese film, available with English subtitles, called The Great Passage. It includes two intertwined love stories, one between a man and a woman and one between two men and their magnum opus, a new comprehensive Japanese dictionary, which takes decades to complete.

Highly recommended if, for nothing else, a window into why at least some salarymen feel like their sacrifices are worth it.

The film also explicitly asks and answers the question of why a publisher would fund a decades-long quest to produce a work with very limited commercial appeal (which this article might set you to wondering about): they're willing to subsidize certain prestige projects with rent from being in the elite fraternity of Japanese publishing houses, and capability of publishing new dictionaries is a status marker for that. There are limits to this largesse and they come a key subplot to the movie.

</comment><comment><USER3> Jack halpern is quite an interesting character and I feel the article sells him short when introducing him as a Japanese resident who speaks Yiddish.

He has worked on one of the major Japanese character dictionaries as editor in chief and his company leases out databases of Chinese, Japanese and Korean character and this data is used by many of the major publishers of dictionaries. He has also published over 16 books. The guy is no stranger to the hard work required to build such a dictionary.

More over he founded the unicycle foundation, which is responsible for the World Cup of unicycling.</comment>


Rust, Go, C++11 or Julia? Which would you choose and why - <AUTHOR> I'm thinking of starting a new language this year but recently there have been a number of new languages which all look interesting so I'm not sure where to start dablling and which is going to be a clear future winner (if there is such a notion).
My requirements:
  - fun to develop in
  - <USER2>
  - did I mention fun?
My background:
  - dynamic languages (Python and Ruby)
  - a hint of C
My question to HN is if you were to start with a clean slate, which would you choose and why. I'm not interested in a flame war, just your personal opinions. Please be nice to one another. <comment><USER3> I have absolutely loved learning Go. I love simplicity; Go has aesthetics like hardwood floors and flat white walls: your ideas stand out like a fire engine red couch.

If you are used to bigger languages, there will be times when you cry out and curse the names of god because the simple, obvious feature simply is not there. There are young-language cryptic error messages.

But all the libraries are brand spanking new and beautiful, and a bunch of Serious Experienced People wrote Go with the intention of using it for the rest of their careers.

If you like that kind of thing, there's nothing more go-like than Go.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've looked a little with Go and to be honest I thought it was awesome. It felt very Pythonic almost to the point of feeling like a dynamic language.

The only reason why i wouldn't choose Go at this point is a) it can't be linked from other languages b) can't be used for OS development c) can't be used for embedded systems (I would love to use it for Pebble or Android).

<comment><USER4> If you care about embedded systems, go with C++.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rust will be the best one.

Rust is still under development, not really ready for production. But this makes rust more like a very good learning material for any programmer, since you can evolve with the language.

Go is also a good one. But what go provided is a very limited feature set. It's more like C in functionality, but less like C in efficiency. Well, still good for you.

C++11 is not recommended. I'm a C++ programer and use C++11 in my daily life. But as you mentioned, fun, C++ is not fun at all. It's actually very serious. There're full of bumps and hollows when you use it.

I noticed Julia last year, but not know much of it.

Ok, everything beyond is not important. The truth is you have to choose your domain of CS area. Each language is deeply connected with its development background and usage, scene. Choosing the domain is the real thing you should consider, not language.

Just like what nationality you have, what tradition you have, IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> What domain. That's a good question which I never thought of while considering my options. The problem I have is that I have lots of interests and each one may lean toward a different language:

\- Web development (Go looks like the clear winner here)

\- Graphics (C++11 or Rust)

\- Big data/number crunching (C++11)

\- OS development (C/C++, but possibly Rust)

I'm conflicted. After spending 10 happy years in my previous language of choice, I really don't think I have the mental capacity to learn all of the above. First Word Problems?

<comment><USER6> You certainly the have mental capacity to start learning all the above. To become a master is another goal. But having wider horizons helps always. I recommend learning by doing. Set the simple goals, use one of the languages you consider. Then repeat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would learn all 3 that aren't C++11.

I am learning Rust now. The explicit memory management is to me its defining feature. The compiler is _strict_ , but it manages pointers/references safely. Manual memory management with fewer sharp edges (once it compiles). It seems to be blazing its own trail here. It's frustrating getting anything running when half the examples online only work on older versions of the compiler, but if you can tolerate the churn there is a lot to be learned.

Go is a very clean, simple language with a great thread/concurrency model. It seemed similar to Rust at first, but it's garbage-collected, doesn't (won't ever?) have algebraic data types, and lacks pattern matching. It does have a certain appeal: simplicity. If I only had one weekend to burn, I'd learn Go.

</comment><comment><USER8> Focus on creating things. Not on learning things. I.e. Ask yourself what fun low-level project can I _MAKE_ instead of what technology/language/whatever can I learn.

</comment><comment><USER9> Learning a bit of static typed language will definitely benefit you. I would start with Rust and then switch to M# when it gets released (MS has a strong track record of delivering brilliant languages - C#, F#):

[http://joeduffyblog.com/2013/12/27/csharp-for-systems- progra...](http://joeduffyblog.com/2013/12/27/csharp-for-systems-programming)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks I've never heard of M# before. But personally I'm linux-only so probably a deal breaker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It depends on what you want.

If you want to write production code C++ is a definite answer. Rust and Julia are immature. Go is a badly designed language.

If you want to learn, choose Rust. It's very well designed language with interesting type system which includes many ideas from languages like Haskell, etc. Julia is a dynamic language and you won't learn a lot.

<comment><USER11> > Go is a badly designed language.

Honest question: why do you think so?

<comment><USER10> It doesn't have generics because they are "too complex". It also ignores all progress of the last 20 years in programming languages research.

Rust is much better language in this respect. It has beautiful type system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How about Haskell or D? Depending on whether you want to go high-level or low- level. Rust and Go are not bad choices for low-level languages either. I don't know if Julia is mature enough yet.

</comment><comment><USER13> Go is the simplest, but not quite as efficient as Rust or C++. I don't think Julia is really a general purpose language.

Rust is also good, but more complicated than Go and hasn't hit v1.0 yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't mind how hard a language is to learn, so simplicity isn't a key factor. I figure I'm going to spend the next 10 years of my life dedicating myself to something so I want to make sure it's a) going to be fun to work with b) keep me employed and c) going to still exist in 10 years time.

<comment><USER14> Considering b) and c), C++ looks like the only valid option.

