Some rules kids won't learn in school (1996) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito/teaching/mack/loo/interessante.html <comment><USER2> For me, this advice is basically useless bullshit. Being a kid sucked. Freedom is more than worth all of the advantages. Adulthood isn't hard. Making money isn't that hard either. If you can't find a more valuable way to spend free time in your teenage years than flipping burgers for minimum wage, you aren't very resourceful.

You don't have to settle for shitty bosses. You are allowed to have as much free time as you want and afford, and if I want to spend some of it watching TV, then pretentious twits can kiss my ass.

What I did wish I knew was that the most precious part of youth is in fact the social, romantic, and sexual opportunities. If I would have known then what I know now: that all my appeal to women would somehow vanish in my thirties and that I'd experience nothing but romantic rejection for years, I would have planned my life extremely differently. Anyone who says you can take for granted that men have it easier in their thirties is full of shit.

The single most important thing I should have done in youth would have been to optimize my chances for sexual and romantic relationships with a chance to last a lifetime. Having this or not (not money) is the difference between years of relative bliss and years of feeling that life is basically fucking pointless.

Yes I'm angry.

<comment><USER3> Can you satisfy my curiosity and tell me more about your situation?

<comment><USER2> There's not that much to say. I'm a below average looking guy who used to be able to attract a woman and now, as far as I've been able to tell over the last few years, I'm universally rejected romantically and sexually.

I've been reading the guides out there for years and I don't do any of the classic mistakes that I'm aware of. My best guesses are that, in addition to a few physical flaws (nothing major) it's about changing expectations of women. I'm 35 and I look 22 and still act like a kid in some ways and am quite socially awkward. I don't think I have the verbal skills to pull off those moves where you put on a puppet show in order to push the right buttons and fuck women, and that's not what I want anyway. (I'd like nothing more in life than to meet a single woman who was attracted to me and with whom I could be myself with.) I have a personality where I don't take bullshit from anyone and if I'm asked a question I give the answer. Everyone I meet likes me and I hear lines like "You're smart and interesting but I don't know if the chemistry is there" consistently.

I've been doing things like internet dating, speed dating, a salsa classes, and I'm a pretty accomplished singer, and some guys actually have to try pretty hard not to attract women doing these things!

<comment><USER4> You are trying too hard.

<comment><USER2> Ok, your personality and self is such that just by acting naturally women are attracted to you. Congratulations, you get yours, Jack. It just isn't so with me. I have one personality with everyone, women, men, pets, kids, who-fucking- ever. I don't even raise my pulse much meeting women anymore because I'm so hardened to romantic rejection, and I know the pained looks they get when they realize they aren't attracted to me and can't quite figure out why.

<comment><USER5> you only posted on the internet so you could reject all theories other than "life is unfair to me"...go see a therapist because you obviously have personality issues...oh wait I can already hear the cued up excuse why you don't need to actually do anything to improve yourself, well just go fuck yourself then faggot

<comment><USER2> Whether or not I'm a gay hermaphrodite, I was responding to a post about advice to young people, and saying what I wish I knew as a young person was relevant.

In my case, this would have been to ignore pretentious fuckwads who say how difficult life is. It's easy. The hard part (for me, not necessarily you) is impressing women, and it's also the single largest thing affecting long term happiness. Perhaps there are some young people (not all) who would benefit from hearing this, because you don't hear it very much.

<comment><USER3> Have you thought about studying these skills?

[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/11/21/bill- clinton...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/11/21/bill-clinton- reality-distortion-field/)

Hacking awkwardness away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps I'm alone or in the vast minority, but I love being an adult and would never trade it for the "good old days" of being a kid. I can completely identify with the complaints of teens Skyes rails about. My work gives me a sense of accomplishment and challenge that structured education never did. In my personal life, I never have to worry that decisions are made for me without an understanding of my perspective as I'm the one making those decisions. The range of experiences open to me is therefore much broader and more satisfying.

Rather, my advice to teens would be: "Just hang in there and try to make good decisions when you can. Your life is one big transition, and transitions are hard. Be assured, life will get much better when you come out the other side."

<comment><USER7> That's because you're not a loser adult, so you don't have to look back on your childhood - when 'loser' wasn't really defined - with some sort of contrived fondness. Like the author.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This, just like the "dear old people" article comes off to me as overgeneralized whining. Maybe it's just because at 32 I'm smack in the middle, but I'm just not comfortable with "this is what's wrong with your generation" type of articles.

In this case, there are a few important truths so slathered over with condescension and scorn that as a teenager, I would have no choice but to rebel. The author forgets, that rebelling is not simple petulance, but is the final stage of individuation.

I get the impression the author here has a bone to pick, most likely due to personal regrets or fears, and is turning to browbeating where mentorship is called for.

<comment><USER7> I honestly doubt there is an 'author' to this regardless of what it says. This is little more than a collection of rubbish platitudes that accomplish nothing more than to make a subset of its readers feel better about themselves (it certainly won't improve anyone's outlook on life with the tone it takes). I'm really embarrassed for HN that this made the top 5.

<comment><USER9> How old are you? I'm curious, not accusatory.

<comment><USER7> That's a strange question, why do you want to know? I'm thirty, fwiw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder about these statements. While many of them are nice to think of as true, are they?

\- Flipping burgers is "opportunity."

Yes, maybe in the past a strong recommendation from a manager at a high school job could help you get a post-graduation job. Today, do any colleges even consider this? In the time you work flipping burgers, you could just as easily become leader of 12 after-school activities that look "impressive" on a resume.

Who's to blame for that? Today's lazy kids? Or the generation of boomer hiring managers and admissions committees who look for "upside potential" instead of work ethic?

\- Bosses will expect you to work harder than teachers.

