Is work necessary? - <AUTHOR> http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/09/11/is-work-necessary/ <comment><USER3> This could be describing the Philippines. A large number of people don't work because they don't really have to. OFW remittances send enough money back in some cases that the local economy makes it seem pointless to work (unskilled workers here might make $3 - $4 per day.) In other cases, the family has built a compound and everyone can live super cheap there. Maybe there is enough money flowing into the family that nobody has to work.

I see a lot of drinking, fiesta's and festivals here. Given the idle time, it seems that most don't pursue education or other things which could further them. I suppose many of these people would choose to go to school if they could afford to do so.

This may be a decent end goal, but I can't help but think there is always something that someone could be doing to make money. There is always more that needs to be done. I can see the "suck" all around us. Things which could be improved.

If we were to ever be able to get large numbers of people off this planet then there will always be much more things for people to do. We could explore further and expand outward.

For the foreseeable future. If you are in the U.S. you either work or you collect food stamps which barely cover you. It would be great for one person to support 10K, but for now, the less fortunate have to ask from people who are far less able to provide (family who is getting by, but not doing great otherwise.)

<comment><USER4> The Philippines did not come to mind when I read the article. What I took from the article was that the human race can invent a system that would provide for their basic needs so that humans don't have to worry about it and they can spend their time on their hobbies.

(I'm from the Philippines.)

<comment><USER5> It seems to me like there are still lots of problems to solve. Many STEM jobs still go unfilled even though they tend to pay more. If you want to build the next Android or iPhone, you need large teams of people, for instance. Some people will choose tennis while others choose medical research? I don't think anyone has mentioned the fact that there aren't enough hours in the day for people who do research or creative work.

Personally, I image that if we could put 7 billion people to work on the more important problems, we'd still need a lot more fall short on resources.

<comment><USER6> Yeah but to fill the STEM jobs you need educated people to do so. To get educated people you need to make the process of education far less expensive and risky for the individual, only then you will get more people through the STEM education.

I'm kind of old (35) and a CS student, I started fairly late in my 39ies. But I only was able to do so because I payed a high price for that. Nearly everybody else at my age has a family with kids, many of them even have bought their first house. Not me, I'm studying, I'm one of the very fiew 35 years old students at the university.

And yes there are legitimate reasons why I couldn't start to study earlier (which I won't get into right now). What I want to say is that education is _very_ expensive for the student, even if here in Sweden I don't even have to pay for the university myself. Many people who would be able to learn and do the STEM jobs can't because they're stuck in survival mode earning a living at a job which doesn't help humanity, instead it is only there to keep someone ocupied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it interesting that though the use of machines and the like we are rapidly approaching what occurred in ancient cultures through the use of slaves, which is many having a great deal of time to devote to leisure.

What do we do we currently do with leisure? Watch TV unwind... but assuming you didn't need to unwind from work (because there was none) what would you be doing? Personally I would be studying random topics (sculpture, latin and dance), working on my own projects (software and community) and generally improving myself and hopefully society.

I would imagine that the absence of work would be a net gain for society as people could devote their time to helping others or doing something for pure merit.

Interestingly enough that's what the ancients did. The ancient greek word for leisure "schole" means learning or self improvement.

<comment><USER8> Yup, slavery was quite useful in advancing the human race for a while there. We don't like it today for moral reasons, but Leibniz would not have discovered calculus if he spent every day in a field somewhere, and it was slavery that bought him the time to do it.

<comment><USER9> What ? Leibniz lived in Germany and France, and I think there was no _slavery_ (as in ownership of human beings; sure there were servants and nobility and so on, but no actual slavery) in there at the time ... Would you elaborate how "it was slavery that bought him the time to do it" ?

<comment><USER8> For the purposes of brevity I'm grouping slavery, peasants, servants, indentured servants, etc into the same group. They all serve to buy leisure time at the expense of the sweat of other people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes. And its our collective fault. Capitalism and democracy are arguably the best collective system for living together that humanity has _implemented_. On a theoretical level, this is wholly up for debate, but in a practical sense, I believe this to be true. This has directly led to consumerism, the rise of the individual, and specialization. Follow that path, and you _need_ to work. Or at least the typical person does. The dream of many is that work == something they want to do (so much so that it hardly feels like _work_ in the strictest form), but I put forth that inevitably, as a person changes, they find it difficult to step away from their area of expertise (gained from years of specialization) and inevitably, for most, it truly becomes _work_.

 _Disclaimer: this is a first world question (and answer)_

</comment><comment><USER11> Since this is an opinion piece, I'll give mine on the same topic:

We don't need more jobs or a re-imagining of the meaning of life, we need less people. We're pushing into the golden age of mechanization, automation and robotics and instead of being able to celebrate we have to wonder what everyone is going to do with themselves and invent assistant-inspector- inspector jobs. We're continuing to over fish, over build, over pollute, under service people at the doctors office, and under deliver on educational goals. We've just got too many people plain and simple if you ask me. Every major solution is aimed at trying to figure out how we're going to live together as a society of 10 Billion, IMHO we should be figuring out how to reduce the numbers and figuring out how to live together as much less.

I don't have a good answer and I don't think anyone on this planet has more of a right to live or have kids than anyone else. And this isn't some immigration rant. This planet has too many people on it.

<comment><USER12> China's one child policy comes to mind. You could approach this in the west without force by tying tax thresholds to number of children.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't like this idea for two reasons: first, tax incentives for having children help to make sure the children are taken care of - socio-economic status is negatively correlated with number of children, and lots of kids are born into big families that can't afford to take care of them properly. Giving these families additional money seems like enabling them, but the kid didn't do anything and deserves to have a reasonable standard of living.

Second, financial penalties for having children give the wealthy more freedom to reproduce. And couldn't tax penalties be considered a form of government force? Not that we don't already use incentives and penalties to shape behavior.

Education, access to birth control, and improving the standard of living of the poor all seem to result in lower birth rates with no force necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Based on communities with multi-generational welfarism, I'd suggest that idleness comes with pretty serious social problems. Employment imposes minimum pro-social requirements on the employee.

<comment><USER14> Growing up near a major U.S. city with a very high percentage of multi- generational welfare recipients. The rampant idleness is one of the visible signs that actually makes me feel really upset. Driving to meetings and seeing a couple dozen very healthy guys in the middle of any given workday hanging around and harassing people because they're bored or, drinking themselves into a stupor just to kill another day where they do nothing and nothing happens, is a _very_ serious problem. The parts of town where this happens are inevitably high crime, run down and dangerous.

None of these people have to work as all of their basic needs _are_ met. Any extra money they come across (usually by panhandling) doesn't get reported and is almost always used for either bullshit like "bling", drugs/booze or gambling.

Very few have more than a cursory education and most dropped out of school as soon as they could stop getting truancy officers to stop sending them back. There's simply no reason to learn anything. Interacting with these folks is difficult even on basic conversational levels.

There's an old saying, "the devil makes use of idle hands" and it has a lot of wisdom in it on many levels.

I'm a very big proponent of large government work programs. Every one of these guys who I see every day would be better off earning their way by fixing up infrastructure in the U.S. or doing migrant farm work or something marginally productive for society. But instead they drag down entire sections of cities into such a state that even driving through their areas is a test of patience and risking your own safety.

<comment><USER15> It's important to note that the "couple dozen very healthy guys in the middle of any given workday" that you are seeing are almost certainly not receiving welfare in the form of cash payments - (cash payments are generally how welfare is defined in the US). Since the 1996 welfare reform act, people who receive welfare benefits (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) need to be either working or in a job training program or they will lose benefits after a maximum of two years.

Welfare reform addresses the problem that you describe, but the work requirements also create other social problems. For instance, single mothers who might previously have been able to stay home with young children now need to work long hours at low-wage jobs.

It's also important to realize that there are other factors besides the welfare trap that keep otherwise healthy men unemployed. As you pointed out, one is a lack of education that may only qualify them for low-skilled jobs. Also consider that if you've been to prison it's incredibly difficult to get a job at all.

Also remember that when you're driving through these neighborhoods you're not seeing the people who are working.