<comment><USER13> a) would probably rule out C++

c) Go and Rust are likely to both see widespread adoption

<comment><USER14> What would be the reason for chosing Go over of one of the existing mainstream languages? Even if it's "better" (cleaner, more expressible, more readable etc.) than say C++ or Java, I don't see that outweighting maturity, availability of libraries/SDKs/tools, availabilitiy of developers for one of the current mainstream language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since you only know a hint of C, learning more about the low level and mechanical sympathy is the way to go. So I'd say go for C++

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure about that. I'm happy starting completely from scratch so I'm willing to throw out tradition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think julia could have a real good future. I started looking at it a couple of weeks ago and liked what I saw.

Its well worth a look IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER17> If your background is dynamic languages, you really shouldn't miss C++, with all of its low-level stuff along with good enough high-level stuff. Even if you won't use it professionally, after C++ you'll swallow any new language in a week or two (or three, for Haskell ;)).

</comment><comment><USER18> Rust seems like it has by far the most to teach you coming from a dynamic, interpreted background.</comment>


English accents and their implications for spelling reform - <AUTHOR> http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/accents_spellingreform.htm

<comment><USER2> Chinese has an almost comically severe version of this problem. Not only do a number of mutually unintelligible languages share the writing system, but converting everything to pinyin would also make the bulk of Chinese literature incomprehensible.

<comment><USER3> That's one reason why I disagree with the author of the article when he writes "Everyone pronounces sight, site and cite identically, so it is absurd (except for advocates of etymological spelling) that we have to learn to spell them all differently."

What he overlooks is that having three different spellings helps a reader to distinguish between the three different meanings. The sentence "Cite the sighting of the site." is much easier to understand than "Site the siting of the site."

If you only use pinyin to learn Chinese, you end up (or at least I did) getting confused by words like 在 zài (located) and 再 zài (again).

<comment><USER4> Dewey (the guy we get the numbering system used in many libraries) was looking to simplify English spelling. From the movement he was part of, we get spellings like _tho_ for _though_ and _thru_ for _through_.

George Bernard Shaw used to mock English spelling with the word GHOTI. This, he pronounced _fish_ as it took the _gh_ from _enough_ (or _tough_ ), the _o_ from _women_ , and the _ti_ from _nation_.

As for changing spelling and grammar, that is a very difficult task, as we tend to get pedantic jerks like Samuel Johnson who were so enamored of Latin, that they cobbled up rules like "splitting infinitives is forbidden" because the infinitive form of latin (you may be more familiar with Spanish) verbs is a single word that cannot be split. And some people still get bent by the opening sequence of Star Trek ... _to boldly go_... omg! a split infinitive!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting article. There was an something on the BBC News website a while back with two sides of a similar argument, only one side was written in a style that was supposed to be easier to read; it certainly wasn't for me as it was written with a more southern (southern English that is) accent and I had to re-read certain words several times to work out what they were supposed to be.

I know this part was only covered briefly, but English did used to have two different letters for the "th" sounds - ð (like the) and þ (like thin), I suppose they were dropped for simplicity of the written alphabet in the end.

<comment><USER4> The letter thorn (þ), when hand-written, looks a lot like the letter Y [1]. So it remains, somewhat, in stuff like "Ye Olde Shoppe." Wikipedia claims that eth and thorn died out in common use (in English, anyway) between 1300 and 1500.

Notes:

1 - It gets drawn in one motion, down to the center from the upper left, then looping up to the upper right, back down to the center and down from there. So it looks like a sloppy Y.

<comment><USER5> Wow, that's really interesting, I never realised that's where "Ye" came from.

I suppose a similar thing happened with yogh (ȝ) - instead of being replaced with something less ambiguous it became z in some cases, but is still pronounced the original way. I think it only survives in some Scottish names in that form though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Spelling reform is never going to happen, so this is not something to worry about.

It might evolve and change over time, but a directed reform will not happen.

There is just too much inertia in the form of written material, and people who learned a certain spelling to ever change it.

And there is no one with enough authority to force it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wells has good credentials as a linguist on this subject. But perhaps if he wrote from America, the land of English as a koine language, he would be more optimistic about a mediating spelling that reflects plurality (and perhaps majority) practice in pronouncing English as a worldwide language. I don't see any world example that shows that a spelling must be "ideal" in the way he defines it to be practical for a broad speech community. Spanish, since its most recent spelling reform, continues to have dialectal variation (as one would expect given the wide territorial extent of Spanish-speaking countries, and their history of both conquest of and immigration by non-Spanish-speaking peoples). But people who speak Spanish seem to cope reasonably well with current standard spelling, and so also for speakers of German.

</comment><comment><USER8> Optimal communication, written, verbal and data transmission is an area that I don't see enough development in. I assume that much like the qwerty keyboard we are stuck with the devil we know. The Esperanto fans tried building a new one, but it has yet to gain wide acceptance.

<comment><USER7> _The Esperanto fans tried building a new one, but it has yet to gain wide acceptance._

There are good reasons why Esperanto never gained wide acceptance.

<http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/>

Esperanto doesn't deliver what it promises, which is an easy-to-learn language with broad international reach. In fact, Esperanto is about as hard to learn as any language, and its reach is confined mostly to certain parts of Europe where people speak other more widely spoken languages as interlanguages anyway.</comment></comment>


How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand? - <AUTHOR> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html <comment><USER2> Technological means to prevent government surveillance are a great idea, and usually also increase personal security from crime at the same time.

However, in the long run technology is insufficient. Laws trump technology, and culture trumps laws.

Consider a group of people with a strong track record of success protecting their rights and privacy: gun owners. The gun lobby is so strong that they have forced the government to use archaic technology:

[http://www.gq.com/story/inside-federal-bureau-of-way-too- man...](http://www.gq.com/story/inside-federal-bureau-of-way-too-many-guns)

The most important step in fighting surveillance is getting people to believe that surveillance is bad. I know we all think so, but we need more than just HN for this. Congress will care about privacy when their phones ring nonstop about it; when they lose elections over it.

<comment><USER3> The NRA is actually a corporate lobby representing gun manufacturers heavily disguised as a "rights group for concerned citizens".

Point being that there is a strong profit motive for the lobbying and lots of ready cash behind it willing to fund campaigns for re-election.

For privacy groups there isn't the same kind of profit motive in favor of personal privacy.

<comment><USER4> This is not in the least true, especially since the gun industry, which is _much_ bigger than the gun manufacturers, have their own very visible lobby, the National Shooting Sports Foundation ([http://www.nssf.org/](http://www.nssf.org/)).

The NRA is politically powerful for one single reason: it has ~ 5 million paid members, and lots of other gun owners take cues from it _and will vote on this single issue_. It, for example, went all in to re-elect Roy Blunt in Missouri, going so far as to drag the Executive Vice President and the head of it's lobbying arm to Joplin, MO, to talk to 50 people who showed up at the airport event (!!! and I've never heard of such a thing before). Plus of course the usual mailings and other means.

