Google's Page Allegedly Gave Rubin $150M Stock Award - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-11/google-s-page-approved-150-million-rubin-payout-lawsuit-says <comment><USER2> Android Probably added 100-200B to GOOG Market Cap. I would say thats peanuts.

<comment><USER3> This is another example of the fallacy where you give all the credit to the famous leader in the news. While leadership is important, it's not like he did it all himself.

<comment><USER4> Think about the alternative - somebody does a measurably great job, growing you a new multi-billion business from zero, even making you a dominant player. Later, that person ends up as a _suspect of an unrelated crime_ , so you deny them any reward. Why would anyone with great potential want to work for you? From outside, it could all look like there is some possibility you orchestrated the whole problem to avoid paying, e.g. by analyzing that person's weaknesses, then paying somebody else to be a bait etc. There are indeed a few cases where co-founders were baited by VCs into illegal acts like buying drugs or hiring escorts and later coerced to "do the right thing" or else...

That's probably not a signal you'd like to send.

<comment><USER5> 1.) If a founder got baited into illegal acts by a VC, they should be fired immediately. Not sure how you fire a VC, but that sort of thing should end that VC's career as well.

2.) It's irrelevant that he built a billion dollar business. He was well compensated throughout his time at Google, he knew the terms of his compensation package and presumably was fine with it given that he didn't leave voluntarily. This is a case where he was given an enormous compensation package AFTER a crime was discovered that is directly related to his job function. If you lead a team, your function is to lead it well. Hitting on your subordinates and worse is NOT leading it well, regardless of the success of that team.

He should have been fired, for cause, with zero severance. Google should have accepted the inevitable lawsuit. Stand up for your values even if you lose in court, otherwise they're meaningless.

I'm tired of assholes being rewarded and worshipped in the valley. It is possible to not be a horrible person and still accomplish great things. And if it's not, then it's probably not worth the great things if you lose your ethics in the process.

<comment><USER6> > This is a case where he was given an enormous compensation package AFTER a > crime was discovered that is directly related to his job function.

Was it proven that the crime was actually committed? or simply alleged?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The potential golden parachutes are pre-negotiated into the contracts for these executives. Google could refuse them or alter them, but than will also probably still face litigation from that departing executive. The lawyers for the investors who are bringing this suit against google have a moral point but I proving any legal wrong doing is going to be hard. At least it brings to light how different compensation works when you are higher up on the ladder.

<comment><USER5> Golden Parachutes are usually in place for termination without just cause. Companies like Google (and many many others) prefer to have a friendly separation with no litigation so they just have them trigger (or give some other similar package) for the executive to go away. I wish more companies with resources such as Google would take a stand and fight. Even if you lose, for such a wealthy company the extra cost should be minimal.

What does it say to your employees when they know that the higher up the ladder you are, the less accountable you are if you screw up?

What does it say for a company to decline to enforce+defend its values in open court when it's really pressed?

<comment><USER8> > I wish more companies with resources such as Google would take a stand and > fight.

I believe it has less to do with being well resourced and more to do with keeping internal politics and corporate secrets out of public court records

<comment><USER9> As well as lubricating the wheels of executive recruitment, because what exec is going to want to work for a place known to fight outgoing execs over their severance.

<comment><USER10> How many female (or any gender) execs want to work at a place giving $150 million to sex coercers on the way out?

<comment><USER11> Probably a lot because at that level they are making more than enough money...plus at a certain point, I'm sure they stop giving a shit about the rank-and-file employees...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People who are saying Rubin should be rewarded for creating Android ... he was, many times over. He worked at Google for almost a decade, I guarantee that he vested a ton of GSU's. Also, Google bought his company, Danger, which is how he got there in the first place, so he got a big payday for that.

Here's more detail on how the whole thing shook out. Basically, he used the $150MM grant as a bargaining chip to settle for $90MM in return for resigning. This award was only given when he was already under investigation for misconduct - if this was really a reward for creating Android, Page could have handed it to him any time in the other 8.5 years that he worked at Google.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/tech...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/technology/google- misconduct-exit-package.amp.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Is Page still actively involved in Google? With the walkouts, and anger at Google's top level management for paying hush money to Andy, does he still have credibility with employees? Will they follow this leader? Will they consider him authentic? He is still an example of what great leadership is all about?

People are fallible and sometimes show poor judgement. I get that. Just curious how does one come out of this unscathed. Will Google HR use PR techniques to protect Larry's aura at Google. Normal people usually get fired. Founders it seems are untouchable, especially at Google. Will be fascinating to see how all of this plays out.

<comment><USER14> I'd guess Page is wisely keeping a low profile, both inside and outside Google. He never sought the spotlight; he's had health problems with his voice that may still make being a regular spokesperson challenging.

And, anyone who's a prominent "mascot" for a tech giant just gets a lot of unnecessarily personalized hate. Why not lie low and pick & choose where to influence things internally, if you have that luxury?

How might Page come out of "this" unscathed? Well, I'm not sure to the board or stockholders, he's done anything wrong here.

Those operating under a sort of "just world" assumption might wish Rubin suffers more for the reported managerial misdeeds. In practice, if he was promised giant compensation for the giant impact his projects have had on Google – and would have received this or larger compensation under the prior working assumption of continued employment – then pulling that back from Rubin could be an impractical battle for Google.

Rubin might be willing to fight the allegations, in court, down to the last detail in a manner that could cost Google even more than this package. Also, Rubin knows all the proprietary details of Google's mobile strategy & forthcoming technologies. He's perhaps the one technologist in the world with the most knowledge and ability to launch an outside threat to Android's dominance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think that a system that allows people who have produced (Page, Rubin) to be subject to to the tantrums (legal and otherwise) of those who didn't is a broken system.

<comment><USER16> I'm curious to hear your solution to this perceived problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Good to see innovation appropriately rewarded to non executives.

<comment><USER18> I think you misspelled senior vice president of mobile and digital content.

<comment><USER19> I think his point is that the $150m (even $90m) is an outsized award for the team lead, compared to what the rest of the team received.</comment></comment></comment>


The First Bill Gates + Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft Ad Makes No Sense - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5045703/the-first-bill-gates-%2B-jerry-seinfeld-microsoft-ad-makes-no-sense <comment><USER2> I think the ad is rather brilliant. The whole "wtf" vibe is what they were going for. You have to always remember that this ad and the followup ads are part of a much larger campaign that is basically going to be a saga of microsoft advertising. Think of this as one of the first few pages in a chapter within a long book.

<comment><USER3> The 'wtf' vibe is also generating all kinds of noise about the ad. Every Mac related website in my RSS feed had an article about it, and it's on every news site I visit. The average consumer may be slightly confused, but the internet large is having it shoved in their face. Isn't that what you'd want with an aggressive ad campaign like this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know what you all are talking about: clearly this is just a teaser ad for Microsoft's new Edible PC. It comes in three editions: moist ($100), chewy ($150), and moist and chewy ($350).

<comment><USER5> Don't forget Ultimate Moist and Chewy ($500) and Enterprise Moist and Chewy ($750)

<comment><USER6> And thats just the 32-bit range. Don't forget Moist and Chewy 64 bit edition - twice as crunchy.

<comment><USER7> do they come with anti-cavity protection?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> for those that didn't get it:

the ad shows a normal conversation between two people. it wants to show that pcs are for normal people. this is achieved because it makes you think: hey look here are two famous people discussing something normal...

that's the thought that runs in your subconsious and thats what microsoft wants, where instead the message of Apple ads is hey "we use mac, we are better than you" bullshit...which apple's message is annoyingly imprinted in their users mind, reproduced in an annoying way by most of them.

<comment><USER9> If you have to explain an ad then it has failed.

<comment><USER10> An ad that people talk about cannot have failed. Whether that talking is explaining or not doesn't matter.

<comment><USER11> David Ogilvy, in his seminal "Ogilvy on Advertising," describes the paradox of the "Gorilla in a Jock Strap." He explains that if what you want is buzz and recall, you simply show something outrageous, and people remember the ad. Put the company's logo on the jock strap, and people remember the brand.

But do people buy the product? Does the ad reposition the brand or company?? It is certainly _possible_ that this advertisement does either or both of these things, but simply generating buzz in and of itself is not a valuable use of an advertising budget.