When discussing how the unemployed "drag down entire sections of cities", you should consider the causative arrow. Are these neighborhoods in trouble because of unemployment and idleness or do the chronically unemployed happen to congregate in these neighborhoods? Consider the effects of decades of disinvestment in minority neighborhoods and of white flight. Banks spent decades refusing to provide mortgages and small business loans in minority neighborhoods ("redlining"). Desegregation busing and the movement of minorities into traditionally-white working and middle class neighborhoods often triggered wholesale abandonment of the inner cities by these white families. When middle class white families abandoned the public school systems after desegregation policies were implemented, many inner city school systems ended up as warehouses for the poorest, least prepared students, greatly degrading the systems' capabilities to provide an education. Similarly, when middle class white families moved out of inner city neighborhoods these neighborhoods decayed.

Systemic poverty and unemployment are complex problems with many causes and cannot be blamed entirely on some culture of idleness.

<comment><USER14> I grew up pretty poor, at one stage my family was homeless for a few months -- I've eaten out of food pantries and soup kitchens and grew up knowing where all the major food manufacturers had day-old surplus stores, I've exhausted lots of electrons on that story here on HN. I have unbelievable levels of sympathy for the working poor and for making sure that food and housing are affordable and that work is available to anybody who needs it and that it's decent honest work with proper benefits, child care and all that.

I want to make an important note that I'm consciously not attributing any specific race or ethnic group to this issue as over the years I've seen the same thing cuts across all of those kinds of barriers. I've seen just as many idle groups of white men just the same as black. I'm also specifically not talking about people with very severe mental health or physical issues that prevent them from working. I don't think we as a society do enough to help these people live stable, reasonable lives and I think we do a disservice grouping them in with able-bodied people simply based on income metrics. I'm specifically talking about otherwise healthy able-bodied people only.

Despite being poor (or perhaps we were poor due to), my parents owned a small business that I grew up with. Because of the nature of the business, employee pay was generally not great, and was staffed at first by refugees and then later almost entirely by ex-cons - most of whom had past issues with homelessness, drug addiction and the like.

I grew up in that kind of environment and knew hundreds of these guys over the years and saw exactly how they became successful and what choices they made that caused them to fail and go back to being homeless or in prison.

Millions of man hours have been spent looking at "this problem" insisting that it's complex, and difficult and such and such. It all boils down to the question "how do you motivate people who aren't working, to get to work in an economy where plenty jobs are available?"

I think "the problem" that everybody's tried to solve is the wrong problem to solve. I think we've made it very complicated because we're uncomfortable with the harsh reality. Most of these same idle people would do unbelievable amounts of work if it meant the alternative was starving to death. But it's impolite and immoral and makes us very uncomfortable having people starving to death so we assure them some kind of food access and then kill endless supplies of ink and electrons figuring out how to get them productive once this is solved. The simple fact is people aren't motivated to work once their bellies are full and with all that spare time on their hands they'll find something, probably not socially beneficial, to fill it with.

So I'm going to say something that's very unpopular and is going to upset loads of people here who've never had to face these issues directly:

The idleness and urban blight is just a common symptom of what I think is fairly simple problem that's been solved successfully in the last few decades by gentrification of urban cores. More than welfare reform, or other grand social experiments, cleaning up broken parts of town has done more to solve these problems then just about anything else.

Inside of cities, blighted areas are cleaned up, policed and developed. Concentrations of idle hands have no choice but to get out and dilute.

Not a single person my parents ever hired lived in a concentrated urban center, they all lived outside of those areas. Far enough away that the broken self-organized support systems that keep groups of young, otherwise healthy men, milling about together doing nothing much are inconvenient to get to. The concentrations of able-bodies supporting each other is "the problem". Dilution where they are 1 in a group of tens of thousands of productive people and away from their broken support system provides them with motivation to work...or go hungry.

There were two outcomes 100% of the time.

1) These guys would enjoy the improved standard of living that good wages and a good job provided (increasing every year with seniority) and they'd knuckle down and work their tails off. Often outgrowing the level of work my parent's business could provide and eventually moving on to senior positions with bigger companies. A few of them starting their own businesses. My parents get many very moving Christmas cards every year.

2) They'd get troubled by the lack of the kind of support system they remembered, because working through life on your own is hard. And they'd "go back to the city to visit my cousin" one weekend and end up fired a few weeks later for coming to work high, or drunk or they'd simply stop coming to work at all and we'd find out that they'd moved back to the urban core or got themselves arrested in a PCP induced assault or some such. Making it on their own was a stress they couldn't handle and the psychological crutch they received from being in their comfort zone was preferable for them even if it wasn't as comfortable.

Gentrification removes #2 as an option as that comfortable support system is shattered and spread all over creation.

The culture of poverty is very real and it's paradoxically very self- reinforcing. I've also spilled lots of electrons on HN discussing what it's like to be poor, and the vicious cycle that's much easier to stay trapped in than to get out of. But it's not theory for me, I got out of being poor, and I watched dozens of other people who worked for my parents escape it as well and watched dozens more fail to escape it. There are surprising support systems that exist and can only really be felt and understood when you are poor.

But the nature of these systems is not to support somebody up and out, they work more like a fragile and very sticky web, they need each person to continue to contribute to that support system, the same one which ultimately traps them there. Breaking the web is a forcing function that forces people to tap into the normal, upwardly moving parts of the economy and society and it's the only thing I've ever seen that has any kind of success rate at all.

<comment><USER16> What you're describing here is a problem of culture and a problem of incentives. You're defaulting to a pretty extreme solution - isolate from their culture and threaten with starvation. It seems likely that there could be more humane solutions if only it were politically palatable to address the underlying issues.

<comment><USER14> I actually believe that not all cultures are equally valid. There really are dysfunctional ways that humans congregate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I fear a world where people don't need to aspire to something to better their lives (ie studying, learning a skill or educating oneself) wouldn't be a very nice world to live in at all. If we didn't need to work, what reason would there to learn to read? If we were rewarded with land, shelter, food and comfort for doing nothing, what would the incentive for those who will inevitably be responsible for keeping everything together?

Plants don't grow without care and attention, electricity isn't as simple as sticking two wires into a powerpoint or setting up solar panels, if nobody worked, nobody would study and if nobody studied there would be no people left in the world.

Money, sad to say motivates people, it motivates the disadvantaged to strive for more, it motivates the rogue developer with a wife and kids to attempt to build the next big thing knowing the reward will be a comfortable life where the family doesn't need to worry about money.

Perhaps there is a better way, removing class barriers, maybe there is no such thing as lower class, you are either middle or upper class. A system where even a school janitor has an opportunity to do something more and earn a decent living.

We can only dream, but I doubt for a very long time will there be a shake up to the class wars and pay discrepancies amongst professions.

<comment><USER18> Boredom is a powerful motivator too.

A couple months of laying around doing nothing will drive most people crazy and they'll begin asking themselves what they want their life to be about.

And even if they don't contribute anything, should all people be required to useful to others or can't some just choose to be left alone if they are self sufficient?

In a world of scarcity I can see the argument of forcing people to contribute if they want to take back but what about a world of abundance? You and I are breathing abundant air, for free, and nobody is getting angry right? What if other resources like electricity were as abundant as Tesla once dreamed?

I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. These are just thoughts worth consideration.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Boredom is a powerful motivator too.

>A couple months of laying around doing nothing will drive most people crazy

I think on HN we frequently assume that "most people" are like us, but HN is such an unrepresentative sample of the world that this is dangerous, especially here. You and I and other knowledge workers would probably get bored and want to do something useful to find purpose. But there are many people today who work at unskilled jobs because they have to put food on the table. They don't derive their sense of purpose from it. It's very difficult to predict what these people would do if they suddenly had no financial necessity to work. There are listless unemployed people living off of various forms of government assistance today, and this would make it possible for many more to join them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fuller is half-right. The true business of people should be to discover skills which enrich others. In some cases, this is manual labor, but as our society makes that less and less necessary, we are able to spend more effort on creative and intellectual pursuits. Now, the problem with Fuller's concept is that 'creative and intellectual' pursuits are intensely introspective and rather qualitative.

One could say, 'well I am ENTITLED to money because I spent a lot of EFFORT reading and analyzing the entire opus of English literature from 1200-1400.' But whom did that enrich? Why should we reward such behavior if it is solipsistic?

On the other hand, if someone said, analyze the entire opus of English literature from 1200-1400 so that someday we can assist Shakespearean actors in their dramaturgy - and I'm willing to pay you X dollars for it... Now that's creating value for SOMEONE ELSE. It's not an entitlement, you have contributed to society in a way that is demonstrable, as proven by the exchange of resources for your effort.

