What If Evolution Bred Reality Out of Us? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/09/06/492779594/what-if-evolution-bred-reality-out-of-us <comment><USER4> Isn't Hoffman's argument pretty mundane?

The conclusion seems pretty obvious; we only see light in a certain (relevant) spectrum, we only taste certain (relevant) chemicals, we only hear sounds in certain (relevant) frequencies, etc., because it doesn't help us (and in fact distracts us) to perceive more information.

Also, it seems like a big aspect he's missing is that within each relevant spectra, we've gotten pretty well tuned to reality. And that's simply because oftentimes, fitness is highly correlated with perceiving reality. For example, seeing all physical objects realistically is important for survival, since if you can't see perceive certain physical objects, then predators/prey may take advantage of the failure (e.g., zebras blending in with tall grass).

Is there some greater point I'm missing?

<comment><USER5> So, in other words,

"Man is the measure of all things" – Protagoras

"We see things not as they are. We see things as we are." attributed to Anaïs Nin

<comment><USER6> Also Democritus:

"By convention sweet is sweet, bitter is bitter, hot is hot, cold is cold, color is color; but in truth there are only atoms and the void."

or:

"We know nothing accurately in reality, but [only] as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon [the body] and impinge upon it."

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Democritus](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Democritus)

<comment><USER7> Pretty heady, enlightened stuff for 2400 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how many rationalists on HN this post will piss off before it falls off the main page.

"Reality", "science", "fact", and "logic": these are all arbitrary concepts and disciplines that are stuck in a limited worldview. There is no true objectivity we can experience as humans.

Just because we don't experience something or it doesn't fit with what we consider rational thought, it doesn't mean that that thing cannot exist.

However, we learn this truth from science itself- in seeing how other living things experience life and react and how it is so different than how we experience it- how we aren't made to be objective.

The means of showing us truth we've relied on is flawed. At this point, the rationalist understands why Plato divides into thing and form- because form is the only ideal that is an anchor when you realize that our experience is unreliable: [https://www.northampton.edu/Documents/Subsites/HaroldWeiss/I...](https://www.northampton.edu/Documents/Subsites/HaroldWeiss/Intro%20to%20Philosophy/russo_plato1.pdf)

But, then when you accept form as the ideal and reject things, you have rejected everything we have to understand form. So, you fail to have anything dependably rational left.

<comment><USER9> So the options are the world is rational and understandable, or there is no truth, everything is a lie and we're living in a Lovecraftian horror where we are physically incapable of understanding reality.

Presented with the two options I'm inclined to believe the prior.

\- If the latter is true and I believe the prior no vice.

\- If the prior is true and you believe the latter however no virtue. There's no sense in making an attempt to understand the world. You're missing out on everything. Just giving up on understanding.

I'll take the prior.

<comment><USER10> You shouldn't choose what you believe, you should accept what is.

Otherwise you should be believing in Gods (however mutually exclusive they may be) since:

1) If you believe in God and it doesn't exist, no harm.

2) If you do not believe in God and it does exist, you go straight to Hell.

<comment><USER11> The set of all possible "Gods" includes deities who punish worship, who lie to their worshippers, who are completely two-faced in their dealings with mortals, who have completely random intentional urgings, who put everyone through the torture of infinite fractal realities, and/or anything else that throws the wrench in trying to rationally deduce the "goodness" of "God".

This is also compared with the possibility that humans are faggots who will talk about absolute bullshit to make themselves feel better. No offense to gay people but I'm talking about the mass of humanity that seeks to "feel" more using ass-backwards strategies because they trust their idiotic culture too much.

I'd prefer to remain silent until overwhelming proof forces me to consider "a being of superior influence on this reality who resides outside of visible reality". It could definitely exist (along with the things from the set of known unknowns and unknown unknowns). But I'm betting more on humans being faggots.

<comment><USER12> </comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>===>

4chan is that way

</comment><comment><USER13> This is all very nice and abstract. But let's make it concrete.

Multiple studies have found that the more realistic we are about our prospects, the more likely we are to be depressed. The more optimistic we are, the better we are likely to do even though we are wrong.

As a result we have a constant bias towards believing that the world is likely to turn out better than objective evidence would show. And on this evidence we are biased to explore new things, have babies, and so on. Which improves our evolutionary fitness. Even though we perceive and predict the world less accurately.

A similar cognitive bias is towards seeing patterns where there is little evidence that they exist. That is because if something is random or a pattern, there is little cost to acting on random data if it isn't there, and a concrete benefit to following it if it is. So we are pattern seeking animals at the cost of potentially becoming convinced by astrology, ghosts, religion, and a wide variety of other superstitions.

<comment><USER14> I've always had this exact personal belief but have never seen any relevant studies. Are you able to share any sources? Thanks.

<comment><USER13> Our tendency to see patterns is well-documented. See [http://www.drjudithorloff.com/Free-Articles/Psychiatric- Anna...](http://www.drjudithorloff.com/Free-Articles/Psychiatric-Annals- Brains-Seek-Patterns.pdf) for one of many, many articles on the topic.

The issue of depression and realism is more controversial, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism). I'm personally inclined to accept it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the title has it backwards here. Reality wasn't bred _out_ of us, it was just never bred _in_.

</comment><comment><USER16> This isn't really much different from Kant's own critique of pure reason, where he, following Hume, agrees that we cannot know the in-itself, and redefines metaphysics as more epistemological than ontological. More recently, but still long before this guy's TED talk, Plantinga had a very similar argument.

Claiming that "Evolution Bred Reality Out of Us" is just a weird way to phrase a logical problem, and it sneaks in the same naive realism that it claims to critique.

<comment><USER17> Kant and Hume are assuming a mind-body dualism as in Descartes.

A great many important philosophers in the last century or so have rejected this. This includes Whitehead, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, the later Wittgenstein, Strawson, Putnam, and all the Pragmatists. And of course, Aristotle in classic Greek philosophy.

<comment><USER17> Oh, and by the way, Plantinga's argument is for the purpose of promoting Christianity, but radical mind-body dualism is quite contrary to traditional Christian belief.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is kind of trivially obvious, confirmed by every human sense having a different response curve than other animals, different species being able to deal with different abstractions (eg, certain dogs being able to recognize conditionals but not predicates) and so on.

I have to wonder if he's doing a Straussian thing and "really" talking about selected-for responses to certain obvious truths particularly relevant to evolutionary biologists.

<comment><USER19> >certain dogs being able to recognize conditionals but not predicates

Could you elaborate on that, please? That sounds very interesting, but I couldn't find anything on my own.

<comment><USER20> Try Googling for "Chrysippus' dog". That, at least, brings up hits like [http://my.fit.edu/~aberdein/DogLogic.pdf](http://my.fit.edu/~aberdein/DogLogic.pdf). Just reading that paper made me realize that there were at least two dimensions in which the statement

      "different species being able to deal with different abstractions (eg, certain dogs being able to recognize conditionals but not predicates)"

could be be misinterpreted. Assuming you were looking (as was I) for experimental evidence supporting that specific statement, I'm guessing we'll both be disappointed. But maybe not!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hoffman's argument makes sense when you are talking about bacteria. But who thinks bacteria have a conscious understanding of reality?

More complex animals, and especially humans, collect an immense amount of sense data, from multiple sources, and use it to construct a general view of reality. It has to be accurate because they don't have a few, simple, stereotyped response patterns. Rather they have extremely complex patterns, highly customized to particular, unique circumstances, and the only way that can work is if their image of the world is itself complex and fits reality.

Here is an example that is immensely more simple than what humans do in their living: how could you design a software program to play chess if it was just all of the form "when x, do y"? The only way you can do it is if you have a representation of a chessboard and use it to plot out moves, and what the opponent might do in response. Now think of how much more you have to know about reality in order to, for instance, go shopping. Or run a software startup.

<comment><USER17> Hoffman goes wrong partly because he is violating some fundamental scientific principles.

According to modern science, the world is organized in levels of complexity, and for each higher level we get new phenomena that require new labels that don't apply to the lower ones. So for instance, an election consists of activity by human beings made of atoms, but to describe it in any meaningful way we have to use terms that are not from physics, like candidates and ballots.

In a similar way, when we move from the sensory and response mechanisms of bacteria to first multiple cell organisms, and then ones with nerves and a central nervous system, and then human beings, at each level we get phenomena for which we need new, quite valid concepts, including accurate understanding of reality.

<comment><USER17> To make this a little clearer, I am saying the phenomena of having a perception of reality requires very complex mechanisms that bacteria simply don't have. Therefore to note that bacteria don't have a perception of reality is simply irrelevant, and doesn't in any way prove humans don't. It's like saying atoms don't reproduce, therefore animals don't either.

By the way, if, as Hoffman claims, human beings don't have a perception of reality, then it would be meaningless to say that sometimes it is accurate and sometimes it is inaccurate, and certainly not something that could be studied scientifically. Does that seem really right?

<comment><USER17> An important point here is that bacterial sensing is tightly efficient, with the bacteria having only the absolute minimum needed to direct a simple response at the right time.

Human perception, on the other hand, has a vast amount of excess. So for instance, when you see a tree, you see hundreds of leaves, each with a fairly complex shape, even though all of this is usually of no use. Our senses and brains do this because with humans, you never know when some new situation will arise where perception that is normally useless will be useful, and so it makes sense to have vast excess in our reality perception capacities.

With bacteria, on the other hand, there are no novel situations, only a few stereotyped ones arising over and over again, so excess capacity would be useless and run counter to efficient survival.

