Cricket Juice Healthier Than Orange Juice? Many Insects Loaded with Antioxidants - <AUTHOR> https://www.studyfinds.org/cricket-juice-healthier-than-orange-juice-insects-loaded-with-antioxidants/ <comment><USER2> I recently read the book "Oxygen, The molecule that made the world" by Nick Lane. Roughly the first half talks about the geologic aspects of oxygen in world history. The second half talks about biological processes relating to oxygen.

One thing he gets across is that dietary anti-oxidant intake is often ineffective, and in some cases can be harmful. Also, vitamin C isn't just an antioxidant -- it it involved in a number of different reactions and having too much can be as bad as too little. In fact it can be a pro-oxidant.

<comment><USER3> My almost certainly incorrect chronology of events, cobbled together from pop science headlines I've read:

1) Free radicals are bad because they cause oxydation (oxydization?) and this is bad for our cells? 2) Thus, anti-oxidants are good, because they prevent this process 3) People recommended more dietary anti-oxidants 4) It turns out that ingesting anti-oxidants doesn't actually produce the antioxidants necessary to combat free radicals, the same way eating dietary fat doesn't create human fat. Dietary sources of anti-oxidants largely are not absorbed and are useless. 5) Instead, we should look for foods that stimulate production of anti-oxidants in... the liver? the spleen? Wherever those are made in your body? But no one knows which foods are good for that?

<comment><USER4> Also should add - some molecules like Nitric Oxide act as both an antioxdiant and free radical.

The vitamin sellers often use the browning of a cut apple as an easy-to- explain example of the effects of oxidation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Orange juice is essentially just sugar. Crickets are high-protein and low- carb. This makes sense intuitively...though I think "cricket juice" may need some rebranding.

<comment><USER6> Apparently, milk companies lobbied to have almond and other forms of alternative milk rebranded as "nut juice."

<comment><USER7> Kind of makes sense.

It isn't milk. It is good that big grocery isn't allowed to mislead people so easily, but I'm less convinced than I was before I typed out my comment.

<comment><USER8> It isn't dairy, that is correct. Note however, that using the term 'milk' to plant liquids has hundreds of years of history in the English language.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, I wasn't aware.

Happy I was a bit careful with that comment.

<comment><USER9> Yeah it's only been recently since the nut and soy milk have started eating into the profits of dairy farmers that they've started being all up in arms. Look for vegan cheeses and vegi burgers to be the next targets. The also went after mayonnaise substitutes as well. It's just a move to use the legal system to student stifle free market competition.

<comment><USER10> Well, there are a lot of products that are deliberately deceptive and apparently not being regulated sufficiently, so I'm not so quick to say "free market uber alles".

For instance, I noticed recently that a drink that said it contained "natural flavoring" had sucralose in it. I guess sweet isn't legally a flavor maybe, but from the perspective of a consumer, it's hard to tell if this sort of thing is caused by finding clever loopholes or just by ignoring rules completely.

You can't fall back on "just read the label" when you're given a mixture of contradictory, inaccurate, or ambiguous information that is training you to ignore the label.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Juice isn't actually healthy due to it's high sugar content.

</comment><comment><USER12> Do insects count in vegetarian diets? They are an excellent source of protein.

I tried some "cricket flour" brownies (which like most edibles taste like brownies). Their sales pitch was the yummy taste of brownies, twice the protein content of eggs. Presumably targeting the muscle building folks.

Conceptually it shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. Bugs as food being perhaps the biggest marketing challenge you can come up with.

<comment><USER13> At first i wanted to say of course insects count against being vegetarian. But then I thought about it...vegetarians don't want to eat living things, but technically plants are alive too.

Is mass farming vegetables as inhumane as mass-farming cows, pigs, chickens etc? probably not.

But mass farming insects may not be anymore inhumane than the life wild insects are already accustomed to (living in tight, dark spaces).

From a sustainability standpoint, there's no question that getting your protein from insects is better for the environment than cows/pigs/chickens.

But some people are vegetarian just because they're generally grossed out by eating bloody flesh...so just from that angle i'd say insects are not vegetarian.

<comment><USER14> There are 'non-sentient' animals like mollusks. I'd hazard insects are, generally, dumb enough that cruelty is further removed. We kill house insects all the time, for no reason other than they bother us.

<comment><USER15> Long ago I read something that questioned why we get so angry (or whatever emotion) that we kill insects like that so easily. Why end its life? I don't remember where I read it, but decades later I still think of that whenever I either kill a bug or think of killing one. I'm not claiming to be a saint or anything, and I'll still go on a rampage with a fly-swatter.

Last night I was sitting outside reading, and something touched my skin in the wrong way I guess, and I instinctively looked around and reached down and smashed it, like in a split second. It was a millimeter long green baby grasshopper-looking thing. I was alone, but I apologized (to nobody) for killing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No ingredient is healthy or unhealthy. Diet can be that or not. Having more vitamins, or other stuff means nothing. Body thrives on variability not on some optimality based on nutrient amounts.

<comment><USER17> Can there not exist some concoction of every possible nutrient the body needs in ideal proportions to where you would never need to consume anything else?

<comment><USER12> Soylent certainly thinks so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Plain water is probably healthier than orange-flavored sugar juice.

I'm interested in a future where farming insects for the protein and such is normal. I'm sure 90% of people don't even know that 'whey' protein is from milk. Give cricket powder a better name and then sell it cheap, if it's nutritious then it should catch on.

<comment><USER9> There's been a single recent study that came out with the claim that any drink with high sugar can increase your overall cancer risk and sugar may impact tumor growth. Unlike the study is repeated though it's just a single study that could be an aberration.

Rebranding like hamburger and pork but only not chicken and water creature like fish, clams, etc. It's weird, but it would probably work.

<comment><USER10> "sugar may impact tumor growth"

Well, everything needs sugar. Cancer cells are full of water too, aren't they?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Drink cricket juice if you're thirsty! It has Water Molecules(tm)

Eat the shrimp AND the shell (bugs)!

Every time I read about something disgusting that is touted because it has 'antioxidants' I ask myself, can't we synthesize antioxidants in the laboratory? I'll take mine from a Pyrex beaker, thanks.</comment>


What would a newspaper look like if it were invented today? - <AUTHOR> http://smokingapples.com/asides/what-would-a-newspaper-look-like-if-it-were-invented-today/ <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm missing the really innovative stuff here. The save for later is nice, but the recommendations, comments and UI aren't groundbreaking.

The reason I read a physical paper or watch the news on TV is because unlike most digital formats, I end up getting introduced to issues that aren't normally on my radar. This is the I have problem with much of the digital news where I would just click on what interests me.

With a regular newspaper, multiple articles sharing a single page, and the effort of changing a page (let's face it, it isn't like flipping through a magazine) there is enough resistance that I find myself spending a few extra seconds at least scanning the first few lines of every article on the page and sometimes I get sucked in and end up learning some amazing things.

For me, this is one thing that digital just can't do. Clicking and swiping is just too easy and too fast.

</comment><comment><USER3> This concept doesn't do the question justice. It's just a digital repackaging of the standard once-daily newspaper. The problem with newspapers isn't the packaging.

The periodical arose because of printing costs and distribution time. You need to run the presses all night to print a morning edition, so at most there's going to be one issue per day.

If the newspaper were reinvented today it wouldn't have those constraints. It certainly wouldn't be a once-daily edition.

<comment><USER4> Flip that perspective on its head. Why are websites updated continuously? Because we can, and because it would actually require more work/thinking to do so on the more traditional newspaper release approach.

However, I do think there are merits of the edited "digest" format inherent to a print release cycle. My RSS reader is a great example of the shortcomings of a continuous release cycle. It's a fire hose of information because there is no editorial intermediary. Social aggregator sites like Hacker News, Reddit, and once upon a time, Digg, provide a distributed method of determining the value of content, but I find they lack consistently. The dynamic of the community changes over time. Just look at what happened to Digg. Look at the changes and cycles that Reddit and Hacker News go through.

As I drown in the stream from the fire hose on a daily basis, I am increasingly willing to pay for the benefits of browsing a curated view of the news. A skilled editor acts as a filter and adds value by providing commentary. They represent a layer that is missing in todays internet. We are all our own editors. Consider how inefficient that is.

Think of websites that consist mainly of links to other news/content. Jason Kottke's blog is a great example. He doesn't focus on one particular topic, but most of the things he posts are interesting to people who are "in to" the internet. John Gruber is an example of a more focused approach. He covers Apple almost exclusively. His blog is a stream of links with short editorial content, punctuated by long, well thought-out opinion pieces. Not everyone agrees with him, but if you're an Apple fan, his site is a must-read.

Imagine building a team of Jason Kottkes and John Grubers, all focused on their specialty, along with an editorial hierarchy to consolidate and filter the information. What have you got? You've got a newspaper. The answer isn't more content, it's less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lost me at the moment he said "You can connect to your social networks ... "

<comment><USER6> Agreed. The narrator just got finished saying, "...over the din of the internet.", and then in the very next sentence they show little notifications with "connect to your social networks"? I don't see anything new or innovative about this interface at all. Their classified UI looked pretty sharp though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Inspiring video. I doubt it will catch on though.

I'm a 29 year old that still reads the paper ever morning. If I could get my local paper on my iPad in this format, I'd be quite happy.. especially with the ability to feed back to the writers -- I thought that was particularly cool.