Now that I think about it, compare and contrast this to the famous 1984 ad. I love it, it's great theatre. It made everybody talk about Macintosh--because it mentioned the brand. It positioned the brand as being against IBM and corporate computing.

This ad is empty calories, buzz without direction.

Think about this: if _all_ they wanted was this level of buzz, they could have put out a press release indicating they were buying Yahoo. Same buzz, doesn't cost M$300.

<comment><USER10> The yahoo announcement did cost Microsoft shareholders deer ;-) But to the point, I agree with the principle you cite, but I don't think this ad is just empty buzz. I think making two people who are so outrageously successful look normal and a little stupid is supposed to make it easier for other normal folks to stand by their Microsoft PC buying choice in spite of Apple's coolness.

<comment><USER11> I accept that the ad may do more than just generate buzz. I hope so! As much as I dislike MSFT's current policies, I'd rather see them change than die.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The reason the ad makes no sense is that it is about nothing.

<comment><USER13> seinfeld humor. "Its a show about nothing." (like everyday life nothing).

<comment><USER14> Thank god you're here to save us, Captain Obvious!

<comment><USER15> Apparently Captain Obvious needs to spend some time with the Gizmodo bloggers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Spending $300m on an ad campaign to inspire consumers to reconnect with Microsoft not only feels desperate, but seems such a waste when it could have been channeled into making better products or hiring better hackers.

<comment><USER17> Microsoft is spending all kinds of money on both products and great hackers already. The biggest problem they have is their overall strategy.

With the cash they have on hand, I have never understood why they aren't doing more parallel development in smaller groups to let the good ideas happen organically. They continue to try to fit every new product into the existing Microsoft ecosystem -- something that is beginning to fail.

<comment><USER18> "They continue to try to fit every new product into the existing Microsoft ecosystem"

As companies get both bigger and older, internal politics seem to have a larger impact on company policy. There are surely many Microsoft employees who have a vested interest in keeping things exactly how they are, investing money and resources in existing projects that maintain or expand their power base, regardless of the benefit or lack-thereof to the company as a whole. It's a type of corporate inertia that's difficult to overcome once in place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I guess they feel the first step towards humanizing Microsoft is humanizing Bill Gates.

<comment><USER20> Funny, I watched it and I though:

I guess they want to start the hero worship of bill gates. (Mind meld? A sign from above? Running into a store to be a personal servant?)

<comment><USER21> Sweet where do I sign up? Bill Gates dresses better than Steve Jobs, it's true, my coffee told me so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me of the huge campaign they ran a couple of years back, the one with the dinosaurs, I'm sure you remember it. The idea behind it was that a load of people in offices ran around with dinosaur heads. The point of the ads were that you were a dinosaur if you didn't upgrade to the new office.

However what the ad accomplished was that Microsoft got associated with dinosaurs - they managed to brand their own software as old and cranky.

I was absolutely flabbergasted that a company with that kind of resources couldn't at least find an intern to tell them that this was a really really bad idea. This looks like more of the same...

</comment><comment><USER22> You can almost hear the money being flushed down the tubes.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but I liked the ad. One purpose of media is to get people talking, and there is plenty of buzz about this advertisement.

Jer

</comment><comment><USER24> My main thought watching the advert was, "that's sad, Bill Gates steps down from running Microsoft, and now spends his time in discount shoe stores?"

I'm honestly not trying to take a dig at the ad, but it did feel rather tragic.

</comment><comment><USER25> i liked it. it reminded me of the way william shatner has reinvented himself by hamming up his old cliche. he is now way more interesting. if bill gates could PR himself the role of 'PC genius doofus dropped back into normal world' with the help of some off the wall humour of JS - i think this could be a really interesting ad-war.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, maybe John Hodgeman could be tapped to play the part of the doofus.

I'll await further installments with interest. Maybe someone a bit more young and trendy could be be picked to play alongside the Gates / Hodgeman PC- analog...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's nonsensical, unfunny, and just lame. Sorry Microsoft, but you will never be able to catch up with Apple culturally.

<comment><USER8> try understanding the ad. it's actually a very smart ad

<comment><USER28> Oh I see, so the ad is targeted to mensans only?

<comment><USER29> I may risk to say understanding the ad will qualify you as not human.

<comment><USER30> I understood the ad.

What do I do now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can buying a shoe that fits your feet be so difficult? Actually it is, for me at least... Personally, for me it is the shirt. Even if you find a shoe that fits you there are onlookers criticizing that its not the right fit for you.

Now, how about getting the right operating system for your personal computer? Can some company satisfy every customer find their perfect operating system?. Its a challenge, I would say... and then there are some who want it moist and chewy, not dry and crunchy.

Just my interpretation and a thought that crossed my mind as I was trying to download a patch for my machine...

</comment><comment><USER32> This advertising campaign will be a great critical success. It's a sublimely entertaining advertisement and a really nice thing to do for Bill Gates. This 300MM blitz will really humanize Bill Gates to the TV watching public.

Of course, even the best advertising company can't save Microsoft. They need a miracle.

How long do you think it will take for the market cap of Amazon and Google to surpass Microsoft? In 100 years and beyond, Microsoft will disappear and Google will achieve immortality, at least until we abolish capitalism.

<comment><USER18> "In 100 years and beyond, Microsoft will disappear and Google will achieve immortality"

I suspect that, in a mere 25 years, Google will get the same respect that Microsoft does today (ie some, at least from some quarters, but much less than heyday levels). Some young bucks will come along with the same combination of smarts and business savvy and build the next big thing, and lots of the bright people currently at Google will have retired or moved on to other things.

<comment><USER32> Sure... I suspect that the market cap of Google will have surpassed Microsoft in 5 years. Amazon, in 25. In 100 years, Microsoft will certainly be entirely irrelevant if not completely gone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> sure it does...it says: "look at us, we are microsoft, we have a ton of money"

</comment><comment><USER34> Did you guys see Bee Movie? Did you see the Jerry Seinfeld ads for it?

Compared to the BM ads, especially, this is pretty funny. (I actually think it's decent on its own, but I've always been a big Seinfeld fan.)

It doesn't do much for MS's image, though, as far as I can tell. I thought Bill Gates was already popularish? The problem is the company.

</comment><comment><USER13> Have you guys watched the Seinfeld tv series? Its really the same kind of humor. lol. I found it funny

As much as we may hate to think it, in the end, I think Microsoft wins again because we DID watch the ad didn't we?

Jerry and his comedy is the bait.

We now know microsoft is up to something "delicious." whoopie.

<comment><USER35> _I think Microsoft wins again because we DID watch the ad didn't we?_

The problem with your statement, is that watches mean nothing if they do not sell the item. Selling the item means nothing if people don't view the ad.

One does not work without the other. In this case its getting views but its not selling, educating or performing anything to those views. This ad is nothing but empty views.

<comment><USER36> _The problem with your statement, is that watches mean nothing if they do not sell the item._

Ads aren't just for selling stuff directly. This ad doesn't sell anything, it changes brand image.

<comment><USER37> Exactly. Another example is the recent Honda ads.

(Tho' actually I suspect those are are more about changing the company's image as an employer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I am infinitely freaked out by the text "delicious" at the end of the clip.

</comment><comment><USER32> I thought this was great. Surreal seems very appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER39> we're all talking about it

</comment><comment><USER40> I don't understand why Microsoft needs to advertise on TV...most people I know don't see it on TV and use windows anyway.

</comment><comment><USER41> Since when do ads need to make sense?</comment>


Almost one-third of Chinese cities are shrinking - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3002219/almost-one-third-chinese-cities-are-shrinking-city-planners <comment><USER2> "Satellite imagery monitored the intensity of night lights in more than 3,300 cities and towns between 2013 and 2016"

I wonder if this accounts for a possible switch to favoring LEDs and better directional control that usually comes with it as a side effect.</comment>


Google Featured Snippets - <AUTHOR> https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9351707?p=featured_snippets <comment><AUTHOR> I posted this because I think it is a very interesting phenomenon that Google gets away with this. The underlying sites' content is shamelessly ripped and repurposed as though it is Google's own without so much as a 'by your leave'. This keeps 100% of the ad revenue for Google, the website does not even see the impression and has no idea where its traffic went. Effectively this turns the web into Google's content database from which it can send - or withhold - traffic at will.