Not in my experience. Most of my college-graduate friends have post-graduation jobs where they have no impact on the company's success, and do mostly busywork filling out forms and going through the motions. Flipping burgers, at least you can show some hustle, being nicer and faster and more careful than your peers. Same in most tech jobs. But if your job is to fill out paperwork and answer the phones and no one supervises you, how do you measure doing "better"? And why care if your supervisor can't tell either?

So who is to blame here? Lazy kids? Or boomer corporate structures that doesn't give junior employees even the smallest responsibility for trying hard, doesn't mentor them to work harder or more intelligently, and then promotes those people into management jobs where they continue to not help the next generation?

I think the real problem here is the Boomers: they rejected the idea of listening to their parents' generation when they entered the workforce, and they seriously screwed things up. Today, most businesses expect a high school or college grad to already know how to work hard, how to give good customer service, how to prioritize business goals. Where would they have learned this? Historically, by working a job in school and then being intensively trained when they start full time. Today, there is no similar process unless you go into a field controlled by a strong professional society (doctor, pilot, etc.).

Go find an old 1920's or 50's book (or instructional video) on management. The younger employee, although not comptent or hard-working, is thought of as a project that the manager has to look in on, give advice to, occasionally challenge. How many places today will spend that time on someone just out of high school or college?

<comment><USER11> I think the key phrase from #5 is "Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity", not "They called it opportunity".

It's not about being grateful for a burger flipping job, it's about taking the burger flipping job when you need to.

For example, my first consulting gig was set to rake in about $5k a month, but since I didn't know that you can ask for a deposit I had to wait until the end of the first month to get paid. I had enough money saved up to cover rent, but I still needed food money so I worked nights for a month as a delivery guy at Papa John's for the tips.

Funny thing was I busted my ass (cleaning grease traps and doing all of the other stuff none of the teenagers wanted to do), because I knew I was only going to be working there for a month, and doing mindless work with my hands was a nice break from writing ActionScript. I actually felt bad when I quit, because the manager offered me a $1.25/hour raise to try to get me to stay, haha (that's actually pretty generous for a minimum wage hourly job).

Anyway, that lesson is something I've spent a lot of time trying to teach my little brothers, as they tend to try to wait for the perfect job to come along. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a job that you feel is "beneath you", while you look for something better. I think it's more "beneath me" to sit on my ass all day being broke than it is to clean grease traps.

<comment><USER10> Fantastic story, thank you. And you are absolutely right, "menial" work is really fun if you work hard and know you don't have to do it forever. I spent a week doing hospitality and loved it. Getting to talk with different people, help them, run around and jump up and down to get things done right away, and then seeing people obviously appreciate it.

I wish we could convince more kids to do it, and more adults to take it seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could."

It's funny, but at the time this was written this was kind of a controversial and insightful statement. Now, it sounds so obvious that it's a cliche. Amazing how quickly culture can change. This was written barely 10 years ago!

<comment><USER13> Fifteen, wasn't it? 1996 was the "reprinted from" date. The net was really just breaking public at that point. If I time traveled back to visit 1996-me, I don't think I could even explain what 2011-me did for a living because the technology didn't exist yet.

<comment><USER8> I would say "software applications that run purely on the web" to which the 1996-me would say "how do you even _do_ that?"

<comment><USER14> And that would be a valid question, as 1996-you would be using Netscape Navigator 2 or Internet Explorer 2. Good luck building web apps for those browsers ;)

<comment><USER3> School a youngster. Exactly what would have been so difficult about building a spreadsheet interface for IE2?

Assuming a crap UI is tolerable for business purposes and assuming that you wouldn't have to market it.

<comment><USER14> There were few web applications back in 1996. I can only think of two major ones: Lotus had a webmail product called cc:Mail and eBay just started offering online auctions.

Back then, you wouldn't use PHP, CSS, Javascript, XMLHttpRequest or Flash. They didn't exist or hadn't matured yet.

Most likely, you would've used a Java based solution, such as NeXT WebObjects. That's what e-commerce businesses did back then. However, you wouldn't have developed the product on your own. You would've needed a team and plenty of funding, in part because WebObjects came with a $50,000 price tag.

I encourage you to read this WebObjects advertorial from april 1997, courtesy of the Wayback Machine. It's a good illustration of what was considered modern web development:

[http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19970412201603/http://www.n...](http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19970412201603/http://www.next.com/WebObjects/Overview.html)

<comment><USER15> You would have used Perl or PHP - I was using both from early 1996, and they worked just fine. Yes, they hadn't "matured", but they were functional well before Java or ASP were even available. Server-side Java was not something as widely available as Perl or PHP, and Java as a language was not written for the web like PHP was (easily embeddable in HTML, straightforward DB access, etc).

WebObjects - didn't have any direct experience with that back then, but it and many other proprietary options were quite pricey, IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> These rules aren't even internally consistent. For instance, 5 and 9 seem to conflict with 14. If life is short and you need to enjoy it, why would you spend 40 hours a week flipping burgers?

Rule 12 just seems a bit near-sighted and a little "get off my lawn." I see people with spiky colored hair and piercings and I think they look cool; it's because I'm from a different generation. Similarly, smoking used to make you look cool in the previous generation but it's fallen out of favor.

<comment><USER11> I think the idea behind rule #12 is that dyeing your hair is not a good substitute for developing a personality.

<comment><USER17> This is absolutely true. Although rocking a dyed mohawk for awhile may help you develop a strong personality. Because you already stand out, you might worry less about fitting in and be free to express your true self.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> But let's not forget an important corollary: many people espousing such lists about how tough life is and the importance of self-reliance are in fact ripping you off, lining their own wallets, and flaunting the law until such a time as they can pay for it to be changed in their favor, at your expense.

So remember that self-esteem is fine in moderation, don't be naive and think that fairness isn't worth fighting for, and have the spine to stand up for yourself. Even when some self-serving moralizer has a 14-point list of why you should just suck it up.

