The crisis in physics is not only about physics - <AUTHOR> https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-crisis-in-physics-is-not-only-about.html <comment><USER2> There is alot going on in physics besides things directly related to the standard model. Running out of important things to study is of no concern. As a random example check out the microscopy work by recent nobel prize winner Eric Betzig.

I think people fail to appreciate the many frontiers that exist in just understanding how matter interracts with itself. The past was exciting because we got to discover new building blocks, but that only provides information on the periphery of whats going on. We know all sorts of stuff about the proton, but put it in a nucleus with a few dozen other nucleons and its a whole different story. All sorts of virtual particles are exchanged, its really complicated, and there literally arent any models that can predict the properties of the nucleus purely from first principles. There are important conceptual and computational innovations happening continuously to make progress on hundreds of problems just like this.

<comment><USER3> I was briefly involved in Single Molecule Biophysics, where microscopes push the limits of what you can do with visible light in order to understand protein behaviour, where I heard the often repeated warning: "the microscope is an experiment itself". This was born out of the incredibly fancy and poorly understood microscope, which was experimental, and it was no guarantee that you were measuring the protein and not some weird light physics effect!

<comment><USER4> > and it was no guarantee that you were measuring the protein and not some > weird light physics effect!

My thesis was in fluorescent bio physics at the nano scale (STED). We literally had a PI effect. Normally, the 'PI effect' is that when the professor comes in, the experiment stops working, mostly due to Murphy's law. With our case, it was because the extra body heat caused the mirrors to expand and drift out of place, ruining the alignment. This also meant it took a while for the mirrors to come back into alignment after lunch and first thing in the morning. What a mess!

So yes, in microscopy, the apparatus very much is part of the experiment and it takes _ages_ to get things controlled and imaging correctly.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your reply! I actually found out one of my current coworkers helped build a single molecule scope, he talked about the use of an air cushion beneath the giant breadboard of lasers to ensure they stayed nm accurate.

<comment><USER4> Most optics tables are floated on air pistons these days, they aren't super expensive. It helps with vibe issues and with shock absorption (there is a lot of slamming your head on the table when doing optics alignment :P ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was great until the bit about medicine. Medicine has made huge, tremendous progress in the past 30 years. And there are still many serendipitous discoveries happening that lead to new drugs. I mean jesus for the first time ever, a company is going to put up a drug for approval to treat alzheimers.

Let's not lump medicine in with physics, please. Medicine has always been skeptical of theories without data and, while maybe facing issues, they aren't the same as physics.

Its ironic that a physicist, criticizing others physicists, make a common mistake that all physicists make: over simplification and acting like everything is just like physics with slight modifications.

<comment><USER6> > I mean jesus for the first time ever, a company is going to put up a drug > for approval to treat alzheimers.

Derek Lowe isn't quite so optimistic about it: [https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/23/th...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/23/the- return-of-aducanumab)

(tl;dr--the anti-amyloid hypothesis you should be extremely skeptical about, and the inconsistency in the trial data here is signalling that statistical fluke should be a high concern).

<comment><USER7> if you really want to read more, check out [https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/aducanumab- analysis.html](https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/aducanumab-analysis.html)

There's a reason I went back to being a software engineer at an internet company working on ML models that actually work- clinical trials have a long way to go before they produce results that can be really trusted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author is talking about the crisis of a particular subfield of physics, i.e. particle physics.

Other subfields are thriving (AMO, quantum information) and maybe it's just time to accept the relevance of different subfields changes with time.

<comment><USER9> Actually particle physics is doing just fine, the crisis is within a subfield of particle physics, fundamental beyond-standard-model particle physics.

<comment><USER10> One could say that particle physics is more a victim of its own success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > They do not think about which hypotheses are promising because their > education has not taught them to do so. Such self-reflection would require > knowledge of the philosophy and sociology of science, and those are subjects > physicists merely make dismissive jokes about.

Accusing working scientists of being insufficiently reflective on any topic, let alone themselves or the field they work in, seems without merit on its face, and frankly so bizarre as to be silly or even dim-witted. Further, the assertion that only the humanities will save science, or indeed the accusation that scientists are ignorant of the history of science, is a weighty charge that I see no reason to even consider believing.

> They believe they are too intelligent to have to think about what they are > doing.

Come on.

<comment><USER12> I have a PhD in physics. Even though I have left the field, I've hung around with enough of them, and occasionally tried to raise some more philosophical questions with them.

Sabine is unfortunately spot on.

<comment><USER11> > tried to raise some more philosophical questions with them.

Like what? Genuinely interested, not seeking to argue.

<comment><USER12> This is 10 years ago, so unfortunately I don't remember details about discussions I never got going. Some were able to argue for their favourite interpretation of QM, or rather, how to resolve the measurement problem, but I mostly got blank stares when I tried to probe a bit more about the ontology.

One of the reasons I left academia was that I never found the intellectual and curios environment I longed for. The successful people were successful mostly because they knew how to write grant proposals and which committees they should be on, not because they did really interesting science.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, that's not surprising. Cutting-edge R&D is very boring hyper-parameter tuning basically, and requires a kind of person that is able to do things for a long long time (to gather data) and then to think a bit later.

The same goes on with neuro folks. Consciousness, mind, hello? No, just let's poke rats, thanks.

But this works.

And that's why I don't understand Sabine's viewpoint. She can't just sit in an ivory tower and stare down the cosmos in a contest until it reveals its secrets. We need data, better models, better measurements, etc. Yes, sure, it needs better theorists too, but then why not let the experimentalists do what they do best? It's not like there isn't a bunch of theorists in every serious university on the planet, maybe organize them better?

<comment><USER12> Sabine's point is that the current approach doesn't work any longer.

> She can't just sit in an ivory tower and stare down the cosmos in a contest > until it reveals its secrets.

That is a gross misrepresenation of what she is saying. Did you actually read anything she wrote? She is criticising the notion that you can make progress, sitting in the ivory tower, as you exprss it, and coming up ideas about strings and super symmetries _without_ any experimental data or other validation from reality. But she is also critical to the approach: just throw more money and manpower into even bigger experiments before we even know what to look for and hope something interesting reveals itself.

<comment><USER13> But.. but... she can't have it both ways.

The current unexplained data is not much, and the best explanations involve a lot of hard to test things.

Why? Because there's not enough unexplained data. The easy to test theories have been already thrown out.

Yes, sure, what she is saying is nice, let's try to explain stuff the simplest way possible. Occam's razor. But theorists already do this.

<comment><USER12> Of course she can have it both ways. Don't be stupid. There's plenty to do in physics without building an even bigger collider which likely won't teach us more than the current one.

<comment><USER13> plenty to do, such as?

also, she can't wish away the fact that without data any new theories are worthless, even if someone conveniently comes up with one.

also, saying that the LHC haven't taught us anything ignores the reality of all the data that it has generated.

is it shiny "new" physics? no, but it's a crucial prerequisite for that.

particle physics needs new data for new physics eventually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As usual with Sabine, this article blatantly misrepresents how science is done and how actual scientists think, and serves mainly to portray herself as the only person in the field capable of rational thought. People in the comments here are picking up on this when it takes an unfair swipe at medicine, but it really applies to the whole article.

I am not going to bother doing a line-by-line rebuttal, because I've already done this for nearly a hundred of her previous articles, in forums across the internet. It just doesn't matter, because tomorrow she will put out another massively popular article with the same oversimplifications and misrepresentations, and it will get 1000 times the views any response I write could. That is what it means to be a public intellectual. I am a working scientist, which means I have neither the time to keep up nor the audience.

<comment><USER15> > As usual with Sabine, this article blatantly misrepresents how science is > done and how actual scientists think

No offence but she is a trained physicist so she too is an 'actual scientist' by the very definition of the term. And she's completely right about the neglect of economic reasoning. The arguments against blowing 40 billion bucks on an accelerator that will likely not surface anything new is valid. Physicists gotta accept that opportunity costs are real.

And the 'canary in the coalmine' point in particular in regards to pharmaceuticals is valid too. The research costs for very specialised, small scale drugs has exploded by a magnitude or two depending on who you ask. Other fields are starting to suffer as well.

I would go even further than she does and say it's an almost universal condition of modern research. We see diminishing returns everywhere, and if this is not stopped and we don't manage to drastically increase the efficacy of scientific research we'll effectively flatline at some point.

Almost any material hard metrics you look at like life expectancy, economic growth or whatever you could consider a sign of technological advancement, even tens of billions in investment seem to produce only marginal improvements. We are not living in the golden age of science.

<comment><USER16> > Almost any material hard metrics you look at like life expectancy, economic > growth or whatever you could consider a sign of technological advancement, > even tens of billions in investment seem to produce only marginal > improvements. We are not living in the golden age of science.

As a knit pick, these metrics are all derivatives of science output, and not science itself. For example, detecting gravity waves does move the needle on any of these metrics, but it is still a great achievement for experimental physics.

<comment><USER17> Fantastic mondegreen ("knit pick", like picking at stitching with knitting needles, as opposed to "nit pick", which is picking off lice eggs to prevent future annoyance)

<comment><USER18> "Mondegreen" is a word I've needed but didn't know existed. Thanks for sharing.

