Why people believe in conspiracy theories – and how to change their minds - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/why-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-and-how-to-change-their-minds-82514 <comment> wu-ikkyu How is this not an appeal to authority hidden behind a strawman? Of course many people have wild beliefs about people wanting to harm them; many times they are wrong, sometimes they are right. It is the nature of fear to overcompensate.

Does that mean we should go to the opposite end of the spectrum and condemn all those who have read of the countless proven conspiracies in history and are concerned with holding authorities accountable where little to no accountability exists?

<comment><USER2> >Does that mean we should go to the opposite end of the spectrum and condemn all those who have read of the countless proven conspiracies in history and are concerned with holding authorities accountable where little to no accountability exists?

No, and no one here is suggesting that, and neither is the article suggesting it. You're the one building the strawman.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Does the author discern anywhere in the article on plausible theories/historical examples vs. the outlandish theories? If so I must have skimmed over it. If not, then how is it not implied?

<comment><USER2> Do they need to?

Why assume that, unless the author explicitly mentions the existence of plausible theories and add a caveat that not all conspiracy theories are absurd, they must be arguing for the condemnation of anyone who believes in a conspiracy?

Why not discern the authors' intent from their actual words? Actual, verifiable conspiracies do exist, meanwhile everything the article claims about the nature of conspiracy theory is also true.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Yes, we should be specific in our definitions, otherwise the default would be the dictionary definition, which would have included the previously "absurd" theory (before Snowden) that the US government is performing dragnet surveillance on it's own citizens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can honestly say that there isn't one popular conspiracy theory out there that I believe in. BUT... being a programmer we are taught to look at all the angles. All possibilities. Debugging is a series of discounting any and all theories as to the cause of the bug - starting from the most obvious, of course.

So why are believers of conspiracies not allowed the same leeway? Haven't quite a few conspiracies ended up being true? Bilderberg, MK Ultra etc.

Take the infamous "car allergic to ice cream" story [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347852) It sounds preposterous in a somewhat tin-foil hat kind of way. But if the engineer hadn't followed up on it with an open mind, it the problem wouldn't have gotten solved so quickly.

<comment><USER4> The problem with conspiracy theorists isn't that they consider forbidden ideas. It's that they dismiss better ones. For example, the idea that the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile on 9/11 is worth brief consideration. But when you dig into it, there's no support, while there's plenty of support for the airliner.

To use your debugging analogy, it's like speculating that the bug happens because this particular variable holds 2 when it's supposed to hold 1. Then you check and it actually holds 1. But instead of moving on to the next idea, you decide that the CIA modified your debugger to lie about the value and proceed under the assumption that it really is 2.

<comment><USER5> > It's that they dismiss better ones.

OK but who is deciding that it's better? You are. Unfortunately, there's no objective source for this :(

> But when you dig into it, there's no support, while there's plenty of > support for the airliner.

But isn't support for the airliner relies on evidence that could easily have been staged or falsified post hoc? Also, why not use WTC 7 as your example? Similar buildings that caught fire didn't fall like they'd been demolitioned.

IMO if you don't have any doubts about the official 9/11 story then you are not thinking about it enough.

<comment><USER4> No, support for the airliner includes things like tons of people seeing the thing fly over I-395 right before it hit the Pentagon. There's a taxi driver who nearly got impaled by a lamppost the plane knocked over.

One thing I've noticed with 9/11 Pentagon conspiracy theories is that people don't seem to understand the geographical context of the building. They talk about it as if it's some isolated installation in the middle of the woods or something. It's actually spang in the middle of the #6 largest metropolitan area in the country. The path that AA77 flew took it right over one of the busiest highways in the region. Literally hundreds if not thousands of people would have seen a cruise missile if it had been one.

I've thought about this and looked into it extensively. I have not seen one single reasonable piece of evidence to support any of the "alternative" theories. Every one I've seen is based on speculation or outright falsehoods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Conspiracy theories are fundamentally a religious idea and the result of revulsion at the possibility that things might not happen for a reason.

It used to be that when an unexpected tragedy happened, people would look to supernatural forces as the cause, and some flavors of conspiracy theory still do this. You'll often find Satan used interchangeably with the illuminati or masons or Jews, etc, among conspiracy theorists of a fundamentalist mindset.

But if you don't believe in supernatural forces, then you have to reach for dark and shadowy organizations, like CIA mind control experiments and Russian spies, or crisis actors or George Soros.

Anything so you don't have to face the possibility that terrible things happened for no reason, or that worse, terrible things happened and your own country or politicians might even bear some responsibility for it.

Fundamentally, people believe in conspiracy theories because they don't want to really understand reality and be forced to act on that understanding.

The nature of the conspiracy theory itself is secondary to that, and arguing against the particulars of one will, at best, push them into the arms of another.

If you want people to turn away from conspiracy, you need to provide a way of understanding and coming to terms with reality.

I don't think there's one right way to do that-- after all we've been trying to figure it out for thousands of years.

<comment><USER7> CIA mind control program was (is?) real though

<comment><USER8> One of the problems most conspiracy theories have is that they revolve around complex plotlines, that are executed in a flawless fashion.

Very few things work out as neatly as a conspiracy theory in real life, and the CIA mind control attempts (eg MKUltra) is no execption. For all the awful details of that program, ironically one could argue that its most notable consequence was to help create 1960s counter-culture. (Without Project MKUltra, the life of Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter would have been very, very different.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's incredibly hard. I don't think you can convince strangers, you have to get them interested a little bit and let their own curiosity work it out, at their own pace.

I call conspiracy theories a "cancer of the mind". Anybody with opposing evidence is classified either as a liar (co-conspirator) or a person being manipulated by the conspiracy. Effectively, people who do that shut down all the input, and so they can get any result they want. There is literally no way out.

I think people should set up a "canary" in their minds against conspirational theorizing. If the thing you're thinking is true requires conspiracy of at least, say, 10K people, then a big red flag should come up, and you should re- evaluate all the evidence.

<comment><USER10> "The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion (about $27 billion in 2016 dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons."

Just to play devil's advocate, isn't this an example of tens of thousands of people employed in a massive conspiracy?

<comment><USER11> The canary doesn't trigger the response: This is _definitely_ a conspiracy and so I should dismiss it.

The canary should trigger the response: This seems too fantastical, what other evidence is there to back this up?

It's a heuristic, it will be wrong on occasion. But if it tends to be right more often, then it's a useful heuristic for gauging how skeptical we should be about a claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People believe in conspiracy because it is a real thing that happens. Human beings conspire, manipulate and lie. You can say that most popular examples of conspiracy theories are absurd but it does not make the concept itself invalid. Believing that people never work together for various nefarious and deceptive purposes is just as dumb as believing that everything is some kind of conspiracy.

</comment><comment><USER13> There are conspiracy theories in history that did turn out to be valid though.

<comment><USER9> Terminological remark. Conspiracy theory cannot be falsified, it is an unwarranted belief in conspiracy that cannot be disproved, because all the evidence against it is considered to be a part of the conspiracy.

There were though, historically, falsifiable theories about conspiracies (perhaps best would be to call them "conspiracy hypotheses") and they were shown to be true. These conspiracies reveal some interesting facts that can be used to disprove other theories about conspiracies, for example, how many leakers can an organization of given size expect in a certain period of time. But that's sadly not what the believers in "conspiracy theories" are doing. They are self-indulging in unfalsifiable beliefs.