<comment><USER17> One more point. Hoffman claims he is making a scientific argument, and it is based on scientific concepts like bacteria, sensing, and evolution. But if humans can't know reality, then these concepts, developed by humans, are false, and so his whole argument collapses. That is, if his argument is true, then it is false.

Actually, he is really making a philosophical argument, one based in the radical skepticism that has plagued many (but not all) Western philosophical schools since Descartes, but dressing it up in some quite poor science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > What Hoffman's theorem says is the fitness-tuned critter will — almost > always — win the evolution game.

It doesn't from the explanation in the article at all. It just states the reality critter can't beat the fitness-tuned critter.

Evolution doesn't 'care' if you have extra useless things, you won't lose them evolutionary. (Although if there is a energy or something cost it might 'care' about this negative)

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this argument circular?

Let's assume for a moment that someone believes that human beings can "perceive reality". Adding the axiom that "evolutionary theory is mostly correct" (which doesn't seem too bad), one concludes that because "perceiving reality" would require a large expenditure of energy, it must be _necessary_ in order for optimal fitness, since if we are to believe it is with us, we must have evolved to do it. Similarly, walking is "necessary". NB. "Perceiving reality" seems to be defined by the person writing the question, which is a conflict of interest.

(I leave out the interesting but undesirably complex hypothesis that some strategies exist which do not involve perceiving reality but are not accessible by evolution for unspecified reasons)

This argument takes off by constructing a fitness function where perceiving reality is _unnecessary_. It then concludes by construction that the perception of reality won't evolve. However, there is no real "theorem" here: all that has happened is that it is now encoded in mathematical language that this belief could be true or false.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have a phobia of insects(not if they are small enough for me to notice their details), crabs, prawns etc. All the not-animal-like-life, to be honest.

One day, at a supermarket, a friend of mine teased me with a crab in her hand. Later that day, we were discussing about this incident, and we realized that both of us look at insects very differently.

She looks at insects etc as "things that move", ie, lacking of will, like a toy or something. I look at them as creatures who I cannot empathize with, and hence, whose motives I cannot understand. So they freak me out.

That conversation kind of felt like interfacing at the boundaries of our consciousness

</comment><comment><USER24> A similar article about Hoffman was posted on HN in April, with quite a bit of discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11588698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11588698)

</comment><comment><USER25> I think that the point of view depicted in the article completely misses the fact that we are active part of a reality we live in.

It looks like the article (I am not entitled to talk about the original research, since I am not familiar with it by any means) unquestionably assumes that there exists some "real" (platonic, mystical, static, eternal, fundamental?) reality that we are unable to observe due to bounds of evolution. What's the point of this assumption?

When I look around, I see things made by humans for humans using our ideas about the human reality—is this reality "worse" or "less real" than some other reality? Yes, we are far removed from, e.g., a reality of existence of a plant or a bacteria, and the evolution drives us further from it.

Maybe it's the evolution process that creates very realities?

</comment><comment><USER26> One of the neat things (i think) is that the visual and tactile systems in our bodies seem to always agree on what is perceived 'reality'. This on the surface seems like an argument against this proposal. But of course we can easily be fooling ourselves.

I once saw some experiments where they showed people some movies where the sound was offset from the picture by some time shift, either too slow or too fast. Within a surprisingly large range the mind could easily meld the two out of sync signals together so that it appeared that they were synchronized. Of course beyond the threshold that illusion fell apart, but still was pretty interesting.

The weaving of still pictures of a movie into ... a movie is also an interesting concept.

Maybe vision and tactile works the same way? Could one influence the other?

It's amazing how well our brains are built to pretend.

<comment><USER27> I remember seeing a report of a study in which a fake arm, cleverly manipulated within the subjects' fields of view, often succeeded in overriding both tactile and proprioceptive senses - some of the subjects thought the fake arm was _their_ arm, because they saw it doing what they expected their own arm to do. As I recall, some subjects reported significant confusion and some discomfort on recognizing the actual nature of events, and I should think that's no wonder.

I don't have a cite to hand. I'll look for one if you like, but it's been so long that you'd probably be able to find it at least as quickly as I could. Fascinating stuff, in any case, and perhaps somewhat germane here.

<comment><USER28> Maybe not the same source, but V.S. Ramachandran's book, Phantoms in the Brain, covers his use of a set-up like that to help patients recover from phantom limb syndrome. Shockingly effective for what is, essentially, just an illusionist's trick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'd think abstraction mimics many truths.

It makes sense to grasp concepts like "huge/small amount of something" and it might even be less effort than hard wiring much and little red to the same neuron.

Also seeing "too much red" and "too little red" as the same, is no misconception and still seeing the truth. You won't be fooled it no thinking there is no red, when there is a lot, you would probably perceive too much or too little red as "in the danger zone" which is a true statement either way (given that too much and too little red is most often dangerous for your fitness).

</comment><comment><USER30> The paper "Objects of consciousness" by Donald D. Hoffman[0][1] is an interesting read—if only for its attempt to build a formal model of consciousness and define what it means to "observe", in the quantum sense.

[0] [http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00...](http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577/full) [1] Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9829085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9829085)

<comment><USER31> It's so cute when neuroscientists try to be philosophers. They're so poorly cut out for the job.

(He needs to read more Husserl.)

<comment><USER32> They said the same thing of physicist, biologists, geologists, chemists, etc. before, that is until they found themselves _irrelevant_. I suspect in time, it will happen again.

<comment><USER31> which they is this?

<comment><USER27> Philosophers, I think. But the field as a whole seems to treat relevance as an afterthought.

<comment><USER31> in part this is because whenever something relevant comes up, it gets a name that is not philosophy.

Also because we're still shaking off perception of philosophers as useless navel-gazing victorians; post WWI, the field has become substantially more akin to formal math and logic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The problem here is that the concept presented isn't scientifically rigorous as applied to human consciousness and perception. One, fitness simulations are reductive by design and trying to draw analogies from them to explain complex subjective phenomena is a stretch. Two, we need a testable hypothesis - <USER2> haven't seen one presented here.

It's an interesting _concept_ , but the author provides us an example - <USER3> organism responding to a fitness function optimizing for Y resource where X < Y < Z doesn't distinguish between X and Z, just that X and Z are both "bad" \- reducing complex quantities to binary outcomes. To then suggest physical reality could be "hidden" in these sorts of reductions without an analogy or testable example just seems philosophical.

The best supportive example I can come up with is - we obviously don't see "reality." Visible light, for example, is only a tiny fraction of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Our ability to perceive and differentiate wavelengths in this range has been selected for. But language and formal logic --- abstract relationships, mathematics --- seems to be something we've _discovered_ that describes a Universe of relationships we can't possibly entirely perceive. But we still _utilize_ this reality, as we've incidentally discovered the rest of the EM spectrum by its interactions with other aspects of reality we _can_ measure and the ability to describe abstract relationships (language).

So I guess I'm a bit confused, and I admit ignorance here --- my 2c here is an off-the-cuff response to the article provided without digging deeper. Is the argument there are rules and laws of the Universe we can't possibly understand or perceive (physical constants, relationships)? If so --- that's plausibly true, but if something doesn't interact with the Universe in a way we can measure, it may as well not exist. Or is the argument that the way we describe and interpret the Universe (language, logic) is inherently flawed because it's been developed or "discovered" based on selection for the ability to use language between extreme quantities of "language resources" we can't possibly measure? The latter is interesting, because it's perhaps a unique perspective on mental illness and drug hallucinations / delusions (schizophrenia, LSD) but still _not testable_.

Just musings. Neat philosophically. Would like to see something concrete here, but seems to be a prime candidate for circular reasoning - we can never test this hypothesis because we can never know what is, by definition, unknowable to us.

<comment><USER34> >Is the argument there are rules and laws of the Universe we can't possibly understand or perceive (physical constants, relationships)?

No, probably not. But instead that our filter biases make us miss most of that invisible universe. Which brings us to the point, what else are we missing? We did not know of most of the universe until we invented the scientific method to overcome the biases of our own mind.

> The latter is interesting, because it's perhaps a unique perspective on > mental illness and drug hallucinations / delusions (schizophrenia, LSD) but > still not testable.

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

A term coined by the inventor of LSD, and it seems unlikely it's a coincidence.

<comment><USER35> Hofmann invented LSD, not Leary or Hoffman

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> >"Given an arbitrary world and arbitrary fitness functions, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but that is just tuned to fitness."

See Blindsight by Peter Watts.

[http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm](http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm)

</comment><comment><USER31> > While there clearly is a world separate from us, Hoffman says, evolution > does not give us access to that.

Ok. So what? If we can't get out of "the cage", but manipulations of state still "work", isn't this moot?

I happen to think we _can_ get out of the cage -- that there _are_ nonspatiotemporal entities we can perceive. We usually call them "integers".

</comment><comment><USER37> The water example showcases the germ of the idea pretty well. Stimuli don't need to be in 1-1 or even linear correspondence with physiological responses to those stimuli. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding his argument.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've only read the linked article, not the more in-depth source mentioned there. But based on just that information, I'm deeply unimpressed by Hoffman's work. From where I stand, his idea is both poorly informed (as in, it seems like he's not made a credible effort to examine his premises) and, ironically, proven wrong by reality. That's a pretty contentious statement for a non- expert to make about a presumed expert, so I'll try to explain myself.