I read the newspaper because it isn't google reader -- there is an editor filtering the crap for me. I can't help but feel that if local newspapers use this technology there will be too many internet memes slipping in. Sometimes, less is more.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like the concept behind the app itself, but I wonder how customized you can make the news itself. If it aims to replicate that of a newspaper then it seems fair to assume that it will contain mainstream news. I personally enjoy the freedom of finding my own sources by using the Internet. I know the writers can't create a news paper for me, but I wonder how if I could add my own content based on my interest without breaking the feel.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not particularly sold on the news+ concept, but Smoking Apples blog looks pretty sharp and nicely written. Adding to the RSS reader.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is just a web app.</comment>


Insiders claim Google's internet-fixing Jigsaw is a toxic vanity project - <AUTHOR> https://boingboing.net/2019/07/03/missing-piece-of-the-puzzle.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20343297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20343297)</comment>


Want to Buy a House? This Is How Many Hours You Need to Work to Afford One - sahin-boydas http://mentalfloss.com/article/567626/number-of-work-hours-to-afford-mortgage-each-state-map <comment><AUTHOR> Here's an article/analysis that instead used years of life required to buy a house [0]. The ranking looks pretty similar.

[0] [https://nation.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid...](https://nation.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=de7f932e3a1d494f9c9d9a67fb0de646)

</comment><comment><USER2> I just gave away upwards of a mil usd, I have a tiny net worth remaining. No home etc, except a paid off vehicle which will be donated.

Preparing to depart consciousness. Cut contact, move, then request a quiet passing while alone. I'm relieved. Farewell.

<comment><USER3> Say this, "God, if you are real, show me."

[http://youarehere.place](http://youarehere.place)

If you want to talk, contact me via my profile.

<comment><USER2> I'm far beyond that. Already saw eternity (to whatever degree it can be shown to a mortal) over two decades ago. Being shown a glimpse of infinite fear/pain and infinite pleasure as divergent paths of existence changed me, not for the better in terms of leading a meaningful life. I've been dreaming of being dead since then.

I am very thankful and relieved now that the end is in sight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Me and my girlfriend recently moved back to our childhood community from a larger city in Sweden. We bought a house for less than a 10th of what my work friends bought theirs for.

There are many benefits living in a big city but this is probably one of our best financial decisions. Yes we could keep our salaries as well, I know it's not possible for everyone.

<comment><USER5> Well, this will soon become the only option, to move to the rural areas.

Before you could live with 1 income and buy a decent house and have a car. Today you can be 2 but have hard problem even buying a house?

Who's or what's the blame? I have my opinion and thoughts about that, but it's for another day.</comment></comment>


The student loan crisis is really an underemployment catastrophe - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@eric_seufert/the-student-loan-crisis-is-really-an-underemployment-catastrophe-96181e937a10 <comment><USER2> This is a bit like saying "People buying luxury cars is just a problem with people not having high-paying jobs".

It seems more fruitful to focus on what product is being sold through state- subsidized loans and if they provide the necessary value. Bloated administrations is largely to blame for the increased cost, and a middle class student getting a student loan they can't default on for a degree without earning potential is not a good choice.

<comment><USER3> In this case, though, the "product that [was] being sold" that made these students originally _go_ to school, _is_ employment—or rather, a proxy signal for employability that the consumers of the product hope will get them employment. People consume education when they can't find a job, in the hopes that they'll become more employable, even though this makes the problem of their unemployment more dire rather than less (because it adds debt.)

It's sort of like taking stimulants when you're hungry.

<comment><USER4> I guess we have to decide whether the it's "We have a problem with too many snake oil salesman!" or "We have a snake oil effectiveness problem".

<comment><USER5> I think you present a false analogy, but I found your phrasing very funny

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure the author's suggestion that potential students be diverted to trades/coding bootcampts etc., will solve too much, and instead may simply shift the problem into those trade industries as well. Somewhere in the ballpark of 2,000,000 students earn a bachelors degree each year. Let's say 25% of students should be diverted into trade schools instead. That will mean an additional 500,000 student per year entering those fields, which will then have the impact of making those jobs ever more scarce and probably depressing wages as workforce supply outpaces demand.

That's not to say diversion of this sort wouldn't help at all, only that it is not a cure-all. I think we're simply approaching a point in economic history where fewer workers are needed to produce more value/gpd/products/whatever. I'm not sure what the solution to that problem is though.

<comment><USER7> There are two books that cover this subject well: _The Case Against Education_ : [https://jakeseliger.com/2018/03/12/the-case-against- educatio...](https://jakeseliger.com/2018/03/12/the-case-against-education- bryan-caplan/), which argues that most "education" is really signaling, not human capital acquisition, and _Paying for the Party_ : [https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party- eliz...](https://jakeseliger.com/2014/04/27/paying-for-the-party-elizabeth- armstrong-and-laura-hamilton/), which argues that many schools have evolved some substantive majors and some non-substantive majors. If we can move people from non-substantive majors into trades and the like, that will likely be a win for just about everyone.

I also don't think we're going to see a cure-all, but it's hard for almost any intellectually honest person in the non-elite parts of the higher-education industry to look at what's going on and think it's great.

 _I think we 're simply approaching a point in economic history where fewer workers are needed to produce more value/gpd/products/whatever_

Then we'd see soaring productivity, which we don't see: [https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1140259227908411392](https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1140259227908411392)

<comment><USER8> It behooves one to read the comment thread replying to Dr. Krugman's post.

Many arguments emphasizing the disparity between real output vs. employment in manufacturing. Paul Krugman is wrong surprisingly often about these sorts of things. He cherry-picks one graph and says that this graph, combined with the opinions of cherry-picked esteemed colleagues, supports his conclusion, when ample evidence exists and is provided in near-real-time to refute it.

<comment><USER9> >> Paul Krugman is wrong surprisingly often

Not that surprising if you examine his incentive structure. It is best for him to misrepresent issues like this, QE methods during the Bush/Obama administrations, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing that I noticed in this article and charts was the unprecedented growth of auto loans. They too have skyrocketed. That seems like another "bubble" waiting to happen.

<comment><USER11> In the last twenty years, new vehicle prices have doubled. My eyes just about roll out of my head when I see what the sticker price is for a new truck or minivan. I assume people must be leasing more than they used to, because I can't see any other way to get the payment down into a palatable $500/month range.

<comment><USER12> Buying new is basically a fools game now. Take note of vehicles with proven longevity and snatch them up when the depreciation makes them affordable.

<comment><USER13> The market is rather efficient in these vehicles, so depreciation isn't a way to save money. Dealers beg 3-yr-old car owners to sell their cars back so they can flip them. Like real estate, cars are cheap to buy. The expense comes when you _sell_ them, losingthe residual becase you won't get a good price. The most important factor in auto afforidability is _how long you own the car_ , not how good a deal you get at purchase time. And buying a "reliable" used car is a risk, because you don't know what damage _this particular_ used car has suffered. Unless you have good intel on why the previous owner gave it up, and how they treated it, you're taking a gamble.

<comment><USER14> You can pretty blindly buy a no-accident 3-year off/lease Honda or Toyota and be overwhelmingly likely to have a great ownership experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's such a shame that the state can't support the education system financially, so that 20-year old people wouldn't have to take loans to study. It works in other countries, so why not in the US?

<comment><USER16> The simple and honest answer to your question is greed. The fact is that the USA has more than enough money to support a healthy and well-educated population through government-funded healthcare and education (including what you asked about - higher education), but the capture of significant portions of our government by corporate interests has successfully stopped that kind of progress from occurring so that an ever-shrinking number of people can become unfathomably wealthy. This has been accomplished primarily through the use of emotion-based propaganda over a series of decades and has been incredibly effective at poisoning the national discourse.

<comment><USER17> It might be more nefarious -- to essentially maintain a permanent underclass of society with just broad strokes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The amount of labor required for an individual to attend even a community college has increased more than 5-fold. This is for basic tuition at a no-name university, obviously the numbers are far worse for ivy league. You can slice that in terms of markets demanding more, costs going up, administration bloat or whatever else how you like but the fact of the matter is, when a college education is more critical than ever for many fields, it costs five times what it used to, optimistically.

If we want college grads able to leave school and not be saddled with debt for the remainder of their lives, make college free. I'm not interested in hearing about how someone might dare learn something that isn't inherently profitable; I reject the assertion that just because something cannot be successfully monetized does not automatically make it worthless. Art, culture, history, all of these are more valuable to society at large than the highest valued startup. End of. Argue it.

<comment><USER19> > This is for basic tuition at a no-name university, obviously the numbers are > far worse for ivy league.

It's worse, but opposite of the way you're thinking. Harvard/Yale/Princeton are basically free if your parents make less than about $65,000 per year. So, a smart ambitious kid with non-rich parents can graduate from a top school with an extremely strong network and have no debt. But an "average" kid with non-rich parents will have to work a side job or two, and graduate with substantial debt, all for a not particularly useful degree.

<comment><USER18> > So, a smart ambitious kid with non-rich parents can graduate from a top > school with an extremely strong network and have no debt.

Or the kid could win the lottery, with effectively the same odds of success. That does not make this a good system.

<comment><USER19> I'm not saying it's a good system, but we've effectively ended up in a situation where some of the kids least in need of a leg up end up getting a huge boost, and the ones who need more help get nothing.

<comment><USER18> Except this argument is an offshoot of a problem caused by a greater fault. To take this in a programming metaphor, you're attempting to make an unmaintained, old library work with new code, when there are perfectly good alternatives available with better functionality and support, and good use cases.

Instead of band-aiding the bad solution, throw it out. Get a better one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The money has slowly been taken out of everything.