<comment><USER14> Just because some crazy people reject falsification of some types of theories does not make all theories effectively be falsified

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One interesting thing about conspiracy theories that I've seen is that people with more education are more likely to believe them, and believe them strongly. One theory for why this might be true is that education teaches you to reason about and debate evidence, and with more education, you are able to convince yourself more effectively that the conspiracy is true and that countervailing evidence is false. This of course makes it difficult to convince believers that they are mistaken...

</comment><comment><USER16> Conspiracies are happening all the time. The problem is that most theories about them are wrong.

<comment><USER17> That's the point. You nailed it.

Many theories are wrong due to lack of knowledge which is substituted with suspicions. That's the reason why conspiracy theorists are ridiculed so often. Some conspiracy theories however _are_ true. If Pulitzer prize winners Woodward and Bernstein hadn't believed in conspiracies Watergate would never had been discovered.

I am amazed that there are actually people right here who stubbornly reject the reality of conspiracies _at all_. Conspirators want people who don't believe in conspiracies since deceiving such people couldn't be easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My favorite response to moon landing conspiracy theories is the counter point that we didn't have the technology to fake the live footage. It was actually easier to go to the Moon than it was to fake it, given the video technology at that time. There's a great YouTube video about this. [https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs](https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs)

</comment><comment><USER19> Conspiracies can be entertaining, one's own living "thriller". Some conspiracies are true. Obsessing on them can be negative, one should be honest when assessing probability. They should not affect the psyche at lower than some pretty high threshold. I read a lot of Patterson, the plots seem pretty fantastical, then a private sub Captain cuts a reporter into pieces and buries her at sea...

</comment><comment><USER20> I just don't believe there are enough sinister, competent people available to carry out a large conspiracy while keeping it quiet.

</comment><comment><USER7> Would you think your friend was telling you the truth if he told you his alarm clock had changed by itself? Someone had rearranged the things in his room?

<comment><USER21> I would believe him by default, especially if there was a possible credible cause or motive (e.g. your friend is a dissident in some less democratic country). The alarm clock seems harmless, mine has done that in the past due to faulty switches. As for things in the room, I'd advice him or her to use reliable and consistent tests to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis, for example by making pictures of the apartment, noting the position of objects in the apartment and keeping the notes with you, installing a camera at the entrance, etc.

The East German Stasi did things like that to a few select regime critiques. For example: rearranging or removing towels, replacing freshly bought milk with spoiled one, making medical doctors give you the wrong medication. These incredibly evil practices were called _Zersetzungsmaßnahmen_ and only used on a few hundred to thousands dissidents at maximum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why do you need change their minds?

<comment><USER9> It can be dangerous, both for the believers and other people. Many terrorists, for instance, are huge believers in various conspiracy theories.

<comment><USER23> And terrorism could be a conspiracy theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why do you think about the incessant need for entertainment, as a source of the irrational discussions you overhear.

Maybe the people there didn't even believe in what they were saying, they were just entertaining the idea of this conspiracy to drag themselves out of the quietness and worry free life that most of us live in the modern world.

</comment><comment><USER25> Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get me..

<comment><USER2> On balance, even if "they" are out to get someone, chances are _you 're_ not someone worth getting.

<comment> wu-ikkyu If you have an identity, a credit card number, or a SSN, then you're a target.

<comment><USER2> You're claiming that literally every identifiable person in the world is a "target," but that's a nonsensical claim.

A target of whom, and of what?

<comment> wu-ikkyu Hackers, thieves, social engineers. Identity theft is at an all time high, affecting 1 in 16 US adults every year and costs almost twice as much as all other property thefts.[2]

[1][https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/02...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/02/06/identity- theft-hit-all-time-high-2016/97398548/)

[2][http://www.businessinsider.com/bureau-of-justice- statistics-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/bureau-of-justice-statistics- identity-theft-report-2013-12)

<comment><USER2> Fair enough, but that's not really conspiracy theory, that's just regular criminal conspiracy.

<comment> wu-ikkyu What is the difference between the two? It seems to me both of those things are the same, except for maybe the former being of the future tense, and the latter the present/past tense.

<comment><USER2> Obviously, given the nature of the article, we're not talking about easily provable, verifiable criminal conspiracies. "Criminals exist" is not a conspiracy theory.

<comment> wu-ikkyu Indeed, I just wanted to point out the fallacy of the commonly held sentiment "you're not someone worth getting"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> How to Know You're in a Mass Hysteria Bubble [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know- youre-...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-in-a- mass-hysteria-bubble)

<comment><USER27> Thank you for that timely link ForRealsies. Scott Adams has brilliantly put into words what has been floating disconnected around my brain since the realities of Brexit and the inauguration of the current POTUS.

I visited the UK for a conference at a university just before the Brexit vote. Practically every "ordinary" person I talked to told me they were going to vote leave. On campus it was a totally different story, like night and day. Now, where the polarisation stems from is a different matter – same as in the States – not being able to see it ahead of time is one thing, but thinking your ideological opposite is stupid/racist/crazy/… after the fact is something else entirely.

For a perfect demonstration of this head over to YouTube. Choose two media outlets that differ in their attitude towards the current POTUS. (There are no shortages on both sides.) Watch the coverage of the Veterans' Bill speech, read the comments. On the pro-side there's "Seems reasonable to me." On the anti-side there's nasty vitriol, ad hominem, and vilification. For the record I am indifferent.

Same applies to UK media outlets and articles about Brexit.

I'm aware my comment hasn't addressed the original article which offers very good advice. I once spent an hour pointlessly debating a Scotsman who turned out to be a Truther (I'd never met one). After reading this article my tactics will definitely change.

<comment><USER28> >"For the record I am indifferent."

For the record: If you're indifferent about Trump at this point, it's because you believe conspiracy theories and fake news and blatant lies.

Do you actually believe that there really were "some very fine people" marching with the Alt-Right, Nazis and KKK in Charlottesville, and that the anti-fascist protestors deserve some of the blame for Heather Heyer being mowed down and murdered by a White Supremacist, or are you actually indifferent about the Alt-Right, Nazis and the KKK?

And do you also believe PlannedChaos's claim that Scott Adams is a certified genius? "Just sayin'."

[http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos- sockpuppe...](http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppet/)

>"I once spent an hour pointlessly debating a Scotsman who turned out to be a Truther (I'd never met one)."

No Truther Scotsman would pointlessly debate you for an hour. He must have had a point. ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A console audio tag editor: cursedtag - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hellricer/cursedtag <comment><USER2> If you are going to adhere to the XDG Base Directory specification, please respect the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable.

If you are going to use format specifiers and printf, please do so consistently. clear_line() is a mess, especially in comparison to the move_cursor() function that immediately follows it, which in turn misses out guards against option-like arguments as seen in ellipsis().

SGR 0 resets _everything_ , to reset just _colours_ look at SGR 39 and SGR 49.

The Bourne Again shell's internal mechanisms may be slightly more efficient than command substitution with an external seq process.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for checking out the code! I addressed most of your comments.