First, like some other commenters, I'm happy to concede that at a trivial level H. is quite correct. The world around us as perceived by the unaided human is mapped inside his brain to a vague, sometimes exaggerated, sometimes obscured and very often distorted image of reality. There are entire books on optical illusions; the trade of stage magic and various kinds of crime rely on systematic human misperceptions.

There's an obvious, perfectly good reason for this: the human system of vision is simply not a pixel-perfect 3D camera connected to petabytes of fast digital storage, and the same applies to our other senses. Given a perfect recording of the world at least in our vicinities, abundant energy and sufficient time, we could come up with highly effective survival strategies. But the real world doesn't afford us these luxuries, so evolution crafted us into organisms tuned for a reasonable approximation to an optimal compromise of this ideal. Thus, our mental model of the world is a crude abstraction, with survival-relevant information emphasized and other details brushed over. This is not a survival- optimized transformation of reality but a constraint-enforced one. A highly sophisticated system built on the shoestring budget that nature affords us. It's proven to be superior at survival to many competing models but I don't agree it works better for misrepresenting reality. Rather, it works _at all_ by necessarily sacrificing detail and accuracy in representing reality.

But none of this supports H.'s contention that we are blithely unaware of reality, or unable to apprehend it. There is a reality out there, and the depth and accuracy of our model is a function of how much time and energy we're willing to expend on mapping it. A given beach, sharply defined, has a finite and very countable set of grains of sand. If we really, really cared to know, we could build machines to count them for us. Similarly, we can or could know the shape of every coastline of every continent. Some day, humanity may have high-quality reality mappings of every planet within X light-years of our solar system. We can in principle understand the function of every gene in our genomes. We don't have to talk about how we perceive colors, because spectroscopes can tell us the exact, reproducible wavelength of every beam of light emitted by a given object. We could exchange this information with aliens having completely different bodies and brains, should we discover them, and if their science is as advanced as ours and we're careful to define our terms and measurements on observable nature, we'd have a common understanding of that reality.

But how do we know that our reality is real? How do we ascertain truth? I say we can base a pretty solid epistemology on a confluence of observed phenomena. If we encounter an obstacle we can't see through, if it's grey in color, weighs about 6 tons, stands on 4 legs, has a long nose, occasionally moves around and eats bananas by the bushel, then we can safely assume we've found an elephant. If it's a chunk of some yellow shiny solid that displaces 18 grams of water per cc, and samples drilled from arbitrary locations in it uniformly have atomic weights of X (?), melting points of Y degrees, fail to react with sulphuric acid and show a chromatographic signature consistent with that of gold, then by golly, it's a chunk of gold!

As humanity, not as individual naked humans, we've amassed a large and ever growing body of knowledge about the world around us, and (fortunately for our sanity and our ability to make sense of reality) the properties of objects and phenomena in our environment are consistent and convergent. There are no 1 gram elephants, there is no sodium that doesn't react violently with water, there are no snowflakes whose basic structure isn't hexagonal. We know that our image of reality is good because we're able to extrapolate from what we know and observe to what we haven't observed yet, to make predictions about what we'll observe and have those predictions prove mostly true.

The author and his (perhaps coincidental and unintended) idol Plantinga fail to acknowledge humanity's ability to create models of reality of whose accuracy (within limits) we can be confident because they're part of a huge network of mutually supporting sub-models with excellent predictive power. And, more importantly, that our ability to create such mappings is a human ability that we have evolved to have. A goodly part of this evolution is cultural rather than biological, and a goodly part of our senses are mechanical and external rather than built into our wetware, but our evolution and that of our apparatus is quite natural insofar as everything that we humans, natural beings in a natural world, are natural too and a part of nature.

Hoffman's conjecture is completely, utterly wrong: Evolution has in fact "bred" in humans the ability to discover reality, and this ability has incidentally given us dominion, at least in the short term and for whatever that's worth, over all other species on the planet, including our own ancestors and close cousins. Our ability to apprehend reality has made us so fit that, barring various possible disasters, we could survive the death of the Sun and Earth.

If Hoffman wants to support his claim that a creature who views too much and too little water as similar instances of "bad amounts of water" would display a higher degree of evolutionary fitness than us, I feel he has his work cut out for him.

</comment><comment><USER39> there are some concrete examples of this though. we see the visible spectrum, a particular subset of EM spectrum that's a pretty good enough abstraction to get around in the world, it's a heuristic for the spectrum that's "good enough". we hear a subset of the audio spectrum, it's "good enough". etc etc...

</comment><comment><USER40> meh. These are not new ideas, and probably seem rather obvious to those who think about evolution and fitness functions. I suppose however, there is some good in making this point more salient to cognitive science theoriticians however.

<comment><USER40> and why was that worth -2 moderation? I AM a cognitive neuroscientist; I certainly am not denegrating them. Cognitive scientists are used to contrasting percepts with objective reality, hence all the facinating illusions they love to demonstrate. Evolutionary theorists are used to counterintuitive ideas that result from putting fitness functions at the forefront. I would not have thought that putting the two together is a new idea.

<comment><USER41> Because not everyone had time to think deeply about every field that everyone on HN specializes in and it's sort of pointless to complain that an article about your specialty doesn't teach you personally anything new.

<comment><USER40> To be specific, I was not conplaining about the article. It is an interesting subject. I was providing context for those reading the popularized article which tends to oversell these things. but whatevs

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is complete and total bullshit.

I'd love to see any demonstration of a model of an intelligent organism with no sense of reality at all but that still functions properly. Barring any evidence, the whole article is simply "if you assume the impossible, then magical unicorn rainbows". (or else it's just extrapolating claims about the intelligence of amoebas way too literally)

And remember: They laughed at Bozo the Clown too.

<comment><USER43> > _I 'd love to see any demonstration of a model of an intelligent organism > with no sense of reality at all but that still functions properly_

That is a strawman argument. Hoffman's actual theory is that "under evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness." This is taken from the more in-depth in the Quanta interview [0] linked in the submitted article.

[0] [https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary- arg...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument- against-reality/)

<comment><USER44> Which lacks predictive power. Humans have a blind spot because they can operate just fine while having a blind spot. However other organisms don't have a blind spot thus blind spots are not selected for.

The missing piece is something where getting the wrong information has value. But, that's harder than simply incorrectly interpreting information.

<comment><USER43> > _Humans have a blind spot because they can operate just fine while having a > blind spot. However other organisms don 't have a blind spot thus blind > spots are not selected for._

I'm not quite clear on your point of view, can you clarify? The phrases "blind spots" and "other organisms" are very vague. I'll try to rephrase it into something manageable. This is what I think you are saying:

        Humans [cannot see behind their heads] because they can operate just fine while
        [not seeing behind their heads]. However, [other species] [can see behind their
        heads], thus [seeing behind one's head] is not selected for.

The "other organisms" are other species, as logically, the "other organisms" don't have "a blind spot" and therefore could not be human, which do have "a blind spot".

Do let know if this is correct, and I'll get back to you.

> _The missing piece is something where getting the wrong information has > value_

I'm unclear where this disagrees. That's exactly the point of Hoffman's theory: an (sometimes) incorrect view of the world may have more value than the actual (correct) view of the world.

<comment><USER44> The optic nerve blocks part of you vision, which you are not aware of. [https://visionaryeyecare.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/eye- test-f...](https://visionaryeyecare.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/eye-test-find- your-blind-spot-in-each-eye/)

Squid for example use a different arrangement without that hole. So, while people are not getting accurate information, the gap is arbitrary and not selected for by evolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is a known fact. No clue why this has 12k clicks.</comment>


Artificial life forms evolve basic intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727723.700-artificial-life-forms-evolve-basic-intelligence.html?full=true <comment><USER2> Here comes Skynet</comment>


Will you use ReactJS with a REST service instead of GWT in Java app? - <AUTHOR> https://hashnode.com/post/will-you-use-reactjs-components-with-a-rest-service-instead-of-gwt-in-java-application-ciiwwahql0063wx53ef5qkh2y <comment><AUTHOR> We are crafting a system which will help to overcome the difficulties which Java developers have when they try to make a modern front-end utilising great frameworks and technologies from JavaScript world.

The first step is done, we made a visual development tool Structor ([https://github.com/ipselon/structor](https://github.com/ipselon/structor)) for React UI.

The next step will be a bunch of source code generators, which will produce React components along with Ajax methods for REST endpoints.

Shortly, Structor will generate all source code for UI components along with the glue code for connection to the back end.

In addition there will be starter-kits which include different combinations of Spring Boot application, set of ReactUI components, and etc.

We are on the early stage, but I think this will greatly simplify the development of the front-end for the enterprise.

What do you think about such approach?</comment>


Google starts blocking extensions not in the Chrome Web Store for Windows users - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/05/27/google-starts-blocking-extensions-chrome-web-store-windows-users-disables-installed-ones/ <comment><USER2> Finally, thankfully.

Just last week i've had to physically remove some about 8 extension directories from chrome's extension dir on a laptop I got my hands on, that were according to the extensions page installed by 'domain administrator'. It was a fuckin' ad-injecting thing that injected banner ads into every site it rendered.

Now can they also please add some sort of protection for these spyware thing that change add parameters to your browser's shortcut on your desktop?</comment>


America Is Basically Irrelevant To The Future Of Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-us-user-base-2013-12 <comment><USER2> companies like amazon, facebook, priceline, twitter, and google are essentially recession-proof and make great investments.

Would love to invest in snapchat at that 4 billion valuation</comment>


Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/11/29/next-up-for-the-surface-family-surface-with-windows-8-pro-pricing.aspx

<comment><USER2> Everyone seems really blown away by the pricing and I'm not sure why. This isn't an iPad, it houses a fully functional operating system that lets you run existing Windows 7 desktop applications.