Work is necessary insomuch as it takes effort for one to provide 'other people' with goods and services that these 'other people' value. Now, what constitutes work will be dramatically different and undergo tectonic change - playing video games, for example, as an alpha tester, can be work (and hard work, too) - as can being a world-travelling dance teacher - or being a football player (these are professional jobs that would not have existed 200 years ago)- or who knows what in the future.

Unfortunately the idea of doing work has been corrupted by a narrow-minded view of capitalism (agents on both the right and the left are guilty of this) and wages, have been caught up with cost of living and thus a sense of entitlement. Certainly, there are people who we should contribute to help out for no reason other than compassion (a quadruplegic multiple gunshot victim I delivered food to comes to mind) but we should think hard about what the mechanisms for doing this are, and who gets to decide how much.

But the idea of abolishing all work forever is a dangerous one.

<comment><USER20> Fuller is arguing otherwise here. He says we need to get away from the idea that we have to do something to deserve to make a living. Your whole comment is premised on that idea. Whether it not you're right, you haven't engaged with what Fuller said. The closest you come is making the unsubstantiated statement that getting rid of work is a dangerous idea. Dangerous for whom? Other than, you know, powerful people who depend on an endless supply of cheap labor, and politicians who rely on an exhausted, frightened, ADD electorate.

<comment><USER19> Sorry, I was going to mention that it was dangerous for the ayn-rand types who see that it is individual value that ought to be the highest objective for society, but I decided that that was too politically-baitey.

Moreover, to address your comment: that the 'labor is cheap' has to do with a lot of things, why don't people simply negotiate for higher wages and refuse to do the work otherwise? That it's so difficult to live on a low wage has to do with the political infrastructure throwing money at the financial sector for decades, and not to do with any form of natural exchange _per se_.

<comment><USER21> >why don't people simply negotiate for higher wages and refuse to do the work otherwise?

Because union membership has been outlawed or seriously frowned upon in many professions. Most other people seem to think unionism is somehow destructive and end up only looking out for themselves, not realising they have been divided and conquered. Obviously, your experiences with this may differ.

<comment><USER19> I don't think most people in the US think unionism is destructive, but most people in the US believe that unions (as given legal protections, etc.) have become political entities (versus economic entities) that look out for the union and not for the worker. I believe this is not far from the truth - <USER2> you seen what the headquarters of the AFL-CIO (2 blocks from the capitol) looks like? It's really quite shameful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Some work is neccessary, _labour_ not so. (absolutely speaking)

In our current society basically everyone has to work to earn money, to then buy such products on a more-or-less free market. We are able to produce more and more goods with ever less work. That's great on the surface, but wrecks the system, because:

\- Experience shows we can't really split the remaining work evenly, so some people work a lot, and some are unemployed. But people can only really participate in the economy if they do labour (and get money). It sucks for them to be unemployed, but they also fall away as consumers, which hurts the whole economy. \- Stuff only ever get's done when labour is applied. (If I could produce and sell something with no human work, everybody else would do the same, and it would have no value. So, in the equilibrium that's not going to happen.) In a sense, labour is the secret engine of the economy. At the same time, you're trying to reduce the amount of labour needed, because it's expensive and cuts into your profits. All kinds of instabilities arise from this contradiction.

In the end, we'll probably have to transition away from capitalism to something better suited to our modern realities of production, whatever that will be. An unconditional basic income would be a first step in this direction - acknowledging the fact that we need less and less work, but we still need to feed the same number of people.

</comment><comment><USER23> Bill Joy's essay "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" [1] is a good read for anyone working through what such a society would be like and what it means for our race. I think it comes down to the philosophical question of what man's purpose is.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> Work is necessary to get a whole lot of stuff that needs to be done done. That does not mean that we should not have a basic income, reverse income tax, or generous welfare system with few strings attached.

However, it is annoying that proponents of basic income tax act as if the only reason for opposing basic income as a policy, is the idea that "work is necessary". The three policies I described are actually very similar, (well basic income is really a subset of negative income tax) but to choose between them is a subtle issue. Unfortunately the people who tend to get attached to political movements (or wannabe political movements) are rarely subtle. They prefer easy to identify bad guys, like people who believe in work as an ethical principal.

</comment><comment><USER25> "It amounts to saying that we should have fairly high taxes, and redistribute most of the money as a minimal income to every person."

Yes, but before that we would need to have as low taxes as possible in order to stimulate the innovation needed.

<comment><USER26> Yes. Like in the nordic countries , which are pretty good at innovation. Or in israel where taxes are high but venture capital investments per capita are the highest in the world.

<comment><USER25> They would be even more innovative with lower taxes and more market incentives to make technological advancements.

<comment><USER26> It's a nice opinion based on no data.

<comment><USER25> Do you agree that the market advances technology?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A human being daily needs something like 2000 kcal food-sourced energy, a slate of vital nutrients, 250 square feet of personal living space, some average BTUs of heating/cooling, a gallon of clean water, and a share of infrastructure to produce/acquire/deliver this. (YMMV; point of context made; details left as exercise for reader.) We can view this baseline as the objective essence of "value": one needs the aggregate of these points to sustain life for one day, anything less begins the descent into death. We can also view anything substantially beyond standard deviations of this as unnecessary (albeit desirable). _SOMEBODY_ has to produce this, be it basic sustenance farming or creation & maintenance of high-tech high-productivity machinery; _this work is necessary_.

The objective value of this baseline is the true "poverty line": if you try to exist on less than this, you're gonna die; if you can acquire substantially more than this, you can start indulging in relative luxuries. For sake of simple argument (detailed accuracy left to reader), we'll use the official USA poverty line as the currency equivalent of this objective value of what it takes to keep a median human alive under normal conditions: about US$30 per day.

So...to keep one person alive & stable one day requires $30/day of work. This is invariant. If someone's work produces $30 of value (exchangeably equivalent to those enumerated basic daily needs), one person maintains sustainable life another day; if the worker "gives" that to someone else, keeping none for himself, he is literally giving his life to the other. If his work produces $60 of value, he can sustain himself for two days (work one, idle the second), sustain himself for one day and spend the remainder on comforts & luxuries, or give $30 to another and keep both sustained for a day. Technology makes it easier for one to earn more with the same expenditure of effort.

The consternation about "is work necessary?" stems from who gets to decide how the extra earnings are distributed.

If you retain your extra earnings, you are saving for future idleness (vacation, retirement) or statistical fluctuations (temporary increased cost of acquiring necessities).

If you spend your extra earnings on comforts & luxuries, you are giving others the opportunity to work for their daily basic needs thru means other than direct acquisition (building cars, writing software, acting theatrically, etc. instead of sustenance farming, hewing trees, carrying water, etc).

If you give away your extra earnings strictly voluntarily (no coercion), you are charitable (sacrificing idleness, preparedness, or comfort/luxuries for others).

If you give away your extra earnings under coercion (if you don't consent it will be taken from you, or worse), someone else is making the decision for you regarding how your extra earnings should be distributed - and this, quite understandably, produces enormous consternation.

(If your baseline earnings (the $30/day) are taken under coercion, your continued existence is threatened and the issue becomes a matter of self- defense - a separate topic to discuss.)

Is work necessary? Yes, insofar as _someone_ has to expend effort which can be converted into providence of basic needs. If someone can work earning $300/day, then he can take the next nine days off, purchase comforts/luxuries which pay enough to sustain nine other people another day, or sustain nine other people another day _without_ obligating the benefit of creating comforts/luxuries. This thread addresses this last point: _given no obligation to produce something exchangeable for basic needs, will a populace on the whole produce_ more* value or less? and does the populace at large have the "right" to compel individuals to give up their extra earnings without compensation, or does the individual have an absolute "right" to keep his earnings and distribute them as he sees fit? _

<comment><USER28> Excellent analysis from first principles. However, this is an extremely simple model. In reality, human ability is roughly distributed normally about a mean. Technological progress began automating work starting at the very left tail, and worked its way along to the right. This progress has shown no signs of slowing down.

How do you imagine a society will look, when only those with abilities four standard deviations from the mean can compete in the labor market? This is known as "winner-take-all", or the superstar effect.

By your example, the majority of mankind will be at the whims of an extremely tiny elite, due to their lack of marketable skills.

What happened to horses after the onset of the automobile?

<comment><USER29> are you talking about a world in which robots perform surgery better than surgeons?

<comment><USER30> Probably not. Surgeon is a highly skilled occupation. He's referring to a world where only Surgeons (and equally skilled people) can get any money at all.