I mostly refrain from checks like '\--' or double-quoting everything when I'm sure of the input (even though shellcheck is not happy about it). For example, argument passed to move_cursor will never start with dash.

For third point, I don't see any problems with that - am I missing something? Especially when I give freedom to set any attribute (like bold, underline, etc).</comment></comment>


The Best - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2012/11/07/the-best <comment><USER2> _> It really does make a difference._

It really doesn't :)

Discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4755470></comment>


Probably the First Open-Source T-Shirts in the World - <AUTHOR> https://teonite.com/blog/probably-worlds-first-open-source-t-shirts/<p>I would like to show you our open-source t-shirts.
Constellations motif is based on popular programming languages like Python, ReactJS, AngularJS, Docker or HTML etc.
Nothing stops you from totally reworking it. Any person and any company can create their own "universe" with the use of our or their own constellations <comment><AUTHOR> [https://teonite.com/blog/probably-worlds-first-open- source-t...](https://teonite.com/blog/probably-worlds-first-open-source-t- shirts/)</comment>


Einstein's derivation of E=mc^2 - <AUTHOR> http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/einsteins-derivation-of-emc2/

<comment><USER2> This is rough going but worth the effort. I've taught this material, and I still learned a few things.

N.B. The author, Terry Tao, is a mathematician at UCLA, and won both a Fields Medal and the MacArthur "genius" grant in 2006. He went to the International Mathematics Olympiad when he was 10 years old. He specializes in number theory, harmonic analysis, combinatorics, and making people like me feel stupid.

<comment><AUTHOR> I always read Terry Tao's blog, and his website is full of interesting material as well... Thank you for your interesting comment.</comment></comment>


Investigating Cavium's ThunderX: ARM Server SoC - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/10353/investigating-cavium-thunderx-48-arm-cores <comment><USER2> Funny, just today I google on ThunderX boards and tried to track down the latest AMD Opteron A1100 developments. I wish there were simple, stripped down development boards for these kind of processors available. I would certainly enjoy building a personal computer from them. Sadly, there seems to be no viable competition today in terms of performance to x86/Core i7.

If you wanted to design a simple computer PCB with a RISC CPU in the GHz range (or 500 Mhz+), what would you choose?

<comment><USER3> [http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php](http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php)

<comment><USER4> The ODROID-C2 is a neat device, but not at all comparable with an A1100. The A1100 has 8 A57 cores, while the ODROID only has 4 A53s. Mainline kernel support for the A1100 (and HuskyBoard, etc) has been relatively solid for a while now, while the C-2's SoC only made it into 4.6, and we're seeing the beginnings of a device tree in 4.7.

edit: Some A1100s only have 4 cores. They're still 4 beefier cores than the S905.

<comment><USER5> You can buy an ODROID-C2 today, which A1100 systems are available ?

<comment><USER6> none, as far as I know. First likely to become available is probably going to be [http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html](http://www.lenovator.com/product/103.html) \- they're claiming Q2 2016.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Love to see the power consumption number when all 48 cores are running at 100% at max freq.

Also, It takes hours to build ASOP android opensource project in typical x86 build server utilize all the 4/8 cores.

If 48 cores can be configure to build ASOP somehow, I love to see that number to see if there are "real" advantage to "48 cores" in that particular use cases.

</comment><comment><USER8> Correct me if I'm wrong, but these seem to be TDP/speed/heat limited because they're based on a modified, older 28nm process design?

Process shrink requires a lot of resources and R&D spending, but surely they could have benefited from not using 2008 ARM cores in 2016?

<comment><USER9> They seem to have plans to move to a modern GlobalFoundries 14nm process, so it might be more competitive when that happens. The decision to use an older, in-order core is probably based on the fact that their cache and memory controller design is pretty bad, and unable to even feed the slower cores as it is, so faster cores would be a waste. It turns out it is really hard to shove a lot of highly performant cores in a single package, it is much easier to shove a lot of crappy ones.

<comment><USER10> I'm curious how AppliedMicro's X-Gene 3 will fare. It should be out later this year on 14nm.

<comment><USER9> It will be interesting to see how that one goes, indeed. I think their timing could be unfortunate, however, given AMD is about to reenter the server market in a big way in the same timeframe.

<comment><USER11> How so?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


[Show HN] Handpick: The most caring way to share links - <AUTHOR> http://handpick.me

<comment><USER2> I like the copy on your homepage. Last year I built a prototype of a similar service and used it for a couple of months with friends, but it turned out that not having immediate feedback takes a lot of fun out of sharing. Posting a link to Skype and having a conversation about it in real time feels much more rewarding. It's something psychological, hard to explain.

Having said that, I still want to explore this idea some time in the future and see how it works out.

You might want to check out a similar service created by other HN user: <http://www.yourpane.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I totally agree that sharing links without a chance of a conversation springing from it can feel like a bummer.

This is one of the reasons why I decided for Handpick to send a single email to all people in a single group, so anyone can Reply-to-All and get a conversation started.

I've been using Handpick to keep in touch with my friends, loved ones and folks I care about it for close to a year this way, hope you'll find it useful too =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like the email part because it removes the "burden" for some people to think about checking my profile on either G+ or FB or twitter on which I do not always post the same things. But I did not understand how I can select which links to send to whom (for example if I have general CS links for everyone and JAVA specific ones for 10 people and C/C++ for others, etc.)

This also seems a lot like Subjot cf <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2946547>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey koopajah,

It might not be immediately apparent (I may need to work harder on better UI or copy here), but after you click on the bookmarklet, you'll be able to select which groups to share what with.

So check all checkboxes for CS and Java-specific stuff for Java-loving groups etc.

Yea Subjot looks like they're tackling the signal to noise problem on Twitter as a consumer, while I think Handpick is approaching from the other direction, where the producer becomes highly selective and specific about what he shares with who he shares, just because he cares =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome idea. Every time my girlfriend goes on Reddit I get five or six emails from her with random links she wanted to show me.

When do you think you'll start letting people into the private beta?

Oh and the "Return to website" link after you submit your email takes you to <http://freshlog.com/> by the way. I don't know if that's on purpose or not, just letting you know.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh drat thanks for catching that, I'll fix it.

Real soon, actually.

I've been using this everyday to keep in touch with folks I care about for close to a year now, so the app works, but I'd like to clean up a little first :)

<comment><USER4> Very cool. Is it just the bookmarklet or are there extensions for other browsers? A Chrome extension would be so much nicer than a bookmarklet in my honest opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now there's a bookmarklet.

However, my wife wanted a Chrome extension so much that I wrote a custom one for her.

I haven't gotten round to learn how to automatically generate custom Chrome extensions yet, but I'll be happy to manually create them for early beta testers like you =)

<comment><USER5> you don't really want to be automatically generating chrome extensions. Instead have one definitive extension and have some custom options within it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh snap. I was going to develop something extremely similar to this over the next couple of months (i've only just started to learn how to develop).

I can relate totally to the problem you are solving here, and its a very real one. Let me know if you want me to send you some of the ideas that i had. You might be able to use them ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely!

I couldn't find your contact from your HN profile, so just email me firstname.lastname@example.com.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm upvoting you because well done for launching something. But what I see is "our service allows you to email your friends, but only with links, and not using your normal email client". Explain why I'm wrong?