All intensive purposes. Get down to brass tax. There's a lot of these that I've uttered or heard and they last a long time because they sound kind of sensible.

<comment><USER19> [https://reddit.com/r/BoneAppleTea](https://reddit.com/r/BoneAppleTea)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Plenty of good points being made in this thread.

I'd like to point out that discoveries in fundamental physics do not always come from work in fundamental physics. Physical systems exhibit some "holographic" or "self-similar" tendency where high-level statistical effects will often mimic low-level fundamental dynamics. For example, wave propagation was originally described for pressure waves propagating in a physical medium, then applied to light waves after the work of Maxwell. More recently, the Lorentz transformations, originally used to calculate the effects of finite- speed electric fields on susceptible particles, turned out to be a fundamental property of the universe. And the Hamiltonian path integral formulation, originally a mathematical curiosity, turned out to be crucial for describing relativistic quantum interactions.

Some of the work that `yummypaint describes which is being done in quantum chromodynamics -- a field in which we have a working "lattice" approximation but almost no real analytical solutions -- may eventually prove useful for a theory of quantum gravity. However, QCD is still very immature. Those with a little experience will recognize the phrase "non-perturbative" which describes some QCD problems -- this also appears in quantum gravity, where perturbation theory fails. The lattice gauge theory model used to solve QCD problems today cannot be extended to gravity, but other methods might not have this limitation.

So the lack of clear and demonstrated progress in fundamental physics does not mean that we are not learning real facts which can eventually be useful for describing fundamental physics. The situation is not so dire.

As for critiques of Hossenfelder, it's certainly true that her writing tends to the dramatic. Just last year she was optimistic about asymptotically safe quantum gravity:

[https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-an-old-theory-of- everythi...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-an-old-theory-of-everything- is-gaining-new-life-20180108/)

technical FAQ: [http://www.percacci.it/roberto/physics/as/faq.html](http://www.percacci.it/roberto/physics/as/faq.html)

One might guess that her tone of despair here is a little performative as well.

</comment><comment><USER21> Although I am only in physics by degree and not by practice, I think this is "physics as expected."

Old measurements do not change. Over bog standard Newtonian physics, special relativity provides additional decimals in the form of significant figures and mostly in particular circumstances. For plotting the trajectory of a large rock at comparably low speeds, Newton's equations work rather well on Earth, once you take air resistance into account. Even if another theory supplants special relativity for the extreme situations, old ballistic tables will still work.

Each advance will have smaller and smaller corrections to the experimental values, in narrower edge cases, even if the mathematics of the newer theory looks completely different. This in turn means that discarding an old theory in favor of a new one by experimental confirmation of what was unexpected in the old system must only come either in the more extreme values (more Telsa to a magnetic field, for example) or with greater precision and accuracy via more elaborate and finely-calibrated equipment. Both are expensive, requiring more time and more work.

I believe she is right in that we are certainly on course for some very time- consuming and expensive science. However, I do not see an easy way out of it, nor should we, I believe, expect one. Flip open a CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics; many of the basic values have been long-known. We have added a few more numbers to the right of the decimal in many cases, but that is it. Two hundred years ago, a single person with a modest budget could discover new physics and chemistry. A hundred years ago, a handful of collaborators with some backing could advance these most basic of sciences. By only fifty years back, we are looking at budgets in the millions and teams of scientists working in harness.

It may simply be out of reach to disassemble a galaxy to build a collider large enough to test some theories and at that juncture, one might well consider physics "close enough to done." A mote of dust is always going to fall on some surface no matter how often you polish and buff. At some point you have to stop fussing and enjoy your furniture.

Yes, it is handy to look for the cases where we can find a way to test our hypotheses for under a million dollars, in no more than a few years. We will run out of those, too.

This is "unsexy" to many. The ratcheting noose of entropy in a closed system, which we can only try to run away from at pedestrian sub-light speeds is, bluntly put, a drag.

</comment><comment><USER22> I approve of the message that perhaps a 40 billion dollar particle accelerator is an unwise investment. Otherwise, I'm not sure there's useful information here.

 _" I try to explain to a cosmologist or particle physicists that we need smarter ways to share information and make decisions in large, like-minded communities."_

Making decisions in large, like-minded communities? When has _that_ ever been successful? Isn't that pretty much the opposite of what has led to physics breakthroughs, up and to this point?

 _" And please spare me the complaints that I supposedly do not have anything better to suggest, because that is a false accusation. I have said many times that looking at the history of physics teaches us that resolving inconsistencies has been a reliable path to breakthroughs, so that's what we should focus on."_

If I was a physicists and some random other physicist of little renown was to suggest that I (and everyone else) need to "focus more on the inconsistencies", I wouldn't exactly be swayed. I would be rolling my eyes. It's just not a very useful suggestion to make.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if what the author is observing is an effect of the industrialization of science. As she pointed out,

> Because the existing scientific system does not encourage learning. > Physicists today can happily make career by writing papers about things no > one has ever observed, and never will observe.

Maybe what's really going on is that almost every scientist out there is forced to chase grants and maintain a steady stream of publications. We have to give our scientists the ability to put long-term effort into projects that have a low likelyhood of payoff; otherwise research stagnates.

Also, it seems like the 'groupthink' she pointed out is a very real problem. Remember that weird EM drive associated with NASA? We all know that it's nearly impossible that it could be a valid phenomenon; but as a global scientific community, almost everyone dismissed it outright. We should all have jumped on it, to see if it could possibly be true, regardless of how outlandish. If we are unwilling to explore the boundaries of what we know, then we deserve to stagnate, and we will.

<comment><USER24> The inability to make long-term investments is a major reason I don't intend to stay in academia after my PhD. Government and corporate labs don't seem better in my view either.

At present my plan is the following: Keep the amount of time spent making money to the minimum needed to support myself. Then I can invest my own time and money into research. I could make money from research via grants/contracts like normal academics, but that's not necessary in this scheme. I'm thinking about starting several SaaS businesses.

<comment><USER23> That is almost precisely my own intention. There should be a club. Have you heard of one?

<comment><USER24> I set up this forum a while ago: [https://www.indiesciforum.com/](https://www.indiesciforum.com/)

But I got busy and never launched. I guess this is the launch then? Feel free to join, post, etc. I'd love to discuss this with like-minded folks.

<comment><USER23> Nice! I'll check it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For a less negative view, I recommend the podcast by Sean Carrol, another physicist: [https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/](https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/)

There's a broad spectrum of topics there, and quite a few episodes talk about the foundation of physics, including the quantum measurement problem (several episodes about that, in fact), string theory and several cosmology topics.

</comment><comment><USER26> It feels from the outside, academic research is performed by an individual or small group that culminates into a paper at the end. When attacking large problems in physics or biology this seems short sighted. A potentially better way would be to attack the problem in an organized manner with teams researching various aspects of the problem and building off of each other. Remove the whole 'paper writing/journal article' from the equation and just keep moving forward. Does this exist? Are teams of researchers coordinated from a high level and moving through problem spaces with clear direction? Or is everyone working on their small piece, trying to get their bit of credit?

<comment><USER27> Yes, they do exist. See the CERN supercollider, LIGO, the DEMO fusion reactor, and many other projects.

<comment><USER26> But is the research using these tools coordinated? Or are these tool created and then independent researchers schedule time to use them?

<comment><USER28> I worked many years in particle physics. It is coordinated within each experiment. You can't just publish as a lot of people stand behind the work there must be consensus. There are abundances of physics sub groups, article review boards, research strategies, etc.q

<comment><USER26> Is it coordinated across experiments?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I find it strange that the author thinks physicists speculate too much, then says they should turn to philosophy.

</comment><comment><USER30> "In the foundations of physics, we have not seen progress since the mid 1970s when the standard model of particle physics was completed."

This seems to discount the explosion of work in the foundations of theoretical physics. Most notably the many variations of String Theory. Just because the work has not yet produced experiments that can validate them do not mean they are not progress. It's some of the most exciting foundational work that's come for decades.

<comment><USER31> _> This seems to discount the explosion of work in the foundations of theoretical physics. Most notably the many variations of String Theory._

Hossenfelder is well aware of string theory, as she says right in the article:

"All these wrong predictions should have taught physicists that just because they can write down equations for something does not mean this math is a scientifically promising hypothesis. String theory, supersymmetry, multiverses. There's math for it, alright. Pretty math, even. But that doesn't mean this math describes reality."

 _> Just because the work has not yet produced experiments that can validate them do not mean they are not progress._

But it's not just that string theory hasn't yet produced experiments that can validate it. It's that (a) direct experiments to validate it are something like twenty orders of magnitude away in terms of energy scale, so not doable now or for the foreseeable future, and (b) every prediction it's made so far that can be tested at energy scales we can probe (such as the prediction that supersymmetry would show up at the LHC) has been wrong.

<comment><USER13> Most of those theories have some implications about lower energy ranges. And pushing up energies is a great way to rule out a lot of them.

(And some of those theories have some large scale cosmological implications too, so better telescopes can rule out more.)

But ... there seems to be a lack of (serious) theories that have easily testable predictions. And this is not surprising, because we also lack easily reproducable but yet unexplained data. (For example the high-energy gamma ray busts are very interesting but we have no idea where do they come from really.)