The linked text contains this passage:

"We display featured snippets when our systems determine this format will help people more easily discover what they're seeking, both from the description about the page and when they click on the link to read the page itself. They're especially helpful for those on mobile or searching by voice."

That's about as disingenuous as it gets. People that find what they were looking for in this way will never make that click and with more and more traffic going to mobile the fraction that gets siphoned off like this is only getting larger.

This relegates the rest of the web to mere 'data provider' of Google rather than to see them as independent operators on a level playing field.</comment>


Google search suggestions by country - <AUTHOR> http://noahveltman.com/suggest/

<comment><USER2> Dear Canadians: We Americans are afraid of dragons because we are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.</comment>


Ask HN: How many Startups do do you need to invest to get a return - <AUTHOR>

I was was wondering in how many Startups does an investor need to invest to get a return since not every Startup is successful.
Are there any Statistics about this topic? <comment><USER2> This is not a well-formed question, mainly due to ambiguity. Perhaps you mean something like:

"In how many startups do I need to invest in order that my chance of making an overall annualised return of x% (where x is 0 or 10 or 20) over y years (where y is 5 or 10) is above z% (e.g. 99)."

The above is a question about diversification, and assumes that the quality of startups is constant as you add more to the mix. For this to be the case, you probably need to set some stable criteria to make the investment decision.

If you knew the answer to the question, you would need to maintain these criteria. You can't rely on diversification to save you, and just 'spray and pray'. If you aren't selective, your portfolio (and its returns) will be dominated by duds.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an un-answerable question. If you want a large numbers answer then you could look at Ycombinator information and divide the number of startups they invested in by the number of successful startup by _your_ measure of 'successful'.

Alternatively, the number is simply '1'. All it takes is one good start-up that you invested in. The problem is to identify a winning start-up before it has reached your goals for success.</comment>


SimplyHired raises $4.6 million, announces profitability - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/11/46-million-for-newly-profitable-simply-hired/

<comment><USER2> Why are they raising money just to hire 30 more people?

<comment><USER3> How do you know they are hiring 30 people? Also what kind of hire is this?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What services/tools do you use to receive your business emails? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN
I'll be the only one user.
I've seen G Suite and FastMail. They start at $5/month for a custom domain name.
Do you have other suggestions?
(my domain name is registered in Route53) <comment><USER2> I use Zoho and really like it. It is free for up to 5 email accounts and allows custom domains. I use it as the email service for two of my domains that I actually need email for.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been very happy with G Suite for the past year or so.</comment>


Hundreds of Roman gold coins found in basement of old theater - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/style/article/roman-gold-coins-italy-cressoni-theater-trnd/index.html <comment><USER2> Late imperial era, a slightly fuzzy date range. Included emperors Marcus Aurelius, Commodus (hello, Hollywood), followed by a very turbulent period from which my favorite emperor comes from, Geta. Because you don't want to be a Geta.

Powers that be issued a damnatio memoriae after his assassination where they tried to erase every trace of him, including his images from portraits: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Portrait...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Portrait_of_family_of_Septimius_Severus_- _Altes_Museum_-_Berlin_-_Germany_2017.jpg)

<comment><USER3> For anyone else as ignorant about this period of history as me, the Wikipedia articles are a real trip.

Geta -- murdered by his co-emperor and brother because they didn't like each other (aged 22)

Caracalla (the brother) -- murdered at the behest of Macrinus while urinating on the side of the road (aged 29)

Macrinus -- reigned one year before being defeated by an uprising that brought 14-year-old Elagabalus to power, ultimately beheaded

Elagabalus -- married and divorced five times during his four-year reign, including to the widow of a man he had executed and possibly also to a man; was assassinated by his own Praetorian Guards, beheaded, and his body was dragged around Rome (aged ~18)

Severus Alexander -- replaced cousin Elagabalus, did alright for quite a while (13 year reign!), but ultimately pissed off his military by trying to not fight the Germans, and was assassinated by his own generals, along with his mother

Maximinus -- made emperor by the Praetorian Guard, which caused the Senate to revolt; marched on Rome to put down the revolt, and was opposed by a series of emperors (numbered below) nominated by the Senate; ultimately murdered by his own military after failing to easily take Rome

(1/2) Gordian I/Gordian II -- father and son, rose to power while in Africa at the behest of the Senate; Gordian II was quickly defeated in battle by a supporter of Maximinus, after which Gordian I killed himself (reigned 21 days)

(3/4) Pupienus/Balbinus -- co-emperors after the death of the Gordians. Pupienus went out to fight Maximinus on the field, and returned to Rome successful. Balbinus stayed in Rome and fucked everything up. The two did not get along or trust each other, and ultimately both were murdered by the Praetorian Guard (reigned 3 months)

(5) Gordian III - Made Emperor at the age of 13 and sorta held it together for a remarkably long time, but ultimately died in Mesopotamia either at the hands of military enemies or his own army (aged 19)

I'm only stopping because I need to get back to work.

<comment><USER4> Game of Thrones sounds like a kindergarten show now. Almost sounds like a good game idea too: you play a roman emperor and the goal is to survive as long as possible knowing surviving a day's gonna be hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For anyone curious (I'm no expert) on the period value of this, I've seen estimates of ~$750,000 of purchasing power.

These are Aureus which equal 25 Denarius (silver coin of the time) which is roughly 1 full day of labor. So ball park 25 years of labor at 300 working days a year.

I realize this is fuzzy, just an idea.

</comment><comment><USER6> Best word of the article has to be numismatist: expert in rare coins.

<comment><USER5> To punch it up a bit, it's anyone with an interest in collecting/preserving coins or currency. Doesn't have to be an expert or rare. Coin/paper money/exonumia (tokens, fantasy issues) collectering = Numismatics

Also, fun fact for anyone reading, you can buy true, ancient Roman/Greek coins for a few bucks. Nice silver examples from certain well known emperors are often <$50. Just go on vcoins or somewhere reputable.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I always thought that the price of Roman coins, compared to more recent coins such as Tudor etc. is so cheap, I assume that's mainly due to there being so many of them?

<comment><USER5> I believe so, and I'm referring to bronze coins (so pennies/low value). It's likely that there are just a slew of them as well. Rome existed for 1000 years and was developed and widespread. They would have travelling mints go along with the armies/expeditions and mint coinage on site. It winds up spreading to everywhere, hence the hoards found in the UK.

It may have been that less were melted down as well, Roman currency was good for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a great example of why people still hold gold as a safehaven asset of last resort; it was valuable two thousand years ago and it is still valuable today.

Gold's value has survived being buried, natural disasters, war, peace, ends- of-empires and anything else the world has thrown at it. Even after two thousand years it is simple enough to verify that gold is relatively pure.

<comment><USER9> This gold in the day would have made you one of the richest persons around.

But today that gold is worth only about $50k (300 coins * 5 grams) The millions of dollars quoted are the historical artefact value.

<comment><USER8> Right, I was referring to the assayed value, not the historical value.

Gold is basically unique in history as a material with very little practical essential use for most people who have held it...yet holds value durably over the centuries.

<comment><USER10> Finally, an investment vehicle I can bury for 1600 years and know it will still have value when I come back to it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like back in the day it was still expensive to go to the theater.</comment>


Not all the facts fit the anti-colonialist narrative - <AUTHOR> https://unherd.com/2020/08/anti-colonialists-must-tell-the-truth-about-empire/ <comment><USER2> Although the topic is flameprone and the title arguably baity (no narrative fits all facts), the discussion in this thread is so good—at least in its best parts—that I've turned off flags on the submission. Thanks to everyone posting in the intended spirit of HN: thoughtful, curious conversation.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> I am also a Nigerian (from a different ethnicity from the author, which does influence my perspective). I've seen this discussion about "the good sides of colonialism" over and over again, and I've come to the conclusion that people keep tiptoeing around a simple truth: colonisation was wholly _unnecessary_ , and that is what makes it unethical no matter how much good one tries to link to it.