And which of my problems are you solving?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the upvote :)

As different groups of folks care about different things, Handpick helps you easily select which groups of folks to share a link with via a bookmarklet.

As you 'handpick' multiple links throughout the day, Handpick will accumulate them and send a single email at the end of the day to your selected group of folks.

That way, it solves the problem of spamming folks over email or IM.

Another benefit of not broadcasting on Facebook, G+ or Twitter is that you can really be who you are and not have to worry about looking tame, generic, politically correct or fiddle with privacy settings.

It'll email the folks for you if you have at least one link handpicked, so you don't have to remember to.

Let me know if I haven't answered your question! =)

<comment><USER7> Accumulating links and sharing them to selected groups of people are good ideas. Instead of emailing links to your friends, how about post the aggregated list of links to Facebook/G+ as a single post once per day and make it so that those posts will only be visible to people you select.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, I haven't taken a look at Facebook's API on selective sharing yet.

I'll look into it, but only after Handpick is solidly loved by all you beta testers that signed up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Nice, 7 private beta requests after 58 minutes on Hacker News, I should have launched this sooner :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice, but who sends links by email nowadays? Besides, Facebook introduced better sharing controls..

<comment><AUTHOR> I do :)

I've still got pockets of friends whom I really care about but don't use Facebook.

Also, it's way much easier to be yourself with email Reply-To-All style discussions without fearing what you post on Facebook coming back to haunt you later.</comment></comment>


List the Gems you can't survive without?  - <AUTHOR>

List them all :) nokogiri open-uri rspec json pry <comment><USER2> I don't know about "can't survive" part but here's a long list of gems I use or like and find useful:

Utils: devise, omniauth, cancan, squeel, ransack, active_scaffold, rails_config, switch_user, simple_form, navigasmic, sentient_model, userstamp, mail_form, carrierwave, state_machine, concerned_with, kaminari, recommendable, jbuilder, ancestry, acts_as_nested_set, acts_as_nested_interval [ my gem :) ], paper_trail, version_fu, pdfkit, wicked_pdf, wkhtmltopdf- binary, delayed_job, whenever, active-model-email-validator, nested_form, cocoon, bitfields

Test: rspec-rails, factory_girl_rails, faker, capybara, shoulda, database_cleaner, simplecov, spork, guard, capybara-webkit, timecop, vcr, fakeweb, capybara-mechanize, capybara-selenium-remote

Assets: compass-rails, sass-rails, bootstrap-sass, jquery-rest-rails, fullcalendar-rails, underscore-rails, jquery-ui-rails, coffee-rails, chosen- rails, pjax_rails, rails-backbone, jquery-rails

Development: mongrel, debugger, mailcatcher

Production: dalli, exception_notification, capistrano, capistrano-ext

</comment><comment><USER3> I can live without Ruby and Rubygems but for doing web development I just need the basics;

* rails # the framework

* devise # the auth

* debugger # uh, the debugger

* newrelic_rpm # the monitoring

All the rest depends on the project.

</comment><comment><USER4> truly, truly essential = warbs, himmy, jarbo, wuxmen, and surgical woman</comment>


Guccifer 2.0 doxes hundreds of House Democrats with massive document dump - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/guccifer-2-0-doxes-hundreds-of-house-democrats-with-massive-document-dump/?comments=1 <comment><USER2> Russia might throw the election for Trump by releasing hacked documents. This is crazier than some of "tech" subplots from House of Cards that I didn't find credible. It's a brave new world.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is impossible to forget the many times the US was on the other end of this kind of political game. It's a dirty game that leaves permanent damage and it's rather unfortunate, but hardly unpredictable. The fact the Democratic Party is being targeted by a foreign power tells a lot about which side the external actors prefer.

<comment><USER4> > The fact the Democratic Party is being targeted by a foreign power tells a > lot about which side the external actors prefer.

As a democratic socialist, I'm almost starting to prefer the other side as well.

Or shall we simply continue to excuse this sort of behavior?

[https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/20280](https://wikileaks.org/dnc- emails/emailid/20280)

"Can we set up a time for a very brief call to go over our process for handling donations from donors who have given us pay to play letters? Want to make sure we have a robust process in place to make sure that donations that come in from those donors, in any form, get put into the operating account."

<comment><USER5> the enemy of your enemy can be a much worse enemy

<comment><USER4> Sometimes you have to swallow the poison pill.

<comment><USER3> I agree, but choose your poison carefully or you just won't recover.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to reach $1M in annual compensation as an employee - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketingbs.com/post/million-compensation <comment><USER2>
      As you advance in any career, jobs become more and more
      similar. There is a huge difference between a janitor, a
      dentist and a marketer, but the manager overseeing the
      janitors, dentists and marketers have a lot more in common.
      The VPs in charge of the managers of janitors, dentists and
      marketers have even more in common.

This is the kind of thought process that leads to incompetent leadership of technical people, by non-technical ones, with disastrous consequences.

<comment><USER3> Why do you say that? The best manager I've ever had came from a non-technical background. She was good because she knew how to manage people. Not technical people, just people.

On the other hand the worst manager I've ever had came from a technical background.

I have no reason to believe that my best manager could successfully manage a team of janitors, dentists, marketers or software developers.

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I'm come across several non-technical managers making _extraordinarily_ bad decisions - major company direction level - even when very directly told "Do Not Do This, It's not feasible" by their technical staff.

It's never gone well. :(

<comment><USER4> There's managing people and deciding deciding strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >This last section is a little too sensitive for public consumption. If you would like to read it, just submit your email and I will send you the content about negotiations.

This is how little respect this author has for your intelligence. Subscribe to my newsletter to get the super secret last bit of my article.

I was willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt for most of the article. Never mind that it's incredibly banal, obvious advice from someone who followed a career that almost perfectly describes my idea of someone who doesn't really do anything.

His description of the interview process is hilarious, because the interviews are so transparently uninterested in finding out about any concrete skills the employee has.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reading the article he is not currently getting $1M in annual compensation. He is promoting his blog and book.

<comment><USER7> Well, the website is basically called "marketing bullshit dot com"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Be really, really good at something extremely rare and extremely valuable, while knowing how valuable that makes you.

Do I get a prize?</comment>


How do you monitor trending startups? - <AUTHOR>

By traffic, new funding, category, location... <comment><USER2> (1) When comparing competitive startups (And this will depend on the kind of startup) I like to do a Google search (with quotes) and rank order them by search results.

(2) Again, when comparing competitive startups I like to look at how many LinkedIn followers each one has (It's much more common to buy Twitter and FB tweets/likes).</comment>


Bitcoin implodes: 90% down from June Peak - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/bitcoin-implodes-down-more-than-90-percent-from-june-peak.ars

<comment><USER2> The biggest problem that I have with Bitcoin is that there's a bit of an impedance of trading dollars for BTC and vice versa. When you could use Dwolla, that helped, but now that Dwolla pulled out (at least that's my understanding), it's even more difficult to get BTC.

What would be ideal, is to be able to use your credit card to buy BTC. But that won't happen because credit cards need the ability to support charge backs and that makes it difficult with BTC's anonymous nature.

Once this problem is solved, I think you'll find a lot more people becoming involved with BTC again.