<comment><USER31> _> Most of those theories have some implications about lower energy ranges. And pushing up energies is a great way to rule out a lot of them._

Yes. The problem is that ruling out is _all_ that's happening. Not one has had an implication about lower energy ranges that has turned out to be right.

<comment><USER13> And that's not necessarily a problem. After all, we can measure things with insane accuracy (LIGO, atto/femto-second laser pulses, neutrino detectors, etc), our theories about the accessible energi regimes are quite good (14+ digits for QED - quantum electro dynamics).

At some point it's no wonder we need bigger microscopes to see deeper into reality.

Sure, were someone just come up with an even better theory that can be tested easily, that would be great too, but since we have no recipe for that, but we have quite a few for building bigger experiments, that's what most of the particle physicists advocate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> FFS what crisis. Oh I get it, soon they 'll be talking about a "physics emergency" to get clicks.

<comment><USER28> This is exactly what she's doing. I don't understand why, but she seems to love controversy and has a very high opinion of herself. She's clearly not stupid, but it is so tiresome.

<comment><USER33> There is a market for experts saying "how the experts (except me) got it all wrong". It's pretty common in economics as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is an extremelly well written and well thought out post. Thank you.

Here is my suggestion: how about for the next LHC scale physics project we get all the governments in the world to put in manhatten project levels of funding to research machines which can control the climate and the weather to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

This would be a lot more practical and better for science and the future of the human species than confirming what everyone has known with 99%+ confidence for over 30 years. Just my 2 cents.

</comment><comment><USER35> > crisis in physics

Me: Hmm... interesting. Personally I think they should spend time consolidating the different mathematical techniques.

> Maybe all these string theorists have been wasting tax-money for decades, > alright, but in the large scheme of things it's not all that much money. I > grant you that much. Theorists are not expensive.

> String theory, supersymmetry, multiverses. There's math for it, alright. > Pretty math, even. But that doesn't mean this math describes reality.

I don't really understand this part. I am not convinced that her post says much [ _], because consider this: she is encouraging observation at the expense of speculation and then arguing that observational techniques are more expensive and hence prohibitive in the long run?

Is the real "unhappiness" in academia not just as simple as information overflow and the fact that only a few can be famous, whether there are a few or whether there are many? I don't know if that is what people get at with these kinds of blog posts. In any case, what I have found in mathematics is that the names of people whose work are worth reading are not necessarily the ones that you'll encounter first. OP does actually hint at this as well, but again, is it not just information overflow (and shouldn't be made more complicated than that)?

[_] The one good takeaway that I see is "focus on inconsistencies".

<comment><USER35> Wow, forgot about the \asterisk being a reserved character.

<comment><USER35> > crisis in physics

Me: Hmm... interesting. Personally I think they should spend time consolidating the different mathematical techniques.

> Maybe all these string theorists have been wasting tax-money for decades, > alright, but in the large scheme of things it's not all that much money. I > grant you that much. Theorists are not expensive.

> String theory, supersymmetry, multiverses. There's math for it, alright. > Pretty math, even. But that doesn't mean this math describes reality.

I don't really understand this part. I am not convinced that her post says much [1], because consider this: she is encouraging observation at the expense of speculation and then arguing that observational techniques are more expensive and hence prohibitive in the long run?

Is the real "unhappiness" in academia not just as simple as information overflow and the fact that only a few can be famous, whether there are a few or whether there are many? I don't know if that is what people get at with these kinds of blog posts. In any case, what I have found in mathematics is that the names of people whose work are worth reading are not necessarily the ones that you'll encounter first. OP does actually hint at this as well, but again, is it not just information overflow (and shouldn't be made more complicated than that)?

[1] The one good takeaway that I see is "focus on inconsistencies".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> >> But for all I can tell at this moment in history I am the only physicist who has at least come up with an idea for what to do.

What, in the whole world? That sounds a bit messianic, if I may.

<comment> andy-x With that kind of ego she will soon claim "in the known or visible universe" :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This article should reflect on it's own philosophical assumptions.

The differential return on progress with time is not linear.

Intuitively, progress is harder, the deeper we probe.

We have reached the point where we are probing the fundamentals of matter at the smallest and largest scales in the universe.

This is much harder to progress on than newton's laws, which could be arrived at through human observation.

</comment><comment><USER38> Sour grapes from an underachieving researcher.

</comment><comment><USER39> > They do not think about which hypotheses are promising because their > education has not taught them to do so.

Yes! Thank you! Are the days of Rationalism behind us? Everyone these days seems focused on trying to prove if the sun will rise tomorrow.</comment>


Renderings of Google's proposed new Mountain View campus - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/27/8121679/google-new-headquarters-renderings

<comment><USER2> Ambitious. The enormous clear canopies are a recipe for unbearable heat and mugginess in the California daylight. I'm guessing there are some clever ventilation schemes to counter it?

The high native grasses are perfect hiding places for vermin.</comment>


Meteor adding first-party support for GraphQL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/meteor/data/blob/design-overview/design/high-level-reactivity.md <comment><AUTHOR> MDG is currently discussing their initial approach integrating GraphQL support in Meteor.

Once this lands the sky is the limit! Everybody is really excited.

<comment><USER2> I think the most exciting part of this project for the HN crowd is that it's not Meteor-specific. We really want this project to be used outside of the integrated Meteor platform, in all kinds of production applications.

So hopefully it's more like "Meteor is building a reactive GraphQL system anyone can adopt" rather than "adding GraphQL support to Meteor".</comment></comment>


Greece to Default on $1.73B IMF Payment - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/european-union-prepares-for-potential-fallout-from-greek-bank-shutdown-1435573213 <comment><USER3> I've sort of turned around in my opinion o Greece.

I started out by seeing this as the Greek Government being cynical, corrupt or incompetent and running public finances into a wall. I still think that's true. That happened and the greek government including the electorate are to blame.

But that is not the main story here. The main story here is what happens when a government does go bust. Sovereign debt doesn't come with these kinds of strings attached. If your debtor can't repay, you don't get to run the country. I think there are two bigs aspects to this whole greek story.

First, is that taking away national currency is taking away the ability to print and devalue your way out of trouble, which really increases the risk of government insolvency.

Second (this is where I've kind of turned around), I do think Germany and the EU are in the wrong. First, is the very german/west european idea that instead of a contingency plan, you need to make sure nothing goes wrong. Regulations and controls. This may work for germany, but it will not work everywhere. Other EU governments _will_ go bust in the future. It's inevitable.

Third, banks run the world. Governments were already very cosy with banks. All the big markets and big fortunes go up and down with the slightest hint of bank health. Everyone is paranoid of banking issues causing wider collapse. Since the banking collapse, bank health has become completely equivalent to economic health. The economies are being nudged and designed to suit them. Central banks and finance ministries top priority is bank health. They are the favoured child.

Backing up a little, Greece's no strings soveriegn debt was converted into EU, Germany & IMF debt _with_ strings in the panic phase of the crisis. Private banks were granted immunity from their bad debts to Greece and the IMF/EU is now acting like a leg-breaker loan shark demanding impossible payments or else. They are tying EU membership to repayment. That is not fair.

The EU needs a bankruptcy procedure. A way for insolvency to be resolved and a way for bad loans to absorb their due share. Greece's government did run the country into insolvency. But equally, these banks did a bad job valuing risk and making loans. Who says sovereign bonds need to be risk free anyway?

<comment><USER4> The Greek people are responsible.

Greeks overspent and did not want to stop. So they kept spending. It's their own fault.

They can default, start printing their own money and go the way of Argentina.

Ask Argentines how that went.

Or ... they can cut spending and live within their means.

The narrative of "Greeks as victims" is "okay" as long as you point out that they are also the victimizers.

Evil outsiders did not force them to not collect taxes.

People can get public pensions before age 50, for heaven's sake. [ source : [http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek- pensi...](http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/12/04/75-of-greek-pensioners- enjoy-early-retirement/) ]

<comment><USER5> They overspent. Their economy is dysfunctional. They share a big part of the blame.

But they have been following the Troika's plan for over 7 years now, they have reduced spending, they have done a huge effort, and still their GDP has collapsed. It seems that the Troika's plan is not working.

That is what Tsipras is saying: we can not continue doing this, and the rest of Europe/Troika has to recognize part of the blame. Not only that: it seems it has the support of his people (we'll see on Sunday)

If Greece had defaulted (or restructured the debt) at the beginning of this crisis, as Iceland did, the situation would be much better. But nobody was interested, since big banks where holding big chunks of high-paying Greek debt, and they needed some time to unload it.

I still remember how the Iceland success story was completely ignored by European media - and still is.

<comment><USER6> Austerity plans _always_ fail to produce results. They never work. They never worked in any of the dozens of countries the IMF and World Bank forced them on in the developing world, they didn't work in Ireland, and they aren't working in Greece.

Austerity isn't just faith in the absence of evidence, its face _in spite of_ overwhelming evidence.

<comment><USER4> "Austerity" worked in Britain and Ireland.

Fiscal responsibility is good policy ... for individual, households, companies and governments!

[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/gdp-growth- annual](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/gdp-growth-annual)

[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth- an...](http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-annual)

[ set start year to 2008 ]

<comment><USER7> The UK GDP actually performed better during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and that was _despite_ deflation due to the gold standard in the early years - doesn't sound like a success story to me.