In a use-case scenario I see it being more similar to a laptop than to the iPad. If I can run Visual Studio on it and it handles all my existing Windows 7 applications correctly, I'd consider purchasing it. I don't look at it like it's a tablet I'm going to be installing a Scrabble App on, though.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that the pricing puts it into a weird space in the market. If you want to use it as a laptop, you have to add one of the covers (the $120 Touch Cover or $130 Type Cover) so you have a keyboard, and that puts the price of the package over $1,000. You can get a "real" laptop (even a Macbook Air!) for less than that.

An argument could be made that Surface Pro isn't just a laptop, but a laptop plus a tablet, in which case the appropriate price comparison would be the cost of a Macbook _and_ an iPad. But the extra horsepower the Surface would require to run like a laptop would mean lower battery life and greater weight. So you get a tablet, but one that's less appealing than a tablet designed to only be a tablet.

<comment><USER4> Not just a keyboard. If you want to use it like a real laptop, you will need a mouse or other pointing device, as well. Touch on a vertically-oriented screen is not going to cut it for laptop-ish kinds of uses, as has been proven in years and years of UX studies.

Clarifying edit: Touch is great if you are holding the device in your hands, of course, like an iPad. But once you are using a keyboard and Surface's kickstand and trying to run Windows apps, which is the use case we're discussing here, you'll need a mouse or a trackpad, just like you do to run Windows on any other device. Windows apps are not touch friendly and that didn't magically change just because Ballmer is trying to enter the market that he publicly mocked in 2007 (iPhone) and 2010 (iPad).

<comment><USER5> >because Ballmer is trying to enter the market that he publicly mocked in 2007 (iPhone) and 2010 (iPad).

I'm tired of these kinds of statements. The golden rule is that companies' employee publicly _have_ to put down their competitors' new strategies. Imagine if Balmer said the iPad is great it's going to kill us, or if Jobs said 7" tablets are good but we'll make only in two years, so wait for us to make it. Or even Andy Rubin saying that Android UI is laggy compared to iOS, fix coming in 18 months. All of them(except maybe Jobs) would be summarily fired or atleast will be forced to recant their statements immediately on threat of being fired. It's almost part of their job to publicly mock their competitors, or their shareholders will dump the stock.

The more puzzling thing to me is, why do so many people actually think that these people say what they really believe and really believe what they say?

<comment><USER6> > The more puzzling thing to me is, why do so many people actually think that > these people say what they really believe and really believe what they say?

Because most people here are developers? In most manager courses one of the lessons is; focus not on what people say but why they say it. Those things are often not the same thing. Ballmer (etc) are in the eye of the press, which means that not only do his words influence the stock price, they also influence the 1000s of people working for the company and their partners. All need to have their eye on the ball (MS MS MS) meaning the rest of the world is just _shit_. No matter if it is/he thinks it is or not; that's not relevant at all.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if I agree that that's what happened in this case. I think Ballmer actually believed what he said which is why they were so slow to react and is a part of the problem.

Google's reaction is a good example. After the iPhone launched in 2007 They immediately threw out the original blackberry like android device they were planning to release first and focused on their more iPhone like variant. Microsoft just mocked Apple and did nothing.

As far as the surface goes I think it's an interesting idea and could be great, but they're doing annoying marketing things again that are hurting it. Making people pay an extra $120 in order to get the actual product is annoying, why sell the crippled version without the keypad when that's the entire point of it? Just include the keypad at the lower price point instead.

<comment><USER8> > Microsoft just mocked Apple and did nothing.

I'm no Microsoft fan, but this is hyperbole. They release Windows Phone 7, widely regarded as a credible response, two and a half years after the iPhone came out. That's not exactly record time, but my guess is some serious hammers came down at Microsoft when iPhone launched.

<comment><USER7> I saw the two and a half year delay as the result of doing nothing until they realized they'd made a mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't get the general perspective that the concept of what the Surface Pro is trying to be is a pointless/undesirable thing.

Now, I totally understand the Surface Pro and Windows 8 might not be a _good_ solution to a problem... but there is a problem. And that problem is that I have too many devices. I have a tablet. I have a laptop. And I have a desktop. They all serve their function well, but I do imagine that in the future all of these devices will be combined into one. I believe that's inevitable. The Surface Pro is trying to be this solution (again, whether it's a successful solution is TBD). A device with no keyboard when I want a tablet. Attach a keyboard when you need it for whatever reason when you're on the go. Throw it in a dock when you're at your desktop to get your main work done, with multiple monitors, a comfy desk and chair, etc.

To scoff at this idea as not being a valid problem to tackle, and suggest the Surface Pro has no reason to even exist, seems short-sighted to me.

<comment><USER10> I disagree with your premise that 'all devices will be combined into one'. People want devices that do what they're built to do in the best way possible, not one device that tries to please everyone. That's why this idea of building a hybrid laptop-tablet drives me absolutely crazy: it is neither a good laptop nor a good tablet. The reviews of Surface confirm this.

Think about it: where have you seen a _good_ example of any of these hybrids? \- Consumer Copier/Printer/Scanner/Fax machines \- Integrated Graphics Cards \- Integrated Sound Cards \- Monitor/Speaker combos \- Pants that zip off into shorts \- Glittens \- etc. etc. etc.

<comment><USER11> > _where have you seen a good example of any of these hybrids?_

Did you try checking your pocket? You likely have a single device in your pocket right now that serves as a GPS, an MP3 player, a camera, a calendar, a clock, a calculator, a tiny computer for web browsing and email, oh, and also as a phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With an active digitizer and the ability to run full apps, this looks like the perfect photography/graphic work portable workstation, that you can then dock at your desk at home. Extremely interested in it for that alone.

But I might wait a round or two, or look for similar 3rd party convertible things... At $1000, currently, it would need to be something that could do everything I wanted when traveling, and I'm skeptical that the in-lap keyboard experience on one of these will be good enough to make it a true laptop replacement for me. Typing in an airport, for instance (or just a recliner, or bed, or wherever)... I want it to be able to sit in my lap.

A cheaper Surface Pro in the future will appeal just for the portable photography workstation aspect. A laptop-based 3rd-party alternative with as good a digitizer, at about the same price, would appeal as my next laptop. Not sure this version 1 hits what I want, though.

<comment><USER13> Active digitizers aren't cheap, and are really great with one note (I have the Samsung tablet). My problem with this tablet is also that I can't use it as a laptop (literally, I like working on sofas at starbucks). On the other hand, the resolution looks quite promising, its almost retina!

The good old tablet PCs have good digitizers on them, and they are still being made. I'm not sure what I will replace my EliteBook with...I like the digitizer but would prefer something thinner and bigger (like a Samsung Series 9 or a Carbon X1).

<comment><USER14> Disclosure: Microsoft employee.

I'm also a photographer in my spare time, and I'm looking forward to this device, in part because a friend of mine is an artist and she wanted me to evaluate it when it comes out to see if it's worth the money to her. The digitizer is definitely the biggest thing I want to test on the device. I'm hoping that the pen has pressure sensitivity, at least; and I'm hoping that it turns the screen off far enough from the screen that I can safely lift the pen a little bit before the touch screen turns back on again. Color accuracy will also be interesting; but, since it's an x86 device, I imagine we can install color correction software that will somewhat fix any issues there might be with that. (I have a very specific screen at home I use for color-accuracy. I'm very picky.)

I own a Surface RT, too, with a type cover and have experience using it for ... well, I got it the day it came out. First things first, I've worked with the device on my lap. I have pretty long legs, so the stand sits just fine in my lap; and, while I do prefer to have a hard surface underneath it, like a logitech or targus laptop stand, it's plenty usable in this situation. I use the machine on my lap at a friend's house on their futon all the time.

As for the "it's almost retina!" statement, the Surface Pro is going to be, for normal intents and purposes, retina at 17" away from your face(#). That's less than a normal laptop to face distance. For the Surface RT, I've personally find myself frequently having to raise the resolution of some webpages as they day goes on, because the text is too small to read. Using the same calculations as above, the Surface RT is "retina" at 23 inches.

(#) <http://isthisretina.com/>

<comment><USER13> I'm eager to try a surface in my lap to see how it feels, which I wasn't able to do at the Microsoft store. I do a lot of lap work; coding, writing papers), so this very important to me.

I've been spoiled by the iPad 3 in terms of resolution, especially when reading in bed where the tablet is about 10" away from my face. The pro is decent, but I think I could still see the pixels in bed; that would affect what device I choose to use there.

I agree that the digitizer is the best thing about the device, that alone could sell it for key niche uses (taking notes, sketching).

<comment><USER14> Hm ... I haven't done too too much reading in my bed. I do notice that setting up ClearType the way you like it seems to make reading text better. That said, when I was reading Lovecraft in one of the epub readers, I forget which one, the text was nice to read in 2-column horizontally and 1-column format vertically. I honestly haven't had much time in front of > 300ppi displays at close range and with text ( I tend to like things a bit farther away from me than close, so the screen would still probably be 15 or so inches away), so perhaps my experience hasn't been adequately adjusted yet.

Oh, and of course, as a touch-typist and a fast typist, I recommend the type cover for using on your lap. Both keyboards are stiff, but I imagine the feedback of pressing a key will make it easier to work with on your lap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm think that Microsoft erred severely in making a Surface RT in addition to a Surface Pro.