As a less morally fraught example, consider the reaction you would have if it was exposed that your browser was secretly sending your passwords in plaintext to some third-party service to check if they were secure enough. It doesn't matter that helping users avoid weak passwords is a noble goal and genuine objective; sharing users' passwords like that is completely unnecessary and thus indefensible.

The question then becomes: was there a better way to achieve the "good" of the colonial era - technological progress, etc - without colonisation itself? And the answer is yes, absolutely 100% yes. Colonisation was a _betrayal_ , not the start of Europe's history with Africa and Asia. To give an example close to home, the Portuguese and later the English had a fairly balanced mercantile relationship with the Benin Kingdom (part of modern-day Nigeria) for _centuries_ before the British colonial expeditions of the very late 19th century. You can even tell from the words of earlier visitors/tourists like Olfert Dapper that there was a respect for the people, their way of life and accomplishments (the Edo people were quite good at architecture, for instance).

The Benin Kingdom could very well have continued its natural technological, economic and social progression with the support of non-violent foreign partnerships and trade while retaining its sovereignty, but for the greed of the British. In fact, colonisation has most likely _hampered_ its development, not accelerated it. Japan for example avoided colonisation entirely and has quite clearly caught up to and surpassed its near and distant neighbours that got that dubious "help". Or consider how quickly Hawaii modernised even before it lost its sovereignty to the United States.

<comment><USER4> How about the fact that the British Empire, at great cost to its own interests, ended the practice of slavery widespread among Arabs and sub- Saharan Africans?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWrfjUzYvPo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWrfjUzYvPo)

That does not fit into the anti-colonialist narrative either.

<comment><USER3> That is not at all how that works. How do you reconcile this _altruism_ with Britain's continued trade with and reliance on goods from the Americas and their continued use of slave labour? How is it that so many Westerners keep making these strangely naïve and surface-level readings of history and politics?

You might find this interesting: [https://origins.osu.edu/review/after- abolition-britain-and-s...](https://origins.osu.edu/review/after-abolition- britain-and-slave-trade-1807)

<comment><USER5> > How do you reconcile this altruism with Britain's continued trade with and > reliance on goods from the Americas and their continued use of slave labour?

By simply not moving the goal posts.

> so many Westerners keep making these strangely naïve and surface-level > readings of history and politics

So they are naive for noticing a good thing in an ocean of evil, and you are keeping it real by thinking that until everything is perfect no progress matters. Got it.

<comment><USER3> It's not "moving the goal posts" to point out that the "great cost to her interests" was largely nonexistent considering that Britain kept right on benefiting from and funding it under the table - it's simply knowing enough of the history involved to not reason like a small child.

<comment><USER5> Keep adding insults to your posts. Makes you right every time.

And for the "benefiting", there's nothing anybody can do that you people won't label as benefiting even if it's 2nd, 3rd or 10th party. All the while posting this on devices produced by workers free only in name with materials from the poorest countries with the most horrible work conditions in their mines.

<comment><USER6> > you people

Yikes.

> All the while posting this on devices produced by workers free only in name > with materials from the poorest countries with the most horrible work > conditions in their mines.

Sweet, so you're obviously an anti-capitalist too right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is hard to talk about, here's my take.

To say that British colonialism was better in Nigeria than in Kenya, or than Belgian colonialism doesn't _really_ seem to support the thesis that "there were good things about British colonialism", does it?

The fact is people showed up with guns one day and said "you work for me now" and "all these separate tribe lands are now one administrative unit so I can manage it better". No matter how nice they were by building roads (to ports), or schools (so the workers can understand basic math and thus follow orders, and how great their lives are under colonial rule) doesn't change the highly likely correct statement that an independent Nigeria free from influence stirring internal conflicts would have been much better off.

"Being colonized was better than living through our internal struggles" is kinda moot. Europe had plenty of war, disease and more war and still came out through it. A colonizer imposing stability by the sword/rifle wouldn't have been better in the long term.

<comment><USER8> > doesn't change the fact that an independent Nigeria free from influence > stirring internal conflicts would have been much better off

Maybe we have different definitions of the word fact but I'd suggest what you are saying is actually a hypothetical and not a fact at all.

Ethiopia was never colonised and look how they turned out compared to the rest of Africa. It's very tempting to try simplify these highly complex realities, the relative comparison you've made doesn't hold water though.

<comment><USER9> ...Ethiopia was conquered by Fascist Italy.

<comment><USER10> This was just for 5 years (1936-1941); although you could perhaps also add on 3 years of British rule to that. I wouldn't really describe that as "colonialism" in the same way that e.g. Nigeria was ruled by the British for 160 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you set up a bunch of people on the Northpole and support them, that's a colony. If you take someone else's land, murder them, enslave them or exploit them that is conquest. The 'colonies' of yesteryear were simply brutal exploitation strategies executed with zero consideration for anybody's rights except for those of the conquerors.

Since those countries - without exception very wealthy, and mostly European though there are some exceptions - tend to be all very civilized now we no longer want to be faced with this uncomfortable truth: that we went from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years over the backs of untold people's lives destroyed.

In school we don't teach it other than with some strange form of national pride. We only tell the story from some glorified explorer's point of view. But when viewed from the side of the indigenous people the sight of a Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish or some other seafaring nation was that your days were numbered.

Any accidental positive happenstances do not negate that conquest is war and war is a net negative, no matter how much you twist it and even if it benefits the aggressor financially.

<comment><USER12> When viewed from the side of the indigenous however, it wasn't just the sight of a European that meant your days were numbered. Sighting an Aztec for example was almost as bad.

It is possible that going from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years with European influence ultimately results in less suffering than if that transition took significantly longer without European influence.

<comment><USER13> I think the "going from famines and plagues to riches within a few hundred years" was referring to what happened in Europe. As far as I know, those were not issues in most of the former colonies (before colonization).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One thing that can really help with the study of colonialism is the proper sourcing of (and translating if needs be) of first hand accounts. This should be the starting point of any discussion. Dr Remi does this well.

There are two objections I have to this piece. The academic points are sound and very good, however There is a throw away at the end "opening the door for white people to shed any guilt".

This feels very catholic original sin. Barbarism underscores colonialism, as does greed, this is undeniable. But we cannot tar an entire race with the sins of their ruling elite forebears. (just as its inexcusable to discriminate on the basis of race)

The second is the underplaying of the level of colonialism in europe it's self. It suggests (wrongly) that the europe was the land of milk and honey. At the time that the newly formed united kingdom was sniffing around india (pre nationalisation of the EIC) napoleon had invaded most of europe. The ramifications we still feel today. At the time of the british empire was collapsing, russia was brutalising the eastern bloc.

</comment><comment><USER15> Amazon has a research group it unironically calls the "1492 project".

It turns out that the colonial frame is actually useful for predicting behavior, and should be kept for precisely that reason.

Tech companies invade spaces with long-established established norms around property rights (e.g. wiretapping is a crime, I own my communications), then operate entirely outside those norms, and once they are powerful enough they assert that their norms have been law all along.

This is akin to "buying land" with beads from people who have a completely different understanding of what "buying land" means. There is no informed consent.

Informed consent is the difference between a voluntary market transaction and colonization.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think what bothers me about many instances of colonialism is the misleading historical representations that we are left with, as history is often written by (if not the victors) those who had the upper hand at the end of the conflict.

There is still an ongoing narrative that the British brought some kind of civilization and industrialization to the region of British India that was unachievable before, somehow advancing it into a new age. In truth, the start of colonization was centered around the deindustrialization and enslavement of workers in Bengal into forced labor and sometimes starvation, destroying factories that produced advanced ships and textiles in the wealthiest region that alone accounted for 10-12% of the world's GDP if I recall correctly. These products were typically for export, generating wealth in the region, and the production was destroyed in favor of tea plantations that proved to be relatively underutilized and unproductive.

Granted, the kingdom was also under external stressors at the time such as conflicts with neighboring regions, so maybe this specific relatively industrialized economy may not have survived until today, but the British certainly hastened the poverty-stricken development of India and other subcontinental countries that the region is still suffering from today.

Do aspects such as the exposure to the English language, now relatively widespread as a second language, make up for this in the long term? Maybe this argument can be made, but it seems like an uphill battle in my opinion.