[http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7209/economics/comparing-d...](http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7209/economics/comparing- different-recessions/)

I've always wondered about Ireland - it seems they have a strategy for the last decade or so of positioning their country as a tax haven, so that multi- national corporations tend to incorporate in Ireland and move their profits that are actually made in other countries there by creative accounting (like Intellectual Property licensing deals between subsidiaries). What effect does that have on GDP? Has anybody investigated this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Honestly Greece needs to default if only for their citizens to have to own up to the mess their politicians have made and continue to make. The EU has to cut them off simply because bending to Greece's demands pretty much will open Pandora's box.

Alexis Tsipras and his government have accelerated Greece's decline with their rhetoric, driving bank money out which is reducing the money supply which constrains any recovery. They had to lock down the banks because their economy cannot simply exist on money the state has banked

The EU was never meant to be a transfer union, if it headed that way all the rich nations would likely bail and current politicians would face political defeat.

Close to home (US) Puerto Rico is having difficulties paying their bonds for similar reasons, believing that they could get bailed out just because of what they are.

<comment><USER9> "The EU was never meant to be a transfer union"

And yet if nations are going to share a currency, they need to have a coordinated economic policy, and that ends up happening. Wealthy states in the US perpetually give money to the poorer states, but there isn't an uproar about it. Seems like the EU was doomed to fail if it didn't allow for this.

<comment><USER10> It's unclear how much wealthy US states actually do pay poorer states. Whenever I see statistics attempting to quantify this, they tend to include a lot of questionable things. For example, a military base in Kansas which defends the entire US is treated as a transfer to Kansas, and a person who worked in NJ but retires to Florida has SS/Medicare treated as a transfer to Florida.

If you know of good stats I'd love to see.

<comment><USER11> This is an interesting post from WalletHub that was also quoted by the Atlantic: [http://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on- the-...](http://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal- government/2700/)

They took Federal contracts, grants, direct payments and insurance payments to a given state and weighed it against the IRS data for the residents of that state.

Interestingly enough, of the 50 states received back less that $1 for every $1 they paid in, meaning they were net payers. The rest of the states were net receivers of federal money.

A bit easier to see this conclusion here: [http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/05/Sl...](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/05/Slide3/966724856.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, there is a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to pay-off the debt. If everyone in Europe contributed, it would be around €3 each. The campaign has raised over €150,000 today:

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-bailout- fund/x/1873...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-bailout- fund/x/1873961)

<comment><USER13> It's a nice thought ... but €3 each covers the immediate payment needed.

Total Greek debt is €323 B [1] and there are 503 million inhabitants in the EU, making 'pay-off the debt' more like €642 per inhabitant

For context total EU sovereign debt [2] is €24,415 per inhabitant

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-33325886](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33325886) [2] [http://www.eudebtclock.org/](http://www.eudebtclock.org/)

<comment><USER14> That really puts the scale of the problem in a new perspective for me. That's $715 (at the current exchange rate) for every person on the _continent_ just for the debt of one tiny little corner of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A few considerations:

1) Many arguments stem from assinging moral responsibility to the Greek people. The people who will suffer most are and will be the poor in Greece, including those on fixed incomes such as pensioners. Yet these are the people with the least power over what their government does. Drive through a poor neighborhood in your town; how responsible are those people for their national government's economic policies? It's cruel and frankly evil to impose the costs on them.

2) Making people suffer is not nearly enough of a response. Nor is saying 'their suffering is not our problem'. Those are non-responses and, I think, moral failure. The people of Germany may need other Europeans' help some day -- they got it after WWII and, for example, they expect their NATO allies to defend them, with the U.S. bearing most of the burden -- they may want to set a better precedent. EDIT: "You'll never guess which hardline euro zone country has had its debts repeatedly forgiven"[1]

3) This is a leadership failure of the entire EU. There is no way something this critical should have gotten to this point. Part of it, I think, is the failure of EU leaders to stand up for the EU's importance. The nationalistic and xenophobic right-wing, along with Ayn Randian economic policies, are ascendent and nobody is challenging them. Thus the public sees little reason to protect the EU or those suffering in Greece.

[1] [http://qz.com/441187/youll-never-guess-which-hardline- euro-z...](http://qz.com/441187/youll-never-guess-which-hardline-euro-zone- country-has-had-its-debts-repeatedly-forgiven/)

</comment><comment><USER16> What recourse do the creditors have when Greece defaults? Invade the country and physically reposes assets?

How is this different from borrowing money from a bank and not paying, except being a country and all.

<comment><USER17> They can kick them out of the EU/Eurozone and implement tariffs that will pay off these debts. It'll take decades but its doable if the Greek economy doesn't completely collapse.

<comment><USER18> No, they cannot. I have no idea where this lie started, but repeating it won't make it true: There is NO mechanism to kick Greece out of the EU/Eurozone and when the other governments try to do it the european courts will stop them.

<comment><USER19> The EU Treaty has rules regarding government debt. Greece violated the treaty by running a bigger deficit than permitted. Additionally, the Treaty does not allow for default on debt. The EU courts will require repayment. Your suggestion that the EU courts will stop a breakup with a country which is in complete violation of EU law is optimistic.

<comment><USER20> The treaty says nothing about default, and say absolutely nothing about the possibility of expulsion if a member goes over the deficit limit (or under any other circumstance by that matter), which by the way already happened to many countries including France without any major consequence.

Next time, you might want to actually read the treaty before commenting on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Isn't the correct term entering into arrears instead of default? Doesn't the Greek government have a couple of weeks to regularise their debts before going into default?

Also someone needs to keep tabs on this: [http://isgreeceindefaultyet.com/](http://isgreeceindefaultyet.com/)

<comment><USER22> Under discussion.

"June 30, 2015 5:05 am Greece's IMF payment: When is a default not a default?"

[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3344581e-1eda-11e5-aa5a-398b2169cf...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3344581e-1eda-11e5-aa5a-398b2169cf79.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3eYkB6WL3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I use to watch the price of bitcoin and gold to judge the impact level of such news on the world's economy:

[https://markets.blockchain.info/](https://markets.blockchain.info/)

Apparently not that of a big deal.

<comment><USER24> Bitcoin is not super affected because people are fleeing to the Euro.

<comment><USER25> There was a spike in Bitcoin prices when Cyprus, another EU member state, imposed capital controls during a potential default and driving Bitcoin prices up 400%. Greece is following almost the exact same path, limiting bank withdrawals to €60 per day.

<comment><USER26> How would you transfer money into a bitcoin wallet when the withdrawals are that limited?

<comment><USER25> It's very hard -- there's only one Bitcoin ATM in all of Greece and six businesses to spend it at -- but Bitcoin exchanges are reporting huge spikes in Greek usage:

[http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/29/technology/greece- bitcoin/](http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/29/technology/greece-bitcoin/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> All this spending was basically German and French money recycling through Greece, where previous German loans were paid with new ones. Default like Argentina and Iceland did, and start of a fresh slate, keeping this bloodsucking parasite called Brussels on the body of Greece is a travesty - <USER2> years of ruined lives already.

</comment><comment><USER28> I need to register to read this article, can we please stop sharing locked out content on the internet. Thank you

<comment><USER29> Search for the link in google and click the result for it.</comment></comment>


Why researchers are creating "human yarn" and turning it into textile - <AUTHOR> http://physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com/2020/03/why-researchers-are-creating-human-yarn.html <comment><AUTHOR> A team of researchers led by Nicolas L'Heureux at the University of Bordeaux/INSERM is working on a new kind of medical textile that they hope will fly below the immune system's radar. In tissue engineering research published earlier this month in the journal Acta Biomaterialia, the team introduced a completely biological human yarn that can be twisted, woven, braided, or knotted to produce textiles with different properties.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S17427...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1742706120300520)</comment>


How many ways can you bow in Japan? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2244063/

<comment><USER2> _Why is the car company called Toyota, if its founding family goes by the name Toyoda? The former is more auspicious. The written form of Toyota requires eight brush strokes—as opposed to 10 for Toyoda—and eight is considered a lucky number._

This is so comprehensively wrong I don't even know where to start. The kanji for Toyota (豊田) and Toyoda (豊田) are identical. Bitwise identical, even. (And I count 18 brush strokes, which leads me to think that someone thinks the decision was between トヨタ and トヨダ, which is backwards: the pronunciation does not get decided when you need to disambiguate for writing katakana, it gets decided on naming, and anyone who reads 豊田自動車 as Toyoda Jidousha is _reading it wrong_ and has been for more than eighty years now.)

Toyota Motors sometimes prefers to use the katakana version of its name (トヨタ) in preference to the kanji, but that is basically a branding thing ("it scarcely matters what you pick as long as it is consistent!"). They'll write it with kanji every once in a while too, as will newspapers and the like referring to their country. (This is very roughly similar to newspapers referring to William Jefferson Clinton as "Bill" -- it is an acknowledged correct name other than the canonical one.)

Other companies in the Toyota group standardize on the kanji (such as 豊田自動織機 -- Toyota Industries Corporation) or even on the romaji ("Toyota") versions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bowing is so integrated here that I don't even realize I'm doing it anymore. It becomes second nature, and you pretty much do it before and after everything.