Surface RT is too little. Why pay as much as an iPad and more than a Nexus 10 for a device with a last-generation screen and last-generation processor?

Surface Pro is too much. There is a segment of people who would want to run full-fleged desktop apps on a touch-screen tablet, but I'm convinced that the number of those people is vanishingly small. The apparent usefulness of being able to run classic desktop apps decreases when you realize that the apps that won't work with Windows RT are by definition the ones that haven't been updated to be usable on a touch screen. Moreover, with the touch cover requiring a flat surface to use the keyboard, the whole "laptop replacement" angle goes out the window in a lot of situations where a 10.6" laptop would be very desirable (e.g. train commutes).

It was a mistake from the beginning to have two lines. They should have focused on making one compelling product, instead of two severely compromised ones. Why are goodies like the 1080p screen bundled inextricably with the battery-destroying Ivy Bridge processor? Office is the key differentiator here, the "Windows ecosystem" is secondary. Surface should have been one device with a Clover Trail processor, 1080p screen, Office, and 8+ hours battery life. If Google can deliver the Nexus 10 at $400, Microsoft should have been able to deliver such a device at $600.

Unfortunately, all of the OEM's are copying Microsoft's RT/Pro dichotomy. The Windows RT devices have low-resolution screens and last-generation processors, while the Windows Pro devices have battery-sucking Ivy Bridge processors. It's a distinction that maybe made sense to some marketing geek, but one that's totally non-sensical as a practical matter.

</comment><comment><USER16> Should be interesting. One of the things I've wished for was a tablet that could do both capacitive touch style interactions and more precise Wacom pen/tablet style interactions. Looks like I'll have a chance to play with an implementation of that.

I agree with kimura that its a pretty high price point. Although reserve judgement on whether or not it crosses into the 'too expensive' territory. Its essentially the same machine as a Macbook Air which is $1,199 for a 128G model (vs the Surface Pro 128GB @ $999)

<comment><USER17> Well, no, it's arguably a "better" machine than the MBA in the sense that it can convert to a tablet, has a pressure sensitive digitizer, higher resolution, better sound system.

<comment><USER16> Sorry, I was being imprecise. From a Compute/Memory/Storage point of view its nominally the same as a Macbook Air. Gives context on what sort of programmatic performance you get.

Agreed it has a different peripheral set which makes it 'better' for some applications and perhaps 'not as good' for others. But I haven't tried it out so its hard to know.

I do have a Kagi capacitive stylus for my iPad and its not nearly as nice as the stylus I had on my old IREX e-reader or the Bamboo Wacom tablet on my Mac.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Classic Microsoft rear-guard move to protect margins for Intel and their hardware chain (and consequently trying to prop up their desktop OS appeal as well) by trying to "tablet-ify" their existing offerings. Expect a bunch of Surface clones (MS approved) to hit the market soon afterwards.

This strategy won't work. Many folks who would buy a Win8 Pro surface are likely going to just buy an ultrabook or netbook + iPad/Nexus/Fire instead.

Microsoft shouldn't even be competing against Apple. They should be deathly afraid of Android. Apple doesn't want to turn iOS into a desktop-like experience, however a Asus Transformer did Surface before Microsoft did.

<comment><USER5> >however a Asus Transformer did Surface before Microsoft did

Can the Asus Transformer run Eclipse? If not, can it or will it, anytime soon?

<comment><USER18> No, but it can run AIDE:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So it's basically as expensive as a MacBook Air, but not as polished or light- weight, and it comes with Windows 8? I'm still stuck on why I need something in between a tablet and a small laptop, especially when it costs as much as a nicer ultrabook.

<comment> simba-hiiipower _expensiveness_ : yes, including the touch cover it'd be priced exactly in- line with the 11.8" mba with the same storage options

 _polish_ : based on the design and build quality of the rt version i'd say it's a pretty safe bet that the hardware will be plenty polished (that's in my opinion of course; as a statement either way would be purely subjective..)

 _light-weight_ : 2.0lbs [1] vs. mba at 2.38lbs [2], so no..

 _windows 8_ : i'm assuming you consider that a negative (or at least are implying that it's somehow inferior to osx), but i can't think of any other system that's as flexible in supporting various input methods and usage scenarios that would be made available on such a device

 _why_ : well i guess it depends on how you look at it. the way i see it is, unlike most tablets this is one that is _also_ fully functional as a laptop/desktop (input methods, ports, connectivity, a fully-featured os that supports real multitasking and runs millions of _app_ lication _s_ ) when you need it.. and, unlike most laptops/desktops, it's also one that makes for an excellent tablet (touch input, pen/digitizer, increased portability, a fast/stable os with a nice touch-friendly interface)..

benchmarking against the mba i find it pretty hard to not see value there. and _you_ may not need this (apparently most people do not _need_ mba's either by the way), but for some it makes for a pretty great value proposition as it really could replace both a tablet and a traditional pc.

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with- windows-...](http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with-windows- rt/help-me-choose)

[2] <http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs.html>

_edit: for some reason seeing those links next to one another made me laugh a bit; simplicity._

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If that price included a full version of Office I would definitely get it myself.

As priced, it's a no-brainer for the executive set who like to be seen with their iPads but get real work done on 5 pound, AD-joined, IT provisioned Dells. They already have volume licensed Office, and IT teams are going to make this a standard option for road-warriors and execs.

I think the Hacker News set doesn't understand what it's like to work at a non-tech Fortune 500 company. Microsoft's goal isn't to replace the iPad on teenagers' Christmas lists, it's to protect the highly lucrative corporate market from further iPad (and eventually Mac) penetration. On that measure, the Surface Pro is going to crush it.

<comment><USER20> To put it another way, you aren't going to see a lot of these at SXSW or at Ritual Coffee, but watch out National Association of Pharmaceutical Representatives!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's competing with laptops, not tablets. If the price didn't kill it vs. tablets, the thickness and fans would. Terrible choice against the iPad, but potentially the right one vs. a MacBook Air.

</comment><comment><USER22> Before even clicking the link, I thought to myself, 'What would I pay for a Windows 8 tablet?' Not more than $500 I thought. When I saw they priced it at $900 I laughed. Microsoft is a non-stop train wreck of misery at the moment. It's like Window ME and Windows Vista combined. I hope they come out of this beating with a renewed sense of reality. Maybe shed a few layers of management..

<comment><USER23> You can buy a Windows 8 tablet for $500: [http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en- US/surface-with-windows-...](http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface- with-windows-rt/home)

This is closer to a Macbook Air competitor (with keyboard) in my opinion, that also has the ability to be a tablet and runs x86 applications. Given that, the price makes more sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _In January, Surface with Windows 8 Pro will be available in two versions and pricing will start at $899._

Ouch.

<comment><USER24> That was about my thought process, accompanied by a whistle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Compared to a similar ultrabook its not that expensive, the problem is that for the average joe on a store its a $999 tablet surrounded by $200-500 tablets.

Maybe MSFT should have released a surface hybrid laptop-tablet instead. The kickstand+cover combo is great compared to other tablets but is not the same than a proper laptop keyboard.

<comment><USER26> There's the Type Cover, which is a proper keyboard as far as I understand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone know how much RAM this thing has, since marketing speak has now taken "memory" to mean "storage space".

What's funny is calling this a laptop since your lap is about the only place you can't use it (apart from as a tablet I suppose). It's really a portable desktop.

<comment><USER28> They mentioned it very clearly - The device have 4 GB of RAM

[http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with- windows-...](http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with- windows-8-pro/specifications)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I could see this being an excellent on-the-go digital sculpting/modeling machine. If the digitizer is comparable to a Wacom, this would be great for zbrush.

</comment><comment><USER30> Specifications-wise ([http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with- windows-...](http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with- windows-8-pro/specifications)) it's actually very similar to base models of the MacBook Air (perhaps actually smaller than the Air without the keyboard cover). At about $100 cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think they priced themselves out of the market.

<comment><USER32> What market, though? This isn't an iPad, it's a full machine. Agree that they're not doing a great job of communicating that, though. Calling them both Surface may have been a bad move.

<comment><USER31> But people are going to compare it to an iPad or other Windows notebooks (in the ~600 range) rather than an ultrabook, I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Man this thing is cool, I want it just for the digitizer and the resolution.

</comment><comment><USER34> You can have 50% of an Ultrabook for 100% of the price. Total savings of up to negative 50%! How could anyone resist?

Only Apple can list 'Status Symbol' as one of the perks of their products, and I have a feeling that's one of the main features the average consumer wants in a tablet. Aside from the toy/gimmick factor and browsing the internet easily from bed (or the toilet), I'm just not seeing the mass appeal of these.

<comment><USER35> It has an i5, pretty good screen, USB 3 and the light form factor. Which half is missing from the equation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Definitely too expensive. I could have sworn that they claimed to keep the price under $800. Looks like I'll be waiting for either the inevitable price drop or fire sale for what would amount to a 2nd laptop for me. Knowing this, I don't understand why the ultrabooks are priced so exorbitantly despite them being "luxury" devices if they plan for people to actually buy them.

</comment><comment><USER37> The marketplace isn't going to understand that this is more of a computer than an iPad. They need to hammer on "this runs Office".

<comment><USER38> The only problem is that the RT also runs Office. I think the Pro looks good and I can't wait to get hands on one, but I suspect that if MS doesn't figure out how to market things it will die a swift death.

On the other hand, MS is famous for continuing to do things they suck at until they get it right. One of the benefits of having deep pockets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> As someone who likes to use Ableton Live and Adobe CS. This is exciting. I want to carry around a computer in the form of a tablet. I want to have pen input and USB.