Because what that list doesn't doesn't tell you is that it's not about rules kids won't learn in school. It's about how no authority figures (including wannabes such as Sykes) will tell you what isn't in their interests for you to know.

</comment><comment><USER19> I tell my kids, "When someone says something is 'unfair,' what they really mean is, 'this is not working to my advantage.'"

<comment><USER20> An even what people think of fair often isn't.

I wish I could remember where I heard this..

Two people have to share a cake. The reasonable person asks for half the cake, the unreasonable person asks for the whole cake. They compromise and split the difference - the reasonable person gets quarter of the cake and the unreasonable person gets three quarters.

Quite often people get more in life simply by expecting more than their fair share - and it _works_ as most of us are reasonable.

<comment><USER21> This is a variation of the famous question used to judge the level of testosterone in men in regards to "alpha" behaviour.

Apparently most people would be ok with at least a 20% share, getting less than that and they will demand nobody gets any cake.

The more testosterone in your blood, the bigger share you demand. So for example an average guy will want 50% to 60% of the cake, whereas a more alpha male will demand 75% and get away with it because the threshold for "no deal" is 80%.

What this teaches us is: Ask for as much as you can get away with even if it feels utterly wrong.

<comment><USER2> > This is a variation of the famous question used to judge the level of > testosterone in men in regards to "alpha" behaviour.

As long as they're not smart enough to be self-aware of their own bullshit, for then they should treat other people fairly no matter how big and hairy a fucking ape they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wah wah, what a waste of time and energy. This is just another person with the attitude of "you think your life is tough? Well mine is tougher."

Paraphrase: You think its tough going to school? Try going to work all year with a boss.

Wah wah.

He is simply trying to apply his personal life experiences to the masses. My guess is he never become who he dreamed of becoming. His oversimplification of these "universal truths" is annoying, and his arrogant self deluded wisdom can be seen in his final two words....you're welcome.

</comment><comment><USER23> Unfortunately, it's doesn't make any sense until it's too late.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> No, this isn't about hacking or startups, but in response to some of the comments being made elsewhere about curmudgeons and "entitled new grads" I thought it worth trotting out this rather elderly piece.

It looks and feels trite - I know - but there are lessons here that are worth taking on board. In particular, many of the comments are reflected in the more recent advice often given to entrepreneurs and hackers.

Make of it what you will.

</comment><comment><USER24> I remember reading this or a slightly different version in one of the chain emails that I was receiving back like 5-6 years ago. The main difference between this one and the ones I was receiving is that mine were presented as being said by Bill Gates at a highschool/college talk he gave. Definitely more interesting that way.

<comment><AUTHOR> According to Snopes, that's wrong:

* <http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/schoolrules.asp>

<comment><USER24> Yeah I know that now, but until now I didn't bother checking it since I completely forgot about this anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1\. _Life is not fair._ Sure, it isn't always, but we can try to make it more fair, for example by acknowledging that people are equal in their humanity. And _we_ are part of life, not existing passively apart from it. I've noticed that people who say things like 'life isn't fair' and 'the world is a cruel place' often act to make it so.

2\. _Self-esteem._ School may state that it cares about pupils' self-esteem, but, without stating it, and perhaps without even realising, it tries to crush people's creativity and autonomy. And it often succeeds.

3\. _$40k_. There are plenty of computer programmers who make that much w/o a degree.

4\. _Bosses are mean_. Plenty of those programmers work from home and don't have bosses, or they work for bosses who stay well away.

5\. _Flipping burgers_. Unless you're a creative chef then flipping burgers _is_ beneath your dignity, in the long run. Eventually this will come to be acknowledged by most people, just as having servants is no longer cool. The sooner we get robots to do the flipping, the better.

6\. _Don't blame parents_. Plenty of hang ups are passed from parents to their children via anti-rational memes. I would agree that we shouldn't _blame_ our parents for this. (Blaming is the opposite of problem solving.)

7\. _Tidiness and bills_. People shouldn't worry about tidiness, which, like shaving and personal grooming, isn't intrinsically very important. Ditto spending money on extra cars, expensive clothes and holidays, live sporting events, doing up houses, school fees, etc. Combating lice is a parental responsibility. Stop herding children into schools -- that would probably help!

8\. _Grades_ haven't been abolished just yet, although I think they ought to be, because they don't measure anything useful, and they cause a lot of upset.

9\. _Eight hours work every day_. See 3. These programmers choose their own hours. Frequently they enjoy working 12+ hours. And they have long breaks between contracts. If we are optimistic and keep improving then eventually all jobs will be like this.

10\. _Televisions_ are physical objects and watching them is part of real life. Art and entertainment are sources of education and inspiration. If somebody is watching TV compulsively, this may be a problem, but it's not a problem to do with TV (maybe he's been damaged by all these rules).

11\. _Be nice to nerds_. Yes! We can judge societies by how they treat nerds. But go further: _become_ a nerd. Become interested in something.

12\. _Smoking does not make you look cool_. Possibly. However, going on and on about this is sufficient to cause young people to take up smoking.

13\. _Immortal_. Why can't I be? I expect Aubrey de Grey will begin repairing my body about 25 years from now. Ultimately I'll be able to start making backups of myself.

14\. _Enjoy this while you can_. Yes, everyone should try to make the best of the situation, however old and wherever they are. Tackling problems is fun. Life is good.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is really ironic given <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381608>

</comment><comment><USER27> complaining about your life is usually not a good way to get others to stop complaining about theirs..

</comment><comment><USER28> I just read the following for the first time and I thought I'd put down my responses. The original piece is sad and I pity the author for his loss of pride and idealism. Lets see how we can turn this into a message of hope ...

                      Some rules kids won't learn in school
                            Text By Charles J. Sykes

                       Printed in San Diego Union Tribune
                               September 19, 1996

Unfortunately, there are some things that children should be learning in school, but don't. Not all of them have to do with academics. As a modest back-to-school offering, here are some basic rules that may not have found their way into the standard curriculum.