<comment><USER17> Soviet apoligists day the same about Baltic regions: "we came to basically a forest and built schools for them".

What they forget is that in parallel to that they were systematically eradicating their language and everyone who had any political stance (educated, etc) up to the point that a lot of political movements in these regions originated from overseas, as that is where most of these (lucky) people could move instead of being forcibly removed to Syberia.

<comment><USER18> But the contributions are radically different as the current remains reveal. Worldwide English is the language of commerce and throughout the remains of the former British Empire English for traders continues to be extremely common and global in scope and impact. In almost every city colonized by the British there remain enduring street grids with broad rights of way and predictable block sizes that are in many cases still the most lively and economically active areas.

In contrast modern Baltic people speak English for international commerce and Russians when they need to talk to their neighbors. Also most of the construction the Russians were responsible for were military or industrial installations that have mostly been replaced or fallen out of use.

It is these artifacts of colonial force that remain that bring into question the idea that the whole business had zero positive impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The point the gentleman makes is well-reasoned, but I find it strange that he doesn't cite any of the 'facts that don't fit the anti-colonialist mindset', instead settling for general observations that are hard to concretely dispute because of their general nature.

<comment><USER20> Agreed, this seems like a bit of a clickbait title. I'm sure you'll find people that say they want colonialism to be taught in school as an exclusively bad thing, but you'll also find people wanting intelligent design to be taught alongside evolution.

<comment><USER21> I'm starting to wonder if titles such as these are actually "clickbait". Maybe we could call them sharebait - they don't encourage reading and speculation as much as social media outrage for or against the overly simplified, purposefully controversial headline. I don't doubt that a lot of people will see this and think "See? We weren't so bad!" or "See? They don't care how bad we were!", whichever matches their preconceptions.

<comment><USER22> I still wonder why people don't get tired of reducing every discussion to "is x good or bad?" Why should everything need to be categorized in such a way, and why would this be the most important aspect of any analysis? It seems more likely that referring to a massive and complicated process in such a simple way will never be correct, and so these arguments can never be resolved, only recapitulated.

The core argument in this article seems to be that multiple perspectives are necessary to understand colonialism and that many lower class people preferred colonial oppression to the oppression by their local elites. This is not related to whether or not colonialism was a net benefit to people.

"But in a country like Nigeria, Britain's largest African colony, feelings towards colonialism were more complicated. In his 1947 book Path to Nigerian Freedom, Obafemi Awolowo, considered one of Nigeria's Founding Fathers for his role in the independence struggle, offered a frank assessment of the challenges in mobilising his compatriots against British rule at the time. 'Given a choice from among white officials, [Nigerian] chiefs and educated Nigerians as the principal rulers of the country, the illiterate man today would exercise his preference for the three in the order in which they are named. He is convinced, and has good reasons to be, that he can always get better treatment from the white man than he could hope to get from the chiefs and the educated elements,' Awolowo wrote."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > when I asked my British university class what they had learned at school > about colonisation, "Nothing really!" was the chorused reply.

I am not surprised.

For what it is worth, during my UK education I never really got taught any "general" history. There was no high-level history of the country, no general sequence of world events, no lists of kings and queens or which prime minister was in power when and so on.

History classes would instead pick some arbitrary time and location and then "deep dive" into that single subject for the entire school year - e.g. we covered the Russian revolution and _only_ the Russian revolution for one entire school year. Other years it was The Normans, another it was the Great Depression.

History class seemed to be less about the _actual history_ (i.e. facts), and more about the approach taken to scrutinise the sources for reliability/credibility and come up with your own judgement based on what you have available.

<comment><USER24> If I had to choose between memorizing a sequence of facts curated by some randos in the government, or being taught how to scrutinize sources for reliability/credibility and come up with my own judgements, then you won as that is far better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm just a single generation away from poverty to the point of - on one side of my family - actual infant malnutrition. Why am I supposed to feel responsible for the actions of people that were geographically and ethnically distinct from my ancestors, simply because they happened to share the same skin colour and kingdom? Not many people in industrial Wales seemed to share in the benefits of colonialism. Many of the British elite were/are Norman: [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2479271/1-000-years...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2479271/1-000-years- invaded-need-Norman-like-Darcy-Percy-ahead.html)

<comment><USER26> You're conflating guilt and responsibility.

An analogy: Suppose that at work, some critical system belonging to another team blows up, and everyone is asked to help fix it. It's not useful to complain that it's that other team's fault. The mess is there, and it needs to be fixed. Even though you don't share in the guilt for it blowing up, you're still responsible for fixing it.

<comment><USER25> I don't see anyone rushing to make amends for the grinding poverty much of the population of the UK suffered. Funny that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This article is all well and good but realistically, in 2020, if you were a teacher at any grade level who taught about slavery or colonialism with any nuance whatsoever your career would be promptly executed by internet firing squad.

<comment><USER28> I found that the moral ambiguity only ratcheted up over time. In 3rd grade it was peaceful pilgrims co-existing with the natives. In 9th grade it was the trail of tears and Vietnam. In college it was "the sons of liberty were terrorists and the noble savage trope is a myth".

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sure, let's have some more nuance during our education. But let's also not let the UK off the hook; off the top of my head, during the same century, the UK starved their own people at home in Ireland [0], propped up the Raj while Indians starved [1], and waged a series of wars against the Dutch Boers to the detriment of native South Africans [2].

It can _both_ be true that the British Empire was a great boon in terms of education, health, and trade; and also that the Empire was a great plague upon its subjects, bringing indoctrination, sickness, and slavery.

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

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War_(disambiguation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_War_\(disambiguation\))

<comment><USER30> > But let's also not let the UK off the hook

I think this kind of attitude is what the author of the article is struggling with: assigning blame, tallying up the sins of each side to see who is the winner, this kind of debate is not useful - even if you don't intend it, framing things in this light will cause it.

There is value for everyone in discussing the nuances of dark events in our histories. But unfortunately we have a natural tendency to over simplify things into these highly polarized dichotomies, a vs b, in an attempt to make complex events easy to understand. Nobody alive today had a hand in these events, and while it's natural to feel things for our ancestors whether it's shame, pride or anguish, we would do well to distance ourselves like an alien observer when analyzing these events... the sins of our fathers should remain that way if we are to make progress as a species - I'm not religious, that was an accident.

<comment><USER31> It's not history though. The same attitudes prevail today. Northern Ireland is still part of the UK. France are bombing most of N Africa and involved in all sorts of shady deals in Africa in general. The list is long and current.

<comment><USER32> Northern Ireland is still part of the UK because the majority of the people wish it so.

The British Secretary of State is _required_ to hold a referendum to rejoin the South if he/she believes that it will pass.

Don't get me wrong, it's bad but its 1000x better in the last 20-30 years.

<comment><USER31> Which people? If you want to undo colonialism you need to include all Irish people in this measure and I can tell you not many Irish nationals if even that want it to be like it is. I'm probably the most outlier opinion in that I think they should be their own country outside of both the UK and Ireland.

From politico: Overall, the results showed 65 percent "yes" versus 19 percent "no." Excluding undecided voters and those who refused to answer — 15 percent — nearly four in five respondents who had made up their minds said they would vote in favor. [https://www.politico.eu/article/election-two-thirds-of- irish...](https://www.politico.eu/article/election-two-thirds-of-irish-would- vote-for-united-ireland/)

<comment><USER32> Full disclosure: I am from the South of Ireland (i.e. the Republic).

I actually have always agreed with your outlier opinion, but you need both countries to be in the EU to make it work (shrug).

You are not counting the appropriate people in your study. A pretty large majority of people in the Republic would like to see the North become part of their country.

However, our opinion is less important than the opinions of the people living in Northern Ireland, and in that part of the island, there is _not_ a strong majority for re-unification.

Like my original point is what the Good Friday/Belfast agreement states, so I'm not sure why you're disagreeing with me.

<comment><USER31> I'm talking more about decolonisation. If you steal something it was and is never yours to begin with. GFA was only necessary because of colonial history and continuing attitudes and the power games that come with them.

There is one school of thought (which the GFA falls under) which is what's happened in the past is legitimate and we have to work from where we are and there is another which is that the colonial past is illegitimate and therefore any gains are also illegitimate and most be returned to their rightful owner.