It's a deliberate program.

When a new market opens up, like say the internet in the 90s, then the investors and the people in charge will allow some of us to be overpaid for a while.

It's really not out of the goodness of their heart's. At that point they are focusing on market capture, and they need bodies to help them do that.

Eventually they find a way to make that market 'efficient' (read bad for everyone employed in it) and unless a new market opens up, it can be really bad for workers.

I can't think of a significant new market that's been opened up since the app bubble of 2010 or so.

<comment><USER21> Efficiency is a "bad deal" in a place with a very low floor of benefits / lifestyle. In economies with very high minimums, efficiency is not too bad! Would you prefer a dynamic market with winners and losers or a stable market that's kinda ok for a lot of people? This trade off seems pretty easy but over long periods of time the stable market starts to look like a stagnant market that may not allow new entrants to new industries, creating a permanent lagging behind the dynamic/higher-outcome-variance market. So you want some turmoil / "creative destruction". This is why imho barriers to firing people is bad. I'd rather have the gov't be the social safety net than the employer.

<comment><USER20> These are all theoretical benefits, if you can't afford a decent place to live and feel like you have to delay having kids till 38.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Talking about underemployment as a problem for college graduates in general doesn't seem very insightful to me. It seems obvious that not all degrees have problems with underemployment. So which ones do? Why are people doing those degrees? Are they under the mistaken impression that those degrees will lead to employment opportunities that don't actually exist?

<comment><USER23> I believe (partially anecdotally and partially from reading articles over the years) that a big part of this problem is more like "mis-education", rather than "under-education". In primary and high school education in the UK, computing is a dire situation.

It's clear that being good at using a computer is a huge asset in modern society, so why don't we gear education towards it? Programming ought to be seen as vitally important as English and Maths.

<comment><USER24> I wouldn't put programming as valuable than English and Math. It's clearly good to know, but honestly since we're talking about exploding debt, how about fiscal education in schools??

<comment><USER25> Practical fiscal education in schools is almost a political nonstarter. If you were to educate high school freshmen on how savings, loans, investments, taxes and retirement planning works for a semester it would greatly alter the voting habits and priorities of that generation.

<comment><USER26> Just giving out a brochure "What are taxes and how do you pay them" would already be an enormous leap forward.

I would assume going into some of the topics you suggest would lead to school getting swamped by insurance sales people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm looking at the Underemployment vs Unemployment of Recent College Grads graph, and then the following graph of Unemployment of Young Workers vs Recent Grads and they seem like they should share one of the curves in common, but the graphs are different?

Underemployment rates for non-farm jobs in the US, 2005–2018 — Unemployment of Recent Grads

Vs

Unemployment rates for non-farm jobs in the US, 2005–2018 — Recent Graduates

The drop in the _Unemployment_ rate for "All Young Workers" since 2011 however is staggering.

IMO a non-dischargable loan should have a correspondingly extremely low interest rate, but I think there has to be a bright line drawn at forgiving principal except in the case of fraud on the part of the educator or the loan servicer.

<comment><USER28> Why should the principle not be discharged? Why is lending a virtually risk free position (which induces a massive moral hazard)

<comment><USER27> It's non-dischargeable so that it can be offered to people with no collateral and who are otherwise entirely un-creditworthy.

Not surprisingly, this results in high delinquency rates!

The alternative is most people wouldn't qualify for this level of debt, you would more highly subsidize cheaper _public_ education, and private universities would have to rely entirely on endowments to provide financial aid to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to go.

At some point a $50k private undergraduate education (forget about $100k+!) is not for everyone, even if there are banks willing to write the check and put you into that kind of debt.

But think of the outcry if you were to limit the amount of educational debt someone could take on — for example by only making the first $20k non- dischargeable. It would fix the delinquency problem, drastically lower the total annual student loan rate, and cause private tuition prices overall to decline, but it would be called institutional racism.

I think we already went through this cycle with housing, when ~15 years ago politicians started saying that owning a home was a _right_ and everyone should own one, regardless of ability to pay. Zero down, no income verification, guaranteed issue mortgages caused the housing bubble, and we see something nearly the same in education today saddling kids with debt way over their heads, except this time you can't even walk away from it in exchange for a 7 year credit score hit.

<comment><USER29> > if you were to limit the amount of educational debt someone could take on — > for example by only making the first $20k non-dischargeable. It would fix > the delinquency problem, drastically lower the total annual student loan > rate, and cause private tuition prices overall to decline, but it would be > called institutional racism.

The solution to structural racism is more scholarship money, not more debt. Pell and Social Security supplement grants have gotten really meager since when I went to school.

> I think we already went through this cycle with housing, when ~15 years ago > politicians started saying that owning a home was a right and everyone > should own one, regardless of ability to pay.

Ahh yes, this old card. Blame the poors for financial crisis. Buddy most of the defaults weren't from poor people buying homes. People with good credit scores leveraged that score to speculate, over 85% of the defaults were for investment properties. Most of the mortgage defaults were done by your doctors, lawyers, realtors, general contractors, and business owners who watched one too many episodes of home flipping shows and thought they could get in on a good deal.

<comment><USER30> >> The solution to structural racism is more scholarship money, not more debt

I completely agree, scholarships and grants should be greater than the loan debt that a student takes on, and the maximum financial aid for a student should be capped annually in some way. There are simply too many student loans being made available to students that don't need them. I have a colleague that got a full ride through undergrad but managed to graduate with over two hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt. It is predatory lending to loan students more money than they need to cover their cost of education and cost of living (for a student).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I would like to see these graphs next to graphs of for-profit university attendance. Looking at wikipedia, for-profit grew rapidly until enrollment started dropping around 2009.

For-profit schools are "13 percent of the nation's college enrollment, but account for about 47 percent of the defaults on loans. About 96 percent of students at for-profit schools take out loans, compared with about 13 percent at community colleges and 48 percent at four-year public universities."\- 2012 report [1]

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/education/harkin- report-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/education/harkin-report- condemns-for-profit-colleges.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

<comment><USER32> I've also heard that the pricing of for-profit schools is to maximize backed loans out before a student drops out (since most drop around the end of their second year). I know a lot of people who couldn't get funding for their final year of study.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If companies didn't require "higher education" degrees for entry, then schools would be forced to start appealing more to the masses. In an information age such as we live in, we can access virtually all the info we could get from universities for a mere fraction of the cost (just the books + supplemental material if we need it).

There's no need for government subsidized education or broadening the job market. There's need of ditching bureaucrats and "Because we've-always-done- it-this-way" morons. Reward people for studying on their own, building their own businesses, networking, etc. rather than following the stupid system just to get two letters next to their name.

</comment><comment><USER34> A little bit unrelated question: why are HE revolving loans so cheap, having negative CAGR? Some piece of economics i totally fail to understand.

<comment><USER35> They are guaranteed by taxpayers.

>Lots of student loans are also owned by pseudo government agencies or private companies with beneficial relationships with the Department of Education, such as NelNet Inc. (NYSE: NNI) and Sallie Mae (NYSE: SLM). Sallie Mae holds a lot of the loans made under the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), which was replaced by the federal government.

[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- finance/08121...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- finance/081216/who-actually-owns-student-loan-debt.asp)

<comment><USER36> Exactly. To the tune of $120 Billion per year. That's a lot of people being artificially willing and able to pay higher and higher tuitions. The federal taxpayer guarantee on these loans is one of the strongest forces behind the dramatic rise in tuitions - if people can pay and pick the pricier institution, then universities will happily charge and spend more.

[https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2017report/fsa- repo...](https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2017report/fsa-report.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> matt-attack Re the escalating price of universities, why do we treat the issue like it's totally a mystery? Aren't the budgets and costs of large public universities (E.g. the UC system here in CA) public? Weren't these choices based on specific choices by specific individuals who are public employees? Can't we pinpoint precisely who raised prices and why? What should cost substantially more today than 25 years ago (after inflation)? And why don't we just demand that a system like UC just go back to the precise budgets of, say, 1995 (again inflation adjusted)? It seemed to be working ok then.

</comment><comment><USER37> Didn't they have a medical loss ratio requirement with obamacare that required 85% of premiums to go toward actual health care?

Could a similar requirement be imposed which specifically required some substantial percentage of the money to go toward teaching payroll, specifically excluding administrator payroll, leisure activities, athletics, and building construction?

Or rather than that, just require schools to publish the percentage of tuition spent on actual teacher/T.A. payroll by department?

<comment><USER38> What would happen if subsidized loans were simply capped at a much lower maximum? You'd expect enrollment to drop at first, but would universities adapt by lowering tuition? Or would the enrollment rates just stay low? Or would students take more expensive loans?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> No.

While more and better employment would help with the student debt, the fact is starting out in life saddled with what is essentially a home mortgage takes a huge bite out of the potential value of education.

And it carries a very high opportunity cost in that increasing numbers are avoiding school and or seeking options that do not put them in profound debt so early in life.

</comment><comment><USER40> Schools charging the same amount to each student is an issue. Why should someone getting taught in an expensive engineering program pay the same as a British lit kid?

People want to do away with all the "useless" majors, which seems like a mistake to me. Colleges weren't about finding jobs until recently when companies decided to outsource training workers to these places. For our entire history colleges were places where people can learn about the world and different things. Suddenly shaming them for teaching literature when they have been doing it for hundreds of years is dumb. The answer is to just charge tuition relative to the cost of the particular education.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's a crisis of handing too much money to people that have no chance of repaying it. We have people that took at $100k in loans for a music education degree. A very noble cause, but you're unlikely to pay that back within 15 years given the salary prospects.