First off, lets get rid of 'rules.' These are one mans observations on life and don't hold true for everyone, or all the time. \--- Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase, "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule No. 1.

The better the world is, the more fair it seems. The world should be fair. But that's not what the author is talking about. The lesson that children don't learn is that it is very difficult to distinguish personal desire from objective fairness. For example, it's not fair that I was born to smart parents, or that I have a nice job and a nice house. But I rarely take the time to consider the gross unfairness of this situation because it benefits me. Learning to see when things are unfair because the world needs to be improved, and when you feel wronged because your desires aren't met is a skill most teenagers lack. \--- Rule No. 2: The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

There is no such thing as the real world, there is only the one world after all :) In fact those people that love you will always want you to feel good about yourself. What the author is identifying is not that life outside of school is uncaring, it's that it is much harder. Problems that you deal with in school arn't problems at all, they've already been solved. They are tests. Outside of school you'll see real problems and if you've never faced a real problem it can be traumatic. Failing at hard things is very common and students might not be used to it. \--- Rule No. 3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label. Cute anachronisms aside there is much more to this point that should go into an education. Given early academic choices what can you expect from the job market? There are well documented statistics, and if you graduate from school without an awareness of these, you're in trouble. Your degree in philosophy will put you at the Gap, but your CS degree will probably have a better return. \--- Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

This observation makes me very sad. What life circumstances forced this man to endure uncaring leadership? Almost every boss I've had did care about me and wanted to know how I was doing, knew the importance of moral and emotional health, and had my back in a crunch. The rule here is if your boss doesn't fit that description and you have any choice at all, leave and leave fast. \--- Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand-parents had a different word of burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Pride is a powerful thing. Flipping burgers should be beneath _anyone's_ dignity. They should be so mad at having to flip burgers that they will do anything, go to great lengths so that they don't have to anymore. Maybe they will even invent an automated way to flip burgers :) \--- Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Again I feel bad for this guy, somewhere along the way he lost his support network and grew a highly jaded skin. Parents are there to catch you when you fall, if your 5, 10, or 50. The only job a parent has is to see the success and continuation of their offspring. People who don't feel this way shouldn't be parents in the first place. Great parents however will never need to do this though because children destined for happy lives and great things take pride in personal ability, accomplishment, and independence. Being an adult means that you don't need to ask for help very often but you arn't afraid to when you do. It's a very hard line to walk and that's the lesson children often miss. \--- Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

If you resent your children it unlikely you're going to be a good parent. Now I feel bad for this guy and his kids. \--- Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule No. 1, Rule No. 2 and Rule No. 4)

A few things matter in life. Winning and losing are not part of that set. Being able to accomplish your goals is important, but if you're playing a game where the only way for you to win is for someone else to lose ... YOU'RE PLAYING A GAME, and whatever it is doesn't really matter. Life is not a zero sum game. \--- Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interesting in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self- realization. (See Rule No. 1 and Rule No. 2.)

I can't begin to articulate how saddening this mindset makes me, and I'm glad I don't suffer from it. Every day is an opportunity to reinvent yourself and the thing holding you back from doing so ... that's probably fear. Look hard at whatever you think it is, it' probably fear masquerading as knowledge. \--- Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Sure, but how about "Don't watch T.V." That's a rule I think we could all live with. \--- Rule No. 11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Teh lolz. \--- Rule No. 12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

First part I'm all for, but the second? I'm terribly vanilla, but if you really want purple hair and piercings, go for it! That stuff grows back. In the spirit of the rule lets go with "Tatoos are probably a bad idea." Why? Because they last and last and last, and the impulse that made you get it will fade. On the other hand, if you consider your body a canvas, remember you only get one and having a master plan before you start couldn't hurt. \--- Rule No. 13: You are not immortal. (See Rule No. 12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Actually is is terribly romantic, it is fantastic, it is totally selfish. Once you're dead, that's it. The rest of us have to go on living, so have a care for us ok? \--- Rule No. 14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now.

And to all the different ones, "It gets better." Being an adult is a hell of a lot more fun for us than being a kid ever was.

</comment><comment><USER29> Haha, old but a great post. I agree with most of the entries 110%!

<comment><USER30> Evidently percentages aren't something that kids learn in school either :)</comment></comment>


Eventbrite S-1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1475115/000119312518255960/d593770ds1.htm <comment><USER2> Congrats to EventBrite on choosing to go public, but I think a congratulations is in order for their 2017 sales team.

> More than 95% of creators who used our platform in 2017 signed themselves up > for Eventbrite. In 2017, we derived 54% of our net revenue from these > creators.

Selling to about 35,000 creators (700,000 total) for 46% of the profit is no small chore, and, in my mind, speaks to a highly effective sales strategy. It also partially explains why LiveNation is not taking a "create your own event online" approach: direct sales can be more profitable.

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind that Eventbrite doesn't charge anything to host free events, which is all many of their organic customers ever host. That said, the amount of revenue you can get from music festivals and venues, which require a sales team to make the deals, dwarfs what you can get from most other customers. There's a reason Eventbrite bought Ticketfly. For that same reason, Live Nation has bought some of Eventbrite's customers and moved their ticketing to Ticketmaster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I chuckled when I read "For example, we previously experienced interruptions in performance of our platform because of a hardware error that AWS experienced" on page 26.

I never expected one of the mishaps I dealt with while I worked there to appear in an SEC filing! If you want to learn a lot at the expense of a few gray hairs, I can highly recommend working in ops in the ticketing industry. I've spoken about some of the things it taught me at [https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa17/conference- program/...](https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa17/conference- program/presentation/pitts)

<comment><USER4> Is reading S-1 filings a thing (nerd)?

<comment><USER5> I think when it is a company you worked for, you might be more likely to do it. You probably still have a bit of attachment to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an early Eventbrite employee who saw the company grow from 10 to 200 people, this feels surreal.