<comment><USER3> People on Silk Road offer automatic BTC transfers from various payment companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can create a currency with the backing of something of value - even the promissory notes of solid citizens - but you cant create a currency from nothing - it has no value.

While not intending (I am sure) to be a pyramid scheme (artificial value from short term demand) this is how it will/has inevitably turned out. The concepts underpinning Bitcoin however have a future - as long as the mining is done where wealth is accumulated and not on a GPU.

<comment><USER5> Most of the world's currencies don't have backing these days. Even when they do have some kind of commodity backing them the governments don't tell people how much backing is there (The U.S. Government for example won't tell people how much gold they have in reserve). Backing isn't relevant if you don't know how much of it there is.

All a currency really needs to be valuable are two people who have faith in it and who have resources they want to trade with each other.

Also for the record the only reason backing is important at all is because backing means there's a finite amount of currency that can be created. Bitcoin has, in theory, an equally valid limiting factor

<comment><USER6> The real backing that a US dollar has is not its gold. It is the fact that the US government has declared itself obligated to accept tax payments in terms of US dollars, and it will not accept anything else. That's the dollar's base case, and the reason why coming off the gold standard didn't bring the house down is that was really _always_ the true value of a dollar. The gold was an illusion, suitable for an era in which people couldn't think abstractly enough to understand what the true backing was, but one that we can now be rid of. The recursion of the value of government fiat money does indeed have a base case.

This is why a government is so tied to its currency. In some sense it isn't a true cause and effect relationship, both the stability of a government and the stability of its currency is tied to the same third factor, its credibility.

"All a currency really needs to be valuable are two people who have faith in it"

Which is an equivocation game, in that "have faith in it" must itself be motivated by something at least locally rational or it won't work. I have faith in the ability of a dollar to buy off the men-with-guns who will come and take all my stuff and ruin my life if I don't pay my taxes.

All government fiat currencies are thus in fact backed by something real. I don't entirely disagree with the BitCoin community that that is a more tenuous backing than one might abstractly like, but I do not see anything in practice that would be better; value stores are _intrinsically_ ephemeral and there is nothing you can do about it.

The reason why BitCoin is crashing is that it was built on the false premise that currencies have no backing, so we might as well create a cryptocurrency with no backing. But that's false. BitCoin is actually _special_ in having no backing of any kind, and that is why failure is and will continue to be inevitable. The whole thing was built on a false foundation.

<comment><USER7> What about gold itself? Sure, it has some real world usages, like semiconductors and such, but it's priced way above it, simply because people have faith in it as a currency, nothing more.

<comment><USER5> With all due respect I think you both misunderstand the principle of Gold as currency (or bitcoin as currency for that matter).

Currency at its most basic level is a representation of the value generated by the society it is used in. So the number of U.S. dollars represents the entire value of what U.S. citizens produce at any given time.

What makes commodities valuable as currency is they are finite. There's only so much Gold, Silver, and Bitcoins in the world. Since all these commodities can be used as currencies (i.e. they can be converted to paper currency) they represent value beyond just its practicality because it stays consistent as the amount of each fiat currency available grows.

So Gold goes up in value because it isn't really going up in value. Everything else is going down.

<comment><USER6> "So the number of U.S. dollars represents the entire value of what U.S. citizens produce at any given time."

That's not even close to correct under any theory of economics, I don't even know where to start explaining that.

"What makes commodities valuable as currency is they are finite."

No, that just means they happen to exist in the real universe, in which everything is finite, which is hardly a way of distinguishing between "currency" and "not currency" (in information theory terms, that has no information in it). What makes currencies valuable, and what makes things valuable in general, is that people want them. People want the government not to smash their doors down and haul them away and put them in jail, or freeze their assets, etc. The rest of the value of a dollar recursively emanates out from that. There's a value to having a dollar beyond just the goods and services that can be obtained, it prevents Uncle Sam from destroying you. There's no value to a BitCoin; the base case of BitCoin is "zero", unlike a dollar or any other government fiat currency, unlike gold (which has industrial and decorative uses which may not stay constant but won't drop to zero for a long time), unlike anything else called a "currency". Currencies _aren't_ arbitrary numbers.

(Not being jailed/fined/killed by something may seem like a bizarre base for a currency if you think about it, and I wouldn't disagree. I do rather wish people understood the gravity of treating "government" like a silver bullet and just firing it every which way to solve every problem, especially when turning everything into a criminal law offense. However genteel we've made it over the centuries, it's still pointing guns at people, and I'd prefer to reserve that for truly _important_ things.)

<comment><USER8> Having dollars does prevent Uncle Sam from destroying you and assuming no one wants to be destroyed, everyone wants them. This makes the dollar a pretty good medium of exchange (a short term store of value) but not very good as a long term store of value.

Gold is still valuable as a medium of exchange largely due to historical reasons but the problems of moving gold, storing gold and using gold for very small transactions outweigh its benefits for anything other than a store of value, gold is simply too crippled to be used as a currency.

Bitcoin aims to fill that gap by having similar properties to other successful stores of value, (durability, reasonable finiteness) along with medium of exchange properties like fungibility, but at the same time being digital and thus adding properties like near instant transfers (on a global scale) and near infinite divisibility.

Its not certain if Bitcoin will be successful, something better might turn up to replace it, but IMO a purely digital currency definitely has a future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the UK Bitcoins are classified as a commodity.

It falls under the same rules as buy and selling gold which basically has no formal regulation.

I heard somebody define "money" as the most liquid commodity.

The commodity that can be exchanged for goods and services the most easily and efficiently is money.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's not money unless you can pay taxes with it.

<comment><USER4> A good rule of thumb - but I would be happy to call it money if I can buy a drink with it.

<comment><USER11> "Money as in beer"?</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft should be way more careful with messaging - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ailon.org/2015/05/04/microsoft-should-be-way-more-careful-with-messaging/

<comment><USER2> >"From the way it was presented to the general public, it sounded like there's no actual reason to develop "native" (UWP) Windows apps anymore"

Kevin Gallo made clear in one of the sessions that those briges are not the best way to run an app in Windows 10. That the idea was made for apps that are not going to change or as a first approach to support the platform. But in order to use all the features that Windows 10 offer (Cortana, Inking, etc.) you would need to write an universal app.

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is that this should be said during keynotes - the only thing that public sees. Only devs see breakout sessions, not decision makers.

<comment><USER2> Build is not a wide public conference, it is intended to be for developers. Ignite conference (which is this week) is the one for decision makers ([http://ignite.microsoft.com/#fbid=OzEF049y498](http://ignite.microsoft.com/#fbid=OzEF049y498)).</comment></comment></comment>


Covid-19's Ripple Effect: Mapping Out the Societal and Economic Consequences - <AUTHOR> https://www.notion.so/COVID-19-s-Ripple-Effect-Mapping-Out-The-Societal-Economic-Consequences-ee320975f0d64cbc8a6c9df92b14348b <comment><USER2> Thanks for putting all of these sources together!</comment>


Pixel and dimed: on (not) getting by in the gig economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3027355/pixel-and-dimed-on-not-getting-by-in-the-gig-economy

<comment><USER2> Just another pyramid scheme.</comment>


As Leaks Multiply, Fears of a 'Deep State' in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/world/americas/deep-state-leaks-trump.html <comment><USER2> Oh, there's definitely a deep state and has been for decades. It's the same deep state that tried to get MLK to commit suicide. It's almost impossible to get rid of without burning down the intelligence agencies. It's got a long history of fair-to-disastrous interventions in _other_ countries. It's not going to go away no matter who you elect, but it might be reined in a bit.