The root of the problem like many other macro problems [housing crisis, income disparity, etc] is well-intentioned but misplaced government subsidies.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's fairly obvious about what is going on with tuition costs. The burden has shifted from the tax payers to students, due to budget cuts. If you simply put the funding levels back to 90s a lot of this would go away.

[https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-lost- de...](https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-lost-decade-in- higher-education-funding)

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm still trying to figure out why every major costs the same. Most non-STEM majors are using the same methods, and devices that were used 50, a hundred years ago.

$50K per year for an English degree vs $50k per year for a Mechanical Engineering degree, the English majors are getting jobbed. Think about all the majors that don't require the underpinnings of constant technology upgrades, or need the latest and greatest technology.

</comment><comment><USER44> Why should banks be allowed to inflate credit bubbles that people cannot pay back? Why do we keep saving the banks?

<comment><USER45> That's how the economy keeps moving....

Too pessimistic?

<comment> swagasaurus-rex That's how you collapse economies.

To keep them moving, allow defaulting on loans, make the banks take the loss. They will stop issuing glaringly risky loans to the unqualified, preventing a 2008 style subprime loan crisis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The problem with college is that going to college won't make you an expert in your field. Even if you're an A+ student, the amount of knowledge required to be an expert vastly outpaces the knowledge gained by going to college.

</comment><comment><USER47> That's part of it but mostly it's due to rent seeking on the part of degree granting institutions.

</comment><comment><USER48> H1B compete with the newly graduated college students. Before people say that there's no problem with STEM graduates finding a job, I'll counter that many of my coworkers 20 years ago didn't have STEM degrees, and were previously English majors, business majors, etc. They were people with technical aptitude who realized they had picked a field of study that didn't quite suit their financial aspirations. They were able to get an entry level IT job and move up. Now those jobs are filled by H1B.

<comment><USER49> Why can't a 28 American with an English major do a coding bootcamp and find an entry level job? I'm sure if he's reasonable intelligent and ambitious he can. There aren't that many h1b's around competing with him, most American jobs aren't h1b jobs.

<comment><USER50> Why is "do a coding bootcamp" the common refrain from tech workers trying to help non-tech people?

<comment><USER51> Because the barrier to entry is still quite low. While maybe not "Anyone who could spell HTML could get a job" low, as said in another comment here, it's still so low that I'd wager a decently clever person with a good 3 month bootcamp can get a _entry-level_ job.

<comment><USER52> I would say the entry level market for devs is very saturated.

<comment><USER53> If they're making more than any other job you can get with 3-6 mos. of training, the market is not saturated.

<comment><USER54> That's a fallacious argument though, because at the lower end tech jobs pay more than other careers but result in you being exploited by corporations looking to drive wages down.

When I graduated, there were companies offering me 30-40k a year in cities like Seattle. I have friends that could tell you the same story, some who took the opportunity because of the entry level market being saturated.

Bootcamp graduates are often placed in incredibly exploitative contracting environments (often in companies that also underpay, abuse and threaten H1Bs) which are farmed out to larger companies looking to get work done cheap. Though this has just been my personal experience and that of my friends. They leverage desperation.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


OpenBSD: New console font Spleen made default - <AUTHOR> https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190110064857 <comment><USER2> The text sample on the author's site[1] is from Baudelaire's _Le Spleen de Paris_ , so we can deduce the font's name also refers not to the organ but the other meaning of the word "spleen":

"Melancholy with no apparent cause, characterised by a disgust with everything."

[1] [https://www.cambus.net/spleen-monospaced-bitmap- fonts/](https://www.cambus.net/spleen-monospaced-bitmap-fonts/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sad that nobody added a picture of how it actually looks.

I believe this is the relevant font: [https://www.cambus.net/spleen- monospaced-bitmap-fonts/](https://www.cambus.net/spleen-monospaced-bitmap- fonts/)

edit: I'm very stupid and apparently missed the link to this same blog post in TFA. Leaving this here in case someone else makes the same mistake.

<comment><USER4> I am not sure if this looks terrible or brilliant.

<comment><USER5> well it certainly looks better than the old one

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

It is the old Sun console font taken originally from OpenFirmware.

<comment><USER6> Is that... a serif font? How in the heck? Why?

Though I gotta say, the variable stroke width might be less monotone and taxing on the eyes.

<comment><USER7> The Go Mono font is a modern iteration of that concept. I love it. [https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts](https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts)

<comment><USER6> Those are vector fonts. We're discussing bitmap fonts instead.

Nothing surprising about vector serif monospace fonts, since Courier and variations―which likely constitute way over 50% of all use of monospaced fonts―are slab-serif fonts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one who finds fonts with thin lines unreadable for longer periods of time?

My eyesight is perfect, yet every time I run across one of these I switch fonts or at least zoom in until the line width seemingly doubles.

<comment> ainar-g This is an unpopular choice, but I have recently switched all my terminals to the Go Fonts[1], and I couldn't be happier. Those who say that only sans-serif fonts belong in a terminal have been lying to me this whole time.

[1] [https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts](https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts)

<comment><USER9> Hey, I'm another fan of serifs in monospaced fonts! Go Fonts reminds me of the Luxi Mono font I've used for years on RedHat/Fedora machines.

Nowadays I love and only use Iosevka Slab: [https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka](https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka) (3rd and 4th panel in the topmost screenshot)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Font source with screenshots: [https://github.com/fcambus/spleen](https://github.com/fcambus/spleen)

</comment><comment><USER11> If somebody struggles with porting those fonts to their Linux, I just got it running and wrote about it here: [https://koehr.tech/use-openbsds-spleen- bitmap-font-in-linux](https://koehr.tech/use-openbsds-spleen-bitmap-font-in- linux)

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice, this might give me the push I need to try BSD on my Dell Latitude 7370 (the XPS 13's cousin). The 3200x1800 display can be a bit hard to read with a default console font. Not that I spend a whole lot of time in the console outside of a terminal emulator, but it is still fun :)

<comment><USER13> Way faster is to use a proper font on Linux:

setfont ter-132n

You can then set it as the default font for all your terminals if you like it.

If terminus is not provided by your distribution, get it from [http://sourceforge.net/projects/terminus- font/files/terminus...](http://sourceforge.net/projects/terminus- font/files/terminus-font-4.46/terminus-font-4.46.tar.gz/download) then ./configure etc. as usual. In the end, you just need to keep the matching psf file that you can then move along your other console fonts.

<comment><USER12> I feel like I tried this on Arch but it was still too small. I ended up using either the sun font or one of the cyr ones, can't remember. I've since moved back to KDE Neon on that machine, so I can't say for sure. I might pop in a USB stick and give it another go...

</comment></comment></comment><comment> ah- I'm slightly disappointed they didn't pick Comic Sans.

<comment><USER14> Sadly, no one has done a properly licensed, bitmap clone just for OpenBSD console use. It would really make a nice addition to any OpenBSD presentation.

<comment> mark-r With Microsoft recently doing so much with open source lately, you might even get them to donate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's partly my bad eyesight, but the thin lines make the [ brackets ] look as though one's base isn't aligned properly with the other.

</comment><comment><USER16> How do you make these work in Ubuntu? Tried copying them to /usr/local/share/fonts and running "fc-cache -f -v" it seems to detect them but lxterminal, fontviewer were still unable to find and use them...

<comment><USER17> Ubuntu has bitmap fonts disabled by default.

You can enable them as follows:

      cd /etc/fonts/conf.d/
      sudo rm -rf 70-no-bitmaps.conf && sudo ln -s ../conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf .
      sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig

The Ubuntu wiki[1] has information about how you can be more specific and only enable a selection of fonts, if you desire.

[1] [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Fonts#Enabling_Bitmapped_Fonts](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Fonts#Enabling_Bitmapped_Fonts)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't know if the situation has changed since Spleen was first released [0], but I would desperately hope so as it is ridiculous to default in 2019 to a non-internationalized font, without support for even Latin-based Central European characters, let alone non-Latin alphabets.

> Another short term goal is to add support for Central European languages, > with Polish being the immediate priority.

Other than that, looks good and I'm digging the French literary references.

[0]: [https://www.cambus.net/spleen-monospaced-bitmap- fonts/](https://www.cambus.net/spleen-monospaced-bitmap-fonts/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome! The OpenFirmware font didn't work well at all with tmux sessions, causing artifacts due to it not having the characters for borders and other special characters. It seemed quite limited before.

</comment><comment><USER20> I want to use ttf fonts on my Linux console. Is that possible?

<comment><USER6> It _might_ be, since the console mode still can display graphics, e.g. Tux or the distro logo on boot―afaik it's done via the framebuffer driver. So you'd need to hijack the console mode, draw characters using a TTF-capable library, and output the result to the framebuffer. Haven't heard of anything readymade in this vein, though.

The more pertinent question, however, is "why?", if you could boot at least bare X and xterm instead.

<comment><USER21> kmscon supports text rendering with pango library, I think it has fairly wide font support.</comment></comment></comment>


Spyware used by governments poses as Firefox, and Mozilla is angry - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/spyware-used-by-governments-poses-as-firefox-and-mozilla-is-angry/

<comment><USER2> The lesson: making spyware, violating copyrights & trademarks is bad except when you do it for one or more governments who've got your back.

I doubt a mere cease and desist letter is going to accomplish much here. I hope Mozilla is able to succeed in the courts.</comment>


A Saab Story (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/03/a-saab-story/ <comment><USER2> Is the key here to signalling to the enthusiast that they're understood through consistency of a product over time?