<comment><USER7> Funny story is my company at the time looked at acquiring EventBrite about 10? years ago, and as part of the integration eval, I happened to run the ab command against their endpoint. Few minutes later VP ran to my office and told me to stop as EventBrite called saying we were DDOSing them.

Congrats to EventBrite on going public. Am glad you stayed independent, as my company would have ruined them, like many other acquisitions..

<comment><USER8> not a pro *nix guy here - what is the ab command and why does it make sense as part of an integration eval?

<comment><USER7> ab is ApacheBench[0], was measuring the response time of an API.

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

<comment><USER9> One word: stress test tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hope Eventbrite and Brown Paper Tickets are successful in stealing some business from their nasty competitors like Ticketmaster whose fees can be 50% of the ticket price.

Edit: their fees can be over 100% of the ticket price.

<comment><USER11> Part of that goes to the venue and occasionally the bands too: [https://www.laweekly.com/music/ticketmaster-and-servants- ban...](https://www.laweekly.com/music/ticketmaster-and-servants-bands-get- cut-of-service-fee-2158605)

<comment><USER10> Doesn't make a difference. Maybe it's an industry problem, because it doesn't make sense to advertise the ticket price but hide a bunch of fees to be found at checkout. (I'm looking at you, airlines). Might as well advertise everything as $1 and everything else is fees.

It reminds me of Centurylink's "Internet Cost Recovery Fee" for $3.99 a month. It's a bullshit sneaky way to advertise one price but the actual price is "below the fold". I think this kind of pricing should be illegal.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't make sense? Sure it does. Ticketmaster's sales team gets to go to venue and say "if you go with us, you can charge outrageous fees, pocket most of it, and we'll take all the blame".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I cannot be happier for Eventbrite! What a valuable product. My own startup wouldn't have taken off as fast without Eventbrite. Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER3> The best article I've seen so far is [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/ticketing-site-eventbrite- fi...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/ticketing-site-eventbrite-files-to- raise-up-to-200-million-in-ipo.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Go to eventbrite.com, search (blank) your local area "today" and events are not in chronological order. I appreciate that they show the 'best' events first, but when I just want something to do, it kills me that such a simple search is not available.

</comment><comment><USER14> As someone launching a coding camp for kids, Eventbrite has been instrumental for us. We do free classes to generate leads and the free offering of EB has been more than enough to accomplish this. Good to see them succeed.

</comment><comment><USER15> Network effect could solve gaps and make Eventbrite emerge as №1 player vs. LiveNation. But only in the ticketing for the entertainment segment. This is further challenged due to Top 5 wants a pie of every tech-driven business: Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and even Apple. They own the network.

here is my detailed thought post: [https://medium.com/@santoshpanda/my- thoughts-on-eventbrites-...](https://medium.com/@santoshpanda/my-thoughts-on- eventbrites-s-1-event-tech-industry-segments-and-trillion-world- market-680dc6a437b)

</comment><comment><USER16> As a non-American who's never invested in shares outside of his own country. How do I get a slice of this pie?

This is one of the few specific companies I'd actually be interested in investing in, rather than throwing all my money into indexes.

<comment><USER17> Get a US brokerage account like Schwab.

<comment><USER18> Interactive brokers would be my vote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if this has to do with building a war chest to compete with meetup + WeWork . . .

though meetup and eventbrite are definitely different.

<comment><USER20> Not likely - Eventbrite ate Meetup's lunch a long time ago and the sale to WeWork was about surviving Facebook's stated plans to own 'groups'. I didn't read the S-1 but I believe Eventbrite is in a league of it's own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> They just also recently acquired Picatic, another vendor in this space. Hopefully that helps with the figures.

<comment><USER3> That highlights one thing to keep in mind when evaluating their 2017 growth: EB purchased both Ticketscript and Ticketfly that year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Congrats Julia (and Kevin)! Amazing company you've built.

</comment><comment><USER23> Congrats Eventbrite team. You guys earned it!

</comment><comment><USER24> "We have a history of losses and we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to achieve and maintain profitability."

<comment><USER25> What's the point? This is a common risk for all companies.

<comment><USER26> Not companies going public (historically). It's only recently these hot messes of unprofitably are getting dumped on the public markets.

VCs are for gambling, public markets are for profitable businesses.

<comment><USER27> Any reason why this should remain the status quo? Why shouldn't the general public be allowed to invest in slightly-risky ventures?

<comment><USER26> Because the public are not accredited/sophisticated investors. It's to prevent them from being swindled.

How much did professional investors lose on Theranos alone (answer: Somewhere between $600-$800 million)?

<comment><USER28> Recently looked up "accredited investor". Joint income of > $300k and net worth (minus house) of > $ 1M.

I wonder if someone actually does the accrediting.

<comment><USER29> It's actually > $300k income _or_ > $1M net worth. And, no, nobody does the accrediting. It's basically an honor system.

<comment><USER30> >300k income joint, >200k income single, or >1m excl. primary residence in any event.

Paraphrasing an attorney from years ago: The risk of lying to invest in something only open to accredited investors is colossal both to the entity raising funds as well as to the investor, and it can/does get caught during diligence, so it's not so much an honor system as it is something that inevitably gets audited/managed either down the road or especially when something goes wrong.

This may have changed and my recollection may not be accurate. Lastly, this isn't legal advice given that I'm not a lawyer.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


P vs. NP for Dummies - <AUTHOR> http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=459 <comment><USER2> I really like the idea of introducing difficult problems like these to outsiders (I'm an outsider in this instance) for the sole reason that it greatly increases the odds that someone may come out of left-field and either solve it or at least provide an insight that helps solve it.