The deep cynic in me is enjoying watching the CIA flail helplessly as someone inflicts on them what they've inflicted on other countries: a disruptive right-wing leader supported by the intelligence services of a hostile power.

They've talked up "cyberwar" for so long without realising that it wouldn't be big fat obvious targets like power plants that got hit, but the machinery of civil society, parties and media. Or that internet astroturf could be so effective.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whether you are a Trump supporter or not, I appreciate the NYTimes having the journalistic integrity to print this. The current media urge to uncritically bash Trump at every opportunity--whether substantiated by evidence or not--is very real. I am not a Trump supporter.

Greenwald:

>1) Trump presidency is dangerous. >2) CIA/DeepState abuse of spy powers to subvert elected Govt is dangerous.

> One can cogently believe both.

Source: [https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/831850140940005377](https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/831850140940005377)

<comment><USER4> The article reads more apologetic than anything. "True, the deep state is sabotaging Trump, in principle a bad thing, but here are a lot of good reasons why they would do that."

In fact it is the typical hypocrisy: We like our democratic system, greatest in the world. Except when things don't go the way we want - then it's okay to circumvent it.

<comment><USER3> From the article:

>So is the United States seeing the rise of its own deep state?

>Not quite, experts say, but the echoes are real — and disturbing.

I don't agree with the NYT here. 8 years ago I'd think the below linked juxtaposition of American leaders was a bit paranoid. Today I think it's more important than ever. Eisenhower warned us of the Deep State. Truman warned us of it. JFK warned us of it, said he was going to destroy it, and was assassinated.

Obama told us not to worry: [https://files.catbox.moe/sa27od.jpg](https://files.catbox.moe/sa27od.jpg)

Sources: Truman: 'the CIA has turned into cloak and dagger operations within the USA' [https://theintercept.com/2016/02/22/in-1974-call-to- abolish-...](https://theintercept.com/2016/02/22/in-1974-call-to-abolish-cia- sanders-followed-in-footsteps-of-jfk-truman/) Eisenhower - [http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html](http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html) JFK - said 'he wanted to splinter the CIA to a thousand pieces' [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9400E4DB1639E63...](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9400E4DB1639E63BBC4D51DFB266838D679EDE)

<comment><USER3> I can't edit my post but I should make note the meme I linked to references a spurious Jefferson quote: [https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/when- government-fe...](https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/when-government- fears-people-there-liberty-spurious-quotation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Deep State implies coordination. While all these leakers have taken action to ostensibly subvert Trump or his policies, the leakers do seem to have their own individual agendas. ergo, no deep state.

I'd posit the leaking comes from the license plate maxim, "Don't tread on me."

</comment><comment><USER6> It's probably too optimistic to believe they'll decide that the way to prevent leaks is to be transparent.

<comment><USER7> Optimistic indeed, but it would certainly solve the problem, in a sense; when everything's public record, what's left to leak?

<comment><USER8> I think it is a great idea. Ideally you could have everything the government done be public, except for maybe nuclear launch codes and specific military maneuvers.

<comment><USER3> The government serving the public being idealistic and too optimistic is 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Classic m.o. of a fledging dictator. Begin to instil mistrust into the people of the very core of the political system, then once this mistrust permeates society enough, come in with an alternative system which, surprisingly, consolidates power at the top.

Bring in the family as well, because everyone else is untrustworthy; a classic ploy used in North Korea, Iraq (Hussein), and virtually every other dictator.</comment>


The Day the Purpose of College Changed - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/The-Day-the-Purpose-of-College/151359/ <comment><USER2> I would love it if most liberal arts institutions "fostered a broad set of knowledge and skills whose value is not always immediately apparent." But they generally don't, at least not anymore.

The erosion of standards in the humanities and the promotion of grievance/identity "studies" have led to academic environments based on groupthink and insulation from unapproved ideas. And that's among the "intellectuals"! Many of the rest of the students are just getting wasted every night and taking "gut" courses with open-book multiple-choice exams.

It's mostly "hard science" programs like engineering and math that have avoided this fate. Probably because it doesn't matter what you "feel" if your code won't compile.

Edit: Sorry, to be clear this is coming from an American perspective. I have no idea what liberal education is like in other countries, but I have to imagine it can't be nearly as bad.

<comment><USER3> I really have to disagree with one aspect of this comment ("the erosion of standards in the humanities.") Perhaps that's to be expected because I'm an academic who works in the humanities. But my point is a simple one and it's something that you can test out yourself: try comparing a half dozen academic history article written in, say, 1950, to a half dozen from 2015. I predict that, on average, a 2015 article will feature a far more robust evidence base, a broader range of sources, a richer historiography, and more rigorous language training than its counterpart from the 1940s, 50s or 60s. In my experience there is simply no comparison. In part this is because digitized texts make it so much easier to access a wide range of sources, but it also has to do with an increase in standards of graduate education. Getting a PhD in a field like history used to be an old boys club based on connections and family money. It certainly still retains some of those trappings today, but I think there can be no question that academic training today is far more rigorous (and entering graduate school or getting an article accepted more competitive) than it was in decades past.

I don't really take issue with the comments about students and multiple choice exams, though. The way we teach the humanities in the US leaves a lot to be desired.

<comment><USER4> I'd say that the palpable difference in critical reasoning capacity between the two ancestor comments speaks volumes.

<comment><USER5> Or, maybe they're both right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand why jobs and curiosity have to be so starkly opposed.

I studied mechanical engineering, and I consider that a degree for anyone who's curious about the world. If you want to have a strong foundation to peel back the layers of existence, you really can't do much better.

I think one thing we sorely lack in modern education is a strong minor system. Students could easily get their well-roundedness by obtaining minors in subjects that interest them, and if the subjects are quite different from a job getting major, then all the better. I believe Paul Graham would say this is how startups happen.

Furthermore we need a strong system of technical minors as well. If a bootcamp in SF can get you an entry-level dev job, then why shouldn't a minor in CS train you as a web developer? Or why couldn't a sociologist minor in UX?

<comment><USER7> > I don't understand why jobs and curiosity have to be so starkly opposed.

One word: money.

> I studied mechanical engineering, and I consider that a degree for anyone > who's curious about the world. If you want to have a strong foundation to > peel back the layers of existence, you really can't do much better.

Certainly. But to do that, you need to spend four years or more being a financial liability rather than an asset. The standard justification these days is that you'll be more of an asset when you're done, because you're going to get a job as a mechanical engineer.

Or we could fall back to an older way of thinking, and say that everyone ought to spend four years being intellectually challenged. And by "everyone" we mean rich guys, because they're the ones that can afford it, and, really, we don't much care about anyone else.

But in a truly egalitarian society, we care about everyone. So that kind of reasoning won't do. Which leaves us with the question of who is going to pay for that foundation to peel back the layers of existence, and what motivation they have to cough up the money.