<comment><USER31> But that's a fallacious idea. If only surgeons and equally skilled people get any money, where is that money coming from?

<comment><USER32> Excellent question. Capitalism is a model to allocate _scarce_ resources where they are most productive. Take scarcity out of the equation and suddenly Capitalism makes a lot less sense.

What comes afterwards? I have no idea. Everytime one imagines a post-scarcity world under our current model, questions like yours arise; a symptom that at some point in the future, we'll need to invent and transition to a new society model. It's pretty obvious it's not the current model, it's entirely non- obvious which model will it be.

<comment><USER19> Capitalism is not a model to allocate scarce resources, although there is good reason to believe it is more efficient than socialism. It is a system to allocate _rivalrous_ resources in a system that uses a minimum of political involvement. Why is an economic allocation preferable to a political allocation? Because in order to use your economic power, you have to give it away (or at least, offer to give it away). This is not true for political allocation: cronies enrich each other often without giving away anything; popularity can snowball as people join bandwagons... So political allocation is a more dangerous system for creating haves- and have-nots, widening the gap between the chosen and the left behind, than economic allocation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Ugh, HN really has become reddit. Half-baked ramblings about socialist utopias powered by machines. I mean come on...

<comment><USER34> Actually, most of the answers are ranging from far-right (work or degenerate!) to extreme libertarianism (individuals must compete!), and that complete lack of basic humanity from HNers really is saddening.

<comment><USER35> > complete lack of basic humanity from HNers

Does that actually mean anything? Or is it just another way of expressing vague, general disapproval?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The machines of the future will convert energy into wealth. They will do this by performing a large number of automated tasks for us. We will not have to work - it will be redundant to work.

<comment><USER37> Consider what the world, sorry universe will be when anything you can conceive of is a function of energy vs time.

Set a self-replicating constructor going. All it has to do is harvest sunlight to produce more solar cells to capture more energy until it has a sufficient supply to expediently build that new house you ordered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "It amounts to saying that we should have fairly high taxes, and redistribute most of the money as a minimal income to every person."

It is called disguised communism. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The redistributors redistribute to their friends and family first, then on their party, and then the rest so now you have people living really well, most people living bad, like today, but with no connection between generating wealth and being rewarded by it at all.

Don't let me wrong, this works, for a while. Until you get to consume all the savings of the productive society. And nobody wants to work anymore. Then societies collapse(Venezuela has 40% inflation per month now, Cuba, URSS)

Some of my family members come from communist countries. I don't want some political commissar to decide who deserve what and who doesn't.

I believe in distributed power, not centralized authority. Technology is making distributed power efficient again, with computers in every pocket and inexpensive 3d printers, laser cutters and CNC mills. Ironically we are supporting too centralized, too big to fail business.

</comment><comment><USER39> The idea in theory is great, but we are generations away from getting there. Right now, the idea of having really high taxes for those who own/control technology to pay a minimum living wage for those who can't work would stop all forward progress from here on out. Case in point - Elon Musk. Musk nearly went bankrupt in 2008 trying to make Tesla and SpaceX succeed. If he had been taxed at any higher a rate, both companies would have failed. Musk is arguably a once in a generation entrepreneur. I'd hate to be waiting another 20 years for electric cars and private rockets to come around.

<comment><USER40> But, on the other hand, there might be dozens of Elon Musks each generation if people didn't have to worry about their children falling into poverty because the idea they quit their job and spent their savings trying to execute didn't take off.

Or, imagine during that crucial make or break period, being able to go cut the founder of the electric car company you're working at a little slack with payroll because you already had a check coming in each month that covered your rent and data plan.

<comment><USER39> Your first comment is a fair point, although the article is about not having to work and taking from those who are rich to pay for it, not providing a safety net so entrepreneurs could try risky thing.

To your second point, I'm not convinced that would happen...even if it did, labor is a fairly small portion of an auto company's costs (I think at one point I saw around 20%).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about > whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told > them they had to earn a living

This made me think of a world like Neal Stephenson's Anathem, where a portion of the population chooses to separate themselves and focus purely on education. Their lifestyles are essentially monastic/akin to $30 per day. Part of me wishes an option like that were more prevalent/acceptable in our society.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think "work" is necessary, at least the connotation that implies one has to strive for more or give up something in exchange for a tangible reward. However, work just for the sake of working is unnecessary and detrimental to the person that must endure it.

</comment><comment><USER43> This article makes some good points.

In my opinion, it isnt just that a lot of jobs today dont contribute anything to society, they actively work to its detriment by wasting precious resources and contributing to serious problems like climate change and pollution.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, work is necessary. Even before money was invented, our ancestors still needed to work for their basic needs. They had to harvest or hunt for food, build their houses and sew their clothing. All of that is work.

<comment><USER7> I think you may be missing the point. Pretty much all developed countries produce an abundance of these things, and more to the point have automated a lot of it. A lot of jobs that used to be done by many people can now be done by a few.

<comment><USER14> It would kinda suck to end up as one of the poor schlubs who has to be one of the "few" who works while everybody else kicks back and screws around all day.

<comment><USER44> I would think in a future where work is optional, the goal would be to create a system where choosing to work would still provide you with additional privilege (via more money)... the difference would be at the bottom end of the scale, creating a society where unemployment is a feasible lifestyle if all you really want in a material sense is basic needs (food, shelter, clothes) plus healthcare.

Feasibility of that system is another question altogether. I'm just saying I think in an ideal world, there would still be motivation to contribute to society (in a capitalist sense); it just wouldn't be a hard requirement for maintaining your dignity.

<comment><USER14> I think many people in this thread have a very self-informed and naive view of what a society made up of people with unlimited free time would do with that time -- it wouldn't be self-actualizing.

I know where this idea comes from, I think it's very tempting as well. I was fascinated with the society described in the Culture books. But the harsh reality is that most people would not go in the direction that's hoped.

<comment><USER44> I know this thread is a day old, which in Internet time is ancient history, but in case you see this:

You seem to be making the basic assumption that "self-actualizing" should be the goal of all human beings, rather than something more general like "being satisfied with one's life." It's possible that you believe the former is a prerequisite for the latter, and I can't refute or confirm that hypothesis.

Personally, my goal for the lives of citizens living in a work-optional utopia would be something along the lines of Sen's capability approach to welfare economics ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach)). As long as everyone has the opportunity to be the kind of person they want to be, and as long as they don't negatively affect the freedom and welfare of others (e.g. you can't aspire to be a car thief or serial killer), then however they choose to live is fine with me, self-actualized or not.

<comment><USER14> Ha! I just checked down here to see if there were any more replies.

I'm basing the self-actualizing notion on the several posts in the last couple weeks I've seen here and the comments that followed. There's some kind of pervasive view here that if people just didn't have to struggle for the basic act of living, the world would be full of self-actualized people filling the world with the products of their new hobbies.

I agree with you that your outcome would be fine by me with the same caveat

> as long as they don't negatively affect the freedom and welfare of others

The problem we see today is that for people who've managed to figure out how to get their most basic needs taken care of for them, is that they don't subscribe to the need not to negatively affect the freedom and welfare of others.

My theory is that it's out of boredom and a lack of things to keep them otherwise occupied -- 'idle hands makes for the Devil's work' and all that.

Regardless, what lots of people want to be, is not an isolated island of self- fulfillment, but one that's fulfilled through interaction with other people -- even if that interaction is a negative one. However, parsing positive from negative interactions on a universal level is near impossible. One person's negative interaction, may be another person's deepest wish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The title is misleading I think. Fuller does not really question the necessity of work. He questions the ideas of "earning a living" and "work as a justification to exist".

</comment><comment><USER46> It's nice to see an article title which violates Betteridge's law.

</comment><comment><USER47> The fact that a very large percentage of jobs are unnecessary and were created simply because we felt like everyone should work for a living needs to be accepted before we can experiment with economic models such as Unconditional Basic Income.</comment>


Celeri.js: CLI Library for Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/spiceapps/celeri

<comment><USER2> Cool library; I'm sure I'll have use for this!