Speaking of breaking down complex ideas with analogies, I'm reminded of this Wired article [1] which examines the inhibition of breakthroughs caused by experts' cognitive biases:

 _Modern science is populated by expert insiders, schooled in narrow disciplines. Researchers have all studied the same thick textbooks, which make the world of fact seem settled. This led Kuhn, the philosopher of science, to argue that the only scientists capable of acknowledging the anomalies — and thus shifting paradigms and starting revolutions — are "either very young or very new to the field." In other words, they are classic outsiders, naive and untenured. They aren't inhibited from noticing the failures that point toward new possibilities._

Or a more specific observation from one of the cited studies in the article:

 _[A diverse lab] mulled the problem [of unexpected protein synthesis results] at a group meeting. None of the scientists were protein experts, so they began a wide-ranging discussion of possible solutions. At first, the conversation seemed rather useless. But then, as the chemists traded ideas with the biologists and the biologists bounced ideas off the med students, potential answers began to emerge. "After another 10 minutes of talking, the protein problem was solved," Dunbar says. "They made it look easy."_

[1] [http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_accept_defeat/all...](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_accept_defeat/all/1)

<comment><USER3> "I really like the idea of introducing difficult problems like these to outsiders (I'm an outsider in this instance) for the sole reason that it greatly increases the odds that someone may come out of left-field and either solve it or at least provide an insight that helps solve it."

Really? I kinda doubt this happens often (or even at all) with hard Mathematical problems like P vs NP. We're talking about problems that tend to have so much history and theorizing about them that it would take enormous effort just to understand what is known about _what's hard_.

Does anyone know of any statistics on Mathematical problems being solved by "outsiders"?

<comment><USER2> I guess I could have emphasized the "problems like this" and the "at least provide insight that helps solve" parts, as I wasn't suggesting that some amatuer will necessarily come along and completely solve this problem. And sure, I agree that in specific instances in which the problem is purely mathematical, outsiders probably rarely have much impact.

That being said, it was my understanding that even the most recent paper posted here causing all this stir over the P/NP problem, was using statistical physics, which does indeed make it a somewhat "out of left-field" approach not used by the domain experts that have been traditionally studying this problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thank you for this. I've been trying to figure out the "big picture" of this, and it is helpful to have someone explain it who understands the minute details.

<comment><USER5> P vs NP is basically talking about problems where you can checking each possibility in a reasonable amount of time, but the number of possibility's keeps growing faster as the numbers get larger.

The traveling salesman is the easiest to understand, let's say you want to visit 11 city's which route is the fastest? It's easy to find out how long a route takes just add 10 numbers (the travel times between each city). However, there are basically 11! (11 * 10 * 9 * 8 ...) paths to look at. Add a new city, and there are suddenly 11 times as many options and each of them take 10% longer to compute (you add 11 numbers for each path vs 10). Going from 1001 to 1002 city's gives 1001 times as many routs, but calculating each route only takes 0.1% longer to compute (add 1000 vs 1001 numbers).

The only real hope if you want the perfect solution is for there be some secret that let's you eliminate many options without checking them. The simple truth is you can skip _some_ steps aka, if your looking for the fastest trip though every major city in the US, you can ignore any path that starts with a longer trip than a complete path. AKA if you now of a route that visits every city in 21,357 miles you and you take longer than that to visit 80% of the city's you can ignore all paths that start that way. But, what are the limits on those improvements? What is the fastest possible approach?

PS: There are many options that can give a reasonably good solution, EX: if a computer picks the best random path from 1 million possible paths then it's probably better than 99.99% of the options. You can then take the best random paths and try to improve them by trying simple manipulations (swapping city's etc).

<comment><USER6> In retrospect, the traveling salesman problem was actually an impediment for me to understand the P vs. NP question. Reasons:

1) Formally, P vs. NP is presented as a binary YES/NO question rather than a "what is the smallest number such that <something>"? Only after you grasp the Y/N format of the question are you shown the trick where you can convert any problem in FNP into NP by converting it into a binary Y/N question with the help of a binary search. If you are presented initially with the TSP as the canonical P/NP problem, it is unclear for a while how it fits into the formal presentation

2) (If my understanding on this point is incorrect, I will be glad if someone disabuses me of my misconception): Sometimes, P vs. NP is presented as "problems to which it is harder to find the solution than to verify a solution once it's given". TSP is not actually one of those problems: if someone hands you a possible solution, the process for verifying that it is indeed correct is equivalent to finding it in the first place.

<comment><USER3> 1) Agreed.

2) You're right; TSP is NP Hard, _not_ NP Complete.

But if you're talking about the YES/NO version, then it is defined (ala Wikipedia) like this: "given the [graph and] costs and a number x, decide whether there is a round-trip route cheaper than x". This problem _is_ NP Complete; it's easy to see that verifying in this case just means summing the weights and seeing if they are below `x`.

<comment><USER5> A version I was told to think about was competing travel agents. At each step they need to find a better solution or know when to stop looking. It's still not quite there _"given the [graph and] costs and a number x, decide whether there is a round-trip route cheaper than x"_ but if you are handed a graph you can say it's shorter and then give it as the answer. The difference is there may be approaches that prove there is a shorter path, without finding it.

However, the mental model is vary close to the generic solution because someone can hand you the 2nd best solution which looks nothing like the best solution and you still need to find it. Where if you are handed the best solution they may be a shortcut to proving it's the best.

PS: The Clique problem always seemed like the version where shortcuts seemed most obvious. But, understanding why they fail is a larger mental jump IMO than NP Hard TSP to NP Complete TSP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> fwiw, I found this <http://claymath.msri.org/pversusnp.mov> (warning: video/.mov) very lucid. She (Dr Ramachandran) starts from some basic problems and leads us to the problem P vs NP.