<comment><USER8> > Which leaves us with the question of who is going to pay for that foundation > to peel back the layers of existence, and what motivation they have to cough > up the money.

Presumably it would have to be the same motivation we had to do public education in the first place: Democracy can't work if the electorate isn't educated.

Now, if that remains a motivation for the elite today is another question.

(I'd wager 'no'.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel like the author is ignoring a giant caveat. The liberal educational ideal has always been connected to a certain degree of elitism. The author quotes Jefferson about broad access to liberal education, but Jefferson himself expected his university to be for only the cream of the crop. Something like the top 1% cognitive elite. Jefferson's argument about breadth was more about building a feeder system that would educate each person up to their maximum ability -- with the expectation that only very few would go all the way through college.

If instead you want to build a system where most people can successfully get through college, you need to meet very different economic and social constraints.

</comment><comment><USER10> Would it not be fairer to say that the demand for highly-paid work has increased and that college is simply a victim?

Going back a few decades in the UK, a manual labourer could afford to buy a home, own a car, provide for the family, etcetera.

Nowadays that is falling fast.

Add to that the 'pandora's box' element of education (those who are educated will likely feel depressed if low-paid or non-stimulating long hours bar them from continuing to learn) and I think it's a natural reaction.

If you want to fix 'learning for learning's sake', then you need to get rid of the idea that the winner takes all and that those who are unskilled are fit for dog meat.

This also wasn't an issue when only the rich went on to further education, because they are not constrained by work.

<comment><USER11> I have a bit of a theory, specifically in the US, that in the near future there will be some very lucrative opportunities in things like plumbing and electrical as most folks got the idea in their heads that they HAD to go to college to avoid such work. And now equipped with a college degree there is a strange mental block in becoming s blue collar serviceperson despite the absolute need for plumbers and electricians.

A friend of mine skipped out on college, worked for 5 years for the local union and last year started his own electrician business. He now has two employees and makes fantastic money, which I only expect to go up as more of the old guys retire with no replacement.

Yeah it's not glamorous but at the same time he's doing what most folks on HN dream of in running his own business with high paying customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I do agree college should not be free. It devalues the education and puts those who are there to truly learn at a disadvantage. Who wants to be in classes alongside people who just there because its free, or for the ride?

When you ask people to pay for something they rightly should expect something in return. They should also be able to set limits. There are many colleges offering degrees in nearly useless if not useless areas. There are many that simply exist to farm loans, scholarships, and the like.

<comment><USER13> _> >I do agree college should not be free. It devalues the education and puts those who are there to truly learn at a disadvantage. Who wants to be in classes alongside people who just there because its free, or for the ride?_

Being free doesn't mean they drop all their standards. Even in paid schools today you can be expelled and/or kicked out of a class for terrible performance, attendance or inappropriate behavior. As long as you keep those standards, free college should be fine. Now if you're talking about crowded classes and/or not enough teachers, maybe we should prioritize schools & teachers more and sports less... but that's a whole other discussion. I strongly believe school should be free. I expect Germany to do well with their recent changes:

[http://thinkprogress.org/education/2014/10/01/3574551/german...](http://thinkprogress.org/education/2014/10/01/3574551/germany- free-college-tuition/) _" At least for now, however, learning German might be the best financial choice an American high school student can make."_

<comment><USER14> There's also quite a few european countries with free college/university education. To name the main ones: Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland

AFAIK, Norway offers this privilege even to international students, while Sweden gives it to any EU citizen

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The tension has always been there. The first university in Europe was Bologna's, which was chiefly known for the study of law.

As for 1967 and after, I would complain less that we are dropping liberal arts departments, though I'd rather not see them dropped, than that the cost of studying anything at a state school has greatly outrun inflation. It costs a hell of a lot to study philosophy, but it also costs a hell of a lot to study electrical engineering.

</comment><comment><USER16> It should be noted that Reagan's argument was against _taxpayers subsidizing four-credit courses on organizing demonstrations_ , not intellectual curiosity and certainly not the _private_ pursuit of intellectual curiosity. Governor Reagan would have had no issue with a private institution like Harvard offering whatever courses it liked.

Public funding for education can improve its quality and access, but it always comes with strings attached. And for good reason: taxpayers deserve accountability and transparency where public money is spent.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Developing a meaningful philosophy of life" is a life-long pursuit, and to that end the four years I spent in college were way less influential than the years since have been.

</comment><comment><USER18> The OP seems to say that education for jobs, e.g., as in the Obama quote about manufacturing and trades, is one case and that the other is a "liberal" education, which usually means heavily the _humanities_ of literature, art, history, philosophy, and maybe some religion.

But, this _dichotomy_ seems to have omitted mathematics, physical science, social science, engineering, and technology. And the purpose of some of these might be not just jobs but beneficial research results and new companies that create new products/services and jobs.

It appears that the OP has set up a straw man, _education for jobs_ as something to knock down in order to praise his favorite "liberal" education.

I'd say: "Liberal" education, that's about the _humanities_ , right? And the main purpose of the humanities is to better the lives of humans, right? Well, what else has so far bettered the lives of humans, say, compared with a few hundred or a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of years ago?

For bettering the lives of humans, how about agriculture, domestication of animals, textiles, writing, arithmetic, geometry, the wheel, work with wood, stone, and metals for tools, construction, etc., open ocean sailing, steam power, other heat engines, chemistry, physics, medicine, electricity, electronics, mathematics, engineering, materials, computing, telecommunications? Have these been good for _humans_ and, thus, helped achieved the main goal of the _humanities_?

Are the classic topics in the _humanities_ and a _liberal_ education really the sole, best help for humans?

We can help humans by helping them to be happy, and one way is with some art, say, some Bach

[http://grooveshark.com/s/Cello+Suite+No+1+Bach/3seBIM?src=5](http://grooveshark.com/s/Cello+Suite+No+1+Bach/3seBIM?src=5)

some Vitali

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4B1ifcWa9o](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4B1ifcWa9o)

some Camille Saint Saens

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X79OkSayPSw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X79OkSayPSw)

but also some math, say, Lebesgue and von Neumann as in Rudin, _Real and Complex Analysis_ \-- gorgeous stuff and with, e.g., a lot of beautifully done Fourier theory of crucial importance across the STEM fields. So, such math can make humans both happy and productive!

Some of the prerequisites for the crucial, core technology for my start up are in Rudin; so I expect that that material is productive; if my start up works, then I will thank Rudin, von Neumann, etc.; but if my start up flops, I won't blame them!</comment>


The era of distrust and disloyalty - <AUTHOR> http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/era-distrust-and-disloyalty <comment><USER2> The destruction of previously high-trust societies is the story of the west in the last forty years. It will be fascinating to read the eventual analysis.

<comment><USER3> A few years back there was a lot of talk about a coming digital dark age. Due to not a lack of information, but an overabundance of information and an inability to discern truth from fiction. I think we are arriving at that moment now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Farmers have often been at the mercy of corporations and it's not uncommon for them rise up and form their own unions in an attempt to sell directly to customers.

Modern capitalism rewards those who can capture value over the those who create value. It's not about the product or service; the scales are tipped in favor of those who have access to the money (essentially; those who have access to the customers).