Even though I don't really understand the intricacies, I can usually get-by by overdoing it all the time. When in doubt, bow.

</comment><comment><USER4> The explanations in the articles are several decades out of date. Nowadays, parents and schools have other focuses than the intricacies of bowing, and companies routinely hold classes on this (and, more importantly, "keigo", the formally polite grammar and vocabulary) for newly-hired graduates.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm reminded of <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqZcEwHBAk8></comment>


Show HN: Designing a Quick-Drying Bath Towel Hook - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/spendology/spendology-designing-the-z-hook

<comment><USER2> Interesting write up, and actually a problem I've been dealing with lately, but I have a few issues with how the OP went about the design.

1) straight from design to cad to getting samples built? Might have been better to hack together something at home. The prototypes could have been made from old orange juice containers and other random bits of plastic, cardboard, etc. etc. 2) Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the issue in my flat. The problem is not enough airflow to dry the towel, so I hang my towels out by the window, not in the bathroom.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I did think about getting a rough prototype built but I decided to not reinvent the wheel: I used the shower rod for the initial concept test. The shower rod would be a great solution if the shower curtain did not need to be fully extended to prevent the growth of mold.

I thought that airflow would be a key determinant in drying time. However, the Z Hook actually just spreads the towel out to maximize towel surface area contact with the air and enabling more uniform heat transfer during convection heating.</comment></comment>


A secret of many urban 20-somethings: Their parents help with the rent - <AUTHOR> https://www.boston.com/news/national-news/2017/02/09/a-secret-of-many-urban-20-somethings-their-parents-help-with-the-rent <comment><USER2> Been there. As one of the 20-something whose parents didn't help with the rent.

Two consequences:

\- really tough discussions with some friends and acquaintances once I realised their parents heavily subsidized their way of life while they were putting the social persona of young working adult being independent and nagging me about when I was going to buy my first car or why I was always the one who made it through the whole night with one glass of beer

\- really hard to move up in the adequate social circles and no care-free attitude which led to a much harder job hunt, grimmer prospects in relationships (partly cost me the love of my life) and way too much stress to be healthy

I don't blame people for being helped though, that's not my point.

<comment><USER3> Why didn't they help?

<comment><USER4> Many parents (mine included) say "if you aren't in school pay your own way". Once you are out of school, regardless if your wage is still barely above minimum, you are on your own.

<comment><USER5> Same. I come from middle class parents who could certainly afford to pay my way but chose to make me learn how to stand on my own feet. Certainly strips the world of its sheen when you see how people treat you if you are perceived as poor.

Certainly makes you realize who your true friends are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is an interesting counterpoint to all of the "government subsidies distort housing prices" arguments. Obviously family subsidies are very different than government subsidies, but I think they might have a similar effect on pricing. Especially for economicallt disadvantaged people trying to go it alone; you're now in a market (similar to college tuition or healthcare) where nobody pays full price except for you*

*For large values of "nobody" and "you"

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm always a bit shocked at how many adults I've come across whose parents aid them financially - even when they're working. Aren't they ashamed?

I'm late 20s, and don't have as many friends as I used to in my early 20s. But the ones I do pay their own way. I just can't relate to a grown adult living it up on their parents money.

I do sometimes feel uncomfortable working in software though - I'm from a solidly lower class background, and the vast majority of the people I meet grew up middle/upper middle class. I'm on a middle class salary now, but I don't have the accumulated wealth of the previous generation behind me. My mindset is so different. I'm more ambitious, more protective of my free time, and much more frugal.

<comment><USER8> Why would they be ashamed? If you have a family with sufficient means and close enough ties that they're willing to help you and make your life a bit easier and less risky, why wouldn't you embrace that?

<comment><USER7> Because I think it's shameful not to be financially self-sufficient. it's an important part of adulthood. To me regular financial help from your parents is something a child or teenager receives - it's an allowance.

I'd like to think that if the generation before me had some money knocking about, that I'd have the same attitude. Let them spend their hard earned money on a cruise or a holiday, rather than supporting their grown children who are already well into adulthood themselves.

<comment><USER8> I get that from a "protestant work ethic" sense, but just because people get help from their families doesn't mean they're incapable of being self- sufficient.

This is a part of the reason that many wealthy families stay wealthy. Whether it's a down payment, help with rent, or the understanding that they'll be a backstop if everything falls apart, it lets the next generation take risks that would be completely imprudent otherwise.

I think a lot of parents of millennials understand how much harder life is for young people today too. With school debt, salaries that have stagnated since the 1990s, and housing prices that won't stop increasing, it's a completely different world than the one they grew up in.

> _Let them spend their hard earned money on a cruise or a holiday, rather > than supporting their grown children who are already well into adulthood > themselves._

To many parents, there is literally no more meaningful way to spend their money than to confer comfort to their children, no matter how old they are.

<comment><USER7> This fully from my own cultural perspective. It's not a moral judgment or a universal judgment. But if I am honest with myself, I feel it's shameful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I was young (1980s) it was normal for parents to provide the downpayment for the kids' first home.

BTW, cars are an enormous cash sink. I saved a ton by buying beaters and doing most repairs myself. I still drive a beater :-) and fix it myself and it's amazing how little it costs.

I've had my current beater for 25 years now, and it still starts as soon as I turn the key. It's a fairly simple car, and easy to fix.

Being a beater also means I don't carry comprehensive insurance. Adding up those premiums saved over the years would probably buy a purty nice new car.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is interesting, but not altogether surprising.

As an urban 20-something, my parents helped me my covering the lion's share of my college costs. Once that was over, it was an unspoken agreement that I was completely on my own. Fortunately, I graduated with a job offer in hand as a SWE in the city of my choice, but that is far from the norm for the graduating classes in many majors.

If anything, I find the provided numbers feel too low - $250 a month in many metro areas is unlikely to be 'make it or break it' numbers (by my estimation). It's more that their parents are subsidizing a lifestyle in those urban areas.

At any rate, it's hard to blame people for getting help from their parents, though I can't say I would be excited to do so for my kids after a certain age (though, of course, I don't have any).

<comment><USER11> It's an interesting balance. I'm the same as you, I received an incredible amount of help to pay for private college. I paid my way through grad school and now make a professional salary in an expensive city, entirely self supporting. I'm moderately proud of living below my means and also living "well".

I'd also be proud to be able to help my theoretical children, so it's easy to see the "other side" of the argument as such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It was my goal before I even finished college to be as independant from my parents as I could be. Most of that came from a need/desire to not give them anything they could hold over me (preemptively). The rest from hating the idea of living subsidised and being dependant and a drain on them. That said I know I am extremely fortunate to be able to lean on them if it came down to that and I hate that many people don't have that safety net there. I understand some may abuse it but I've not been great managing my money in the past and it's caused extreme stress for me but I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I didn't have my parents to turn to if things got really bad (thankfully they didn't).

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this an American thing? It's pretty common in Germany, but I remember that foreigners often see us as the 'renters'-country (meaning the majority rents instead of owning a property), so there might be a difference. Just wondering why this seems an increasing thing in your cities.

It's also no big secret that parents often support their children far beyond the school time if they are not able to apply for student loans (Bafög).

<comment><USER13> It's a thing because it signifies the decline of American purchasing power. If we used to all be able to afford to pay our own rent, but now we can't and are relying on our parents, it's a sign that young people's purchasing power is going down. In the same vein of young Americans feeling distraught that their parents could pay off college loans working a summer job mowing lawns, or that they could afford to put down a down payment on a house by age 30. Young Americans feel like they can't measure up to their older generations financially. Salaries may be trending up numerically, but adjusted to inflation and cost of living increases it feels like we're stagnating or moving backwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> $3,000 a year is a weird number. Of course anything helps, but when rent is $1,000, $2,000, or even $3,000 / month, is that really make or break?

I wonder if it's paying security deposits or first / last deposits. When I was 23, paying rent seemed doable, but digging up 3 months of rent all at one go was terrifying.

<comment><USER15> > rent is $1,000, $2,000, or even $3,000 / month

That's rent without roommates. I suspect people are sharing the rent with 3 other people, so $3,000 a month is about 1/3 of their rent.

<comment><USER14> Ahhhh that's probably it. $300 / month is easily half the rent if you have a couple of roommates.

... which is exactly how I did it from 22-24, not sure how I forgot that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As a landlord of multiple properties in Boston I can confirm the parents pay the rent.

<comment><USER17> One of my college roommates would get a small stack of signed blank checks from his mother every time he went home, in order to pay the rent and whatever else came up. He kept them underneath his mattress, which we discovered when we had to move from one apartment to another and his ass never showed up to help.

<comment><USER6> And here I am, paranoid about having unsigned checks laying around because they have my account and ACH # on them. Other people's tolerance for risk always amazes me!

<comment><USER2> Eh. Usage of checks in the US always puzzled me but now that we have smartphones with direct access to our bank and it seems even weirder to still do things with checks (vs cash).

<comment><USER18> When I've used checks, it's been almost exclusively to pay bills for things that don't have an electronic payment system set up, and where I also don't want to drop $1500 cash into the landlord's mail slot for rent.

