How to Destroy Someone's Life or They called me a child pornographer - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2006/07/18/photos <comment><USER3> We had "a run in" with Child Protective Services about 10 years ago. The charge: "Shaken Baby Syndrome" (symptoms medically caused; a long story). The "advocates" at CPS had me and my wife (in hospital having just delivered child #2) tried and convicted immediately. Only, I think, thru my self-advocacy directly to the head of pediatrics at the county hospital where my child was being held for examination, resulted in the case being resolved in our favor within a few days (in contrast, I could have talked to the bureaucrats until I died w/o making the slightest headway). Due process? What's that? Various lawyers I consulted advised me to not even hire a lawyer (imagine multiple lawyers saying _that_!) because the law was so stacked against parents, and so completely protective of the CPS bureaucrats, that it would be an utter waste of money with no hope of lawyer-aided "victory".

Miraculously we got our kids back in very short order, however the bureaucrats wouldn't give us the slightest scrap of documentation that the event had ever taken place (and this remains true til now). And needless to say, we received no apology either (at best they were all "just doing their jobs", just like concentration camp guards).

I have nothing good to say about the arbitrary, condescending, totalitarian bureaucrats/"advocates", or the (CA) legislators who wrote such one sided laws ("for the children", no doubt) giving these petty tyrants their obscene powers. I guess many reading this will think "necessary collateral damage by wonderful, diligent state employees pursuing the greater good"; all well and good until _you_ are the ones in their crosshairs: then we'll hear what kind of tune _you_ sing about the glories of the state when you are deprived of due process among other things.

<comment><USER4>
      (at best they were all "just doing their jobs", just like concentration camp
      guards)

Quoted for truth. This is not an invocation of Godwin's law, but the closest possible analogy, as these bureaucrats make the exact same repugnant decisions someone like Eichmann made. They fully well _know_ they ruin the lives of many innocent folks; at least half the cases turn out to have been nothing. The problem is not 'the government' or 'society'. The problem is our neighbors: citizens like you and me, not realizing they have to question what they do in the light of each individual situation, not thinking for themselves or not having the moral fiber to act according to those thoughts.

These horror stories are not solely an American problem: there are plenty of similar European stories. However, the American stories are by far more extreme, as both the punishment and the immediate social consequences are worse. Not only the bureaucrats are like concentration camp guards: the teachers that immediately distrust you and the neighbors that won't let their kid play with yours anymore are equally guilty of 'guilty until proven innocent'.

<comment><USER5> Yes the hysteria in Europe is quite similar. I think that part of this has to do with the fact that whenever a case of child abuse arises, and it's shown that the social services did not do enough to protect the child from harm, there's a huge media circus, legal cases brought against the council, heads of department sacked and so on. So from the social services point of view false negatives can be prohibitively costly, whereas false positives rarely if ever make the headlines.

<comment><USER6> Recently a dutch study indicated that the false positives are actually by far the majority of the cases _and_ on top of that plenty of child abuse goes unnoticed.

False reports out of revenge (for instance, between divorcees, jealous neighbours or oither idiots) are also very common, and the damage done to families because of that is significant.

The cure seems to be much worse than the disease here.

Friends of ours had a 'visit' of the dutch equivalent of the 'service' (I use the term lightly) who kept on suggesting that there must be something wrong. When the guy got up to make coffee the woman said 'you can tell me now', as though she was a victim too. Unbelievable, the way these people push their way in to peoples lives, guilty by default and if you are very very lucky you might get to keep your kids at their say-so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Welcome to Child Protective Services, where folks with sociology degrees, sometimes poor cognitivie abilities, and questionable work ethics who want to be on a mission to save the world are given powers that would make the local police chief blush.

I hated to write that. Snarky it was. Of course most of the cases these folks work are really sad -- I have family that work there.

But it's a blunt instrument, and politicians have decided that anything to do with kids gets "special" treatment. I know of about a dozen good people who have had run-ins with these guys. None of them were guilty of anything bad, yet all of them went through hell. (this list includes me) I also know (from my family members who work there) of really bad people who keep their kids through atrocity after atrocity. Very sad.

EDIT: Just guessing, but it's almost like the closer to upper-middle class you are, the more likely you are to be a victim of CPS-gone-wild. The really poor crackheads don't give a shit, so CPS charges them and shuffles them through the system. Nobody has resources for these kids, so they go back to mom and/or dad. The really rich have a platoon of lawyers descend on CPS (and they have political connections). It's the poor schmucks who have the energy and wherewithal to screw around with CPS (probably in a useless attempt to save their reputation) that get dragged through the dirt.

<comment><USER7> I'm just guessing the following numbers for effect, but I believe them to be true within an order of magnitude.

We have a thousand political systems that can punish people. Each one has at least a 1% false-positive rate over our lifetime. That means that each of us will get screwed over many times by government. Hopefully when we get screwed over it won't be like this guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It saddens me that for every ridiculous story like this, there is someone out there who really thought that trying to bring the case was a good idea.

Some things have improved in recent years. The incidence of bad therapy leading to false memory syndrome has been reduced, and with it the rate of false accusations. (There are also now improved odds for abused kids to be able to get information on what abuse is actually like, rather than getting detailed, unrealistic fantasies.) Others are worse. For instance in Miami the rule that sex offenders have to live at least 2500 feet from any school means that about the only place they could live was under a particular bridge. (As of April this year they have been transferred elsewhere, but which elsewhere that is I'm not sure. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offender_colony) for more.)