SpiceApps has a ton of other cool stuff too (which the OP no doubt knows). Nice work. :)</comment>


Pinpointing the Moments "The Simpsons" became less Cromulent - <AUTHOR> http://diffuseprior.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/kalkalash-pinpointing-the-moments-the-simpsons-became-less-cromulent/ <comment><USER4> I get baffled by the fact that it looks like the current opinion of the first seasons of The Simpsons gets valued into the 7-8. I saw that previously on IMBD

To put this in context, that's the same as Smallville ([http://www.geos.tv/index.php/index?sid=161](http://www.geos.tv/index.php/index?sid=161))

Now, I enjoy Smallville (I really do), but I can watch old episodes of The Simpsons laughing along the way and quoting them almost line by line. It's probably the ONLY TV Show I can watch it over and over without growing old. I've seen some episodes more than 10 times, and they are still brilliant.

Other than the fact that, yes, probably is not as good as it was, I still think is weirdly under appreciated in ratings these days, not sure way. The first seasons are GOLD. Are part of the basic vocabulary all over the world. They are innovative in terms of cartoons in ways that they are not easy to see now (in particular, the first seasons tend to use the "camera" in ways that it was never been done in cartoons, or even real action movies)

When it started, they started to show it up in Spain late at night as "cartoon for adults". My mother watch ONE episode, and decided that I NEEDED to watch it (I was a 11 year old kid at the time). That it was SO GOOD it will be bad to miss it. So I'd watch it next day through the wonders of VCR.

I sincerely think that The Simpsons is The Best. TW Show. EVER.

It's just that we are so used to have it around, that we don't see it...

</comment><comment><USER5> The article ends a lot more abruptly than I was expecting. It says what the failure points were, and then it completely stops.

By what I've come across, I think this site has the best in-depth analysis of the rise and fall of the Springfield empire, of the type that I was expecting from that article:

[http://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/zs1/](http://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/zs1/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Just quoting from 4F12 season 8 (itchy & scratchy & poochie show):

COMIC BOOK GUY Last night's Itchy & Scratchy was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever! Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.

BART Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain?

COMIC BOOK GUY As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.

BART What? They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? I mean, If anything, you owe them.

COMIC BOOK GUY (pause) Worst episode ever.

<comment><USER7> It's kind of funny to read the reviews posted on USENET immediately after the episode -- the irony is not lost: [http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/episodes/4F12](http://www.simpsonsarchive.com/episodes/4F12)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm sympathetic to the idea that classic episodes were superior. But when the classic episodes first aired, there were literally five channels in most homes. Simple rating trend analysis is doomed. The world around the show has changed too much.

<comment><USER9> The ratings used in the article are per episode opinion surveys, not television viewership ratings.

<comment><USER10> Not to mention the 'five channels' thing is off the mark. Cable television was more or less entrenched by the 1990s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author asserts that the new episodes are stale, and then in the very next sentence says he hasn't watched a new episode in ten years. Pretty hard to take anything he says seriously after that.

This hipster affectation that older things are always better is quite annoying. People complain about SNL in the same way: the current cast is always considered terrible. Yet, five yeas later we inevitably look back on the older era with nostalgia.

The current incarnation of The Simpsons sucks, because it's always sucked. You just only remember the good parts of the old episodes because of the fallibility of human memory. This selective memory makes the good old days seem better then they were.

<comment><USER12> While I agree about SNL, I strongly disagree about The Simpsons, and I recommend reading Zombie Simpsons [0] if you're interested in reading about the downfall of The Simpsons (and how in many respects, it's not The Simpsons at all).

The show absolutely did not suck. You may have never liked it, and that's fine, but the show has had incredible impact, was well written, and was groundbreaking. There are legitimate reasons for not the change in The Simpsons, notably a drastic change in showrunners and writers.

[0][http://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/](http://deadhomersociety.com/zombiesimpsons/)

<comment><USER13> I remember around 2000 or so discussing that part if the problem was that the writers then had pretty much grown up watching the show, leading to it staling a bit. 15 years later that's even more true now IMO

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was curious about those three sharp dips in the first section. Turns out they're all clip shows.

I'm pleased to see this aligns with my own opinion of a slight decline in quality around S9/S10, followed by genuine mediocrity.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you really want to appreciate "The Simpsons", be sure to seek out the original episodes. The syndicated versions have been edited to squeeze out extra time for commercials, and some of the best jokes ended up getting cut.

<comment><USER16> It's a frustrating practice, and indeed, not limited to the Simpsons - <USER2> Doctor Who has suffered from cuts, on BBC America, of all places.

SNPP, perhaps not surprisingly, has a catalog of Simpsons syndication cuts, arranged by season:

[http://www.snpp.com/episodes/scg.html](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/scg.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember as a kid the sudden collapse. It happened _really_ fast - in season 8 it's a solidly good show, and by season 11 it's unwatchable. I'd always assumed that the best of the team switched gears to work on Futurama (which came out during this period).

For me the final nail was Saddlesore Galactica. At the time I had no idea that there was all this drama between writers and fans in the newsgroups, as I'm sure most fans were similarly unaware. So there's this episode that seems to be deliberately, aggressively bad. That seems to revel in its absurdity and clumsiness. And it delibrately lambasts itself as "worst episode ever". I had no idea that this was some kind of in-joke "gotcha" against the newsgroup - <USER3> the time I'd assumed they were just celebrating all their own bad ideas as a gag theme episode.

In hindsight it looks like they tried to mock the "comic book guys" of their fanbase and instead seemed to just prove them right. It's almost a sort of drama-queen meltdown, not something you'd expect from a group of professionals. And following Saddlesore, this new almost _deliberately_ bad flavour of writing became the new normal, so it didn't even stay the "worst episode ever".

Saddlesore Galactica and the following episodes were the shark-jump moment for me.

</comment><comment><USER18> The new Simpsons episodes are not awful. I don't think anyone wlll say that they prefer the new seasons over the older ones, but that doesn't mean that the new seasons are objectively bad. Whatever is said about the show, it still has the market cornered on Ivy League level humor. The best jokes are just _smart_ , I would dare to say smarter and more insightful than any other television show. Fraiser at its best wasn't nearly as intelligent as some of the Simpson's throwaway jokes.

There used to be one truly inspired joke every few episodes. Now there might be only one or two per season, but they're still there. The Simpsons remains on the air because there are some things that can only be done with the right combination of deep wit and animated insanity. It's ok to make references to the classics or philosophy if you follow it with Homer getting hit in the groin. Plenty of shows are funny, animated or intelligent, but I can only think of one show that is the best of all three of those things.

Anyone who hasn't watched The Simpsons in ten years should tune in to a few new episodes. You'll laugh, at least once. There will probably be something that makes you think just a little bit. Nothing is ever as good as it used to be, but there are definitely worse ways to spend 30 minutes.

<comment><USER19> I watched _every_ episode in order last year, so I have some fresh perspective, and I agree completely. there were seasons that were much worse than I remembered (11-12, and things definitely got better. I wouldn't say the current episodes are 4-8 quality, but roughly 9-10, which is still pretty good.

Anybody who says the show sucks today needs to give it a chance. They'll be pleasantly surprised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Despite any decline, every season from 15 on has averaged just a bit under 7 at IMDB, with about 1/3 of each season in the 7.3 or 7.4 neighborhood.

People who call for The Simpsons to be cancelled because they think it is not as good as it used to be are, frankly, insane. The proper measure of when to cancel a show is not how it compares to its own past, but rather how it compares to what is likely to replace it. The average _bottom_ third of current Simpsons seasons is still better than the typical new Fox show.

It's interesting to see how perceptions of old episodes change. For example, 3F02, "You Only Move Twice", where Homer goes to work for Hank Scorpio, is seen today as one of the best episodes of the series. On IMDB, it has the lowest rating of season 8.

9F10, "Marge vs. the Monorail" is the lowest rated season 4 episode on IMDB, but now is on most of the "best of" lists for the series.

</comment><comment><USER21> With the advent of every Simpsons ever, I've been watching it much more recently; and still find it funny, though maybe a little less so.

I wonder if as the family and Springfield drift more from the "average" family, it is harder for the show to be funny/relevant.

The Simpson's family stays constant, but the average family has changed over the last years. When the Simpsons first aired having 3 kids, with a mom at home was pretty normal. Now, at least in the circles I'm associated with, most mothers work; especially when you are likely to have the persistent money problems that are the focus of so many episodes.

<comment><USER22> Has the Simpsons financial situation ever been reasonable? They survive on only Homers salary which can't be that great. Still, they own two cars and live in a two-story four bedroom detached house in an average size American city. On top of that, Homer has enough disposable income to get wasted at Moe's Tavern almost every night. In the show they are labelled as poor but it really doesn't seem so.