I know that we're missing easy money transfer options that other countries have had for decades, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Subject to change while I parse the source data set, but I'm not sure their conclusions are sound. Specifically the reliance on averages and amortizing the existence of yearly lump sums to monthly assistance. And the wording of "has ever" so a single gift/loan now gets extended to reported as years of monthly assistance.

For example, parents providing their child with first month's rent/security deposit for the first place after college I wouldn't say is indicative of "financial dependence". Especially considering the data was for 2013 when getting credit for short term loans as a young person was even harder than it is today. Feels more like another dressed up "entitled millennials living off those hard working boomers again".

<comment><USER20> Or worse- yet another article that attempts to make people feel bad for using the wealth they've obtained over the course of their life for making their children "privileged"

</comment></comment><comment> awinter-py Not sure how the article concludes that young adults don't tell their friends about family financial help. It's not a question on the PSID survey and it doesn't seem to be in the michigan PSC report.

The secrecy of financial help is a really important claim because it affects how under-resourced college grads plan their 20s; irresponsible of the authors not to footnote this.

</comment><comment><USER21> One point made consistently in this article is that life is getting harder for a graduate of the liberal arts. There are a plethora of articles that espouse the notion that art doesn't pay.

Yet, how is that surprising? You're taking four years to complete a degree program that provides you with no (measurable) practical skill.

</comment><comment><USER22> >The choice of career path matters. Those in the art and design fields get the most help, an average of $3,600 a year. People who work in farming, construction, retail and personal services get the least.

Am I wrong to assume that it isn't the career choice so much as how wealthy the parents are?

<comment><USER11> It probably correlates. People with wealthy supportive parents are more able to take a "less valuable" degree. Where value = market rate for your skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This makes me think hard about universal basic income. If average incomes went up, how long would it take for those with monopolies on basic needs to raise the prices? Not long, I'm sure. Unless rentier capitalism is somehow cut out of the picture, if the government provided $10,000/yr, then $10,000/yr could very quickly become the new "poverty". If banks (via landlords' debts) are squeezing people now, whats stopping them from taking peoples' basic income too?

Don't get me wrong, I recognize the need for something like basic income, but rentier capitalism is suffocating peoples lives right now, and I have a hard time seeing how universal basic income is going to stop that.

<comment><USER24> In fact, basic income is actually just a continuation of the same inflationary alchemy that's been eroding the middle class for decades. This is why a seemingly revolutionary idea is getting so much press - because it actually isn't revolutionary at all, but a doubling down on the status quo!

<comment><USER25> > basic income is actually just a continuation of the same inflationary > alchemy

It's no such thing; not remotely. BI isn't new money, it's simply a redistribution of money from those with more to those with less. It won't increase the money supply and thus doesn't cause inflation.

<comment><USER24> Even if not implemented through monetary inflation, BI will cause price inflation. Housing asset prices are primarily constrained by the affordability of rent - either to a landlord or directly to the bank. If everybody can spend twice as much on rent then rent just doubles, and if interest rates remain the same then paper appraisals double.

BI seems desirable because it addresses a glaring _symptom_ of the inflationary treadmill. But if the treadmill remains the explicit national policy ("full employment"), BI will really just give us even more rope to hang ourselves. The sustainable answer is higher interest rates, so that frugal people can be rewarded for channeling discretionary spending towards paying off principle. But this would diminish our "service economy", which is all we have left after gutting domestic manufacturing.

I think what we're really witnessing is an erosion of money as a decentralized store of value, part of the general centralization of power enabled by digital communication networks.

<comment><USER25> > If everybody can spend twice as much on rent t

False presumption, BI will not enable everyone to spend twice as much on rent.

> BI will cause price inflation.

Unfounded.

> The sustainable answer is higher interest rates, so that frugal people can > be rewarded for channeling discretionary spending towards paying off > principle.

That doesn't remotely address the issue that BI attempts to solve, lack of available jobs for people due to the effects of automation.

<comment><USER24> > _> If everybody can spend twice as much on rent_

> _False presumption_

It wasn't a presumption about BI, but a hypothetical framing of an example situation. Please give opposing viewpoints their due interpretation rather than looking for phrases to pick on out of context.

> _Unfounded_

Once again, this is what we're arguing about. You can't simply quote my conclusion without my supporting arguments and say it's unfounded.

> _That doesn 't remotely address the issue that BI attempts to solve, lack of > available jobs for people due to the effects of automation._

I didn't expand on it, but my view actually does address this. If working people had been able to _save_ money, then they would have had more economic bargaining power to demand higher wages and fewer working hours, gradually over the past few decades. As it stands, we could fix much of the employment issue by redefining "full time" to be 15 hours per week, getting rid of the exempt loophole, and changing overtime to double or triple pay. But this is such a drastic change (because the issue has been building so long), it seems quite ridiculous. But it's important to understand how we got to this point in order to know how to proceed, lest we choose another "quick fix" that actually just makes the situation even worse.

<comment><USER25> I don't think redefining full time to be so few hours would work in this country, nor actually solve the problem, it'd just make most people broke and forced to seek out multiple jobs to survive. Yes, money distribution can affect particular markets where the redistribution increases spending but that's not inflation, inflation is a general rise is all prices, not a rise in a particular sector and BI is a far better longer term solution to the real issue, that life doesn't need to be and long term cannot be dependent on the selling of labor in an age of automation. We need to move beyond the puritan work ethic to something more appropriate for the world that's coming.

<comment><USER24> > _it 'd just make most people broke and forced to seek out multiple jobs to > survive_

So then change the full time number to be summed over _all_ jobs. It's a cooperation problem where it is in nobody's individual interest to work less (since the marginal utility of surplus over your peer group is extreme), but yet everybody competing for this results in all the surplus thrown onto the bonfire of financialization.

And yes as I said, 15 hours is a drastic change from 40. Because the point is that this should have been happening gradually _the whole time_. I personally would have preferred it to happen through sane monetary policy rather than government diktat, but either way we should all be working much less.

> _We need to move beyond the puritan work ethic to something more appropriate > for the world that 's coming._

I wholeheartedly agree on this point. But the implementation we're looking for is not BI.

The idea of BI deprecates the idea of having an _economy_ (ie p2p transactions), and replaces it with widespread monthly funding from the government. This will necessarily come with strings attached, inevitably becoming a highly politicized way of dictating individuals' life choices. We already have something quite similar to BI, called welfare/medicaid, which brings no end to hassling its recipients. I believe that BI proponents would say that the aim of BI is to simplify these systems, but this is not a stable state. It is trying to reverse up the gradient of why politicians generate complexity (finding divisive bikeshed issues so people can be led).

<comment><USER25> You're missing something, it doesn't matter how you split the remaining work, the gains from the productivity increases of automation aren't going to the workers regardless of how you muck with their hours; those gains go to the business owners. Splitting up the remaining work to make sure everyone has work only makes sure everyone is poor, they still don't get to keep wealth created by the automation so it's a pointless thing to try and spread the work around.

The goal is not to keep everyone working, the goal is to share the benefits of automation with everyone, not just the capitalist class. BI does this, your solution does not.

Unless you tax automation heavily and redistribute it, workers lose no matter how you slice and dice the hours. It's not enough to work less, you have to work less while not making less and that's simply not in the cards.

> The idea of BI deprecates the idea of having an economy (ie p2p > transactions), and replaces it with widespread monthly funding from the > government.

Simply not remotely true. Spending money you get from the government is still spending money. Redistributing money from the top to the bottom via BI in no way deprecates the idea of having an economy, it simply depreciates the idea the the economy is based entirely on wage slavery.

> This will necessarily come with strings attached, inevitably becoming a > highly politicized way of dictating individuals' life choices.

Also not true, anything with strings isn't BI; the whole point of BI is that everyone gets it without restriction in order to eliminate bureaucracy and thus strings. If it has strings, it isn't BI.

> We already have something quite similar to BI, called welfare/medicaid

Neither of those are remotely similar to BI.

> which brings no end to hassling its recipients

Precisely because they aren't remotely similar to BI and force people to qualify for them; they're exactly what BI is intended to fix, all the hassles and stigma that come with those programs and the shit you have to go through to get them.

Frankly, you leave me thinking you really don't know what BI is, or don't understand it.

<comment><USER24> I'm not missing this, and in fact it ties right in to my core point. Wages are due to an equilibrium. The supply side of that equilibrium is dependent on how much the workers _need_ the money. Any individual has a rough idea of how long they can comfortably go without income ("runway"). While this is modulated with how in-demand their industry is (especially apparent today in our hollowed-out hand-to-mouth society), the core of their power is how much of a buffer they have saved.

If a person has _no_ runway, they are forced to be constantly worried about losing their current job, whereas if they have a large enough runway they have the ability to quit on the spot and worry about their next job later. This power relation effects every single negotiation, from salary to benefits to day-to-day working conditions.

Thus my assertion is that the real problem is that people have no savings. This gives them no economic power, and thus terrible negotiating power. This is due to an economic policy that prevents savings by the lower classes, especially liquid savings, and turns their life's accounting into one of debt and monthly rents. This further destroys their negotiating power (they don't have $0 to their name, but actually -$10k), and channels any of their surplus upwards to the parasitic banking industry through monetary rent.