I am using Surface RT right now. Its not perfect. But all the things, I dislike are hopefully fixed with the pro.

I do wish Apple made something similar.

</comment><comment><USER40> Hey, cool! I had one of these back in 2003 when it was called a Tablet PC. Maybe they'll get it right this time.

</comment><comment><USER41> Has anyone done disk benchmarks on the built-in NAND of either the RT or Pro? I've really gotten used to the performance difference between modern SATA SSDs and spinning disks, I'd hate to buy a surface and get performance of the bad old days.

</comment><comment><USER42> Are these still "64gb" as in it's really 45gb with the OS files and such installed?

<comment><USER43> Yes, if you look at the specs page there's a disclaimer noting the OS takes up a significant amount of the space:

      Storage 	64GB*, 128GB
      *System software uses significant storage space. Available storage is subject to change based on system software updates and apps usage.
      1 GB = 1 billion bytes. See Surface.com/storage for more details.

<comment><USER20> iOS is made out of Unicorn feathers and does not take any of the iPad's advertised space.

<comment><USER43> I'm uncertain whom you're replying to as I never mentioned iOS nor implied anything about it.

iOS does take less space than Windows at last check, but that's to be expected.

I personally think it's pretty disingenuous that more vendors don't advertise the usable space instead of total space.

I'm not thrilled about how much usable space I actually have left on my Nexus 7 16GB as an example...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> > Surface with Windows 8 Pro will come with Intel's next generation Core i5 > processor

So it's going to run Haswell?! Weren't those supposed to come out only a quarter after that?

</comment><comment><USER45> How much space will it take for OS+Office+other default applications? If the situation is same as Surface RT then 64 GB Surface Pro is definitely not a good choice.

<comment><USER46> _How much space will it take for OS+Office+other default applications_

Exactly as much space as it takes up on your laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Wonder how long it might take for them to release an updated model, considering the Intel Haswell microarchitecture should be available around Q2 2013.

</comment><comment><USER48> After trying Windows 8, I'm not convinced "hybrids" are the future anymore. Everything about such a hybrid will be a compromise one way or the other.

You won't get the best desktop experience as Windows 8 is annoying you with Metro, and you always have to bypass it, a 10" screen is pretty useless for any real work on a PC (too small). You'll also get about half or less the battery life of an ARM tablet (and probably several times less for idle time - an ARM tablet can last for days on a charge with light use). You also get too little storage for a desktop PC and for the price.

It will get hot, and will get noise from the fans. It's 30% heavier than a 10" tablet, and people are already saying how the new iPad Mini will be the "real" iPad in the future because of its weight (half the weight of regular iPad) and size. And it's also too expensive for a tablet, if that's what you really want.

Manufacturers are already saying they expect touchscreen hybrids to only be a small part of the ultrabook sales next year, and I think they got it right. Hybrids will only be a niche market, and not the "future" of tablet and PC's that Microsoft hopes it will be.

<comment><USER13> My old Sony 505g had a 10.4" screen and was plenty useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Does anyone know how much free space is left on the 64GB model? WinRT takes up ~14GB on the 32GB non-pro Surface iirc.

</comment><comment><USER50> maybe it'll be good as a backup laptop.

i just bought an X1 Carbon that needs to be sent back for repair.. i have done away with my desktop years ago so now i need a backup whilst my X1 is in repair.. the Surface Pro seems to fit this pretty well...

</comment><comment><USER51> Half-nailed it.

</comment><comment><USER52> Too expensive

<comment><USER53> You mean, as opposed to a MacBook air at 999 to 1199? This is a full-fledged laptop running the full version of Windows.

<comment><USER32> Well, it's a full-fledged laptop that has no keyboard. A keyboard will cost you more- a type cover is about $149, right?

<comment><USER54> Wow seriously? I bought a mechanical keyboard with gold plated switches for each single key for that price!

<comment><USER55> The markup on the typecover is hard to justify when looking at the competition. The keyboard on the asus transformer cost about the same except that it also has a big battery inside, extending the battery life of the tablet when used in laptop mode.

And it can be used as a laptop, in your bed, in your lap.. not like the Surface RT which doesn't rely on the type cover but a stand that is only stable when put on a desk or table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Do we know how thickness will compare to the RT? From the photos, this looks kind of thick.

<comment><USER14> Microsoft says:

       Surface Pro:
       10.81 x 6.81 x 0.53in
       2lbs

       Surface RT:
       10.81 x 6.77 x 0.37in
       1.5lbs

[http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with- windows-...](http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with-windows- rt/specifications) and

[http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with- windows-...](http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/surface-with- windows-8-pro/specifications)

<comment><USER24> Perfect. So it is, in fact, 43% thicker. Still pretty thin, but nice to know my eyes were not deceiving me.</comment></comment></comment>


MySQL Sharding at Quora - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/q/quoraengineering/MySQL-sharding-at-Quora?share=1 <comment><USER2> Is Quora really big outside the US or something? I find it difficult to reconcile their scale challenges with the fact that I don't know a single person that uses Quora outside of when the come up in google search results.

<comment><USER3> I suppose I would reply with the question "is being the top rated Google answer for all sorts of questions enough?".

That is, I can't imagine anyone I know having deliberately visited Quora and used it as a networking site. But I can sure imagine most of the non-tech community searching for a random fact and clicking a Quora link. I'd have to wonder what that means for traffic/load. Certainly I'd expect you could cache a substantive portion of page hits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While this is a great read, I'm excited to find out more about the tech challenges behind their login wall.

</comment><comment><USER5>
        A couple of years ago, our infrastructure team
        implemented the ability to move a table from one
        MySQL host to another. This allowed us to have
        multiple masters with different tables on different
        masters, which we refer to as "vertical sharding".

        Each one of these masters, along with its slaves,
        is called as a "partition" at Quora.

I nearly stopped reading here.

Naming things is hard, but why would they choose a term ("partition") that has already existed for many decades in the same context?

That's nonsensical.

<comment><USER6> What's nonsensical about it? A partition is just a logical split of your data. You can do horizontal partitioning (aka "horizontal sharding"), like splitting the same table to different databases by key. Or you can do vertical partitioning, where you put different tables in different databases.

<comment><USER7> I always thought vertical partitioning meant to split by columns (that is, have fewer columns per table, and you need to join to get the original back).

<comment><USER5> You're correct!

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18302773/what-are- horizo...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18302773/what-are-horizontal- and-vertical-partitions-in-database-and-what-is-the-differen)

[https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/in-depth-understand-of- verti...](https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/in-depth-understand-of-vertical- partitioning-in-sql-server/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://www.raphkoster.com/2009/01/08/database-sharding- came...](https://www.raphkoster.com/2009/01/08/database-sharding-came-from- uo/)

Nice article from Raph Koster. Especially if you played Ultima Online by any chance.

</comment><comment> awinter-py 'shard user scale data, centralize or mirror small scale data' (the A1 A2 B C D E diagram) is a useful point

'obvious in retrospect' I suspect to a lot of teams that add sharding to their system

</comment><comment><USER9> Would Google Cloud Spanner work well for a workload like this one? Why or why not?

<comment><USER10> By all means yes, I'd argue spanner would be the ideal candidate for the task. It scales beyond anything else I've come across. Mind you, so do the costs of running it. I've only used it for training exercises and numbers add up like nothing else. IIRC running a production instance at the bare minimum would set you back around 9k/month.

<comment><USER11> Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud.

That was probably before the change last fall [1] to have an SLA for single-"node" instances. At $0.90/hr per "node" for a Regional setup in Iowa, that's just over $650/month. Note that I put "node" in quotes, because it's hard to remember that "num nodes" != num replicas [2].

We "require" (I don't know if this is a hard requirement, but let's assume it is) a node per 2 TB of storage [3], so the example for Quora of "tens of TB without counting replicas" would probably be 15 nodes at 30T and say 50 nodes at most (100TB).

Assuming 50T as a balance, you'll need at least 25 nodes and let's assume regional pricing (since the MySQL example isn't going to be multi-regional by comparison). That's 25 x $.9/hr x 730 hours/month (~$16500) plus 50T of storage at $.3/GB/month (another $15k). So just over $30k/month or $360k/year. As for qps, we quote the _multi-regional_ variants at 7k read qps per node (so 175k in this example) and ~2k write (so 50k).

That's all in though, so you'd need to compare to the cost of running a fleet of MySQL boxes too (at a minimum you'll also need ~75-ish boxes, just like the 25x3 for Spanner), 150T of raw storage (assuming 1 master and 2 read replicas per shard, which is pretty common) and then Zone to Zone egress (I believe Quora is on EC2). I'm assuming they're using gp2 volumes at $.10/GB/month, so that's the same $15k/month of storage. Being cost-conservative and assuming r5a's and 3-yr RIs, you pay about $18/month per thread, so we can buy up to 833 threads of r5a for the remaining $15k/month. That's maybe close to feasible (~11 threads per box), but honestly you probably need 16+ or even 32 for traffic this high (depends on query caching).

tl;dr: I don't think Spanner's pricing is higher than the sharded mysql fleet in this example! I do think it's not available on AWS or on-premises though, so that's a fine disqualifier for Quora.