I don't subscribe to either necessarily but seeing as continuing prevailing attitudes among the colonial elite haven't changed one bit I think we have no choice but to confront them gloves off style. It's literally stealing our collective global future.

<comment><USER33> How far back do you want to unwind? Should all non-aboriginals be disenfranchised or removed from Australia? At some point you have to work with things as they are and move forward.

<comment><USER31> Australia is an exceptionally interesting case study. Tbh I don't have the answer to that as you are 100% correct too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Even the name, colonialism, is chosen to paint a very one sided contemporary political view. Colonial EMPIRES are just how imperialism manifested in a certain time and place. Human history is a never ending story of empires that didn't care about race, continent, culture, etc. Just the strong conquering the weak (military strength) for resources. With the weak very often being disorganized in every aspect, not just the army, so the conquest also brings benefits to them.

<comment><USER34> > Even the name, colonialism, is chosen to paint a very one sided contemporary > political view.

You're projecting. The word "colony" doesn't by nature have any negative connotations; the reason "colonialism" sounds negative is because it is associated with the enslavement and extermination of native populations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Here is another way of raising a question about colonialism:

"What is _unethical_ about a project[colonialism] that, among other things, industrialized the colonies, established courts of Law, laid railroads, and introduced scientific education, modern medicine and parliamentary democracy there? As long as we do not address this issue properly, there are no obvious reasons to assume that the earlier generations of thinkers were wrong. Today, it is not clear how or why colonialism is an evil or from where it draws its evil strength. In other words, we lack an adequate understanding of colonialism."

From S.N. Balagangadhara's Colonialism and Colonial Consciousness: The case of modern India. [https://www.academia.edu/4214196/Rethinking_Colonialism_and_...](https://www.academia.edu/4214196/Rethinking_Colonialism_and_Colonial_Consciousness)

</comment><comment><USER36> >> I cried reading that book, and experienced intense feelings of animus towards white people, even though my own mother, being Polish, was white.

I find this a little unfair, given that many white people do not have a colonial past and some have themselves been subject to colonisation and imperalism. This includes most of the peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe, i.e. the Slavs and also my people, Greeks. While Russia had an Empire and colonies in Asia, it never really colonised Africa [1]. Other Slavic countries never had colonies [2] and neither did us Greeks who were ourselves enslaved by the Ottomans for much of our pre-modern history and were a protectorate of the Great Powers saddled by them with a foreign kingly dynasty [3] during the time that the Western Europeans where having their little moment in Africa, in the 1880's.

So it's no point feeling "animus" towards all white people- certainly not towards one's Polish mother. It's no use lumping all "Europeans" together, either. I would go as far as to say that even the majority of people in countries that were colonial powers, like Britain or France, did not really partake in the riches pillaged from Africa and its people, because it all stayed in the hands of monarchs and aristocrats who often didn't treat their domestic population any better than the people of faraway lands and certainly didn't hold them in much greater esteem. If you hail from a long line of pig farmers and washerwomen that lived in poverty and squalor while their "betters" partied in India - how can you be held responsible for the latters' behaviour?

And then there were the white people colonised by other white people, as in the colonisation of Ireland by the English during the 1550's, by settling it with Protestants and establishing... plantations [4]. Has anyone asked the Irish how they feel about the great British Empire? [5]

If we're going to have a historically nuanced debate about colonialism (and not just race and racism, which are somewhat independent, in my view) then we should have a _nuanced_ debate and discuss the fact that colonialism didn't really care about the colour of your skin, only about the degree to which you were inhabiting land with useful resources that could be taken from you and exploited for the glory of Empire (and the enrichment of its elites).

________________

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism#Imperia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_colonialism#Imperial_Russia)

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

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

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

[5] Oh, but it's complicated, I know... probably because of the settlement by Protestants as above.

<comment><USER37> Re: Slavs and colonialism, most of the money that built the Italian city of Genoa in the 1100s to the 1300s came from selling and facilitating the selling of Slav war prisoners (i.e. slaves) captured and transported from the Northern shores of the Black Sea to the Constantinople area (i.e. on the Southern shore).

<comment><USER38> The word slave actually comes from Slav

<comment><USER36> I had the same reflex, but the OP did not write that "Slav" means "slave", they worte that "war prisoner" signified "slave".

<comment><USER37> It's still kind of disputed, that's why I left that out of the conversation.

Forgetting for a moment about the English term "slave", it's interesting that in Italian slaves are called "schiavi", with the singular "schiavo", while in old Romanian we used to called Slav people (who were different from us, Romance-speaking people) as "șchei", with the singular "șchiau/schiau", the second form at singular pretty similar to the independently formed "schiavo" from Italian (which means "slave", like I said).

<comment><USER36> And in Greek, we say "Σλάβος" (Slav) which is only one word away from "σκλάβος" (sclave) so I've always thought that the two were connected, until very recently, when I checked wikipedia just to be sure and found out that I was probably wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's very rare for anyone to talk about the efforts made by some institutions to give power and wealth away in restorative colonialist experiments, for example the American Colonization Society.

We have decades of socio-economic data about Liberia covering all aspects of development since its creation as a colony for freed slaves.

I have never heard anyone debate the terrible experiment of Liberia which is today one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world, despite it being founded and governed by its own free people and independent from any other nation for over 170 years.

It is one of the purest split tests in human civilisation but few know it exists and even fewer want to learn anything from it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Well I think one thing and which the article describes well, is that colonialism gave external pressure for those nations moving forward. Like being bullied and abused in school before graduating, colonialism gave an identity mixed in with the culture and language the oppressors brought. Tribes that would probably never have formed a country together otherwise, were piled in with arbitrary borders with no regard did it split the tribes or not. And given a name and a flag and told they were now Kenyan or whoever from here on out.

Now of course bullying and abusing is wrong and the bullied have eternal trauma of being subjected to it, but I think there are two perspectives to it. You can either look at it as the worst thing that happened "I would have become rich and famous had I not been bullied" or as something that made you stronger "I've been through worse".

Granted, the analogy between bullying and colonialism might not be completely accurate. But like everything in life things are mostly grey instead of black and white. Can you quantify which color is stronger and equal it as being one or the other? Maybe, but there should be a lengthy rationale how you came up with the conclusion to reflect the best how world truly is (and yes yes, there are exceptions to this rule also). Which the article actually does well, and I wish this type of rationality to difficult issues would be more popular.

</comment><comment><USER9> > According to YouGov, as many as 50% of Dutch people feel proud of their past > Empire

That got a big "Oof" from me, considering some of the crap that the Dutch pulled - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conquest_of_the_Banda_Is...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conquest_of_the_Banda_Islands)

<comment><USER41> Being Dutch, I think this can be attributed more to the feeling of 'having been really big in the past' than what actually happened during that period. The Dutch, I mean, suffering from a Calimero complex as we are.

<comment><USER42> The term "Calimero complex" seems to be only used by the Dutch (and perhaps Belgians too) from my skim of search results. [https://www.the-incredible- shrinking-man.net/?p=13281](https://www.the-incredible-shrinking- man.net/?p=13281)

<comment><USER41> Oh I'm sorry, it basically means: "They are big and we are small and that's not fair" It originates from an italian cartoon tv-series: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calimero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calimero)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't know that the living get to speak for the dead. If someone comes to your town, kills your parents and burns down your house, but then kidnaps you and raises you as a servant, it's a bit silly to compare the comforts of your servants' quarters to the hypothetical situation you would have been in if the invaders had never come. Your parents' story is still important, and your guess about how unhappy you would have been in a world that never happened is a rationalized comfort in your current situation. Especially if you are a member of one of the local Christian elites used around the world as a buffer between the colonial power and the land and workers it needed to exploit.

Stories by the colonized about how colonization helped their people are like slate dot com headlines about "Why Getting Cancer Saved My Life."

<comment><USER43> At the same time, though, a world where everyone's going around trying to avenge their ancestors is a world full of conflict and strife. There are obvious reasons it's problematic to tell people they _have_ to forgive and forget, but I think it's a quite similar problem to tell people they shouldn't.