As a self professed 'dummy', I would recommend it anyone who wants to understand the gist of P vs NP

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP>

</comment><comment><USER9> An even simpler explanation:

There are many problems of the form of several sets of options, where a possible solution to the problem represents a particular choice for each possible option. An example might be a diet where there is a list of acceptable foods (each with a particular calorie value) and a maximum calorie recommendation for each day, the problem being choosing which foods to eat in a particular day. A characteristic of these types of problems is that they are relatively "easy" to check the answers. It's easy to determine if a particular set of food choices adds up to under or over the maximum recommendation for the diet. If you were to tag each food option with a "deliciousness" value then you could also total up the deliciousness index of a daily set of food choices and judge them relative to each other.

Some of these problems are such that the total number of possible solutions grows extraordinarily fast relative to the "size" of the problem (e.g. number of possible food choices). So fast that for relatively "small" problem sizes (perhaps only 100 or so food choices) it becomes fundamentally impossible to compute every single possible solution to the problem (even if you had a computer that ran as fast as the laws of physics allowed and was the size of the entire known universe). More so, some of these problems are such that there is no way to come up with an _exact_ solution that is faster than being forced to do a brute force check of all or many of the possible solutions.

Now, this doesn't mean that (depending on the problem) you can't generate quite good approximations to the most optimal solution to the problem by using shortcuts, but exact solutions are impractical.

As it turns out, many of these types of super-hard problems are closely related to each other. Such that you can translate one variety of problem (such as how to travel through several cities in the least amount of total distance or how to schedule a large number of meetings between a large number of people using a fixed number of meeting rooms) into another variety. Which would mean that if you had a shortcut to "easily" (i.e. practically) compute a solution to one you could come up with solutions to all of the other classes of problems as well, merely by couching those other problems within the frame of the problem you had "solved".

This is the essence of P vs. NP. P is the class of problems where the cost of computing an exact solution doesn't necessarily grow too fast relative to input sizes to be impractical with real-world computers. NP is the class of problems that are equivalent to P problems if you happen to have a magical computer which could evaluate and compare any number of possible solutions simultaneously. Naturally, NP will include all of the P problems, so NP- complete problems are taken to be the set of problem for which only the magical computer would be suitable.

The question is whether or not there is actually a difference between P and NP problems. As mentioned, all NP-complete problems are essentially equivalent, if you come up with a way to turn one of them into a P-problem then you can turn all NP-complete problems into P-problems. However, these problems are so difficult to grapple with that we don't know whether this is possible or impossible. Currently we believe that it is impossible, that there are no ways to come up with exact solutions to NP-complete problems except through trying many or all of the possible solutions (making exact solutions impractical or impossible, depending on the problem size).

If P was equal to NP then it's possible that there would be some consequences (some good and some bad). It might be possible to come up with exactly optimal network routing, for example. But it might also be possible to crack public key cryptography.

Proving that P was not equal to NP would have some consequences as well. It would mean that we couldn't ever hope for anything better than approximate solutions for some problems (e.g. routing and scheduling) and public key cryptography might be generally reliable (with a large enough key size).

</comment><comment><USER10> Thanks to everyone who helped break it down. I had no idea my comment would actually get this level of a response.

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe these "dummies" would benefit more by learning about social media or python programming.

Why fixate on this particular problem as opposed to learning all sorts of other things that are more useful?

<comment><USER12> "Useful" is a particularly subjective word, and shouldn't necessarily be the metric by which we measure the opportunity cost of our time.

Many advances in the world that you and I take for granted are the direct result of pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. When Einstein developed relativity, he wasn't trying to figure out how to sync satellites to make GPS more accurate (and obviously satellites didn't exist at the time). But if that theory was never developed, we wouldn't have all the luxuries that GPS provides for us. That is just a trifling example of how the quest for deeper understanding of fundamental knowledge has made the world a better place.

Lots of people on hacker news love writing code. That's great, seriously. Looking down on others because their interests aren't as purportedly "useful" as yours is pretty arrogant and shortsighted.

<comment><USER11> _When Einstein developed relativity, he wasn't trying to figure out how to sync satellites to make GPS more accurate (and obviously satellites didn't exist at the time)._

These "dummies" have essentially zero chance of making any meaningful contribution to the P vs NP problem.

<comment><USER12> So they shouldn't be interested in learning about it?

<comment><USER11> But why this as opposed to a whole host of other things that they might learn instead?

I think people should think more carefully about how they spend their time.

<comment><USER13> If you're being sincere, I suggest that this is the generally-held position on this thread of discussion:

A) A lot of people are immensely fascinated by questions in theoretical science and mathematics, including P=NP.

B) A lot of people enjoy learning about things regardless of obvious utility. Personally, my choice of topics to spend time studying has nothing to do with whether it will pay off for me at some point. It's a pleasant luxury of modern life that many people can afford to do that.

C) If you are in camps A and B, it seems extremely arrogant and insulting when you suggest "Why this?" and "I think people should think more carefully about how they spend their time." Since you seem to have no perception of why anyone is fascinated by this work, it appears completely nonsensical to suggest these things to communities populated with a bunch of people who are clearly interested in it, or to readers of a big blog post discussing it.

If you really have something to say about points A or B, or something else, I wish you would say it instead of wrapping it in these bizarre, judgemental insults.

<comment><USER11> Basically this interest in P!=NP is like yielding to authority.

I would like to decide for myself what's worth studying -- not have it dictated to me.

Having said this, of course anyone who has an interest in computing should know what the P vs NP problem is about, but learning enough to be able to follow proof strategy for P vs NP is another matter.

<comment><USER13> I think the interest in P=NP specifically is for two reasons besides authority:

\- Anyone with a little bit of CS or programming background can understand the formulation of the problem, similar to how anyone can understand Fermat's Last Theorem.

\- There are only so many open problems that anyone can understand. Open problems are interesting to casual observers since they represent a boundary between the known and unknown, and since they invite the imagination to think up ways to attack them.

Once you've invested yourself a little bit in the problem for these reasons, I think it's natural curiosity to want to spend twenty or thirty minutes, or more, learning about the outline of a novel proof strategy.