And it paid off, he won by about a 3% margin, much narrower than the 14% in 2010 against a Carnahan, a much more storied Missouri political family, and the Republicans very narrowly kept the Senate.

As for why we vote so much on the issue of guns, why the NRA has _five million members_ , see my other posting in this subthread on motivating atrocities.

<comment><USER3> A majority of its near quarter billion income comes from corporate donations - in the form of advertising sales, donations and grants.

In addition to this, many NRA members join just so that they can join gun clubs - not necessarily because they agree with the NRA.

<comment><USER4> ~75% of it's income comes from membership dues and individual contributions, see e.g. [https://www.quora.com/Where-does-funding-for-the-National- Ri...](https://www.quora.com/Where-does-funding-for-the-National-Rifle- Association-NRA-come-from) which has links to the 990 forms with the hard numbers. Here's the link to the latest available 2014 one, which evidently was filed/made public after that analysis: [http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/5301161...](http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/530116130/530116130_201412_990O.pdf)

 _In addition to this, many NRA members join just so that they can join gun clubs - not necessarily because they agree with the NRA._

What do you base this claim on? Some do, but membership numbers too closely match the current intensity of the war on our Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) for it to be very many.

<comment><USER5> The NRA is the traditional certifier of shooting events. That's maybe less true as new shooting sports have grown in popularity, such as IPSC - but if you want to engage in most local or national shooting competitions you must be a member of the NRA. In recent history, many shooting ranges/clubs have started requiring a membership in the NRA as a condition of eligibility to join.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is worth remembering that The Federalist Papers were written under pseudonym Publius. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay believed in the importance of anonymity as a tool for public discussion. A surveillance state can destroy this tool as well.

<comment><USER7> Well put. Are you aware of other examples of support for anonymity from that time?

<comment><USER8> Pseudonymity was a common practice at the time. Also, the Federalist Papers were written _before_ the First Amendment. Indeed freedom of the press was proposed in No. 84.

[http://alturasinstitute.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/08/Salad...](http://alturasinstitute.com/wp- content/uploads/2016/08/Saladino-Article-on-Pseudonyms.pdf)

The Articles of Confederation mention _Freedom of speech and debate in Congress_ but that's it. Otherwise, this was left to the States.

<comment><USER6> It is worth reminding that the freedom of speech was understood at the time as one of our unalienable rights as individuals. Notice the phrasing of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging __the__ freedom of speech

The article "the" before "freedom" was deliberate. "The" freedom of speech is an absolute given. And it is not that Congress authorizes or allows freedom of speech. It is "Congress shall make no law".

Part of the debate on writing the Bill of Rights was not that rights needed to be granted to the people and the states, but that it was not necessary because it was understood that these rights already exist and come from our humanity and cannot be denied. A document like the Bill of Rights could be misconstrued and abused to flip the tables and make people assume their rights are granted as a privilege of the ruling government, instead of a truth that it is inherently in every person and they delegate their powers to the government.

<comment><USER8> If you're saying that freedom of speech implicitly and _only_ implicitly existed as a Right of Man before the First Amendment was ratified, that would be mistaken. There was a _Bill of Rights_ passed in the English Parliament after the overthrow of James II. Our _Bill of Rights_ was a descendent of their _Bill of Rights_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689)

As for _unalienable_ , we 'aliened' those rights by limiting _who_ they applied to. Whenever you hear _States ' Rights_, that's just a dog whistle translation of aliening some people's rights.

<comment><USER9> > As for unalienable, we 'aliened' those rights by limiting who they applied > to.

Not quite. The "who" was always citizens. The catch, rather, was limiting whom the restrictions on limiting applied to. Under the original, pre-14th Amendment interepretation of the Bill of Rights, it only placed restrictions on the federal government (indeed, the First makes it explicit, with its "Congress shall make no law").

States could still do whatever they wanted - the check there was supposed to be the corresponding state constitution, and, indeed, most of them had some checks, in many cases with verbiage directly derived from BoR.

As for "states rights", while it is more often a dog whistle for allowing states to infringe on someone's right, this is not necessarily always the case. It can also be about allowing states to protect someone's right against an encroachment by the federal government. "Sanctuary cities" are a canonical example of how some states exercise their states' rights (in this case, the right to not cooperate with the federal government) to protect someone.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. I'd add that Sanctuary Cities are _expressly_ disobedient. They're saying we won't enforce these Federal laws here and they're not relying on a mis-reading of the 10th to do that.

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

States Rights and, worse, Sovereign Sheriffs are wrapping their malarkey in constitutional nonsense.

<comment><USER9> My opinion on the 10th is that, while "sovereign citizens" and other similar movements distort it to the point of meaninglessness, the standing mainstream judicial interpretation (that it basically means nothing at all) is also a heavy distortion of the original intent, and is harmful to the stability of our federal system of government.

But then, I am a states' rights liberal - a species so rare as to be considered mythical by many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I disagree, RMS. For the same reason you've argued that open source is better than closed source, so is transparency better than privacy.

What democracy needs isn't privacy. Privacy has always been a false value. Privacy is disappearing- period. No amount of gum-flapping, law-making, or attempts to complicate our lives or burn more CPU cycles and create more latency with more layers of security will change that.

What democracy needs is respect and tolerance. Specifically, we need: 1. Surveillance being broadcast instead of going to monolithic corporations and governments, 2. To learn to tolerate and respect each others' wishes as to what is done with that surveillance.

We're living in a closed system, no different than the International Space Station. No one on the ISS wants privacy. They want sensors covering every God damn millimeter of the space station 24/7, and they want mission control analyzing that data around the clock, so that if there's an issue with atmospheric or hull integrity, they get plenty of warning.

What they want in lieu of privacy is respect from each other to be left alone when they want alone time and to not be judged for what they do with their down time. That's respect, which is very different from privacy.

Hawking is dead wrong about us needing to get off the planet in 1000 years. What we need is to learn how to live in smaller closed systems, such as underground bunkers, undersea habitats, and sealed buildings, because no matter what planet colonists end up on, that's what they're going to have to do. After we destroy our ecosystem here, it's what we're going to have to do to survive this planet keeping the pollutants and excessive weather and heat on the outside.

This is a much more profound psychological challenge than it is a technical one, but we can't make that first step until we come to understand that privacy is not a virtue. Privacy is asymmetric ignorance. It is a cheap hack workaround for what really matters: tolerance and respect.

<comment><USER11> One of the foundations of democracy is "secret ballot". If it's possible to algorithmically deduce who you're going to vote for, a tyranny can easily take you down or try to influence* you in ways you shouldn't be.