> _it simply depreciates the idea the the economy is based entirely on wage > slavery._

Sure it gets rid of that specific slavery, but it does not get rid of the wage nor the reliance on it. The real mass frustration is due to a lack of opportunity and self-determination, for which signing up for low-paperwork welfare will increase. Reliance on the continued existence of a government program is going to make many people (rightfully) uneasy, because...

> _If it has strings, it isn 't BI._

This is like saying that we've never achieved _true_ capitalism or _true_ communism. In the real world, individuals have their own incentives. The incentives of politicians and "news" media is to play on people's prejudices to divide them into groups so they can be led, creating power for the leaders.

 _Even if_ we were to start off with a perfect BI program on day 0, it is only a matter of time until _some_ group demands preferential treatment for themselves, or protests what they see as preferential treatment for others. The subject of _having kids_ is fertile ground for this - if BI is truly uniform, this means that having a kid gets you immediately double the BI, and if it only starts at 18 that means you now have more to support. Either way (or even with a "ramp" compromise), this is but one of the clear contention points that will be endlessly politicized.

<comment><USER25> People aren't lacking savings because economic policies prevent it, they lack savings because they're poor and don't have excess income to save. They use all of their income simply to survive. So no, lack of savings is not the problem, it's merely a side effect of the problem which is the dwindling value of labor in an ever more automated world. So yes, imho you are missing the point, terribly.

And no this isn't a no true Scottsman thing, the entire point of BI is that everyone gets it to avoid the need to administer the program with qualification red tape. Yes there would be some initial fighting about how to implement BI with regards to kids and what incentives that creates, that doesn't mean it'll be endlessly politicized nor does it make the whole policy fertile ground for politics. Fertile ground for that is what we have now, with endless programs and rules about who qualifies and who doesn't and BI would vastly simplify that system while also addressing the long term social problem of the coming end of wage labor. Nothing you've said addresses the problem at all.

<comment><USER24> Your argument technique seems to be to state disagreement with my point, and then just assert that _I_ don't understand _your_ point.

> _they lack savings because they 're poor and don't have excess income to > save_

And yet we're witnessing the creation of _even more poor people_ (ie hand-to- mouth), in educated industries which have _not_ been automated away yet. Salaries in those industries are keeping rough pace with the official CPI, so what gives?

> _the problem which is the dwindling value of labor in an ever more automated > world_

Yes, we agree this is one of the fundamental problems here - I'm not "missing the point" as you keep insisting. I'm also saying that another fundamental problem is that fiscal discipline went out the window when USD disconnected from the gold standard, a slow acting moral hazard which is only being felt decades later. With technological and market progress, we would expect prices to be _continually dropping_ (which would mean people would have to work less to survive), so any diagnosis must address this as well.

What you seem to be doing is taking the logical induction that led to the idea of BI for granted. And then refusing to follow the logical induction around other ideas. Of course BI is going to look like _the_ solution if you refuse to consider that there could be other approaches.

> _the entire point of BI is that everyone gets it to avoid the need to > administer the program_

As I said, this is an anti-feature to those who derive power from controlling such programs. This includes voters.

<comment><USER25> Now your critiquing me personally while spewing the same old conservative nonsense, we're done.

<comment><USER24> It's a bit frustrating to have entire points responded to with only an assertion to the contrary. You questioned the honesty of my argument ("you really don't know what BI is"), so it seemed reasonable to point out what I perceived as a fundamental problem with our conversation. I can't particularly see what I would have said differently to keep our thread from slowly going off the rails, but I apologize for my part.

I'm done beating this dead horse if you are. But perhaps you'd view my argument in a different way if I said that I don't have a philosophical problem with BI, and that I'd support the idea iff interest rates were back up to say 10% ? The main point I've been trying to get across is that in the current monetary environment, BI seems akin to adding a second garden hose to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

<comment><USER25> It's equally frustrating to watch you continually setup straw-men version of BI to then knock down while accusing me of arguing poorly all the while ignoring what BI is actually attempting to solve, while continually introducing non-sequiturs like the gold standard which further derail any attempt to stay on point. As you said, dead horse, I have no interest in talking with you any further, it's pointless. Someone who thinks poor people are poor because interest rates are too low has no connection to what it means to be poor and no place discussing solutions to problems he clearly has no understanding of.

<comment><USER24> IMHO BI has gained such interest, not because it would help the poor, but primarily because everybody that would describe themselves as "middle class" is frustrated at seeing the largest part of their paycheck simply go towards _rent_.

Perhaps my characterization is the root of why you're seeing me arguing a _strawman_? But if my assessment isn't correct, then why do mainstream articles present it as such a society-changing idea? Or is this judgment incorrect as well?

The reason I keep beating this dead horse is because your nick is one I see associated with more insightful comments. That we're in such obtuse disagreement here seems odd.

Yes, my critique here "comes from the right" [0]. But please just try to give me a benefit of the doubt that my aim is _actually_ to reduce the wealth extraction by "the capitalist class", and analyze my point on its own merit. My goal is _certainly_ not to perpetuate the status quo.

[0] The way I see it, "left" and "right" are really just two different approaches to characterizing a problem and they generally both give some insight.

<comment><USER25> It depends on what you mean by "rent". BI is about eliminating the need to work just to survive. In a more automated world, human labor has little value and in a labor based economy there's no way to prevent the capital class from extracting the wealth, it's the nature of the beast. I'm glad to hear you're at least in agreement about the aim of reducing that extraction however, BI aims to do more than that. It aims to eliminate wage slavery which is what allows the capital class to oppress the working class to begin with.

The gold standard has no bearing on this problem. Interest rates have no bearing on this problem. People aren't poor because we don't use gold, they aren't poor because interest rates are low; they're poor because they were born into it and few can clime out because living on the edge is psychologically harmful and interferes with long term planning and thinking. Being poor is a catch 22 in many ways, like a bucket of crabs, getting out is impossible for most. This is a systemic problem, not an issue of people not working hard enough: the need for work is dwindling reducing the supply of low skill jobs which are all many are capable of in the first place.

Your attempts to drag the conversation to these other things are red-herrings, your attempts to conflate BI with the problems of existing welfare, and then say it'll suffer the downsides are straw-men.

We're in disagreement because as far as I'm concerned, you don't want to talk about the real problem, you're just finding ways to inject the standard conservative fiscal talking points into a conversation about an issue those things don't address.

So if you actually want to talk about it, I'll frame it this way; unemployment is suddenly 50% due to the sudden rise of automation. Now what do we do when half the population can't find work? People who don't have an income don't want to hear about gold standards and interest rates. They don't want to hear about welfare programs that make them jump through hoops to find jobs that don't exist. What they want, is food, water, shelter, and medical care and if you tell them to pull themselves up by their boot straps they're going to kill you and take your shit. That's the problem BI is attempting to solve. And yes, the death of wage slavery would be a huge change in the structure of society.

<comment><USER24> > _they 're poor because they were born into it and few can [climb] out > because living on the edge is psychologically harmful and interferes with > long term planning and thinking. Being poor is a catch 22 in many ways, like > a bucket of crabs, getting out is impossible for most. This is a systemic > problem, not an issue of people not working hard enough_

See, the thing is, _I understand this_. I'm certainly not sitting here saying "let them eat cake", or "they need to work harder". As I said, I'm not categorically against the idea of BI. Which is why I tried to steer the subject back to middle class people - if, as you say, the effects of automation are so severe (and I agree they are), then the middle class is of concern as well. While they are better off _materially_ , their situation exists closer to the margin (rather than already having fallen victim to the poverty trap "event horizon"). As such, it is _middle class_ economics we should be looking at to understand the changes brought by automation.

> _People who don 't have an income don't want to hear about gold standards > and interest rates._

Sure, but this a reflection of _their_ stressed state and immediate needs, not proper analysis. Interest rates act on the timescale of multiple years, which is obviously too long to wait for food or shelter. We've persisted with the fundamental problem so long that direct triage _is_ sorely needed. I'm not arguing against helping out poor people - I'm arguing against using help for poor people as the solution to the problem that we're all becoming poor!

> _you don 't want to talk about the real problem_ ... _unemployment is > suddenly 50% due to the sudden rise of automation_

Actually, I really do.

From [https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-economic-goals- does...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-economic-goals-does-federal- reserve-seek-to-achieve-through-monetary-policy.htm)

> _monetary policy to support three specific goals: maximum sustainable > employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates._

"Maximum stable employment" directly contradicts automation putting half of everybody out of work! And "stable prices" also does, as automation makes things less expensive. So either the Federal Reserve is utterly wrong about the actual capabilities of monetary policy, or their mandate _clashes with technology_. What is the result of this clash?

This is the core of what I'm getting at.

<comment><USER25> > See, the thing is, I understand this.

I believe that. And of course the middle class is of concern as well, however the middle class is dying, we're becoming only the rich and the poor and the poor make up the largest part of society in that sense, so that's where the focus belongs, in helping to recreate a middle class we haven't had in a long time.

> Sure, but this a reflection of their stressed state and immediate needs, not > proper analysis.