Consider the Chevy brand. Their trucks/large SUVs have stayed the same, and have a cult following because of it.

Same with the VAG lineup (or any other manufacturer). Porsches, Audi, and VW each have a group of enthusiasts (obviously representing different slices of society) because there has been consistency in each brand through the decades.

This extends to the non-car world as well. Apple is doing a good job of losing that enthusiast crowd by churning out crappy products and coasting on brand loyalty alone (though the tide may be turning).

<comment><USER3> My wife and I owned several Saabs over the years. We primarily stopped buying them because they became GM vehicles under the bonnet. Also, the only local dealership had a sexist salesman who was incredibly rude to my wife.

But when they were good they were good! I walked away unscathed from a Saab that was totalled in a high-speed crash with an HGV. Its replacement clocked 208,000 miles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My family had numberous 99s, 900s, and 9000s over the years. Saab lost it's quirkyness. Saab ditched the high profile tires (which were great in the snow), the front biased weight distribution (which were great in the snow), the ignition on the floor (much harder to steal then an ignition on the steering column), and generally started looking more like BMWs.

They went from practical and safe cars to chasing BMW for the luxury sedan market. They tried with lower ground clearance, lower profile tires, wider tires, ignition on the steering column, power windows, power locks, better materials in the cockpit etc. The result was a dramatic increase in cost and complexity, but never got particularly close to BMW for driving refinement, handling, and of course they never matched BMWs RWD. There wasn't much competition from BMW for a practical car. I moved apartments several times in a Saab, with the hatch back back, giant trunk, and seats that folded down I could easily get desks, beds, tables, and even couches between apartments.

So the result is SAAB lost their old customers and never managed to steal luxury customers from other brands.

Amusingly I see see SAABs occasionally in snow rallies... RIP.

</comment><comment><USER5> I loved my SAAB 900, my first vehicle... but as the article pointed out, GM killed the soul of SAAB and should be viewed as a warning when buying a company. Culture matters!

<comment><USER6> I had a GM era SAAB (9-3) and I loved it. I was looking for something fun, relatively inexpensive and different. It satisfied all of those.

I can see how GM's changes were a turn off for traditional SAAB buyers but I can also understand that GM was trying to make it profitable and that means some things had to change. It's too bad they couldn't make it work.

Side note: many of the SAAB engineers ended up at Volvo and I love how Volvo now puts the ignition between the seats. Now they need "night panel" mode. :)

<comment><USER7> Sadly, GM was never very good at integrating acquired companies, and finding economies of scale between Saab, GM Europe, and GM North America was a bridge too far.

Not only that-Sweden is an expensive place to build anything. Volvo has been making cars for years in places like Benelux, Nova Scotia and now South Carolina, whereas Saabs only came from Trollhattan and maybe Uusikaupunkki in Finland for 900/9-3 convertibles.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the most promising/interesting new programming languages? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> I Would say Elixir is a big up-and-comer. The BEAM VM is really a marvellous piece of engineering, and now that there's a language that looks nice and feels nice (no offense erlang) i think a LOT of people will be looking that way. Especially since nowadays people are getting more into websockets and realtime communication, elixir is perfect for this.

<comment><USER4> Just looked at elixer and it seems really cool, but I'd like it better, i think, if it had typing like golang interfaces.

(I'm assuming the comparisons to ruby mean that it is very loosely typed, but I could be wrong). I wouldn't want to build a highly distributed app without a bunch of compiler help.

<comment><USER5> Elixir has _something_ similar: Behaviors - [http://elixir-lang.org/getting- started/typespecs-and-behavio...](http://elixir-lang.org/getting- started/typespecs-and-behaviours.html)

While this isn't exactly what you like, I thought I'd throw it out there because I find it a fair substitute, especially when paired with Dialyzer - <USER2> static code analysis tool: [http://erlang.org/doc/man/dialyzer.html](http://erlang.org/doc/man/dialyzer.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For me, it's -

1) Red - Small in size; Readable, compact and concise code. Its a powerful All-in-One Package with lots of great features as well as easy for newcomers. It can be used for low level as well as high level programming.

[http://www.red-lang.org/](http://www.red-lang.org/)

2) Rust - Its powerful concepts of borrowing and ownership, and its tight security features are just great. But its kinda verbose.

3) Nim - Clean, readable code. Fast compile times as well as compiled code. Lots of good ideas in it. Different gc's for different use cases are great.

<comment><USER7> Can red compile GUI apps in MacOS? I just tried and it errored out..

<comment><USER6> The current 0.6.0 release contains only Windows GUI. Linux and OSX support are a work in progress. Lots of stuff implemented, lots still missing. You can download qtxie's branch with the WIP code here - [https://github.com/qtxie/red/tree/MacOSX- GUI?files=1](https://github.com/qtxie/red/tree/MacOSX-GUI?files=1) Read the Readme file for instructions on how to compile red code using sources. For any questions - [https://gitter.im/red/red](https://gitter.im/red/red)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like the ideas of Rust and the syntax of Nim.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nim, Rust, Erlang/Elixer, Shen, and Haskell are my picks.

But if you don't already know C and Scheme, go back and learn those. The classics can teach you as much is the cutting edge.

</comment><comment><USER10> I will have to say Rust has got me the most excited. But Kotlin and Elixir are also interesting in their design approaches.

</comment><comment><USER11> Perl 6

 _ducks_

</comment><comment><USER12> Idris

</comment><comment><USER13> Elm

</comment><comment><USER14> C#

</comment><comment><USER15> Swift.</comment>


The Truth About Rod Vagg - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@rvagg/the-truth-about-rod-vagg-f063f6a53557 <comment><USER2> "It is evidence to others that Node.js may not be serious about its commitment to community and inclusivity."

When a project focuses on other things unrelated to the core reason why they exist things like this happen.

To the outside world these issues seem unrelated to why they use the language.

Inclusivity seems more like creating documentation in different languages rather than kick someone out over a retweet with an acceptable message to the average node user.

<comment><USER3> Does Node _need_ to be inclusive anyways? We're taking for granted that inclusivity is good for a technical project just because it feels "right", and because they told us that it is right. But does it help or does it harm? Does it really help to take people onboard who are less technically and more politically oriented? Does it really help to hold down criticism to not offend anyone, risking a situations where points are never made and emphasis is never placed? We have an example of a successful and long lived open source project - Linux - which is famous for being exclusive and "snarky". Yet, it has taken over the server and embedded world. Would it have been the same if it had a committee kicking out and reprimanding people for not adhering to a Code of Conduct where everyone has to be kind and mindful and avoid criticizing the way things are done? Because people, when they're working, will eventually be not nice to each other. They will write snarky comments and they will be rough and they will always prefer qualities related to the work they're doing (technical / architectural proficiency) to qualities related to the social and politics sphere. Technical projects are technical, deal with it.

<comment><USER4> > Yet, [Linux] has taken over the server and embedded world

I would posit that this is nothing to do with Linus being a dickbag to people and everything to do with a) they focused on "getting shit working" over "purity", b) were (as best I can tell) much more open to contributions and partnerships than the _BSDs, and c) expanded rapidly to cover just about every little niche there was.

Any of the _BSDs (or other OSs, I guess) could have had the same viral trajectory if they'd focused on the same things instead of their ideological purity, code stability, et al.

> But does it help or does it harm?

I believe there are several studies that show increasing diversity can improve technical projects because this reduces "situations where points are never made".

> Does it really help to take people onboard who are less technically and more > politically oriented?

That depends - does your project exist in a world that contains politics? Is it meant to solve problems for human beings? Both of those benefit from diversity because, and this will shock you, a very small percentage of the world is comprised of privileged white dudes.

<comment><USER3> > a) they focused on "getting shit working" over "purity"

Also, they focused on "getting shit working" over "making sure to not offend anyone".

> b) were (as best I can tell) much more open to contributions and > partnerships than the BSDs

And they managed to be more "open to contributions" despite having a "dickbag" as benevolent dictator and an "hostile environment" (as you probably would put it) to beginner devs. And not having a CoC for 20 years. So maybe it's not terribly essential to be forcibly inclusive in order to be open to contributions?

> c) expanded rapidly to cover just about every little niche there was.

Again, they managed that _being a non-diverse environment_ , by most meters of (modern) judgement. So maybe it's not so essential to be inclusive when you manage to cover _all_ niches in no time? It was so exclusive that managed to cover _everyone 's_ needs? How's that even possible?

> I believe there are several studies that show increasing diversity can > improve technical projects because this reduces "situations where points are > never made".

Indeed, but you have to consider that being overly-inclusive opens the doors to bike-shedding and, for example, wanting to exclude perfectly capable programmers just because they communicate aggressively. I believe that more points are made (and I don't find difficult to believe studies prove that), but are highly capable people valued correctly in such an environment? Is it an _overall_ gain, in all aspects?

> That depends - does your project exist in a world that contains politics?

A lot of stuff exist in a world that contains politics, but doesn't have to be political. Is medicine political? Obviously yes. Are you "including" surgeons based on their right to be there? No.

But I concede that there should be an overall body with actual powers controlling that a series of Code of Conducts, known and approved by anyone (by representation) are respected. And that this body should be periodically elected democratically. Oh, wait... we have one - it's called "Government" and the CoC are called "laws".

Having that, do we really need to tell people on Github to avoid telling others to "stop saying bullshit" because it's offensive? Do we need to make kindness mandatory? Do we need to favour inclusion over technical prowess? Sounds like the recipe for a disaster.