That's why marketing is such a powerful force in our society. People tend to trust marketing more than they trust their own senses... A lot of popular brands offer horrible quality products - Particularly in the food industry, but that doesn't stop people from consuming them to great excess.

<comment><USER5> > the scales are tipped in favor of those who have access to the money

Yup, pretty much. Turns out Piketty (and before him, Marx) are right.

Of course, since democracy depends on marketing, politicians have done a great job marketing a political system that doesn't work for the common person, yet they still vote for it. As long as they have a shiny toy in their hands, and something to entertain (distract) them, the masses are placated...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "We are seeing the emergence of an anti-visual design movement, as more and more customers are becoming distrustful of smiling faces, soft tones and soft language."

Not seeing that yet but it can't come soon enough.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Ultimately little will change but the tactics. The propaganda industry has learned time and time again that ever more "personalization" is an ever greater means to control people as they become so wrapped up in their primitive desires they ignore the blatant manipulation being performed by them.

The hippies thought that consumerism's end was just around the corner. Then Madison Avenue learned the value in simulating self-actualization, and catering to those desires. The hippies became the hipsters.

<comment><USER7> Did you watch "The Century of the Self", by chance? Great movie, either way.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Once you see a film like that, it's impossible to get it out of your head.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Simplicity, usefulness, functionality, details and facts, transparency; > these are the pillars of the new digital design. We trust what we can > quickly and easily use but only as long as it's useful. Design for use. > Design for usefulness.

Amen! That reminded me of an essay I love dearly: [http://fadeyev.net/moral- design/](http://fadeyev.net/moral-design/)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you liked this, you may also like _Twilight of the Elites_ by Chris Hayes. It discusses the disillusionment many of us feel when we discover what our leaders and elites have gotten up to.

[http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Elites-America-After- Meritocr...](http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Elites-America-After- Meritocracy/dp/0307720462)

</comment><comment><USER10> One item I believe that is missing from this obersavation is that modern design is all about getting the user to trust and love the product. In reality users should treat their products with more respect than trust, especially when considering privacy and security concerns. Even if something is useful, that does not mean it should be trusted.

</comment><comment><USER11> compelling example but naive. it fails to look at how social media is evolving to handle that as well. Companies PR are now abandoning the smiling white families in banners because they know it won't work. They are now using your relatives smiles. We are eating the same spin, but now it is disguised as our friends' opinions.

</comment><comment><USER12> Imagine a company doing $10 billion in yearly revenue. If the right guy manages the joint, it will do $11 billion. Are you willing to pay 10 million a year for this person? What if another company in similar circumstances offers 20 million? And another company 50 million? In the end, they all have 1 billion at stake. So, they all could even offer more and still be laughing all the way to the bank. In other words, even if a CEO could only make a difference of 10% on a large company's revenues, it would still be worth it to pay him incredibly large amounts of money. Apple paying Steve Jobs $50 billion would still have been a very cheap bargain. He made a difference of way more than that.

<comment><USER13> The same could be said for any other employees. Programmers, warehouse workers or whatever. Maybe they could be paid for the difference they make too. Yet this doesn't happen, because the supply side is important as well, as well as the lack of power these people have.

From what I see, finding the right guy to manage a company is very hit and miss in the real world. Just look at Ron Johnson. He was previously senior vice president of retail operations at Apple, and then hired as CEO of J.C. Penny. He was fired as CEO from J.C. Penny in 2013, after retail sales were down by 32% and stock prices fell steeply. This was despite him having a very successful tenure at Apple. The pricing should factor in the uncertainty and risk of the performance of someone in the position of CEO.

I have probably have not touched most of things that could be issues here, such as corruption, and that some CEOs are just extremely incompetent. I remember a CEO that was given 250 million dollars to leave because he had that much negative impact on the company he was running. This was someone that the board thought was a great hire.

Anyway, I find the post I am replying to is way too simplistic and looks at CEOs with extremely rose coloured glasses. There is a lot more to consider.

<comment><USER14> _The same could be said for any other employees. Programmers, warehouse workers or whatever._

Some programmers, maybe, but very few could move large company's revenue by 10%. And almost certainly no one moving physical stuff around in a warehouse could.

<comment><USER15> > no one moving physical stuff around in a warehouse could [move large > company's revenue by 10%]

Sure they could. They're the feet on the ground, so to say, and so they have the best insight into inefficiencies which are occurring on a day-to-day basis. You can bet it wasn't a CEO who discovered UPS' "only make right turns" trick. Or Bezos who optimized Amazon's warehouses.

A 10% reduction in costs is very realistic for these kinds of finds, and those reduction in costs are worth more than a 10% increase in revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Putting things in perspective: half million makes up to about 20-25k per month once you take out taxes in Europe. While huge, it is not incredibly huge. A semi-decent doctor can get close to that amount (it's easy when you charge euro 100 per visit and you forget to pay taxes).

I am just saying that paychecks tend to be overestimated by people in the low to medium income brackets. Most of those half million folks work 24/7\. Once you divide by the amount of crazy hours they work, they are making more or less like a decently paid engineer...

I am more upset by how much doctors make, for many of them in the end do an office job (they don't have hundreds of families futures in their hands). Also because, in many cases, those incomes are high because of stupid laws rather than market value. While CEO do tend to be more on market value.

<comment><USER17> _" While CEO do tend to be more on market value._"

When market value is set by the CEOs themselves, the trend in market value is ever upward, as long as there is no pressure in the opposite direction. The highest paid executives have seen their share of the pie grow drastically over the past couple of decades, while fantasy stories of their importance and value get passed around to convince everyone that a CEO making 250 times the average worker salary is perfectly reasonable.

Competence has value, but the royal treatment of C-levels is absurd.

<comment><USER18> The market value is set by the board of directors, not CEOs.

Furthermore, supposing there were some sort of absentee owner effect (boards of directors are comprised of other CEOs, and they conspire to raise each other's pay), you'd expect to see a different market value in closely held corporations. Strangely, the price of a CEO for a closely held corporation closely tracks the price of a CEO for absentee shareholders.

[http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...](http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2424&context=dlj)

The obvious way to fix this is with increased shareholder activism (ala Gordon Gekko), and reducing regulations on hostile takeovers. Possibly also regulating things like poison pills, staggered board elections, etc. Do you favor such rule changes? If not, why not?

<comment><USER19> I believe the salary transparency requirement for CEOs was the best thing that ever happened to them. It's easy to negotiate a raise if you know what the other guy is making.

This will be unpopular but I think all salaries should be made public. This would allow a lot of people to negotiate better salaries.

<comment><USER17> This one is tricky. H1B visa holder salaries _are_ transparent. And, they tend to make less than their US citizen peers. But, I guess it would need to be transparent for everyone for it to work out. There have been companies that have done it, but they've often already been focused on treating everyone fairly before or as part of the move to transparency. If the goal of the company is not to engender a team spirit by treating everybody as well as possible, but instead to maximize profits, then it would likely tend toward executives trying to keep pay low across all employees and would limit their willingness to hire outliers who demand very high salaries.

I don't know, is what I think I'm trying to say. There hasn't been a lot of data...very few companies are open about the salaries they pay, and there is a definitely hesitation among employees about discussing their salary (and it is often discouraged by the company, to boot).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>