[1] [https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/release- notes#Septembe...](https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/release- notes#September_25_2019)

[2] [https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/instances#available- co...](https://cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/instances#available- configurations-regional)

[3] [https://cloud.google.com/spanner/quotas#notes](https://cloud.google.com/spanner/quotas#notes)

<comment><USER12> Even at ~$360k/year using Spanner, I wonder if Spanner is cheaper than the amortized cost of dedicating engineers to develop and maintain a custom MySQL sharding solution, on top of the AWS bill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Since it's range based sharding, was Vitess ever considered (a popular CNCF MySQL range sharding cluster approach that came out of YouTube)?

<comment><USER14> Different company. We evaluated Vitess in comparison to ProxySQL. While Vitess was very promising, it was a large refactor and an all or nothing proposition to switch to it. ProxySQL allowed us to move to it piecemeal and adopt a crawl, walk, run solution in adopting it.

<comment><USER13> Interesting, didn't realize it imposed a lot of client side changes, I'm curious to hear your experience on that? Was it the change in MySQL compatibility that makes it an upfront cost?

With Vitess I believe most get started with just deploying VTGate and just proxying their existing queries to their existing MySQL server, then once that is working nicely, start to range shard and expand the cluster sitting behind VTGate.

<comment><USER14> It was several years ago and I don't recall the details. And it is always possible we missed something or that things have changed on the Vitess side. I do recall the impression that we would have to have a "cut over" and it would be going from zero queries to full load. It seemed doable but leadership decided the risk was too high.

<comment><USER15> We've come a long way in Vitess in terms of usability. And we're adding even more tooling to support onboarding and migrations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > The result is that we do very few joins in MySQL

I realize depending on your data model some of this is unavoidable once you shard, but it sounds like they did this even before sharding.

What's the reason to do that? Seems like you either end up with long transactions or doing MVCC in app code

<comment><USER17> As a sibling has noted, joins across database hosts with SQL is somewhere between hard and impossible. So it made sense to discourage and remove them on that basis, given that the datasize was growing/has grown beyond what can be managed reasonably on a single host.

Another reason to avoid joins is that they it can be difficult to consistently write joins that execute quickly. Often, a poorly performing join can be written as a sequence of queries which each perform well, and joined with reasonable performance on the client side. Usually, it's easier to scale the client (webserver) tier than the database tier, so moving work to the client makes sense for that reason too.

Of course, this has to be considered in the context of the service. These days it's pretty easy to get a database server with 64 cores and a couple terrabytes of ram, and several terrabytes of fast SSD storage. You can do a lot with that, and you may never need to shard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Comment from the representative (probably) of the "Chinese Quora" is interesting as well :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Posting the case study here for more information: [https://pingcap.com/success-stories/lesson-learned-from- quer...](https://pingcap.com/success-stories/lesson-learned-from-queries- over-1.3-trillion-rows-of-data-within-milliseconds-of-response-time-at-zhihu/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interesting that they still use MySql and did not switch to MariaDB.

What is HNs opinion on MySql vs MariaDB?

<comment><USER20> Their site(use case) looks almost similar to stackoverflow.com. The stackoverflow.com has few MS SQL servers with a Memcached as cache. I guess if reads are the heavy load it makes perfect sense just to continue with your current SQL DB + sharding.

<comment><USER21> Did stack overflow even do any sharding?

<comment><USER22> Here is what stack overflow does: [https://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the- ar...](https://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/17/stack-overflow-the- architecture-2016-edition/) It's from 2016, but probably hasn't changed much. Also StackExchange: [https://stackexchange.com/performance](https://stackexchange.com/performance)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is going to be very useful for one of the projects I'm working on, thanks for sharing</comment>


London's rental market is being flooded by bargain Airbnb listings - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-coronavirus-london <comment><USER2> Well, since it says right there in the article that takings for a property rented on AirBNB could be 3-5 times the basic rental rate there will be little sympathy I fear. I mean, if that property has already been rented out since the start of the year (2.5 months) then that should keep them out of the red for the next 7.5-12.5 months, no? I am pretty sure that some of these properties will have been on AirBNB for longer than that.. It says one specific blood-sucker has lost £35,000 income already! I'm wondering at that level of income, why he doesn't have any cash reserves to carry him through?

<comment><USER3> This crisis will uncover a lot of overleverage and insufficient reserves. A lot.

Just to think how many of my friends have an incredibly high percentage of their net worth in stocks ...

<comment><USER4> Stocks will recover. Of greater concern are workers who cannot afford to miss a paycheck while being otherwise financially responsible, even more so if they have children to provide for.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly my point with stocks and being overleveraged on them. You may not be able to wait for them to recover if you lose your regular incone. Also recovery can take decades, depending on how this plays out. May also be rather quick.

<comment><AUTHOR> By "being overleveraged on [stocks]" do you specifically mean that people were borrowing to invest in stocks?

<comment><USER5> Some Eastern European countries had investment products offered by insurance companies, where you sign up for investing a fixed amount monthly for 10-15y with huge exit fees if cancelled prematurely. The high fees are meant to cover for the commissions for the sales people of those products.

I can imagine that other countries also have similar products where it's difficult to pause the regular investments unless invested manually.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have one of these (called an endowment policy). It was a spectacularly terrible investment. Luckily the amount I pay in (£10/month) isn't going to make me go broke. Until the beginning of this year it looked as if I might make slightly more than the nominal money I paid in - yes it really was that bad. But with another dose of bad luck it matures this year so it'll likely be worth 30-60% less. Oh well, it was a learning experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Same thing is happening in Toronto as well.

Airbnbs have destroyed the housing market here and recently the hosts have had to switch to long term rentals... Bringing relief temporarily, but they will be right back to their old ways as soon as this Pandemic is over.

Reddit threads of this discussion on Toronto:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/fplfke/scumbag_air...](https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/fplfke/scumbag_airbnb_hosts_response_to_facebook_post_on/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/fpz6yj/update_scum...](https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/fpz6yj/update_scumbag_airbnb_host_from_yesterday_now/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Choice quote for students of risk:

"I've always been a survivor, in life and in business. This coronavirus epidemic is not going to put me or my companies down," says one Airbnb influencer on YouTube.

To be fair, it was pretty hard to fathom what might knock out the entire tourism industry of a whole city, let alone the world. I mean it's been written about by various people, but who really considers pandemic risk while doing the rental arbitrage?

And likewise with risk in general, we tend to think of things that can specifically happen to an investment, eg the tenants wreck your place, or the mortgage rate changes. We tend not to think so much about this sort of thing, even though infectious disease is a thing everyone has heard of.

<comment><USER8> Tail risk - it's fresh...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> After how Airbnb dealt with my reservation in regards to their Coronavirus policy, I have the feeling they're not only bleeding cash but that they'll be losing tons of customers.

I had to wait two weeks to speak to someone, yet had been immediately notified on the site, twice, that I qualified for a full refund (which I took screenshots of). The wording in their policy also qualifies me. However, they're reneging.

<comment><USER10> Perhaps they can take advantage of a legal loophole, just like you were happy to by using airbnb to rent in an urban area with no real right to be there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Dublin's is the same, I imagine this is pretty common in most major cities [https://www.balls.ie/amp/the-rewind-news/something- interesti...](https://www.balls.ie/amp/the-rewind-news/something-interesting- happening-dublin-rental-market-428463)

<comment><USER12> Galway isn't much better either, even in 2016. I was looking for long-term accommodation there for a masters program at NUIG and pretty much everything was taken up by short-term for the summer. I could hop around place to place until October, when they basically agreed to some winter long-term. It was awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not a bargain.

There is a pandemic.

You don't know who stayed there before you

The owner has zero safety/cleanliness standards to comply to

You are putting your trust in a company whose only innovation is a regulatory loophole

The price reflects the good.

<comment><USER13> They're not being rented on AirBnB, they're being converted back to normal rental apartments.

<comment><USER10> What I said applies to any airbnb rental, now and forever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So from reading the article, it seems that most hosts don't actually own the apartments, but rent them from landlords and then AirBnb them? That seems more different from North America where most of the hosts own (at least for whole apartment rentals) although for condos at least in Toronto it often is against the condo bylaws.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes it seems as if the Airbnb hosts are arbitraging cheaper long-term rentals into short-term, higher rate, Airbnb stays. Rather like WeWork, which is also in big trouble: [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-18/wework...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-18/wework- s-stock-went-down-some-more)

In London it's now apparently common for whole blocks of flats to be arbitraged this way. There was an investigation in Wired recently: [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-scam- london](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-scam-london) There are bylaws about this in the UK too, but enforcement is very weak to non-existant. In fact the government recently refused to renew powers that some local councils were using to enforce registration and minimum standards on landlords ([https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- merseyside-51076128](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- merseyside-51076128)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Last year I did a gig as VP Growth at a Debit-Card-Company. The agreement was 3 weeks London and one week remote in Vienna (with my Family).

The company was pretty central in Camden, my fitness center, too. I found it more cheaply and uncomplicated to just rent Airbnbs in the area for 3 weeks, sometimes jumping apartment every second day, then go through the completely hostile long term rental market with substandard flats far away which would have cost me 1h+ in each direction each day.

So yeah, Airbnb was great for me but is prop. toxic for London as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER16> I guessing it will be a while for AirBnB to IPO.

Also the massive bailouts, the drop in real GDP, may finally lead to inflation and higher interest rates and an end to world wide booming property markets.

</comment><comment><USER17> I see something similar in Prague. Many new furnished (unusual) apartments in center for long term rent.

But I think Airbnb is just a scapegoat for broken market. You can see similar problems in commercial rental market.