<comment><USER4> > more "open to contributions"

Yes - and Linus wasn't involved in most of them (since he delegated subtrees) which makes your "despite having a dickbag in charge" completely irrelevant.

> Maybe it's not terribly essential to be forcibly inclusive in order to be > open to contributions

But you'll note I specifically said "more open [...] than the BSDs" \- it wasn't an absolute. The Linux kernel is very much not open to contributions per se -but- compared with the *BSDs etc. it is a paragon of welcome.

> exclude perfectly capable programmers just because they communicate > aggressively

Being able to communicate effectively - and that generally excludes "aggressively" \- is an important part of being a capable (and better) programmer.

> Are you "including" surgeons based on their right to be there? No.

What?

> you have to consider that being overly-inclusive opens the doors to bike- > shedding

Ironic that you call it "bike-shedding" when that was coined from a project that wasn't "overly-inclusive". Almost as if your link between the two is fanciful nonsense.

It's clear your only argument is "I don't like inclusivity" and that's fine - you're on the wrong side of history and doomed to fail.

<comment><USER3> > which makes your "despite having a dickbag in charge" completely irrelevant

So not having a CoC and having a dickbag in charge is OK? Cool! QED!

> Being able to communicate effectively - and that generally excludes > "aggressively"

It doesn't. Aggressivity doesn't exclude efficiency. Aggressivity is a human interaction with a purpose. If used correctly it can express emphasis with amazing efficiency.

> Ironic that you call it "bike-shedding" when that was coined from a project > that wasn't "overly-inclusive".

Bike-shedding is a reality in non-inclusive project like FreeBSD. Now imagine in "inclusive" projects where every word has to be carefully weighted in order to not offend anyone. People fighting not only over the color of the bike shed, but also on the political undertones of supporting bikes, on the percentage of male and/or white bike riders, all while constantly accusing each other of being threatening. Exponential bullshitting and no work done :)

> It's clear your only argument is "I don't like inclusivity"

Actually, I like it. But, in a technical project, it should always come after the actual "getting shit done" part.

> you're on the wrong side of history and doomed to fail.

Am I? I was there in the 90s, when riot grrrls were all the shit and PC peaked. I wasn't terribly impressed back then and I'm not impressed now :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Half the case here has been assisted by the removal of details for the thread. Unless you read the archived version with working links (available online but also reproduced in this article) you'd have no idea what Rod actually tweeted.

Linking to a Quilette article and screen capping abuse you receive doesn't mean you're a 'known hostile' and all the various hyperbole that's been around in the last couple of days.

</comment><comment><USER6> (after reading through [https://github.com/nodejs/board/issues/58](https://github.com/nodejs/board/issues/58) and other issues related to this situation)

The Github comment revision needs to stop. It makes it impossible for people who were not involved in the original conversation to understand what actually happened. Without a full archive of all revisions, you cannot even judge if the edits were made in good faith or if the current text represents the author's original intent. It casts doubt on everything.

The whole mess is even worse on long threads like the ones linked to. Editing a comment that other users responded to can make the responding comments look silly or stupid, or completely change the meaning of their response.

This is mostly a process thing but Github also needs to improve how edits are handled.

</comment><comment><USER7> This story is everywhere, i don't feel you are drumming up support by this. The options of the responses seem negative to the ppl behind the fork

<comment><USER5> Is 'you' Rod, Max or the people behind the fork? Having trouble parsing your comment.</comment></comment>


Easily using WebODF, JS library for displaying and editing ODF files [Part 1] - <AUTHOR> http://frinring.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/webodf-easily-used-part-1-viewerjs/ <comment><USER2> One of the developers here. The github repo is not linked in the blog, but you can find the code here: [https://github.com/kogmbh/webodf/](https://github.com/kogmbh/webodf/) WebODF.js is can run entirely from your own server so there's no need to depend on 3rd party services. Happy to answer any questions!</comment>


Ask HN: Did anybody else experience a weird spike in AWS charges in Jan? - <AUTHOR> We usually spend about $200.00 / month with AWS, as we bring servers up and down for R&D purposes.  For January, the charge surged to over $1,100.00 for no apparent reason.  Strangely, the AWS support portal has a banner up saying "we are experiencing a high volume of account and billing requests right now".  Which leads me to wonder if something happened on the Amazon end which resulted in a lot of people getting weird charges in Jan.    So now I'm curious if any other HN'ers can confirm any kind of similar experience. <comment><USER2> I had inaccurate billing charges in Jan after opening a support ticket for investigation. I'd suggest to open a ticket if you can point to a service which seems higher than usual.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I definitely opened a ticket right away. Just checking to see if anyone else had experienced anything similar.

Haven't heard back from them yet. :-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I didn't but I may not be using the same services or regions.</comment>


Please review Zurker.in (beta) - <AUTHOR>

This site is gaining in popularity just like Pinterest. Here's the invitation link-
http://www.zurker.in/i-29371-ohhlpiiglq
And thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Hacker news has a format for this Show HN: Zurker.in - An alternative Social Networking site

and I don't believe it's gaining popularity like Pinterest. The project name smells too much related to Zuckerberg</comment>


Amazon workers launch protests on Prime Day - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48990482 <comment><USER2> I agree with the worker in the video, they should be treated as human beings. One of the issues is doing a simple, monotonous task every 8 seconds, 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, without creating anything of value, is going to be dehumanizing and unfulfilling regardless.

Robots carrying out this work would probably be for the best for everyone involved, although Amazon should do right by the workers carrying them over this difficult transition period where they're still required for part of the menial manual labour tasks. The compensation should reflect the mental and physical stress they put people through.

<comment><USER3> > The compensation should reflect the mental and physical stress they put > people through.

As with all companies paying workers to do a job, the compensation should reflect the confluence of supply and demand in the market. The fact that Amazon can _easily_ hire as many workers as it wants at $15/hr says that they are paying their employees plenty already. It bothers me that people are constantly demonizing Amazon for their labor practices rather than demonizing the market conditions that have led to Amazon warehouses being a place _people are willing to work_.

<comment><USER4> > . It bothers me that people are constantly demonizing Amazon for

Why does it bother you when people empathize with the poor and castigate billion dollar corporations that don't even allow employees enough time to urinate without it harming the employees metrics making them slip towards the back of the rank and closer to being fired? That _bothers you_...think about that.

<comment><USER5> While I voted you up for the general point, I also think that perhaps cutting off the parent quote where you did is a little unfair:

> rather than demonizing the market conditions that have led to Amazon > warehouses being a place people are willing to work.

It's appropriate to "demonize" Amazon, but isn't that observation _also_ correct? Amazon's taking advantage of desperate people, and no matter the job market conditions, it's unethical for them to do so. But doesn't the fact that they can treat workers this way and still _have_ workers suggest they're taking advantage of a systemic problem that needs to be addressed?

<comment><USER6> Both observations are correct. There's no need for the "rather than" either/or the OP presented, though. We can protest both.

<comment><USER7> Not if people only have so much time+energy+motivation to protest things. Attempting to get people angry at one thing is implicitly an attempt to "spend" the limited currency of their motivation-to-make-the-world-a-better- place.

Righteous indignation works similarly to the "warm fuzzies" that cause people to donate to charity. Each person craves some set amount of these resources; once they have enough, they're satisfied, and they stop bothering to do things whose only reward is more of that resource.

<comment><USER8> One of the easiest and best forms of protest is to stop spending money with Amazon, Walmart or <<insert some company here>>

Sometimes it is difficult - if Comcast is the only game in our area, then we don't have a choice. Otherwise, this hits these companies where it matters most - their profits.

<comment><USER9> I think it's correct that doing that is the most effective direct action, but the problem is that one person doing this is totally ineffective, it's the "drop of water" problem.

Raising a ruckus, strikes, etc are useful because they trigger people to become aware and concerned that this is a problem, causing more people to stop giving the company money. The ruckus is _essential_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Since Amazon easily hires and retains people at these wages, there very likely isn't anything wrong with these jobs. At least not compared to similar jobs for the same segment of the work force.

What I think is really going on here is that Amazon has a PR vulnerability that can be exploited. With enough videos and testimony produced contrasting the plight of the poor oppressed workers with their boss, The World's Richest Man, Amazon will need to do something to make this go away.

Or at least that's what this campaign hopes.

<comment><USER11> When you employ hundreds of thousands of people, it's not hard to find hundreds who are incredibly unhappy. Sure, this only represents 0.1% of their workforce, but news agencies don't care about that. People just want something to be angry about.

They'll continue to ignore that $15/hour is within "living wage" for the low CoL areas that Amazon fulfillment warehouses are located in.

<comment><USER12> This reminds me of the Foxconn suicides. Lots of press made it sound like a major problem, but the actual rate was lower than both China and US averages.

<comment><USER13> The averages include non-functioning alcoholics, drug addicts, retirees with no money to live on, who don't want to be a burden on their children, chronic gamblers, people in serious debt, people who are terminally ill, people who are too depressed to hold down a job, veterans with PTSD...

In short, not the same demographics as people holding down 'decent' jobs for the area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just a little reminder that many workers in fact do _not_ get treated well just because their company thinks they do.

<comment><USER15> I think it should also be noted that the best way to show an employer that they need to do better is supply and demand, quitting entirely and working for someone else is not only more effective than simply demonstrating or slacking off, it's also many magnitudes more professional and better for your career.