I think you have no idea about what you're taking here. Other option being you benefitting off of surveillance in some form (Don't want to be rude, only addressing the concern.).

* We experienced this first hand in the 2016 elections -- which is why it always felt weird to most of us all the time.

<comment><USER4> One reason to utterly and totally oppose mail-in and on-line balloting. That non-secret ballots also allow paid and coerced voting are other traditional reasons.

<comment><USER12> Oregon has had vote-by-mail for years and it's been nothing but a positive thing. Their turnout is consistently higher than the national average. There are simply no issues around access to voting (like long lines at polling places, people who can't get time off work, etc), because every registered voter gets a ballot and a couple of weeks to fill it in.

The claims and fears around voter fraud have been studied, and have been found to be entirely without basis in reality. Voter fraud and coercion simply hasn't been an issue in a vote-by-mail state.

It's also a lot of fun to take part in voting parties, where you get to hash out the issues with your friends and fill in your ballot as you do so.

<comment><USER13> You are aware that there are countries that manage to run elections on sundays and with sufficient polling places to not have any lines to speak of at all? That might be too advanced a technology for the US, but, unbelievable as it may sound, countries like that do indeed exist!

<comment><USER12> Well, good for them, but why should I have to go anywhere? What's the point?

From experience, I enjoyed vote-by-mail for years, and I can tell you it's a huge step backwards to have to go somewhere again to vote.

<comment><USER13> First of all, I didn't say that you should, I just pointed out that your argument didn't make a whole lot of sense.

But also, the reason why voting by mail is problematic is, as has been mentioned, the potential for pressuring people into voting a certain way, including buying of votes.

Now, you said that this had been studied and it had been found that it's not really been a problem. But that's completely missing the point. You cannot judge the security of a system against attacks simply by looking at how many attacks were successful in the past. A voting system being reliable is most important when shit hits the fan. That it works fine when stakes aren't (perceived to be) all that high isn't really all that surprising, the most easily corrupted voting systems would probably work fine, and it tells you absolutely nothing about how it would hold up under different circumstances.

Also, mind you, objectively giving an accurate result is not the only function that a voting system has in a democracy, equally important is that the public trusts the system and thus the result, and trust erodes really fast under the wrong circumstances, which is when you can consider yourself lucky if you have a voting system where fraud is not just not happening, but where you can demonstrate that it's not happening.

To maybe get an idea of how stuff that's not actually secured is going to be exploited once the incentives are there: In the US, the relevant laws generally don't specify how to divide the country into voting districts. Because nobody thought of that as a problem when writing the law. Nowadays, gerrymandering is a reality. It's obviously undemocratic (I suppose you would agree?), but it's not illegal, and the incentives are there, and so it happens. There is almost nothing that people don't do for power. Trusting that people will be responsible when there is an opportunity to gain power is essentially the recipe for every major disaster humanity has ever created.

<comment><USER12> There are theoretical problems with any system of voting, everything's a trade-off one way or the other. Vote-by-mail increases turnout, it's easier and more convenient, and the problems you're afraid of simply don't happen in practice.

At the end of the day, I'd much rather have the increased participation in the democratic process than cater to the unfounded/theoretical fears of a few folks.

<comment><USER14> > the unfounded/theoretical fears of a few folks.

It's not at all theoretical. Postal voting is heavily restricted in Northern Ireland due to past history of paramilitary organisations influencing voter behaviour.

One needs to provide an attested reason for not attending the polling station:

[http://www.eoni.org.uk/Vote/Voting-by-post-or- proxy/Voting-b...](http://www.eoni.org.uk/Vote/Voting-by-post-or-proxy/Voting- by-post-or-proxy-FAQs#q120)

 _You must provide a reason why you cannot reasonably be expected to vote in person at your polling place on polling day. You must provide exact dates and locations (if applicable) or the application may be rejected on the grounds that not enough detail about the reason has been provided._

<comment><USER12> Oregon isn't Northern Ireland. They might have had problems with voter coercion. Oregon hasn't. Oregon has had problems with turnout. This improves them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A surveillance state is the beginning of totalitarianism and no amount of euphemisms can hide that.

Its beginning to look more and more like the general discourse about democracy and human rights was posturing to to see off the threat from Soviet Union and once it dissipated double speak and euphemisms quickly took over. Populations are being trained to accept surveillance as inevitable and shift even more power to the state.

Its impossible for a democracy to exist without privacy. Its impossible for free thought and exchange of ideas with surveillance. The chilling effect and paranoia quickly take over and this is not rocket science given our collective history and our understanding of power.

At the moment the press is more interested in being part of the inner circle and there is little interest in activism from the general population so there is zero threat to power structures from internal sources.

But these are fluid and when activism and a free press is needed to effect accountability and change, societies that embrace surveillance will quickly find themselves impotent and helpless.

</comment><comment><USER16> Singapore proves that a democratic surveillance state can command very broad social support, provided that the surveillance comes with stability and prosperity.

<comment><USER17> And China proves that virtually any policy, no matter how atrocious, can command very broad social support, provided that it comes with stability and prosperity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Transparency is the key to democracy. Surveillance, politics, security... They have to be balanced with transparency. If the founding fathers fell short it was here. The next great democracy will ... Hopefully ... Enshrine transparency.

</comment><comment><USER19> Discussions about surveillance almost always descend into considerations about personal privacy.

On the one hand you have those who don't want their porn habits on record, on the other you have those who doesn't care.

This is missing the bigger point, which the title of the linked article alludes to, but the article itself doesn't delve into.

For meaningful political opposition to be possible in a democracy, organizations and individuals in those organizations must have some level of privacy.

Considering the modern history of political organization and opposition and its suppression in the US, it seems to me that the incumbent power structures were already far too powerful even before the introduction of ubiquitous surveillance.

</comment><comment><USER20> I even hesitated before upvoting, because I know this action will be recorded. It's the world we live in.

<comment><USER21> > hesitated before upvoting, because I know this action will be recorded

And that's why I upvoted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Considering that the foundation of democracy requires a LOT of investment and involvement at the individual level, probably a lot. When everyone's voice matters everyone NEEDS to be well informed and active in their government. (Also, this is why the US does not have a democracy.) One way to "achieve" involvement is to just straight up watch everybody. Granted, that's not exactly what's going on here. But my guess is a culture that openly debates matters of government probably tolerates more public views of personal matters than others. Rampant individualism probably emboldens all this.

<comment><USER11> > US does not have a democracy

Hate to say this but I agree!