<comment><USER18> I agree AirBnB is used as a scapegoat. The problem in fact is much more complex - low interest rates, house flipping, short term rentals, influx of foreign cash to the countries where real estate prices are only catching up with rich countries, and to the countries where prices dropped significantly after 2008, local oligarchs parking cash in real estate, and many more reasons...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As someone who lives in a (already expensive) US-based short term & seasonal rental hotspot, I have been consistently subjected to 10-25% annual rental increases for going at 7 years straight now.

Many peers and locals have emotionally or otherwise fought against the rise of these short term real estate schemes. Something to the effect of "Neighborhoods are for neighbors" as the slogan goes...constantly griping about it one way or the other.

But it's a personal choice to putup, so I just shutup and carryon while appreciating the city that much more. Yes, the trend has caused me financial challenge and the inconvenience of having to relocate around town more often that I'd like, creating stress and sacrifice, but I've always accepted and adapted.

Now here we have the black swan of 2020 and the airbnb money tree has dried up died in the scope of <2 weeks. Properties that typically gross 10-15-20k monthly during peak seasons are suddenly at or approaching ZERO rental income.

The amount of these properties in my area is conservatively 50%, though would some say 75-90%. Tough to know forsure given the 'rougue' players. If you add up the volume, density, and exorbitant prices - this is going to be a massive overdue fallout in residential rental rates.

So let the market correct itself and find a new low/equilibrium. May the highly-leveraged, over-extended, get rich quick get lost quick ... and with that put all these prime properties within reach again for those who do call this city home and hold it down year round.

Clearly, I welcome the chaos ;)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is so sweet and long awaited, happening for a reason so unexpected and unstoppable.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wrote a blog post about this after coming across the threads in Reddit. Fascinating stories coming out of the Airbnb market.

[https://rdrn.substack.com/p/20204-the-crash-of-rent-to- let](https://rdrn.substack.com/p/20204-the-crash-of-rent-to-let)

</comment><comment><USER21> From the end of the article "I think there will be a reduction in the number of rogue operators that we see out there,"

I'm sure that will be a shorted lived occurrence. Opportunity for quick money always brings out the rogues. :|

<comment><USER10> Banks in the UK got the government to freeze the regular housing market.

Banks will only lend at greater than 40% deposit, because that's how much they feel the market might fall.

Not a strong recovery signal in that sector.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> If true this is pretty strong further evidence that Airbnb has had a really significant negative effect on affordable housing in these cities.

<comment><USER17> Last time a was in London on six month contract, Airbnb was more affordable option. Normal landlord wanted an arm and leg.

<comment><USER23> Right and that's essentially the point.

It's fantastic for "tourists" (even though you were there 6 months you were essentially a tourist) at the expense of residents.

Unfortunately see it every day as I'm based in New Orleans which is a tourism- dependent city and ABNB has just been devastating for locals who can't afford to buy property.

<comment><USER17> I was a resident, I payed taxes and everything. This local versus tourists stuff is just xenopfobia.

Why you don't blame city hall that refuses to build new housing, and d milks tourism for everything at expenses of locals?

<comment><USER24> The distinction is short term vs long term, that has nothing to do with xenophobia. AirBnB reduces the price of short term stays (six months is short term - long term rental contracts typically start at 1 year), but has a significant negative effect on people that stay in the city long term. AirBnB converts homes intended for long term residents and repurposes them as housing for short term stays. This significantly reduces the supply of houses in a market that already has a low supply, causing an immense spike of housing cost for those staying in the city long term. The fact that something else exists that also contributes to this problem does not take away the immense negative effects that AirBnB has, that's just whataboutism.

<comment><USER17> City hall is 100% responsible for housing shortage. High rise build would fix low supply problem pretty quickly (see Tokio).

How many apartments are on Airbnb? 10%? And probably only in centre.

And some people like me actually stay in airbnbs long term. It is easy to negotiate reasonable price outside of tourist season. Normal landlord is way too expensive and does not bother with basic maintenance.

It is xenophobia, because many cities are blaming their problems on 'tourists'. But those are often foreign workers and students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Something related is happening with commercial real estate in Germany: Big retail chains like H&M, adidas, Deichmann have stated they won't be paying rent beginning in April (they were forced to close their stores). Ironically democratic socialists have complained about that. My guess is that this will be a rude awakening for the rent seeking individuals that profited from record low credit to finance and then rent out properties at record rental rates.

<comment><USER26> Well the reason why people are complaining about this is that these companies are sitting on huge cash reserves but are abusing the system meant to give short term relief to small businesses and individuals.

It might even that they are planning to put those owners that they are renting from into so much financial trouble that they could buy up properties at a discount.

I don't have much sympathy for property speculators etc., however I have even less sympathy for big corporations abusing systems not meant for the to concentrate even more wealth onto themselves

<comment><USER27> They don't really need to "abuse" these relief regulations (I'm not sure they are even doing it, because I'm not sure if the protective regulations actually cover commercial rentals, which are generally much less protected by law than private rentals).

The landlords of these shops don't have any incentive to throw these merchants out because of a few months of missing rent during a time in which most retailers are forced to close. Where should they find any alternative tenants for these properties? Nobody could even move in right now, much less sell anything there. The first time at which they could potentially find someone to market these properties to is when the restrictions on the already-existing tenants are most likely being lifted as well, which means they will start paying rent again.

The only risk for the merchants is that the landlords might take them to court in order to make them pay the missing rent. But that is a rather calculable risk, these big merchants all have legal departments able to handle this risk, and even in the worst case (they are made to pay the full sum) these court decisions will take months until they come into effect, so the primary goal of conserving liquidity during the forced business shutdown time has already been achieved.

<comment><USER18> Interestingly in Germany I'd encountered analogical but reversed situation. Landlords coming up with made up fees and deducting them from the deposit, incorporating the unlikely risk that tenant will fight for their money in the court. In no other place in EU where I have been living in, the relationship between tenant and landlord has been so tense and stressful.

<comment><USER27> Yes, this happens, mostly between private landlords (of which Germany has a lot) and tenants of (seemingly or actually) limited legal competence (because private tenants are in fact relatively well-protected by law except for some gaping loopholes ("Eigenbedarf" being the most-exploited one), but of course accessing that protection often means they have to go to court first, which is a considerable financial and cognitive bar not everyone is able to jump over). I am not sure if it's more often than in other European countries, because I refuse to believe it doesn't happen there as well. You have a large difference in power, it gets exploited, one way or the other way round.

<comment><USER18> > I am not sure if it's more often than in other European countries, because I > refuse to believe it doesn't happen there as well. You have a large > difference in power, it gets exploited, one way or the other way round.

Imagine that in places in Czechia and Poland where I was renting long term, the landlords were returning the full deposit in cash, in exchange for the apartment keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am getting kicked out of my rental by my landlord and looking for a new place is really depressing at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if we will see a government bail-out for all these airbnb hosts ...

<comment><USER29> Imagine that, tax money going to the propertied and elite rentier class.[1][2][3]

[1] [https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day- corru...](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corruption- capitalism-guy-standing/)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/sep/10/push- fi...](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/sep/10/push-film-review- leilani-farha-global-housing-crisis)

[3] [https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns- engla...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england- thousand-secret-landowners-author)

<comment><USER16> It might just happen. The government paying to have rental properties siting empty. I guess some new chapters in the economics textbooks need to be written on what comes after negative interest rates ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> God bless the end of airbnb. Airbnb is a toxic parasitic leach that needs to die.

It has ruined housing for the neady, and broken the diversity within cities.

Someone please tell me one benefit of Airbnb for society? Not the individual, and I will eat my words.

Thanks.

<comment><USER31> It enabled whole masses of people to rent their properties out, something they maybe haven't even considered before, be it due to social stigma or technical difficulties, with relatively strong protections of a major corporation behind it. Previously if you wanted to rent an apartment out in a small rural town in Poland, you could.....print some fliers? Buy an ad in a newspaper? Massive pain in the ass basically. But thanks to AirBnb lots of people were able to do it with relative ease, at a benefit to them and those staying in the area. If that isn't benefit to a society then it's only because of a definition of either benefit or society that you picked.

<comment><AUTHOR> People rented out holiday cottages long before Airbnb existed, even long before the internet. There were sections in classified listings in newspapers, and later specialised websites.

<comment><USER31> Yes. This has nothing to do with holidays though. I'm thinking a mid-size town where the only attraction is a local coal mine - the only hotel option was an old post-soviet hotel where you'd only stay if you absolutely had to. But even if it's not a holiday destination people still have to stay short term occasionally - be it for work or for things like weddings, funerals etc. Not that long ago finding a place to stay that wasn't the mentioned dingy hotel was very hard to do, nowadays there's always at least a few listings on AirBnB so you can stay somewhere that it's a dump.

<comment><AUTHOR> I always think it's amusing that people assume that before the internet nothing like this could possibly have been done.

Here's how it worked before the internet: You the property owner would engage a local estate agent [realtor] and they would find tenants for your property. There were both short and long term rentals. Most of the time it would be rented out to someone local. But if someone from another country wanted to do a short term rental, they would contract a company who would have a presence in the foreign country and would in turn be able to contact local estate agents by telephone, get particulars sent through the mail or fax (or if it was really urgent, read out on the phone), and these would find their way back to the prospective tenant.

Sure it's not as smooth as clicking on a website, but it was still a thing that was done.

(In fact these intermediary companies still exist and are still used especially by businesses that want a full service and don't want to deal with the randomness of Airbnb. I knew someone who worked in a Japan-England company back in the 90s [http://www.redacstrattons.com/](http://www.redacstrattons.com/))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>