<comment><USER24> 99.99% of our 300,000+ years of history is people going around avenging their ancestors through pillage, enslavement, rape and murder. We're for the most part in a brief moment of respite from the norm, but I'm sure we'll be back to genocide and slavery before long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm American, but I'm surprised I've never heard any arguments about reparations for their former colonies, as I've heard plenty about reparations for the practice of slavery in the US. I mean de-colonialization happened much later than the end of slavery in the US, and it would arguably be easier to implement. Has the idea been brought up in public thought in Europe at all? Some cursory googling revealed it has been brought up, but I'm curious what public discussion and sentiment is on the issue

</comment><comment><USER45> The part about finding an "African identity" that isn't merely "western" gave me pause because I come from a country that was colonized considerably earlier and, like the rest of the Americas, had its native population decimated so completely and its identity so completely replaced, practically nothing is left but "western"... And I find myself completely alright with that, so it's harder to me to see the importance of such an identity.

</comment><comment><USER46> There's always someone coming to help you out for your own good which just coincidentally enriches them. Listen, if you want to come cut my lawn and install pretty little lights but enslave me, don't expect me to thank you for the lawn. I can cut the lawn myself. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER47> tl;dr

humans can act good or bad, this will never change, if you don't understand nuance, you will not be a happy person

</comment><comment><USER5> People who actually lived in that time prefered the colonization administration as per article but progressive intelectuals from today know better. What more could be said...

<comment><USER48> That is NOT what the article says. It states:

"In his 1947 book [...]Obafemi Awolowo, [wrote] "Given a choice from among white officials, [Nigerian] chiefs and educated Nigerians as the principal rulers of the country, the illiterate man today would exercise his preference for the three in the order in which they are named. He is convinced, and has good reasons to be, that he can always get better treatment from the white man than he could hope to get from the chiefs and the educated elements," [...]

"According to this, [...] many regular Nigerians seemed to sense a fairness in the British exercise of power that they were not so sure of in their own leaders."

So one author says that SOME people thought that the British were fairer. We don't know how many. And we don't know if they were right or wrong.

<comment><USER5> > SOME people thought that the British were fairer. We don't know how many

It's right there in the quote: "many"

> And we don't know if they were right or wrong.

That's your other quote "He is convinced, and has good reasons to be, that he can always get better treatment from the white man" \- the author's opinion, who was not an illiterate obviously: "has good reasons".

Being right or wrong has nothing to do with it. Their lives, their country, their right to decide. You think you know better what's good for them, don't you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Empires are made up of people - both good and bad. Empires have both good and bad impacts as they expand. Its the people (colonizers, colonized) who make the difference in many cases.

Prior to the British Empire, slavery was ubiquitous, as was piracy. It was widespread in Africa, the Middle East, and other areas. After the British Empire, these scourges were pretty much gone, primarily through the efforts of the British Empire.

That is not to say that slavery and piracy were not actively encouraged, and used as instruments of the British state. In fact, slavery and piracy greatly expanded for a time due to British policies. The British state, and powerful companies and people achieve great wealth and power because of slavery and piracy.

Nonetheless, they were eventually ended decisively through the efforts of the British Empire, which banned slavery in 1807.

What happened? People changed, and fought for change. Their efforts changed the machinery of the British Empire for the better.

Consider John Newton. He was a slave trader, who eventually became an abolitionist (a person who fought against slavery).

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

Or William Wilberforce, who spent a large part of his life facing ridicule for opposing slavery, and fighting the powerful slave interests, finally winning that fight in 1807.

So, yes, a large government apparatus such as the British Empire can have an enormous impact on people, both good and bad.

Simplifying the complexity to "without colonization, we would be fine" or "colonization provided all of these great benefits" \- both of those gloss over the reality, and make it likely we'll repeat the mistakes of the past.

</comment><comment><USER50> Without Hacker News I would never even know that such insane authors exist:

"This expectation underestimates the human desire to feel strong, the powerful psychological appeal for many, not just in Britain, in taking pride in the conquests of their ancestors. It offers a sense of collective strength they can tap into as individuals. If they, of whom I am one, could be so triumphant in the past, surely I too possess triumph in me?

The morality of taking pride in ancestral conquests involving the killing and subjugation of other human beings is questionable, but its psychological appeal is undeniable."

why yes, it sure is a RUSH to conquer other people and take all their stuff, especially for the huge number of masses that never had to actually, you know, _kill_ anyone, they just get to have all this awesome land and stuff and kind of a curious way that all the streets seem to be named after native americans even though I've never met any here at all, shrugs.... conquest is awesome! teach the controversy, people!

<comment><USER51> You confuse the author's identification of this impulse with his holding that view.

He identifies one reason why a large chunk of people might feel pride for their ancestors' subjugation of others. Should he not shine a light on it?

<comment><USER50> certainly not a _favorable_ light! the lack of ethics in this community is just depressing to me

<comment><USER52> I think he was being charitable. Not wanting to offend anyone. He ended like this

So for British teachers wondering how to teach the subject, it is important to cite various perspectives, including, crucially, the perspectives of the colonised; not in a wholly arbitrary manner seeking to buttress this or that grand narrative, but in a way revealing the complexities and contradictions of Britain's colonial encounter with Africa.

which suggests he doesn't agree with their views. I think he is pretty neutral.

<comment><USER50> > Not wanting to offend anyone.

he failed! suggesting the psychological appeal of knowing that I grew up in a town that was violently ripped from native americans makes me feel _AWFUL_ , what kind of psychotic asshole do you need to be to actually _know_ about the genocide you live on top of and then to feel _pride_ in that? People are generally not bothered by their own colonialist history because they're shockingly ignorant of what it actually means to go somewhere and eradicate an entire culture. But to suggest that these people are actually intimitely aware of such conquest and that it there is "undeniable appeal" to feeling "proud" of that is revolting.

<comment><USER52> But I don't think he's suggesting he's reporting his experience with Britons. I'm pretty sure they evade the bad parts of empire in their education. Just like the Civil Rights Movement is sanitized in US.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tesla Model S involved in 'unintended acceleration' incident  - <AUTHOR> http://green.autoblog.com/2013/09/25/tesla-model-s-involved-in-unintended-acceleration-incident

<comment><USER2> I would guess, like most people, she judges engine response by ear. And, because of the lack of noise, she accelerated thinking she had not pressed the pedal hard enough. Mix that with the different behavior around not moving when the pedal is not pressed (unless they changed that setting), and she just did the wrong thing at the wrong time. It's just sad that, for liability reasons, it is better to force someone to prove you wrong, than just fixing the issue.

<comment><USER3> It's just as likely she meant to slam on the brakes and accidentally slammed the wrong pedal. The fact this was the driver's first time in the vehicle makes this kind of mixup easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This news comes up a day after GM announces that they are directly competing with Tesla.

Last time the whole debate was raging , GM was in the crapper and Toyota was eating their lunch.

im just sayin.....

edit: GM <-> Tesla Discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6441472](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6441472)

<comment><USER2> Don't forget the car dealers fighting to force Tesla to sell through them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> More like individual consumer _claims_ that his Tesla 'magically' accelerated during his wife's first drive of the vehicle.

Despite the car's logs showing clearly that the pedal was depressed at the time of the 'accident', individual consumer claims that his wife didn't depress the pedal.

Investigation underway to determine whether or not individual consumer's insurance will cover the 'accident'.

<comment><USER6> The car's logs don't necessarily tell the whole story. A failure upstream of the logging system (cruise control system depresses pedal, pedal catches on carpet) would be unintended but logged, as well as a software failure that misread the pedal as depressed (accelerating the car and writing the erroneous value to log).

<comment><USER7> My 2009 Civic doesn't move the pedal when I turn cruise control on. That's entirely controlled by the car's computer. I would imagine that the Tesla does handles it in exactly the same way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems like bullshit. Whether or not it's bullshit with an agenda I can't say, but it's still bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER9> I thought they had safe guards against this! like lack of battery power. ;P</comment>


An Open Letter to Tom Preston-Werner - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parkermoore.de/2012/12/11/an-open-letter-to-tom-preston-werner/ Tom Preston-Werner, the creator of Jekyll and co-founder of Github, has allowed his Jekyll project to fall to the wayside. Help me and others get his attention to finally allow this project to continue to grow. <comment><USER2> You can go ahead and send that open letter, but why not just fork it and go ahead and add the things you want until he accepts it? Adding contributions to the code and then telling him, "Hey, I added a bunch of things, fixed a bunch of bugs, etc. Can you give me push access?" is better than "Hey, you haven't been putting in much work into this project. Why don't you let other people work on this?". Who should he give access to? Why?