At the moment I have following feelings:

The Snowden moment is only but a point in time when democracy realized it had been subverted. The "act" of takeover happened way earlier than that when the idea of _secret ballot_ was compromised with complete erosion of individual privacy. Naturally modern day people will not realize the looming dangers of a tyranny until the tyranny itself manifests into some form that affects them individually.

Two examples in the world exist where a surveillance state has actually succeeded: Singapore and also in some ways China. It only depends on what _percentage of people_ feel they're prosperous and doing well; which is an odd metric because there is, for example, a significant percentage of people in North Korea who will be happy to attack America at first chance. Despite the economic disaster they've been forced to live into.

> Rampant individualism probably emboldens all this.

It does complicate the matter. But even in a group it'd be very difficult -- nearly impossible -- to take down a surveillance state with sweeping coverage and the ability to surgically dissect and disable strategies of any such a group however large. In my opinion it is very much a feeling of going after a "lost cause" that most people seem to have internalized -- not necessarily a selfish stand which kind of alienates them even more.

<comment><USER23> "for example, a significant percentage of people in North Korea who will be happy to attack America at first chance. Despite the economic disaster they've been forced to live into."

Not really. ALL people in North America will gladly attack America, because hate to America(USA, America is a continent) is instilled to them since preschool.

They don't know they are in an economic disaster, because the media tells them other countries are in worse position. They are told that people form other countries wear nice clothes just like actors in order to make them believe they are rich. Most people believe the propaganda because they are surrounded by it.

It is not very different from the US, for instance since the US backed coup d' Etat to Ukrainian democratically elected Government, western media have told several lies that people just bought because all the media agreed:

1\. That taking over a democratically elected Government was justified(from the country that usually invades countries for "democracy and freedom") because of corruption. Never mind the people that they put on place is as corrupt or worse.

2\. Spending 6.500 million dollars to interfere in other country is totally ok, if you are the USA. Of course if someone else tries to influence US election it is a crime.

3\. That Putin was a monster that wanted to "expand his Empire". This is the most ridiculous thing you could hear ever from the biggest country on Earth that has problems just defending his country.

But most (North)Americans bought it without a thought, because of things like "manufacturing consent".

Most people just naturally aligns with the majority. If you control the most watched media, you could tell people what is right to believe... Until it becomes so clear that they are being duped, that's it.

In Western countries you are free to watch or read whatever you want, but the media that is most watched is totally controlled. They don't care about a few guys knowing the truth because in a democracy the mass is king and you control the mass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Given surveillance is the democratically-expressed will of the people, possibly quite a lot.

<comment><USER25> is it really?

<comment><USER26> Possibly. Many people fall for the same old "I did nothing wrong, I have nothing to hide" crap.

Also, the fear of terrorism is pretty effective way of keeping masses in check and tricking them into giving up their freedom.

That's exactly why United States started all those wars in Middle East in the last two decades: without Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Syria there would be no terrorism, and no excuse to pass the "Patriotic Act" and other surveillance laws. Of course, other factors also mattered, but this seems to be most important of all.

<comment><USER27> I'm sorry, but saying without the wars there would be no terroism is just bullshit. Even saying that they were the primary cause is misinformed.

<comment><USER28> I was under the impression that terrorist attacks dramatically increased after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I realise that correlation isn't causation, but I suspect the invasion backfired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> koga-ninja After reading the article, massive databases just Seem like a stupid idea. It's like you're waiting For a tyrant to come along and misuse them.

However, there is a strong dose of paranoia in the article. To be fair, every state has enemies, and surveillance is done for that reason as well.

Internet connected cameras, yes, very stupid idea.

</comment><comment><USER29> I believe there is zero chance that the institutional world will not wire the whole world with sensors, and use the data. If you want anonymity and privacy, it will have to come from the hard mathematical facts of crypto, not from institutional policy. Best hope the First Amendment is strong enough to protect crypto.

</comment><comment><USER30> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil)

</comment><comment><USER31> _we need to reduce the level of general surveillance, but how far? Where exactly is the maximum tolerable level of surveillance, which we must ensure is not exceeded?_

Easy, at least in America, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, created to protect, _not establish_ , natural rights. Therefore it is prescriptive in the fourth amendment on this issue.

"the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

I would contend that we just have a bunch of people who have actively participated in violation of their oaths of office, of which they sign an affidavit (5 U.S.C. 3333) they will not violate while in office, the punishment of which (18 U.S.C. 1918) is removal from office _and_ confinement _or_ a fine.

I think we need to start taking people to court for violation of their oath, but of course proving (5 U.S.C. 7311) "advocate[ing] the overthrow of our constitutional form of government" is the legally difficult problem, so I have been meaning to learn more about legal research to find precedents of this actually being done or other legal precedents where someone has been convicted of _advocating_ X. Of course it might be easier to prove the subsection of being a member of an organization which advocates it.

Of course the privacy issue affects more than just the US, but as former military I take my oath, the only oath I have ever taken (secret oaths speech of JFK anyone?), to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign _and domestic_ , very seriously.

I have spent years since I got out and did my Descartes reset trying to understand the current threats to the constitution, and to be frank it's not the terrorists I'm scared of, its the corrupt and the cowardly in the beltway and on wallstreet that I fear are so ready to undermine our freedoms under the obviously false banner of protecting those freedoms.

All three branches of government (and the fourth estate) are corrupted, infiltrated, and subverted from the top down by the surveillance engine, which also happens to double as a blackmail engine. The oligarchy towards the end of the 90's began to understand the threat of freedom of thought on the internet and the surveillance engine has already been put in place, and as William Binney and Thomas Drake have said, now all it needs is the right dictator to "turn the key", and potentially walk the cat back on stored data on dissidents. Remember that protest you attended a few years ago? That thing your wrote? If they are so willing to get rid of things like habeus corpus, what makes you think removal of other things like ex post facto is so far fetched?

That's the slippery slope of unconstitutionality, in that by allowing one usurpation of the constitution because of a thing you agree with (on HN a good example might be the second amendment), you then open the flood gates to allow more and more stripping of rights.

Bottom line is this, _get a fucking warrant or it 's unconstitutional!_

edit: and no, general warrants and writs of assistance don't count as a constitutional warrant.</comment>


New, Nearby Earth-Like Planet Discovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.seeker.com/new-nearby-earth-like-planet-discovered-1970197349.html <comment><USER2> Pretty cool as this is orbiting the closest known star (Proxima Centauri). Still hopelessly beyond our current reach though, at 4.24 light years away.