No, it's a reflection of their lack of capital; interest rates matter in terms of savings to those who have enough money that the interest rate actually matters. It takes quite a lot of money before you need to care about savings interest rates. To most people, it only matters in terms of what they're paying for debt and those people want low interest rates, not high ones. To most of the population, low interest rates are far better because it decreases their debts and most of the population is in debt.

> or their mandate clashes with technology. What is the result of this clash?

Agreed, and that's where i'm going as well, we need to get past this notion of trying to attain full employment, employment can no longer be the goal in an automated world. As we move forward, what the Fed does will have to adapt to the new world where it's no longer about employment, but about how to effectively share the benefits of productivity created by technology with everyone, not just the capital class.

As to stable prices, that doesn't mean preventing things from getting cheaper, it means fighting inflation. Nothing wrong with things getting cheaper, everything wrong with them getting more expensive across the board. So they aren't in conflict with tech there, tech does make things cheaper, unfortunately, it also tends to make workers poorer as it makes them unnecessary which will eventually destroy the market for said products when no one has money to buy them.

Automation at the end of the day, is a poison pill to an economy based on low skilled physical wage labor. And an economy based on high skilled mental wage labor simply doesn't align with the realities of the human condition. Half the population has an IQ below 100, they will never be capable of high skilled thinking jobs. So the very foundation of our economy must change in order to continue down this path of automation. For the basics of living, we need more socialism and less capitalism. We need a more social democracy that takes back enough from the capital class to ensure the lower classes don't revolt take what they require through violence because they won't be able to take it through working before long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's disgusting that this is necessary. I'm outside the US and I've been financially independent since I was 20. My parents couldn't afford to pay for me much longer, and we're a not-bad-off white suburban family, about what americans would call "middle-class" I guess. I can't imagine how a poor family in the USA could hope to have social mobility with it being so necessary to have parents support you who might not even be able to support themselves.

</comment><comment><USER27> I got my bachelors in CS at a state university on a full-ride scholarship I qualified for in high school, but was out of a job for a year, living on what I've saved up and loans from my parents.

Eventually, I got a job as a developer in a mid-size city, making decent money relative to cost-of-living and not having to have roommates because I was spending only ~33% on rent. Though I'm not swimming in money, I have become financially independent as much as any wage or salaried worker is able.

Though in my outlook I never really subscribed to the notion that all problems are fixable by pulling oneself up by their bootstraps, I'm realizing that this held true in my case. And as I get older I am finding it harder and harder to sympathize with my peers who've learned less marketable skills and are now living many three or four to an apartment in economic insecurity, or have moved to urban centers or boomtowns chasing their dream yet aren't much better off. Those who continuously receive assistance from their parents do not mirror my own experience, as any money my parents lent me was sorely missed and paid back at first opportunity, while those who are doing this on their own are making little measurable progress to attain a better quality of life, notwithstanding their best intentions.

It's unfortunate that one's socioeconomic wealth still so strongly predicts their own wealth, It's unfortunate that certain systems perpetuate structural problems, and some people never get the chance to climb out of poverty, but some others are afforded a way up and choose not to pursue it.

</comment><comment><USER28> A complaint against boomers is that they pulled up the ladder for upward mobility. That they benefited from cheap education, a booming economy, relatively cheap houses and stock market and fully funded social security and medicare. Whereas millennials have to face expensive education, stagnant economy and uncertain prospects for social security / medicare.

If that's the case, we should welcome parent->children transfer of wealth to balance out the situation of two generations, no? Some people might prefer government to do this, but that is just a different mechanism (with lots of political opposition) to achieve the same end goal - wealth transfer from boomers to millennials.

<comment><USER29> The problem with parental wealth transfer is when your parents may not be in the position to help you. Which is why this is most certainly not a good trend.

<comment><USER28> Yes, and a lot of Government wealth transfer projects would also result in problems where they are unable to help a subset of people. Eg. Obamacare not helping a middle class family with income just above the threshold to receive subsidies but not enough to afford a high deductible or high premium insurance plan

As I said, there can be different mechanisms for wealth transfer from boomers to millennials. Govt directed programs (means-tested or universal) might be preference of some and might even perform better, but they also tend to have a lot of political opposition.

So while we are gridlocked on other fronts, its better to see some transfer happening between parents and children.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Literally 80% of my friends now live with their parents. It's not really down upon like it used to be. People enjoy living at home and actually brag about how nice (and cheap) it is.

</comment><comment><USER31> If you were taking a woman on a date to a place where women are objectified, I'd be open to the possibility that money isn't your only obstacle.

<comment> akita-ken Get off your moral high horse, you can't possibly know the full circumstances of the OP to make such assumptions. This SJW mentality has to stop.

<comment><USER32> It's funny because it was actually a group of girls that decided to go to the strip club and then just invited me at the last second because I was there.

I didn't touch the stripper, but the girls did. I didn't pay to have her rub her boobs in my face, but the girls did.

I'm not saying something can't be sexist if a girl does it, but I am pretty sure it blows that commenter's assumptions out of the water. I actually hadn't yet said that they were female strippers at that point either.

Personally I don't like the idea of assuming a stripper doesn't like their job or is being taken advantage of or objectified. I don't see why it's any of our business to tell them how to feel about their job or make assumptions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As a tenant in one property in Boston who receives no help from his parents, I deeply resent the ease with which you attained wealth by just renting out ever-rising Bostonian housing.

<comment><USER6> Curious how you know it was easy? A colleague of mine is a landlord and it seems externally to be a huge pain. Definitely put me off of trying to do the same.

<comment><USER34> In my condo building a lot of people who have moved out (out of town, out of state) they keep renting their places out with the help of a local realtor/manager that takes a cut and is supposed to deal with stuff. They don't really, and the volunteer condo board ends up dealing with a lot of the loose ends.

Based on the how much rent is in Boston are, there is a strong , strong, strong incentive to rent out. I could make about 3x my mortgage/fees by renting my place in cambridge which I bought early part of this century (of course where would I live...).

Since we have about 50% owner occupied, and the tenants are paying a lot, so they expect a lot.

Its becoming a city for rich people and students. I can understand the resentment. I think it hurts the region.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Save Books - <AUTHOR> http://www.altweeklies.com/aan/how-to-save-books/Story?oid=5876962 <comment><USER2> First: Pricing is set too low; margins get squeezed.

Fundamental flaw: eBooks have lower production costs than print books, so their prices should be lower. The article mention "warehouse space" as a constant cost, but if the purchase of physical books goes down, just print less physical books and reduce the amount of warehouse space you're using, which will reduce costs.

Second: Piracy runs rampant.

Fundamental flaw: The article says that piracy numbers will go up, but it's wrong. Piracy is high when the consumer has no legal alternative to get the media in the way they want it. Right now, eBooks are confined to a device or service, which is dumb. If I own a Kindle and download a bunch of kindle books, I've paid for those books and they're mine. But if I want to switch to the nook, I can't take my library with me. How does that make sense? Piracy is rampant because people have either (a) already bought the physical copy but now want a copy on their e-reader (completely reasonable) or they bought the electronic version for another device and want it on their new device (also reasonable). When the book industry gets together and stops being stupid, and offers the books in the way the consumers want them, you'll see piracy go down -- just as iTunes reduced the use of music piracy.

Third: à la carte sales whittle down revenues.

Fundamental flaw: The argument here is based around the concept that people no longer have to pay for 13 crappy songs they don't even want. I can't even comprehend what type of logic brought the author to think that this model was fair to the consumer -- this was a pure rip-off and consumers got fed up with it, that's why there was a change.

Fourth but not last: the loss of a product's brick-and-mortar distribution outlets reduces consumer consciousness of a product.

Fundamental flaw: What? What?? Because you don't get the e-mails from B&N or Amazon every week talking about their new releases and they're not advertised everywhere on those services and many others?

As for your solutions, wow, is this guy wrong. First he talks about fixed prices -- the cost of something should be what the market can bear, and right now, the cost of what the market can bear has been reduced. People no longer want to pay $25 for a CD or $40 for a book. It doesn't make sense to them. These things are too widely available to still cost that much. You have a much larger supply and either the same demand or a lower one (due to people not wanting to spend money in a down economy).

Publishers colluding to set prices??? Is this guy freaking nuts? That's an easy way to guarantee that every college text book costs $1000 and ENCOURAGE piracy of books. If you charge more than what the consumer is willing to pay, you're going to cause more piracy. If they want any money at all, they need to find a price that more people are willing to pay.

Everything in this article is completely wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think I'd rather live in a world without books than a world with solutions like the those proposed. Don't bother reading the article, the first part is stuff you already know and stuff that's just plain wrong. (Like a 20% piracy rate translates into a 20% loss).

The meat of the article is in the last three paragraphs. Just read those, and then come back here to rip into the article.

</comment><comment><USER4> "As of the end of 2011 an estimated 20 percent of all e-books downloaded onto Kindles, Nooks and iPads were pirated. That's a 20 percent pay cut to authors, agents and publishers—a number that will only go up"

Not everyone that download something would have bought it instead if there were no alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER5> Books don't seem dead to me. If anything, there is a resurgence in books and publishing (regardless of format).

The article seems to be outraged that it may be tougher in the future to become a multi-millionaire author by rehashing shitty story lines. Like music, you may have to learn to get by with quality, not filler.

I fail to see how this is a bad thing at all.</comment>