<comment><USER16> > I think it should also be noted that the best way to show an employer that > they need to do better is supply and demand, quitting entirely and working > for someone else is not only more effective than simply demonstrating or > slacking off, it's also many magnitudes more professional and better for > your career.

If the goal is to get the employer to notice the issue, leaving and hope they get the idea, when the pool of applicants is essentially unlimited seems like a poor way of articulating a position.

Amazon is a captive audience in this protest and by not just outright leaving, the employees are forcing Amazon to consider their situation, rather than write it off and bring in a new batch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Between this and the Mechanical Turk article I read earlier today, I am left thinking about these type of jobs. There is this "chasm" of things that machines still cannot but that are repetitive and boring for humans, for which the value to human-effort ratio is small.

I foresee that in the following 10 years, we will be seeing more and more of these types of works. Now, the interesting thing about some of these jobs is that they cannot be moved to places where the payment to cost of living ratio can be improved. Some Mechanical Turk tasks could (if the language allowed it) but the Amazon warehouse jobs would be impossible to move.

Unless, Amazon opens a chain of warehouses in Mexico's cities that border the US (Tijuana, Tecate, Mexicali, Sonoyta, Nogales, Cd Juarez, among all the others) and then dispatches the goods from there. That however would need to include a very good import/export deal.

<comment><USER18> > I foresee that in the following 10 years, we will be seeing more and more of > these types of works.

On the other hand, people are hard at work trying to automate these jobs. Amazon would love nothing more than to have a completely robotic warehouse and a fleet of delivery robots that run 24/7.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > He says he has to pick an item about every eight seconds, or 332 per hour, > for a 10 hour day.

Ignoring the math, it's hard to imagine that pace. Are they forced to continually be moving? Or is the person counting picking up, say 15 usb chargers as 15 separate things?

<comment><USER20> Yes. I read an article last week about a guy who got fired for "unnecessary motion." (will update this comment with a link if I can dig it up.)

Here's a story about a patent on a wristband that enables this kind of tracking: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/31/amazon- wa...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/31/amazon-warehouse- wristband-tracking)

It is humanly possible. As a teenager, I worked at UPS, where I was expected to stack boxes real-life-Tetris-style into a van at a rate of 45 per minute. They could get as heavy as 30 lbs. I actually got to enjoy it after a while (biceps!), but I could never get the hang of memorizing the zip codes (every truck has a list of 1-30 that we were expected to memorize instantly).

<comment><USER21> I also did this and have younger friends who still do. I much preferred that job to a customer service one where I had to deal with angry people all day. I was also sorting via zip codes and enjoyed the physical work... I don't understand what people accepting a factory job expect. It is repetitive, non- creative, work. That is the idea.

<comment><USER22> I'm sure they expect it to be miserable, but expecting a miserable job and being happy about it needn't align. They might not have the necessary skills to be employable in not-miserable work, and might not have the necessary means or time to acquire those skills.

What it ultimately comes down to, I think, is: we have enough wealth as a society that if we wanted to, we could allocate resources and labor in such a way that nobody (even unskilled workers) would have to do work that miserable, at that pace, for that low compensation. But it's not an emergent property of the market, and we'd have to sacrifice some economic growth, and some payout for people higher up the ladder, to do it. We have to collectively decide whether that tradeoff is worth it, and these folks (understandably) are arguing that it is, and asking the rest of us to have some empathy.

<comment><USER23> > We have to collectively decide whether that tradeoff is worth it

We do exactly that every day. Price discovery in the market is the result of collective actions that determine if a tradeoff is worth it.

<comment><USER22> This would be true if all consumers were rational actors and thought through the labor market ramifications of each purchase they made before they made it, but they're not and they don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Honestly it's been underwhelming anyway.

The vast majority of the deals are re-runs of ones in past 6 months...just all at same time.

I buy a lot of amazon stuff, but this barely shifted my day to day pattern.

I did find out that you get wifi power plugs that are controllable _and_ measure electricity usage. That's pretty cool...just not sale related.

<comment><USER25> Do you have a link/name of the wifi power plugs? Sounds intriguing.

<comment><USER24> TP link one

...also saw some random github-y thing while googleing the model number which hints at some level of hackable/api-able interfacing which made me click the buy button. That's sketchy info though

[https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GWWRK1C](https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GWWRK1C)

[Please bookmark & make use of smile.amazon.com/co.uk thing...it's amazon's corporate charity thing - free 0.5% donation]

<comment><USER25> hmmmm, thanks! Will need to find the NZ/Aus version. And yes, I already use Amazon Smile on the US version, great idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If I think about it, I feel pretty dehumanized myself each time I click through a clumsy AWS GUI for a set of shoddy services that my company pays 60k a month for the privilege of running our operations and storing our business intelligence on the computers of the one entity that has not only the financial muscle but also the lack of moral scrupples to use that intelligence to enter our market and outcompete us.

Jussayin'

<comment><USER27> Glad someone finally said it. What's stopping these data collecting companies from cornering a huge amount of markets?

<comment><USER28> When you reach that size, you are not looking for investments in the millions, you are looking for the billions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Reading through these comments I find myself rather dazed at all of the complaints regarding $15 an hour salaries, I'm a software engineer with 6 years of experience in a first world country and I make less than that before taxes.

<comment><USER30> Which first world country is this? I made $30AUD as a waiter in 2015. An Australian software engineer with that much experience getting paid almost half that ($15 is USD yeah?) in 2019 would be absurd.

<comment><USER29> Hong Kong and yes USD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Cue Amazon putting in more robots!

<comment><USER32> The amount of smug proclamations about how all these workers are going to be replaced by robots in these threads is really gross.

Nearly everyone that posts on HN is in a situation where their employer holds vastly more power than themselves in their employer/employee relationship, statistically are you likely being screwed, and you aren't going to be Jeff Bezos one day either.

<comment><USER33> I mean... it's happening.

So either we continue to deny it isn't or we actually start those conversations now and figure out how we live in that world.

And there is a correlation between actions like this and the desire to have a more automated workforce. Not saying that as blame because there are many other reasons and you can look at the reasons their jobs are so bad right now anyways.

But we can't ignore it.

<comment><USER34> Or we stop it from happening. It isn't inevitable. We are all of us making a choice to allow it.

<comment><USER35> You're right. We could also make the choice to smash cars, because they take jobs away from the horse and buggy industry. We won't, because the problem is not humanity's total productive output growing larger, but how this output is managed and distributed.

<comment><USER34> There are things much more important than humanity's 'total productive output', which is anyway not guaranteed to _ever_ be managed and distributed in a better way. Human beings are not economic production units. The economy is a means and not an end.

Technologists are always hyperfocused on economic activity and insist that any problems technology creates will be solved by more technology. Well, all we appear to be doing is building an ever more complex and fragile civilization full of increasingly unhappy people racing towards Armageddon. What will trigger the ultimate systems collapse? I don't know, but I would be shocked if there isn't one within the next two centuries.

Yes, we probably would be better off without cars. Communities would be stronger, more tightly-knit. Urban sprawl would dramatically decrease. There'd be more multi-family housing. We would have spewed jillions of tons fewer of CO2 and other pollutants into the air (electric cars do not solve underlying environmental issues - they just shift them around to battery production and disposal and power generation.) One of the biggest causes of accidental death would be eradicated.

Instead of developing ICE/electric engines and understanding the best way to fit them into human society, we unleashed them willy-nilly and caused untold death, devastation, and misery. Such is the story of many if not most subsequent technological 'innovations'. (Yes, I have a car - two, even.)

Even now the 'ideal' Hacker News poster is hard at work at enriching fabulously wealthy companies intent on destroying privacy forever and creating dopamine addictions. We all say it's inevitable. But it's not. Every step of the way, it was individuals making decisions that led us to where we are now. We could have stopped it and we still can.

Or we can bury our heads in the sand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Yes. Don't be a scab and cross the picket line. Don't buy from Amazon today.

<comment><USER37> Scabs are workers who cross the picket line, not customers. If you think boycotts are a good idea, ask the auto unions how well customers not buying cars worked out for their members.

<comment><USER38> >Scabs are workers who cross the picket line, not customers.

That's not the way unions themselves use the word.

[https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24904995/boston-union- ca...](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24904995/boston-union-calls- yankees-scabs-crossing-hotel-picket-line)

"Boston union calls Yankees 'scabs' for crossing hotel picket line"

<comment><USER39> Only because it's a way to use and coöpt language for your cause, not because it's the way the public understands it. It's like AOC insunuating Pelosi racist. It's used for effect.

Or, imagine a nurses' strike, but I as a patient don't honor their strike, am I a scab?

<comment><USER40> If you're a patient for something elective that could be delayed until after the conclusion of the labor action then yes, you're a scab. For emergency care? Probably not.

<comment><USER41> A strikebreaker (sometimes derogatorily called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite an ongoing strike. [Scabs] are usually individuals who were not employed by the company prior to the trade union dispute, but rather hired after or during the strike to keep the organization running.[0]

The parent comment was absolutely correct in saying that you are trying to co- opt the actual definition to serve your goals, as the word has nothing to do with being a customer.

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikebreaker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikebreaker)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Oh, it's so nice to see all these rich tech guys are concerned about the plight of Amazon workers. Suppose if one of these Amazon workers applied to be a programmer at your company even though they didn't go to a top twenty school or have 5-7 years experience with the trendiest stack, but merely did a bootcamp, and published some apps on their own, would you hire them and spend your money (as opposed to Jeff Bezo's money) to better their lot in life? Or would you hit delete the second their pathetic resume touched your inbox? At least Jeff Bezos is making it possible for people to pay their rent and not end up yet another homeless guy on the San Francisco sidewalk.