That said, this article was a general introduction to what the problem is about, not a description of the proof.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Are H-1B Holders Affected by the U.S. Green Card Application Flip Flop? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/10/06/how-are-h1-b-holders-affected-by-the-u-s-green-card-application-flip-flop/ <comment><USER2> Country limits for Green Card really need to go.

Number of green cards offered to People born in China and India (With Billion+ Population) is same as to people born in Vatican City (Less than 1000 population).

<comment><USER3> It's not America's fault that China and India have insane birth rates. More than half of them live in poverty and many corrupt officials stole money from the Chinese people and settled in the US, Australia or Canada. Allowing more Chinese immigration would come with corruption.

<comment><USER4> Of course by definition there is no corruption in western countries ;) On a serious note, the country limits make sense since it was designed for diversity (both lottery and employment based). It is unfair to give preferential treatment to a particular group. Whether we like to admit it or not diversity is important (I'm an Indian and I'm saying this)

<comment><USER5> its quite a bit more complicated than that but yes. On the one hand one could argue that the US is also stealing resources from india because the US has more power.

On the other hand if 100% of india works in the US, you're back to the reason why you left india, in another land. It's a bigger issue than an immigration issue, and honestly I don't think it's solvable (til machines supersede humans of course).

<comment><USER6> I can only talk about India so here are my 2 cents:

1\. Almost all people who are trying to leave India are highly educated.

2\. Most of them don't plan to stay outside India for long time.

3\. Large percentage of them go back to India when they have a girl child (contrary to popular western rhetoric about 'we are so great they are so bad', women in India are several times safer than in USA).

4\. Another large group goes back to India once they have paid house loans, earned enough money, have ailing parents that need help. (India doesn't have a social security system.)

5\. A large group of Indians who end up staying 'abroad' are from very specific areas of India (5 out of 29 states of India - Punjab and 4 states of southern India).

6\. People from Punjab suffered a cultural shock during partition of India in 1947 and so they see little value in blind nationalism. Most of them are doing business and are not necessarily highly educated (I mean _disproportionately_ ). They accept westernization with open hearts.

7\. Southern states don't appreciate Hindi being promoted by a Delhi based government - imagine Texas where everyone spoke 4 different languages but not English). So they are prone to moving out for prosperity. They are mostly highly educated. Most of the 'talent companies' like Infosys etc. are being run by them because they generally keep good ties back home. In general no love for westernization. Apu from Simpsons is their caricature.

In short - the degree of success for an Indian in America depends on his support structure. Some communities have built it by being quite and bringing over the family, others have embraced westernization. Both require sheer perseverance. But for large number of Indians, it is simply easier to go back rich and enjoy respect from peers back in India.

<comment><USER7> "Large percentage of them go back to India when they have a girl child"

Do you mean the birth of a girl child is a trigger to go back?

"women in India are several times safer than in USA"

What measure are you referring to?

<comment><USER6> "Do you mean the birth of a girl child is a trigger to go back?" Yes. "What measure are you referring to?" Rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> With every passing day I find myself asking "Who are these people still falling for the 'American Dream' scheme?". I mean, it's just so obvious that this country is slowly falling apart, there are so many huge problems that I don't even know with which issue to start. I guess John Oliver's 'Last Week Tonight' is quite honest and does a decent job at scratching the surface. But for myself, following Edward Snowden's work and understanding it in the general economic/political context was the final nail in the coffin.

<comment><USER9> _this country is slowly falling apart_

People are _literally_ dying to leave some other countries and people are _literally_ dying to come here. And I mean _literally_ as in _actually_ not as in _figuratively_. People are voting with their feet.

Quite a few years ago Ken Hamblin[1] wrote a book titled _Pick a Better Country_. That same sentiment still applies. What are the alternatives? Do those alternatives allow as much immigration as the USA does?

To riff on the old Winston Churchill quip: America is the worst country there is, except for all the others.

 _there are so many huge problems_

It's hard to disagree with that.

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

<comment><USER10> > _What are the alternatives? Do those alternatives allow as much immigration > as the USA does?_

America has ranks #40 on the list of net migration per capita [1]. So to answer your question: Every developed country on the list before #40, like, oh, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, etc. etc. etc.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate)

<comment><USER9> It sounds good/bad (depending on your perspective) if you put the USA down at country #40. However, data and statistics are tricky things. For example:

1) Many of the first 39 countries don't come anywhere close to the "pick a better country" requirement. E.g. Lebanon at #1, Zimbabwe at #3, Libya at #6.

2) Many of the countries are tiny. E.g. British Virgin Islands has a population under 29,000. So they might look good per capita, but they hardly matter in absolute numbers.

3) There will, of course, be requirements for immigrants. But some might be rather draconian. E.g. will the UAE even allow an immigrant unless he's already a Sunni Muslim?

4) While it sounds impressive that 39 countries are "ahead" of the USA, I totaled up the population of the first 10 on the list and it came to 51,533,343. (I was too lazy to cut/paste the rest out of Wikipedia). The point is that even though the USA per capita is lower than those, we make up a lot by having 321,605,012 "capita" already here.

5) I did a quick search for number of illegal immigrants per year into USA and came up with 500,000. The estimates differ widely, so who knows the real numbers. We probably (wild speculation!) have more illegal immigration than the other developed countries on your list. E.g. it's hard to get into New Zealand by sneaking across the border. Oh and BTW New Zealand is actually #45, not "before" us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Personally I had to leave the US as my H1-B was not even looked at in time to be able to continue my work, which includes traveling. They had 6 months time to process my application to no avail.

With an expired H1-B visa they don't let you in again. Premier processing fees did nothing. My company is in Texas not California, maybe that's why.

But I'm happy to back in a democracy now (Germany), even if the US pays better. Helping out developing countries is fine, but their state is not working, and this affects business.</comment>