Anyway, maybe this will encourage us to push for interstellar probes/ travel...</comment>


Rumors at Google suggest Sergey Brin working on architecture project - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/googlers-are-passing-around-a-crazy-rumor-about-sergey-brin-working-on-architecture-2011-10

<comment><USER2> Take one really smart guy, add seventeen billion dollars and a job title that gives no real responsibilities, and see what happens. I hope it's something interesting.</comment>


Tips for Writing Copy for your Website - <AUTHOR> http://www.barenakedapp.com/the-text/writing-copy-for-the-website <comment><USER2> This part is actually quite nontrivial, I found. I have a text file full of headlines, or copywriting, even though we're not quite at the point to use them just yet. It's mostly for us; I add to the list constantly, attempting to sell the project to myself every time, as if I was a user. When it seems too hard to describe it in such a way, it's a flag suggesting we might want to refocus.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also check out <http://copyblogger.com,> The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy and Triggers by Joe Sugarman.</comment>


Learn How To Strip Crimp + Test Network Cable - <AUTHOR> http://www.sultansolutions.com/make-an-ethernet-cable/ Made a tutorial that will teach you to make your own patch cables (a few people asked me how to make them).<p>Let me know what you guys think, and if I missed anything. <comment><AUTHOR> First submission to hacker news, let me know what you guys think :)</comment>


Spotify next generation explained - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hunch.se/2010/04/spotify-next-generation

<comment><USER2> It's a shame that it isn't available legally in the US of A. I have to VPN into Sweden every couple of weeks to keep my account active. I'd be more than willing to pay a premium fee... but even that won't work, your address has to be in the country of your account.

Reasons I enjoy Spotify so much...

* Their client is super quick and simple

* Songs load essentially instantly, it's like they're local.

* They have an Android/iPhone client.

* You can create playlists and sync them for offline play.

Unfortunately, for those last two items, you need a premium account. I want to give them my money, why won't they take it! =(

<comment><USER3> Totally agree. I used spotify for 2-3 months, but after a bit it got annoying when my tor proxy would suddenly stop working, and I'd have to find a new one that had enough bandwidth and was actually reliable enough. It is totally doable, it's just annoying. That said, I would be more than happy to pay their fee.

(If anyone has a solution to this...either a good proxy, or something else. I am all ears. Also, when the eff are they coming to the US? I know they had some plans...)

I now use Grooveshark, it's good, don't get me wrong, but spotify is much better in terms of interface, but mainly they have a better catalog for the music I listen to (mostly ambient/downtempo/trip hop). If I search for a group Grooveshark will likely have 70% of the songs from each album...maybe. Whereas in Spotify, I can just view 100% of all the albums. Also, while I have not used the Spotify mobile app, I can tell you the Grooveshark mobile app kind of sucks.

Cheers

<comment><USER4> Solution: Pay for a european-based proxy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Spotify doesn't seem to work where I live, so I use Grooveshark instead.

Grooveshark has a gigantic library of music and instant streaming. Recommendation engine works well, and you can explore the playlists of other users to discover new music. I'm not sure how Grooveshark can stream music to everybody for free (or almost free for pro users), but as long as it exists I'll be a happy user.

<comment><USER6> I wasn't familiar with Grooveshark, and I'm having trouble figuring out their licensing arrangement.

For example, they have quite a few tunes by Pink Floyd, who have instructed EMI to keep their music off of iTunes, Spotify, and all other sites which would allow "per-song" downloading or streaming-- they want to keep the integrity of the albums intact.

This, coupled with the bits of the Grooveshark FAQ like "All of the music on Grooveshark is uploaded by the users!" makes me think that Grooveshark is not long for this world, once the RIAA discovers them.

<comment> The-KG Relevant link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark#Legal_issues>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love Spotify and think it's an amazing service, but have recently started wondering if it's just as bad for artists as AllOfMp3. After reading about Lady Gaga earning close to nothing for 1 million plays, I'm not sure if it's a service that we should continue to support that much. If 1 million plays don't earn you any money, what's the incentive for less well-known artists?

[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/music/news/s...](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts- entertainment/music/news/spotify-1-million-plays-163108-return-1944051.html)

<comment><USER8> I think you'll find that an artist's income from 1 million Spotify plays far exceeds the equivalent income from ten plays at a radio station with 100,000 listeners.

<comment><USER9> Not that I doubt you, but this really needs a citation.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I haven't been paying attention to my threads page.

The only data that I have available is for the Swedish market. The Swedish Performing Rights Society, STIM, collect fees from everyone who plays music. This quote is from their annual report (source at the bottom):

"A 3-minute song played on one of Sweden's national radio channels produces around SEK 100 for authors and music publishers to share."

"A 3-minute song that is played on one of the commercial radio stations produces around SEK 3 for authors and music publishers to share."

Of course, listener numbers differ, there are radio programs on national radio that have 1 million listeners. A conservative estimate for an average listener number on national radio would be 50,000.

100 SEK is $13.46 according to Google, let's call it $15 to be conservative.

So 100 SEK for 50,000 plays equals $0.0003 per play on Swedish national radio. As you can see from the above the national radio pay a lot more per play than commercial stations.

1 million plays on national radio would in the best of cases give $300 for all the rights holders to share.

In the case of Lady Gaga's Poker Face, as explained in another article linked in this thread, the income would be split 50/50 between Lady Gaga and her Swedish songwriter (don't know the exact roles here but it's not important).

This means that the total payout for 1M plays of Poker Face from Spotify would be $167 * 2 = $334.

So even in this case the income for 1M plays on Spotify exceeds the equivalent income from 1M plays on Swedish national radio. Now, the Spotify payout numbers reported here are from the absolute first beginnings of Spotify and don't necessarily reflect the payout rates that are in place now when the service is more mature, as was explained in the other article further up in the thread.

STIM's latest annual report in English: <http://bit.ly/9ZW85p>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I won't be using Spotify. Spotify is partly owned by the music industry, who acquired their shareholding not by stumping up money like the other investors, but by threatening them with lawsuits unless they were given free shares. (As an aside, wanna guess what percentage of profits the music industry make out of this will go to musicians? I suspect fuck all).

Iniquitous as that is, it's not my reason for boycotting Spotify. The reason is that the music industry want to destroy my freedom, and helping them in any way makes it easier for them to do this. They want to be judge, jury and executioner over anyone's right to have an internet connection, and they want all computing hardware to be locked down like the iPad.

Well I don't want that future. And if you don't want it too, I suggest you never buy anything from the RIAA/IFPI, and explain to all your friends why it's in their interests not to either.

<comment><USER11> If artists get 4.5million streams a month they earn minimum wage. Source: [http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do- music...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music- artists-earn-online/)

<comment><USER12> The source for that figure is nothing more than a guess. It takes the approximate number of UK premium subscribers, multiplies by 12 months and £10. Then it arbitrarily doubles the amount to account for advertising income, and divides by the total number of streams in all countries.