<comment><USER43> "At least" is right; he is doing the very least he can. If they are working for the wealthiest man on the planet he could afford to pay them a decent wage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Slightly unrelated but there is something weirdly consistent about how Amazon treats their workers and people who have to work with them. I remember just exhibiting an AWS conference was the most time-intensive grueling event I've ever worked in the tech industry.

Obviously not as hard as a factory-working job, but they hold the only event in the industry that has you working from 7 am to 7 pm w/ no break if you want to exhibit.

<comment><USER45> ...aren't most exhibits/conferences like this? All my trade shows events are at least this grueling, and I no longer work in major IT.

<comment><USER46> Ew, no. That's horrible. The company I work for does a lot of shows. I generally do about 22/year. A common range is 9am to 5pm, but 10am to 4pm is not unheard of. 8am to 6pm happens from time to time and feels really bad. I think out of 60ish shows that I've done only one was 7am to 7pm.

<comment><USER44> Yeah the best ones are 11 to 7. No one wants to network at 8 am before a bunch of keynotes and presentations. Lunch and after event mixers are the best.

7 am to 7 pm was terrible. everyone was sleepy in the morning (pre caffeine) and completely worn out by the happy hour/closing time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> What would it effect Bezos Net Worth to double the warehouse operatives hourly rate to $22?

<comment><USER48> not relevant, free market, they decide to work there, or not.

<comment><USER47> > not relevant, free market, they decide to work there, or not ..

Yea they can decide to move to the next low-pay job, zero-hour contract, no benefits, wages barely pays the rent, on food stamps ..

<comment><USER49> Exactly. The implicit argument is that there is always some magical high- paying job with awesome benefits just round the corner if they just simply make the simple decision of switching jobs and/or pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Right...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> 996.icu did not only happen in China, it is happening everywhere on this planet.

</comment><comment><USER51> Off topic: I've been seeing Prime Day ad notifications in Brave. Thought that was interesting; about the most 'mainstream' ad I've ever seen in Brave.

</comment><comment><USER52> Marx predicted this with his theory on Entfremdung (alienation), in a system of highly optimized division of labor those laborers are going to be for a lack of a better word: bored.

<comment><USER30> Also knew that capital is indifferent to the lived experience of labourers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Thaneks

</comment><comment><USER53> D and

</comment><comment><USER53> s

</comment><comment><USER54> I've been boycotting amazon for a long time. Waiting for "democracy" to solve the problems of unabated exploitative capitalism is a cop out. I put my money where my mouth is. I pay more, wait longer, but shop at places where I know people are treated _at least_ decently.

</comment><comment><USER55> way to go!

as consumers, we can help by boycotting amazon.

<comment><USER56> Yea so that way they'll have no jobs at all!

<comment><USER57> Or they will have jobs at other retailers, that will step in to take Amazon's market.

<comment><USER56> They'll be in for a rude awakening when they find out other fulfillment center jobs are just as hard and pay equal or less.

<comment><USER57> Other jobs are just as vulnerable to protests, strikes, and boycotts, so I don't see why they couldn't all be pressured to treat workers better.

By your logic, workers should _never_ fight abuse, as they'll "just get another job that's just as hard". But the history of labor shows this to be false, and that collective action can achieve improvements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'll get downvoted to hell for saying this, but $15/hr is upper middle class pay here. I made less than that for much of my software development career...

<comment><USER30> You'll be getting downvoted because what you make "here" and it being upper- middle class pay is not relevant at all to these workers, unless you want to make a disingenuous suggestion that they move countries to "here".

<comment><USER58> Of course I understand that. I just find it very hard to sympathize with the plight of someone making $15/hour. It seems high, even taking differences in cost of living into account.

<comment><USER30> > It seems high

Senior FAANG engineers make ~$200/hr. How does $15 seem at all high?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> "I have to pick an item every eight seconds, or 332 per hour, for a 10-hour day"

No, no you dont

<comment><USER60> It's not a paradox as stated, since "or" has ambiguous meaning, but it does look suspicious, since 3600sec/8sec is 450, and 3600sec/332 is about 10.8sec.</comment></comment>


The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703940904575395073512989404.html

<comment><USER2> dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1562939>

</comment><comment><USER3> So, are they tracking my comments as I write this?</comment>


Nation's Cops Seem Determined To Demonstrate Why People Are Protesting Them - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/2020/05/31/nations-cops-seem-determined-to-demonstrate-why-people-are-protesting-them-in-the-first-place/ <comment><USER2> Peaceful protest does not work. That is the legacy of the last 50 years since the civil rights movement. Not a lot has changed. Black men are still being lynched. What would the conversation be if it weren't for video? Even with video, the conflicting autopsy from the county makes it sound like Floyd had either a pre-existing condition or drugs in his body.

I'm pretty irritated with the media, allowing various leaders to claim that they support peaceful protests. No they do not. Not Republican leaders, who consistently impugned the peaceful protests of Colin Kaepernick. They demanded these were vile, unpatriotic, and un-American. These are not mere talking heads, but the V-POTUS, and the POTUS, among others. They do not support peaceful protest, they hate it. They hate all criticism and all protests.

America is getting exactly what it deserves. It claims a contract of freedom and equality of all before the law. And this is provably, deterministically not true. And if it is not true, then why listen to any of it? The social contract is dust. If it is not wrong to lynch black men, then it is not wrong to loot, and burn, and pillage, and create widespread chaos. That is the central problem with loss of trust of the social contract, it begs the end to civil society, when we blatantly for all to see do not have a civil society for all. The deck is stacked in favor of some, and against others. Plainly. Clearly.

The contract we really have is Amy Cooper contract. The one where a black man asks her to put her dog on a leash per the law, and then she uses her whiteness as a weapon, and his blackness as a deficit, with the threat to call the police to get her way and her revenge and assert her white superiority. And knows the force of the police will make sure only one of them has a bad day. And then demand she's not a racist, right after having perfectly demonstrated racism. Hers and the system. That is the hallmark of institutional racism.

</comment><comment><USER3> Excuses for bad actors on American's police forces must end. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year.

Today.

As Chris Rock put it in his widely shared comedy bit, we don't tolerate bad actors in industries such as airlines when it's a matter of life and death. We don't excuse pilots who just so happen to crash planes into mountains. Furthermore, we don't excuse surgeons who get upset during a procedure and sew the wrong body part back on out of spite.

Some professions just require zero tolerance for poor behavior. ZERO. Police officers fall under that category.

</comment><comment><USER4> My question is how is destroying small businesses and disrupting the lives of innocent people in your own community protesting cops? If anything, they created jobs for the police. And they've caused people that otherwise would support them to not support them (except out of fear for their lives).

<comment><USER5> In situations of institutional inequality, the bottom row considers everything above it complicit. [https://i.imgur.com/vpv5anc.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/vpv5anc.jpg)

It's a have vs have not, opportunity vs not. A business owner is a have. It's a form of leveling a playing field by destroying what others have. Similar to the intention of the terrorists in Fight Club or Goldeneye, a reset to blow up banks and financial institutions.

I don't think the rioting mob necessary has thought it out that well, but the anger causing it, and targeting business moreso than residential is an attack on the benefactors of protection rackets, whether they be law enforcement, banks, anyone who gives some a different opportunity than others. In this case business and land owners. It's a belief that "fixing the system from the inside" has failed.

Attack's on the media are similar, because they are intrinsically linked. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico- media_complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico-media_complex)

The message of Fight Club was NOT to blow everything up, and that it can be fixed from the inside, but not everyone agrees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not all police forces are bad. And the ones that do have a higher percentage of bad apples aren't all this bad.

But yes, there are some out there that seem bound and determined to exhibit the exact behavior that people are demonstrating against. Contrary to all logic, there it is.

<comment><USER7> If the police defends, supports or ignores unacceptable action they are just as bad themselves. One bad apple spoils the bunch.

<comment><USER8> Blaming the problem on the individual morality of police officers feels good. But the real problem, why police are getting away with crimes like murder, is something called "qualified immunity" and police unions. Until those are reformed, judging the individual morality of police officers isn't going to be enough to solve the problem.

<comment><USER9> Yes. Change incentives and behavior will change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The "groupism" of lumping "white", "black", "cops", "Republicans", etc is just not useful. Just distracting old tribalism instincts. Take personal responsibility and expect it from others.

<comment><USER11> So social systems and institutions have no effect on the human condition, got it.

<comment><USER12> Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and following them when posting here? We'd be grateful. They include:

" _Don 't be snarky._"

" _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize. Assume good faith._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Note that they don't require you to change your views, just express them thoughtfully.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd say they're in a pretty tough spot. I certainly wouldn't have the patience to be the punching bag of a bunch of assholes who are so sure that if they were in charge, things would be better... I guess that's why I'm not a cop.

<comment><USER14> It takes a pretty serious lack of patience to drive a truck into a crowd

<comment><USER13> Not if they're banging on the windows, pulling on the doors and trying to drag you out of it.

<comment><USER15> The video showing that is pretty clear that none of that happened. They drove around a corner and into the crowd.

<comment><USER16> Maybe multiple cases are being conflated here. In the case of the cab hauling the FedEx trailers where one attacker got caught in a rear wheel, the truck _had_ stopped, but multiple people climbed onto the cab and tried to break in while members of the crowd shouted, _" set it on fire!"_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yeah, sucks for them because they seem to be blamed for a crime that they had nothing to do with.</comment>