<comment><USER17> There was a time when a man working in industry in a small city could support a family on his income. That was back when Matt Groening was a kid, so that's how the Simpson's family is structured - when Groening started the show, he was really just writing about his own childhood through Bart, transposed into the early '90s, ignoring the economic realities of the '90s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Graph TV plotting the ratings of each Simpson's episode and season trend line: [http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0096697](http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0096697)

</comment><comment><USER24> The most interesting thing I learned from this is the existence of GEOS: [http://www.geos.tv/index.php/select](http://www.geos.tv/index.php/select)

I've always used IMDB ratings to compare TV shows, I wonder how they compare?

</comment><comment><USER25> I consider the movie to be the end of the series, but it was definitely going downhill before that point -- looking back on it after reading this article, I would have to agree with his findings. Homer vs NY was the last good one.

</comment><comment><USER26> And in other news, will analysis of phase changes in the coolness of tv series ever jump the shark? Statistics after the break.

</comment><comment><USER27> wow, light gray text on white background makes this pretty much unreadable...

</comment><comment><USER28> This is the best headline I've ever read.</comment>


Bitcode Demystified - happy-go-lucky https://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/ <comment><AUTHOR> When the author pointed out that bitcode may impact security, I expected to read about how compiler optimizations that happen during compilation of LLVM IR to machine language may introduce security issues.

However, the article only mentioned that decompilation is easier with LLVM IR, because it is a more high-level language. It certainly is a valid point, but addresses the topic of binary obfuscation instead for algorithmic security.

I'm thus wondering if anyone can shed some light on the real security aspects. For example, let's say that I compile C that is supposed to run in constant time to LLVM IR and submit it to Apple. Does Apple guarantee that their blackbox optimizations do not introduce branches or other factors that may result in variable timing into a constant time algorithm? Can I do anything to ensure that my code will always run in constant time despite unknown optimizations being applied to it in the future?

<comment><USER2> It seems trivially obvious to me that there is no way to guarantee and code you write won't be transformed into any runtime under arbitrary "optimization" (transformation).

As in, you can have just a single numberic constant in your code and Apple is permitted to insert a for loop up to that constant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I only skimmed, but I found several mistakes. With bitcode, you still get one bitcode slice per arch since LLVM bitcode isn't platform-independent. Pointers are for example sized differently, which causes the same C file to compile to different bitcode; preprocessor macros are different, which also causes the same C file to compile to different bitcode; and so on. App thinning can be implemented without bitcode, so that whole "What problems Apple's Bitcode aims to solve?" section is bogus.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, my impression is that the main benefit of bitcode is that it allows Apple to rebuild apps for the purposes of fixing compiler backend bugs and perhaps introducing improved micro-optimizations for newer CPUs generations within the same architecture, but it certainly does not work as a "java bytecode" layer - it definitively wouldn't enable Apple to change to a completely different CPU architecture in newer iPhones or Macs. The LLVM IR and the ObjectiveC/Swift/libc ABI is too architecture-specific to work as a portability layer.

<comment><USER5> _my impression is that the main benefit of bitcode is that it allows Apple to rebuild apps for the purposes of fixing compiler backend bugs and perhaps introducing improved micro-optimizations for newer CPUs generations within the same architecture_

This is my impression, too, but it's always seemed strange to me - are the rare fix for a compiler bug and a few micro-optimizations worth all the effort?

<comment><USER4> Maybe they expected more compiler bugs than usual when bringing out Swift?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another problem with the article is the description of how compilers work. In my experience over the years, the compilers that use assembly language as an intermediate form, and that require an assembler, are in the minority; and the majority of compilers that I have encountered go straight from (lowered) IR to machine code generation.

As bla2 points out, it seems that the author has got entirely the wrong end of the stick. App thinning isn't related to bitcode. It's about delivering a program image that only contains the program for the instruction architecture of the downloading client. LLVM bitcode use is, rather, about holding off generating that final machine image until the point of download, rather than when the developer compiled the program, theoretically allowing improvements in code generation and IR lowering to be taken advantage of after a developer provides a compiled application to Apple.

A better treatment of the subject appears to be [https://imore.com/app- thinning-ios-9-explained](https://imore.com/app-thinning-ios-9-explained) .

</comment><comment><USER7> It sounds to me that Apple is preparing for the day when they ship a non-x86 mac but don't want to slow everything down with emulation.

<comment><USER8> Bitcode is still architecture-specific: you generally can't take LLVM IR produced for x86-64 and expect it to run on ARM without issues.

<comment><USER7> Understood, but I suppose what I meant was that you could write an emulator that works at a higher level than machine-code which _could_ interpret IR on a foreign arch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article is presumably from 2015 as it says Apple introduced Bitcode "a few months ago".</comment>


Google gives the Play Developer Policy Center a makeover and updates its rules - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/01/google-gives-its-play-developer-program-policy-center-a-makeover-and-updates-its-rules/ <comment><USER2> TechCruch article says:

"Now, instead of a text-based list of policies, the various sections are organized into colorful cards laid out on a grid pattern. This makes it easier for developers to find a particular section with just a glance, whether accessing the Policy Center from the desktop or a mobile device."

The article mistakes android developers for illiterate monkeys I guess.

Jokes apart the real problem with Android's policies is the Axe that falls silently because of completely arbitrary set of policies that are loosely defined. Putting and icon here and icon there does not change the fact. If the shit has hit the stationary fan, putting it ON wont solve the problem.

Google must respect the developers and give them clear warnings and opportunities to make amends. Ban someone for a month. Completely banning someone is really bad for individual developers like me who make apps for say marginalized communities in India.

<comment><USER3> That, and when an app is suspended they need to help the developer fix the problem rather than saying: "We won't tell you exactly what's wrong, but you can try to guess what you believe triggered the suspension and upload again. If you get it wrong too many time you'll be banned forever."

Just responding to emails asking "if I fix it this way will it be OK for you?" would be much better than a fancy material design.

<comment><USER2> I think it is deliberately to ensure no accountability. My suspicion is that Google has put some really low quality, untrained labor to do these sort of banning and probably with weekly targets to ban certain apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> #Protip: use print view to save yourself a bunch of clicks [https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy- print...](https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy-print.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if these new rules also apply to the big tech corps consistently breaking them (as mentioned on HN a few days ago), or only the smaller devs aka most of us.

</comment><comment><USER6> If this is Material Design in action, somebody has a big problem. See screenshot.[1]

Firefox 44.0.2 on Linux 14.04 LTS.

[1] [http://s28.postimg.org/vh2h0tsf1/googlepolicyfail.png](http://s28.postimg.org/vh2h0tsf1/googlepolicyfail.png)</comment>


Don't just blindly use a tool because it is cool or someone told you to use it - <AUTHOR> http://blog.john.mayonvolcanosoftware.com/dont-just-blindly-use-a-tool-because-it-is-cool-or-someone-told-you-to-use-it/

<comment><USER2> Honestly speaking, I tend to do this. I jump ships quickly to try the new tool because it seems to hold a lot of promise. I have fell face first a few times and learned my lessons. I am much more diligent now. Edit - Sometimes it has paid off.</comment>


Bill Gates Gives Away More Money Than The Entire US Foreign Aid Budget - <AUTHOR> http://holykaw.alltop.com/bill-gates-is-better-than-batman-infographic <comment><USER3> I think there are two important facts to keep in perspective here.

First, polls have shown that U.S. citizens drastically overestimate the amount of the federal budget allocated to foreign aid. As I recall, the average estimate is 25%; the reality is less than 0.1%.

The comparison holds mainly not because Bill Gates is so rich, or because the U.S. is indebted, but because federal budget priorities drastically favor items that are not foreign aid. Those priorities are formed in part because citizens believe that the budget is already giving away huge quantities of money, making proposals to increase foreign aid unpopular.

Second, the amount of money spent is not necessarily a good measure of the amount of aid given. On the one hand, sometimes more money doesn't help; to use an analogy that people here might understand, after a certain point in increasing your budget for paying software developers, you are limited by your ability to find good people, not by your ability to pay them. Likewise, some foreign aid projects - such as HIV eradication in certain African nations - have reached the point where the amount of monetary aid given already exceeds the capacity of local infrastructure to use the resources wisely, and any more would just sit in a bank account somewhere until someone blew it on a useless boondoggle.

On the other hand, some forms of aid or assistance given by the U.S. to friends or allies do not have monetary value, such as military assistance, diplomatic cover, or political advice... and there are material goods that are, for whatever reason, more valuable to the people who receive them than the items would be priced in the U.S. market where they were paid for.