I don't know how much an artist may get from Spotify, but my guess is that it is significantly more than from radio.

<comment><USER13> Not to mention artists can make money from other things besides streaming. They can sell merch, play shows, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It seems like quite a lot of tracks has disappeared in this update as well. :/

<comment><USER12> The Spotify music database is normally updated independently of the application.

As for the actual content, about two weeks ago I could see around 7.2 million songs as a user in Sweden. Today I can see about 7.4 million songs. Is there anything in particular that you know was removed?

<comment><USER14> I'm seeing grayed out tracks on songs by Freddie Wadling, Eva Cassidy, Dione Taylor, Lee Hazlewood, Tupac Shakur, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, U96, Land Shark and Moby to name a few.

But you're right: all in all they're growing which is great.

<comment><USER6> The Dylan was pulled quite a few months ago, and in fact, some has been coming back-- they just added "Tell Tale Signs" not too long ago. Also, McCartney pulled most of his stuff a month or two back-- there seems to be a dispute with EMI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> been playing with the new features for the last 20 minutes. it's amazing. most importantly, you can stop using itunes except for podcasts

<comment><USER16> I used to subscribe (love the service but found GBP 10 a month too expensive). The library has always been great but music discovery (once you'd exhausted the similar artists feature) was letting things down. This sounds like a great value addition for users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very nice update, but local files don't work on linux/under wine: [http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/spotify_under_wine...](http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/spotify_under_wine_unable_to_playback_local_files) That's a bit of a letdown, especially since it's intentional.

<comment><USER16> From the link you provided, it's a bug with WINE's MP3 decoder. How is that intentional?

<comment><USER17> Wine's mp3 decoder doesn't work in _some_ cases, including _some_ mp3 files by Spotify's partners[1]. Because the decoder didn't work for _some_ mp3 files, they are actively blocking wine's mp3 decoder for _all_ mp3 files.

[1] I agree this is a pretty solid business reason to block it, but it's still intentional.

<comment><USER18> The workaround [1] seem to work pretty good so far. No crashes, but it does go into a (recoverable) loop if you pull the slider to the end of a track.

[1] [http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/spotify_under_wine...](http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/spotify_under_wine_unable_to_playback_local_files#reply_2336829)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Something I noticed while running the new version the first time: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/johanhalin/4556877903/>

In other words, uncheck that if you don't want Spotify modifying your tags in your audio files.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely uncheck that button :) I had some jpop tracks in my library that turned automatically into this <http://twitpic.com/1iuk5k>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> One thing that I noticed in your inbox is the filter option, "Only show items from people I follow". Does that mean that you can send songs to other peoples inboxes that your are not friends with? Opportunity to spam music?

</comment><comment><USER21> Well, it's really too bad they haven't introduced better playlist-management. That's the one thing their client is lacking the most.

<comment><USER22> The playlist manager does need some enhancement (as well as having a listening history that spans sessions). But there are some cool features in here. I'm definitely keen on the local libraries and the starred tracks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I dislike Spotify for the following reasons:

* The music industry is a major shareholder. Spotify is great for them because they can continue as gatekeeper and make Spotify a worse proposition to artists not signed to any of the big four.

* Artists not signed to the big four does, in fact, get a lot less per play than the big four get when their music is being played. So if I am a premium subscriber, and only listening to "indie" artists, the big four will still get my money.

* Artists have to go through digital distribution channels such as RouteNote and DittoMusic to get their music onto Spotify. Why not let them upload their own music directly?

* The big four bought their share in the company (around 5% each) for chump change.

* It is a lot easier to censor music when it's all in the same streamlined interface.

</comment><comment><USER24> With no Mac at hand, I'd like a native app for Linux, instead of wine stuff.

<comment><USER14> You can write one yourself using the libspotify: <http://developer.spotify.com/en/libspotify/overview/>

<comment><USER24> Yeah, but I prefer the beautiful UI, not just functionalities, or the wine stuff will do the work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great looking update. I'm very excited to try Spotify once it comes to the US (hopefully sometime this year?).

</comment><comment><USER26> Great look at the new featureset. Thanks! Can't wait to try it out

</comment><comment><USER27> Requires an invitation code.</comment>


The Sad Story of PNG Gamma "Correction" - <AUTHOR> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/png-gamma/

<comment><USER2> DPI metadata in PNGs is even worse than Gamma 'correction', since it serves no purpose whatsoever.

DPI is only remotely meaningful when dealing with something that was once printed (set it on scans so you know the original size), or soon will be (know how big to print it). In practice there's so much completely bogus DPI metadata out there that little software will respect it on output. For further brokenness, DPI is cleverly stored as a Rational in most formats, but nearly all metadata libraries expose it only as a float!

There's a ton of software out there written by some twit that read on the internet somewhere that "Macs are 72dpi, everything else is 96dpi", and then goes on to set that in every file it outputs depending on the platform. Inkscape does this and it is incredibly obnoxious.

<comment><USER3> And shouldn't it be PPI? DPI is a property of printers and CRTs, not scanners or prescaled images.

edit: oh! and speaking of tagging digital formats with physical scale information, it took me ages to understand why text processors measure font size in points, which here refers to absolute size when printing, but don't display the text at that size on the screen (which is where it matters more, imho). maybe things are different now, but the only thing I remember from the adventure was that I decided never to touch anything typographic.</comment></comment>


Whatever happened to Big Banjo restaurant? (story of great serial entrepreneur) - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-wht-big-banjo-w-zone-13-nov13,0,4788950.story

<comment><USER2> I grew up in Glen Ellyn and remember having a birthday party at the Big Banjo. I thought it was the coolest place when I was a kid.</comment>


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Unexpected - <AUTHOR> https://ferd.ca/the-hitchhiker-s-guide-to-the-unexpected.html <comment><USER2> For those who'd rather watch a video of the talk, here is a link to it from Code BEAM SF 2018: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0BR_tWZChQ&list=PLvL2NEhYV4...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0BR_tWZChQ&list=PLvL2NEhYV4ZtZD26dICR- ui1UIlhdVm-v&index=25)

<comment><USER3> This is like saying the movie is better than the book.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure I passed any judgement on which is better but Fred is a very well practiced presenter and so I do recommend watching if you want to see how he emphasized particular points. (His slide artwork is also worthtuning in for.)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: I have 89,830 sound clips of rare records. What should I do? - <AUTHOR>