Give reasons. Not requests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point! This letter was written after I've done much of that. Unfortunately, nothing has been done yet. But that's definitely the attitude that one should take (unfortunately, it's just deteriorated over time).

The reason I sent this email (and others) to Tom is because it seems like he's lost interest in the project - which is totally fine! As it's an insanely popular project, however, (one which the public has not forgotten about, certainly), I have an intense desire to push it forward and see it become all that it can be!</comment></comment>


NYC cops did a work stop, yet crime dropped - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-stop-yet-crime-dropped/ <comment><USER2> >"During the slowdown, police continued to respond to calls, and the arrest rate for major crimes (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto) remained constant"

It's an interesting study, but the fact that the arrest rate for major crimes remained constant while the rate of reporting for those crimes dropped tells me that the rate of those crimes being committed didn't actually drop.

</comment><comment><USER3> The _arrest rate_ for "minor crimes" went down. That is not the same as proving that "crime dropped".

For example, the _arrest rate_ for car burglary in San Francisco is very low, yet streets everywhere are littered with auto glass chunks.</comment>


Show HN: List of Fully Remote Startups - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1huJ_plk7XVwVQm5KrkcQXA6OSZi6c-ovbYAMp5uY2yQ/edit?usp=sharing

<comment><AUTHOR> I composed a list of fully remote startups. Not just "Remote OK" companies, but "Fully Remote" companies.

I made this list for people who / want to work in a remote team / are making products for distributed teams / want to know how to do remote work better

There can be missed companies. Let me know if you know other companies that should be on this list.

I removed one company after reading this: [http://blog.statuspage.io/we-tried- building-a-remote-team-an...](http://blog.statuspage.io/we-tried-building-a- remote-team-and-it-sucked)</comment>


Ask HN: What's the largest website hosted on Digital Ocean? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering what is the largest website you know of being hosted on digital ocean?<p>I am wondering if it is just small websites which use it or whether larger sites are making real use of the service. <comment><USER2> If you count sub-domains on Alexa top domains here's a few big companies in there like iStockPhoto and Debenhams -

      discover.istockphoto.com
      store.xda-developers.com
      support.sharebeast.com
      finance.debenhams.com
      poy.tsn.ca
      m.nzherald.co.nz
      blog.telmex.com
      business.un.org
      coinad.com
      status.formstack.com
      indulgy.com
      all-that-is-interesting.com
      pbh2.com
      edoqs.com
      grandascent.com
      locations.paychex.com
      pagelines.com
      danjur.com
      mrmoneymustache.com

We've got some historical stats for them here but we only started tracking in January -

[https://trends.builtwith.com/hosting/Digital- Ocean](https://trends.builtwith.com/hosting/Digital-Ocean)

Not sure if this is of any interest but this is where they are getting new customers from (from most to least)

      Linode
      Softlayer
      Rackspace
      Amazon
      GoDaddy

<comment><USER3> SSL provider getssl.me is also hosted on Digital Ocean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know the largest, but definitely it can handle large systems. A recent website I deployed (afrigatenews.net) is getting around 400K hits / month I have also other 3 website ranging from 50k - 500k+ hits a month.

I highly recommend the SSD power especially for mysql and redis performance. I just wish they will allow separate disk scaling and add a bit more CPU power.

<comment><USER5> I feel the SSD power is the least captivating feature of them. Just 20 GB of SSD power isn't enough for most production uses. Their main selling point is that they're cheap and you can spend just $5 for a decent server that does tasks like crawling, sending the data to another server that stores it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> jsFiddle is the biggest according to myip.ms

[http://myip.ms/view/web_hosting/38903/Digital_Ocean_Inc.html](http://myip.ms/view/web_hosting/38903/Digital_Ocean_Inc.html)

<comment><USER7> would this list include sites that use services like Cloudflare? Client IPs would differ, making it difficult to trace back to the ISP

<comment><USER6> I don't think that such list could contain websites under reverse proxies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://www.beyonce.com](http://www.beyonce.com) [http://getflywheel.com/](http://getflywheel.com/)

are 2 big sites (in terms of traffice) which are hosted on DigitalOcean, afaik.

<comment><USER9> From the recent article related to DO's $37.2M funding [1]

 _"Flywheel built an entire WordPress hosting service on top of our cloud," Uretsky said. "They are running over a thousand droplets for their users. The integration is so tight that customers can't tell that we're running the service."_

 _Another example, Beyoncé launched her new album in December. It turns out that Beyonce.com runs on DigitalOcean. The servers handled the album launch without breaking a sweat._

 _"We've seen 15 million visitors within the first 24 hours. She's been pretty happy with the service," Uretsky said._

[1][http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/digitalocean- raises-37-mill...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/06/digitalocean- raises-37-million-from-andreessen-horowitz/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What made you ask the question? I've never heard of Digital Ocean before, what's different about them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Digital ocean are a hosting platform. They came into the spot light a year or two ago as offering cheap VPS hosting.

They also give you the standard setup images, scaling, etc.

I asked the question as i was on there website earlier and I had seen the counter with the number of nodes setup so far; and thought I wonder what the largest site is on there.

They are also on the front of hacker news today as they have just completed a new funding round [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7353868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7353868)

Oh and forgot they also only offer SSD disks.

<comment><USER11> Re SSD disks, as someone who's using both Digital Ocean and Ramnode: For PostgreSQL on smallish data sets (5GB) doing Sphinx reindexes every few minutes Digital Ocean's I/O performance is much lower than Ramnode's KVM SSD instances. Disk benchmarks on the two gave me 5-10x in Ramnode's favor on small instances. Digital Ocean is still pretty decent for a budget provider and Ramnode has all the standard issues of a smaller hoster (and all the advantages), but if I/O performance is critical to you it might be worth taking into account. DO is much slicker, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is bryan. Networking team. You will never guess, we stick by our privacy policy policy. They are be 1000x bigger than you</comment>


The 90 Percenters - <AUTHOR> http://kickingbear.com/blog/archives/238

<comment><USER2> Are there modern figures to back up that 90% figure?

It sounds a bit high.

Surely it would be high, but these days so much software is for some website that is used by customers or whatever which is quite often visible externally.

<comment><USER3> If anything, I think they're undershooting.

Think of a non-tech company with a website. Anything. Chipotle, there. They have a website, online ordering, and a mobile app which actually does stuff. Do you think 90% of their code is customer visible? I really doubt it. They have code in the POS, code in the planning department, code in payroll, code in accounting, code in purchasing, code in site selection, code in accounts payable, code in marketing, code in... code in everything. This doesn't even code you need to raise the corn, to feed the pig, to deliver it to the slaughterhouse, to ship the carnitas to the store, etc.

This is tangentially related to a post I hope to have up tomorrow. We live life swimming in an unseen sea of software.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps.

But the POS code is not written by Chipotle. For the company that wrote the POS it is customer facing as Chipotle are the customer. Similarly for much of the purchasing and other software they use internally. There would be considerable customisation though.

It will be interesting to see you post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Obj-C and Cocoa are defiantly the main language and libraries developers are using build apps. The language and libraries are well thought out and don't suck. Its not perfect, but nothing is. Not even Java and C# are perfect.

I'm no tech evangelist but I do know this: there are more apps today than there were a year ago, and there will be even more a year from now. Its like a train of money on the iPhone/iPod/iPad, and the critics to the system which came from nothing in 2008 seem as competent in their predictions as the Apple Dumpling Gang is at robbing trains.

<comment><USER5> <http://www.d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why so much fuss about a blogpost in the guardian? I mean it's a broad public newspaper. Would you, as an experimental physicist, take an article in your local newspaper telling you that linear accelerators are bad serious?

Why do we computer science guys then care so much about something someone (who seems to be pretty much frustrated with everything) wrote in a nontechnical media outlet?</comment>