So although this is a true and revealing fact, it's best to not misinterpret it. The reasons for the foreign aid budget being lower than Bill Gates's charity contributions are political, not fiscal; but it's likely that the more important question about foreign aid is the nature and quality of the aid, not the U.S. dollar value for which it was purchased.

<comment><USER4> "First, polls have shown that U.S. citizens drastically overestimate the amount of the federal budget allocated to foreign aid. As I recall, the average estimate is 25%; the reality is less than 0.1%."

That is very hard to believe. Why would anybody think that the government gives away a quarter of its budget? I would think that a guess would be based that on something reasonable. Like your own personal or family budget for instance. Who would (or could) give away a quarter of their family budget? Not many I'm guessing. I would expect guesses between 1 and 10 percent. Twenty five percent sounds like a polling error. Or a missed decimal place.

<comment><USER5> From a November 2010 WordPublicOpinion.org poll ([http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/nov10/ForeignAid_...](http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/nov10/ForeignAid_Nov10_quaire.pdf))

"Just based on what you know, please tell me your hunch about what percentage of the federal budget goes to foreign aid. You can answer in fractions of percentage points as well as whole percentage points."

Results: Mean = 27%, Median = 25%

And my favorite part: "What do you think would be an appropriate percentage of the federal budget to go to foreign aid, if any?": Mean = 13%, Median = 10%

<comment><USER6> I think when you provide people with absolutely no context like this, you're bound to get stupid answers. I feel like if you instead gave a list of things the government should do and asked people to allocate money to each, you would at least get answers that are sane, if not accurate.

And honestly, knowing this kind of stuff is kind of irrelevant anyway. The whole reason we have a representative democracy is so that ordinary citizens can delegate the specifics of government to experts.

<comment><USER7> I think it's more of a matter of disinformation; if US citizens are radically disinformed, that's another barrier to participating in allocating our budgets. The system obviously favors decisionmaking by wealthy elites.

(Affording your own decent healthcare is enough of a feat in the US, that if you're wealthy enough to chip in for some of other people's healthcare too, people think you must be Batman or something.)

As for Bill Gates in particular, apparently one problem is his support for intellectual property, though his foundation. Many consider IP (particularly patents) a major problem for world health; and certainly the US knew better than to respect other countries' intellectual property, while it was developing. (To Charles Dickens' consternation.) (<http://keionline.org/microsoft-timeline>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So if the top 400 wealthiest individuals in the US gave half their net worth to charity, they'd merely double the _annual_ charitable giving of the rest of the United States? [1]

In other words, in four years, the United States in total will have donated more than the entire net worth of those 400 people -- net worths that typically took lifetimes and generations to amass.

If you ask me, that single factoid casts the Giving Pledge in an entirely new light. Yes, Gates and company have done some fantastic things with their charity [2]. But the rest of the country is doing _far more_ than they're getting credit for. Year after year. And as they aren't spending down their net fortunes, it's entirely sustainable.

That's something we don't hear nearly enough.

[1] Give or take some, as I'm sure those 400 people themselves likely contribute to that total.

<comment><USER9> It also matters how effectively the money is being used. The Gates Foundation tries to measure its effeciveness and reduce waste. I'm not so sure that other charities - many of them religious - are spending as effectively and making as much of a difference per dolllar.

Another thing that matters is long-term vision. Many charities try to spend on what is visible to help fundraising, while big private foundations can often invest in R&D and other high-risk high-reward projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It looks like this is comparing the Gates Foundation's total charitable contribution in 2007 to the US's foreign aid budget for one year. Not to undermine Gates' massive contribution to humanity, but the title should say "gave away".

The infographic plague continues. Surely the author could have gotten more up- to-date information about a 501(c)(3) than five year old data.

<comment><USER11> And I would venture to say that money he donated was the result from ill gotten gains. He is a convicted monopolist. And in all honesty, this money is tainted from perpetuating a monopoly.

And still this company does what it was charged with. We see that with the 'secure computing' in regards to the locked down boot sequence for up and coming Windows ARM devices.

And I bet this "donation" Gates does also encourages Windows as a computing infrastructure.

Edit: why the karma backlash? Have I said something false or misleading? Also, we are not discussing US aid.

<comment><USER12> You do realize Bill Gates isn't even at Microsoft anymore, right? This isn't about the company, but what he's done independently, after the fact. He could have simply sat on that money, or left it to all to his family. Instead, he chose to make a difference in the world at large, a noble cause in my book.

<comment><USER13> For values of "isn't even at" which include "Chairman of the Board", receiving $968,779 in compensation in 2011: [http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyOfficers?symbol...](http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyOfficers?symbol=MSFT.O&WTmodLOC=C4-Officers-5)

And major shareholder, holding 6.2% of total shares outstanding to an approximate market value of $13.2 billion (521 million shares): [http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?symbol=MSFT&Holdin...](http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?symbol=MSFT&Holding=5%25+Ownership)

<comment><USER12> Well, color me misinformed! Still, his philanthropic activities have nothing to do with his corporate ones.

<comment><USER13> There's a strong case of dispute for this as well.

The B&MGF have been highly active in education. And computers in education. Guess what OS they favor?

My understanding of much of the medical work done by the B&MGF is that there's been a focus on making patented prescription medicines available inexpensively (a social good), _but_ preserving the strong IP protections on the patents themselves (again, an objective which favors Microsoft Corp's own interests in strong IP.

There is some confluence of interests.

Still, despite my very strong misgivings of Gates, Microsoft, and its business practices, he's made a huge impact on philanthropy and social causes. B&MGF absolutely dominates the field.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Misleading title. From 1994 to 2007, Bill Gates "gave" to a foundation an amount slightly larger than what US Foreign Aid "gave" in the single year of 2007.

The Foundation has not given that money to charities, it has given some small percentage and invested the rest so that it can last forever.

I put gave in quotes because possibly both parties are not giving unconditionally, but rather purchasing either respect or obedience or something else.

<comment><USER15> Foreign aid by any government is most certainly not given unconditionally. Even disaster relief carries political ties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The US does a lot that I don't think is represented in that number. For instance, the military aid that we render to foreign nations in time of natural catastrophes is second to none, particularly in terms of expediency, logistics and supplies. Haiti is the first thing that comes to mind, but there's tons more examples like Fukushima, South-East Asia in 2004, Pakistan in 2005, Myanmar in 2008, etc.

<comment><USER17> Don't forget the military aid to Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Somalia, Chile, Nicaragua, most of central America, etc... </sarcasm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if we'll see candlelit vigils and bunches of flowers outside MS stores when Bill Gates finally kicks it? He's long been the opposite of "cool" and certainly hasn't always been an honest competitor in the past but his altruism now should surely make up for that.

<comment><USER19> Is apple any more of an honest competitor with all of its patent trolling, closed platforms, and hardware lock-in?

<comment><USER20> They are not patent trolls. See: <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Patent_troll>

<comment><USER19> Patent abusers then. Is there a reasonable argument that Apple is not abusing the patent system to try to stifle their competition?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> 1\. The constitutional role of the federal government does not mention anything about foreign aid, and rightly so.

2\. Surely this doesn't count the billions the Federal Government gives in military aid.

</comment><comment><USER22> And what about Monsanto GE/GMO crops pushed and financed by the B&M Gates foundation? [http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/monsantos-gmo-corn- appro...](http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/monsantos-gmo-corn-approved- despite.html) (I took the first link in DDG, may be unfortunate, I knew from the very good <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_According_to_Monsanto> )

<comment><USER23> What is bad about trying to provide "drought-tolerant" seeds to Africa? It's not like GE seeds are gonna ruin Africa, they might very well help fight the hunger problem. I don't understand the general negativity against GE food - <USER2> it's tested well, I don't see any reason against it.

<comment><USER24> Genetically engineered seed is sterile and patented. So the first hit is free, but you as a farmer is stuck buying seed for eternity. Handing out GMO seed is like giving Gilette razors to poor people.

You know what would help African farmers? Education about irrigation and scientific, low-moisture farming techniques. Provide non-hybrid seed and equipment than be used by locals to clean and store it.

<comment><USER25> >You know what would help African farmers? Education about irrigation and scientific, low-moisture farming techniques. Provide non-hybrid seed and equipment than be used by locals to clean and store it.