I collect records. I rarely buy anything blindly by name or label; I like to discover new stuff by listening to it first. I usually do this by spending hours in grimy bins with a record player but I also found that sometimes Ebay sellers post sound clips of their records. Specifically, what I noticed is that sellers are more inclined to make the effort of posting a sound clip if the record is rare -- i.e. you can't find a clip elsewhere -- and the record sounds really interesting. It helps them make a sale.
So I made an Ebay API spider that gets all the sound clips and record release data. It's been running like a dream since 2007 and I currently have 89,830 sound clips of rare records (probably some dupes in there). I used to watch the feed all the time but I kept finding really cool records and was spending a lot of money! I got busy. I had a good test suite so anytime there was a Unicode error or some bug I patched it pretty quick.
I steadily accumulated a pretty amazing collection of sound clips seeded by these search terms: soul, funk, reggae, ska, country, breaks, disco, psych, afrobeat, jazz, rocksteady, garage, indie, library (as in library music), new wave, electronic, brazilian, and boogie.
I made a frontend for listening to clips all Ajaxy-like and got it working on mobile phones and major browsers. I was sort of happy with it but ran into some database bottlenecks and got busy again so I never launched it. It was too slow to be usable.
What should I do? I don't really have time or money to finish it out but I'd like people to use it to discover music. Since the clips are short and will link to music for purchase, either MP3 (if it exists) or original vinyl on Ebay/Discogs, there shouldn't be any copyright problems. It's fair use to promote music for sale with a clip.
You can comment here or reach me by email: firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> Get in touch with the Internet Archive, perhaps?

[http://archive.org/about/contact.php](http://archive.org/about/contact.php)

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks for the info! Amazon S3 costs are getting high so it would be nice to get some relief

<comment><USER3> What are you spending on S3? I can very nearly guarantee you could get a bare metal setup from just about anywhere for about 1/10th the cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dammit. After posting, I caught up with the feed of clips and just bought six records :( It turns up records like this: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCC0wgVXNpc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCC0wgVXNpc) Wat??

<comment><USER4> mate, I think there is good reason this particular record is rare... :p

<comment><USER5> What?! That's a damn fine record.

<comment><USER4> I wasn't feelin' the vocals. Just making fun though - keep rockin' if you enjoy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Internet Archive can provide a home for the files-- custom UI's would come from others and could be fun. firstname.lastname@example.com

-brewster Digital Librarian

</comment><comment><USER7> Seed it on the Pirate Bay?

<comment><USER8> +1 to this. The least work for uploader, the least work for the downloader to get them all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You should team up with [http://echonest.com/](http://echonest.com/) they have the team and the experience and could probably help you do something cool with it.

Given the seed terms; I'm imagining an infinite dub mix, where you pick and mutate beats and fade clips into each other. Too bad our legal system makes such a thing impossible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah. That would last for days on end.

<comment><USER10> I second contacting them. They hope to build a more expansive public data base of song metrics but need the community to help contribute [http://echoprint.me/data](http://echoprint.me/data) \-- your collection would add 0.5x the number of tracks. Though probably not the type of stuff people will be using Over The Air detection for but still, worth while to support their effort. Considering what you have I would think/hope that they would be happy to ingest the data with little work required from you. On the other hand they may tell you due to the antique nature of your collection that they would rather not "pollute" the DB since OTA detection often comes with false positive issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Unrelated but since you're into rare/old/obscure recordings, you might appreciate the Cylinder Recording collection at UCSB.

[http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/](http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/)

<comment><USER12> As an aside, my university really needs to advertise this more. I first heard of it in passing in [http://hummingadifferenttune.blogspot.com/2009/03/chimes- of-...](http://hummingadifferenttune.blogspot.com/2009/03/chimes-of-trinity- chimes-of-freedom-and.html) .

Not long after that, like all good things, it kept coming up in my general electives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Have you checked to see if they're on [http://what.cd](http://what.cd) already? It's the de-facto bittorrent tracker for music. It is possible that many of those clips you have are already on there.

And if not, you could seed them yourself :D

<comment><USER12> I like where your head is at, but come on man, first rule.

<comment><USER14> I'm letting him go on this one. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Give the files to the Internet Archive (www.archive.org), definitely! They'll host it all for free, and make a collection out of it. E-mail them directly or contact Jason Scott (@textfiles on Twitter) who manages a preservation group for them called Archive Team.

</comment><comment><USER16> Find your favorite DJ and send it to them. DJs are always looking for exotic sounds to add to their mixes.

<comment><USER17> He is a DJ :P

<comment><USER18> But is he his own favourite DJ?

<comment><USER19> Every DJ is their own favourite DJ.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Donate them to [http://freesound.org/](http://freesound.org/)

<comment><USER21> Copyright prevents OP from doing so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sound clips are priceless for music producers if they are in a good format (320 kbps mp3 or lossless). Well, if they have no license which prohibits their usage. But music producers are not really "careful" about this, haha.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hi, we are interested in. www.musicinfo.io. Our database is huge and its free to use.

</comment><comment><USER24> Why not open source and share with the world. You can wack an amount of advertising on the site and make some nice income. Obviously just be careful of copyright.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm sending you an email. I know someone at IMMuB (Brazilian Musical Memory Institute) [1] that will be interested in the Brazilian clips you have.

Thanks for posting!

[1] [http://www.memoriamusical.com.br/](http://www.memoriamusical.com.br/) (in Portuguese)

</comment><comment><USER26> I collect records too...this sounds incredible, but it would bankrupt me within twelve months...;)

</comment><comment><USER27> I run BitShuva.com and we build custom internet radio stations (think Pandora clones). If copyright isn't an issue, I'd gladly put a custom radio station up for you. Shoot me an email, email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER28> Send to Wikimedia.

<comment><USER29> No, it's better for Archive.org. The Wikimedia Foundation mostly deals with Creative Commons licensed content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think it could provide an interesting way for producers to discover unique and interesting samples to use in their tracks.

<comment><AUTHOR> It totally would! Licensing is pretty tricky with this sort of thing though. Oftentimes there's some mogul who owns the rights but they won't budge on a price. Then if you use the sample anyway and they'll sue you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is not my home turf, but this is beautiful and exciting. Is your ajaxy frontend in a state worth open sourcing?

</comment><comment><USER32> Soundcloud, please.

</comment><comment><USER33> Bung them up online so DJs can have em

</comment><comment><USER34> Put it all up on hearo.fm!

</comment><comment><USER35> You should go dancing! No, seriously archive.org that stuff for posterity.</comment>


Commercial Suicide – Integration at the Database Level - ah- http://dhickey.ie/2016/01/03/commercial-suicide-integration-at-the-database-level/ <comment><AUTHOR> FWIW - applciation should be application: in at least two places. (Call this my way of bumping.)</comment>