The solution is never so simple. I could just as easily and correctly (ignoring all human implications) say "You know what would help African farmers? Move them somewhere more conducive to human life." Sounds awesome in theory, but consider the implementation details and effects on life of both options. You always have to make a trade off in practice between what is an "ideal" solution scientifically and what can actually be implemented given the real humans involved.

<comment><USER15> Africa holds over a billion people, and is the second-most populated continent. I'd say the people there are already aware of what parts of it are conducive to human life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> FYI Blog Spam, source is: <http://frugaldad.com/microsoft/>

</comment><comment><USER27> The title here is misleading. According to the graphic, Bill and Melinda Gates' net worth, $59 billion, is $2 billion more than the US budget for foreign aid. They have given away $28 billion, 48% of their net worth.

</comment><comment><USER28> A link to the original source which includes a note from the author of the infographic: <http://frugaldad.com/microsoft/>

</comment><comment><USER29> Including Rockefeller and Carnegie in that graphic is poor choice if you ask me. True they gave a lot of their money away... but mostly to their own causes.When it came to their own workers they were more willing to give money to thugs who killed them than giving them equitable wages and working conditions.

And while I find it impressive what Warren Buffet has accomplished, I don't find it very productive for humanity. I'm not anti-capitalist, but the pure money makers who gather wealth without providing a service/product are not heroes in my book.

<comment><USER30> Buffet isn't a hero for how he made his money (not from a charitable point of view anyway), but for what he does with it.

Making your money in stocks and shares isn't praiseworthy work at all, but I don't see how you can look down on someone who does that and gives so much of the profit to charity.

<comment><USER29> I'm not looking down on him, just saying he doesn't really belong in the same company as Bill Gates. There is a lot of Microsoft hate out there, which is partially deserved, but he still provided a needed and useful product/service that has revolutionized the PC industry. And then after doing that he turned around and gave most of it away. Much more praiseworthy than Buffet IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you're interested in charitable giving:

GiveWell (<http://givewell.org>) does in-depth reviews of charities and recommends the best ones, based on things like cost-effectiveness and transparency.

Giving What We Can (<http://givingwhatwecan.org>) is a place where you can make a similar pledge (like 10% of your income), and community to support people who have done so.

</comment><comment><USER32> in contrast, Steve Jobs decided the money was his to keep, even after death. lives NOT saved: 5,812,000 and counting.

<comment> k-mcgrady Why should someone have to give away their money if they are rich? Sure, it is a good thing to do, but they may have worked hard so that their family will be ok when they have died. People should be able to choose what they want to do with their money without self-righteous people judging them for their decision.

How much money have you given to charity? Will you be leaving all of your money to charity when you die or will you leave it to your family?

<comment><USER30> I don't believe there should ever be a law forcing this, but I would certainly judge anyone who gets that rich and didn't give anything away (if I knew they didn't, instead of just guessing).

I'm not against inheritance, I stand to do pretty well from it myself in the (hopefully not too-near) future, but there's different levels. In general I think anyone who can afford to ought to give to charity as often as possible (and again, I'm not talking selflessness, I can't preach living a budget life in order to give more to charity given that I chose to prioritise living well over giving to charity), but for the super rich, does giving your children $10b really help them more than giving them $5b?

Obviously the question is where's the line, do you leave your loved ones just enough to, say, buy a small house, do you leave them enough to never have to work again, do you leave them enough to never have to work again and be able to live like a millionaire, or... I don't know where the line would be for me, if I became super-rich (which I don't plan on or expect), and I don't know where I think the line should be for people like Jobs/Buffet/etc. All I know is that if they give it all away I feel sorry for their loved ones, and if they give none away I will consider them selfish.

edit: I'm aware that the above views might come across as confusing, I think I didn't word it particularly well but I can't think of a better way to put it. Hopefully it's understandable, if anyone suggests it isn't then I'll give it another shot.

<comment> k-mcgrady I understand what you're saying. I would like it if everyone who died rich donated money to charity. But I also think that if someone has worked hard to earn that money they have the right to do with it as they wish, without judgement.

If I got rich I think I would donate most of it to charity. I would only leave enough with family to take care of my children. I don't think children should be brought up wealthy/spoilt/privileged.

<comment><USER30> I agree that someone has the right to do as they wish with their money, but that doesn't mean that be exercisingthat right they are doing the right thing. Equally I'm very aware that people could look at me and judge me for not giving more to charity - I judge myself, but ultimately I know that while I'm not selfish enough to give nothing, I am selfish enough to not let charitable donations change my standard of living.

 _I don't think children should be brought up wealthy/spoilt/privileged._

Again the issue here is where to draw the line? Arguably there are plenty of people in countries like the US and UK who are on benefits and consider themself near the bottom of the ladder, but they are wealthy and privileged compared to people in other parts of the world living in famine.

Equally, leaving family with enough "to take care of" children makes them privileged/wealthy/spoilt in comparison to people not lucky enough to have a good inheritance.

I've grown up in the UK, pretty middle class, never having to worry about family money problems, and if I had no money of my own then when both my parents die, the combined money will be more than enough to buy a nice house. There's no way to look at it that other than to say I'm very lucky, I may not be able to retire right now, but I can become a houseowner without ever saving any money, and I'll probably never have to worry about debt or live paycheck to paycheck.

But at the same time, I'm talking six figures, not seven+, my father was a postman, and if I stood to inherit, say, twice as much as I actually do, I wouldn't think "right, 50% of it is instantly going to charity".

Essentially, any inheritence is giving whoever gets it an advantage over some, and (except for the single richest person in the world) a disadvantage over others. The question of how much is too much is incredibly subjective.

edit: In fact, I said I agree about it being a right. Actually, in a way I don't. I wish the entire world was based on communism, I really do. Sadly I can't imagine it could ever work, and as such I don't consider myself "a communist", nor will I ever in my life try to push for communism to happen anywhere. I say I can't imagine it, I mean it could never work, it's completely impossible. But I wish it was, even though I would personally be in a worse situation if I did live in a communist state.

<comment><USER33> >I agree that someone has the right to do as they wish with their money, but that doesn't mean that be exercisingthat right they are doing the right thing.

When you make money legally and honorably as Jobs did, the "right thing" to do with your money is whatever you want to do with it. I think it's outrageous other people presume to tell the wealthy, especially the self-made wealthy, what they ought to do with their own assets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> He may be on the path to karmically braking even in the not to distant future if he ends up giving back all of his unethically gained fortune. That's good.

</comment><comment><USER35> Gates didn't give away $28 billion. That's the foundation's endowment, from which they "give away" the annual returns (~5% iirc).

</comment><comment><USER36> The headline is simply not true. It is comparing Gates' total expenditure to the USA's annual expenditure.

</comment><comment><USER37> Nice advertisement for libertarianism.

In other news, Bill Gates has created more wealth and productivity for people worldwide than any individual (or government) in the history of the world. This equates to better medicine, more fun vacations, better food, more time with family, longer lives, etc.

In spite of being attacked by government (antitrust lawsuits) Gates continues to try to tackle the world's toughest problems.

<comment><USER38> _In other news, Bill Gates has created more wealth and productivity for people worldwide than any individual (or government) in the history of the world._

I do not think this is accurate or supported by the article.

For instance, while I respect Bill Gates tremendously, I suspect Isaac Newton contributed more to the current wealth of the Western Hemispher than Gates did, and Alexander Fleming (discovered penicilin amoungst other things) probably tops Newton in contributing to the overall well being of the world now, as just two examples from "the history of the world."

<comment><USER37> I think it depends on how you measure it.

Gates' realizations about business could have actually been significantly more rare than Newtons' observations. I think it's important to at least consider this to be true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> He may not have taste as some would say, but he's been hacking real world problems lately. Good job.

</comment><comment><USER40> If you apply Gauss' Law and define a boundary around US for money, you can argue that it's not Gates' money that's leaving the country, its the money that people gave to him, i.e. it's still US originated money.

<comment><USER41> Yes, that's how capitalism works after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Bill Gates is required by law to give away 5% of equity in his foundation every year otherwise he would lose charitable tax-exempt status from IRS... so yes, he gave away billions but at the same he avoided to pay billions in taxes to government by funneling most of his wealth into his foundation.

So the whole comparison between him and the government is pointless since it's the government that made it possible for Bill Gates to even do charity at this scale by sacrificing its own tax revenue.

<comment><USER43> Are you making the argument that it would be impossible for him to do any charity if he was taxed or that he wouldn't do the same thing if he had to pay taxes?</comment></comment>