I would be the last to trivialize abuse or its very real problems. But there is a world of difference between 50 year olds going after prepubescent kids and 19 year olds who dated 16 year olds. And there is little to be gained from treating them all like lepers. Certainly less than could be gained if we, for instance, took some of the energy that goes into following up on almost certainly bogus reports and instead put it into improving the foster care system.

<comment><USER9> > there is someone out there who really thought that trying to bring the case > was a good idea.

Really? Sounds more like there's some cynical jerk with no sense of ethics or boundaries who gets their jollies by randomly victimizing normal families with the excessive powers bestowed upon them by paranoid CYA legislation and an army of deranged ideologues who see abuse everywhere.

<comment><USER10> The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: "Someone who really doesn't understand what his job is does some work in an attempt to get a promotion."

<comment><USER11> Most likely: someone whose continued employment depends on turning a certain minimum percentage of reports into criminal charges/convictions. Busting _actual_ child abusers who have experience with the system is likely much harder than setting up innocent people who don't understand what's going on, so this would presumably be an easy case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> America has one of the absurdly strictest set of laws for sex offenses against minors, _Economist_ had a great cover story about this some weeks ago. Problem is, since politicians know proposals for stricter laws bring in votes and no sane politician would ever propose a relaxation in these laws, they get stricter every year.

On the other hand, the US has one of the most sexualized tweens and teen-agers I have ever seen, go to the Mall or the local movie house on a Friday and you would be _shocked_ at how girls dress (and how their parents let them dress like this). And if that doesn't shock you, watch the movie _Thirteen_.

<comment><USER6> I think a good part of that is the fundamentalist Christian ('reborn') element in the United States which commands a fair portion of the vote.

<comment><USER13> I would suggest these organizations are more liberal thinkers where the child is better off under Government supervision.

The Bible is pretty clear that the parent should raise the child. The Bible is really against "Caesar" taking a big part of your life for example 'spare the rod, spoil the child'.

<comment><USER14> While verses in Proverbs arguably align with the sentiment, the actual "spare the rod, spoil the child" construction is from a poem by Samuel Butler.

<comment><USER15> >While verses in Proverbs arguably align with the sentiment,

Your wording here suggests that the argument for the sentiment is a weak one. I don't think that is born out. All verses in Proverbs with "rod" in them in NIV.

# Proverbs 10:13 Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks judgment.

# Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.

# Proverbs 14:3 A fool's talk brings a rod to his back, but the lips of the wise protect them.

# Proverbs 22:8 He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed.

# Proverbs 22:15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.

# Proverbs 23:13 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.

# Proverbs 23:14 Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.

# Proverbs 26:3 A whip for the horse, a halter for the donkey, and a rod for the backs of fools!

# Proverbs 29:15 The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This kind of story is indicting of our culture.

Outside the US nudity is not so taboo. In my daughter's kindergarten (a nice private school in Southeast Asia) boys and girls share the same bathroom, with no private stalls, and no door on the entrance. Everyone sees everything -- passers-by included. Meanwhile, in the US, nudity is synonymous with sex, and good people have to worry about things like this.

<comment><USER17> After reading the article, my first thought was "why I can't imagine that happening outside the US?". When and why did nudity become such a taboo there? It seems to be much more acceptable to show children violence than nudity, which I found absurd. I mean, which is more harmful for 13 years old child to see on TV, a breast or shooting?

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a terrible troll, but when an entire religious group gets up and sails across an ocean because everyone back home won't stop telling them that they're crazy... what else would you expect?

<comment><USER19> This is just a sort of ahistorical folk wisdom explanation. An entire religious group sailed across the ocean because everyone back home told them they were crazy and founded Pennsylvania -- is the US noted for its fanatic devotion to pacifism?

<comment><USER20> Well, not after the Calvinists burned them at the stake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm very close to people who were saved from really horrible situations by state intervention. But then for them, foster care was hardly any better until they were adopted.

The state taking my kids is actually my worst parental nightmare--even beyond all the accidental and criminal bad things that could happen. I'm a very good parent (you'll have to take my word, I guess), but I'm not conventional. And I know all it takes sometimes is a little misunderstanding.

<comment><USER22> For me it's the #2 nightmare. Leaving the baby in the car in the sun is #1.

<comment><USER23> As a new parent, I can't imagine how anyone would ever accidentally leave a child in their car.

<comment><USER24> I think rear-facing car seats kill more infants than they save. How many children survive a car crash only because they were facing backwards should be weighed against the number of children who die each summer because the parents forgot them.

If the child is front facing, your rear-view mirror will be filled with your child's face. But imagine the child falls asleep in a rear facing car seat after you have been up all night with them. It happens every summer to good parents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Wait until some enterprising district attorney confiscates your hard drive, surmises you frequent HN, subpoenas your voting history from pg, finds this thread and examines which anti-governement/pro-common-sense comments you up voted.

Everything you say (and/or write) may be used against you.

Have a nice day :)

<comment><USER6> They wouldn't have to go through PG either, votes can be lifted from the URL log that your provider is required to keep.

<comment><USER26> Sadly, my privacy is probably slightly more protected from such things on this highly monitored Army owned machine running on a secured and monitored network, than on my home computer. The DoD actually seems to care more about PII (Personally Identifiable Information) more than most other organizations, I suspect in large part because the people setting the regulations are also susceptible to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Everyone should read Franz Kafka's The Trial. This story and The Trial depict the helplessness anyone can feel with our legal system, or any big bureaucracy.

<comment><USER28> ESR's got a new post up <http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122> about what he calls "Kafkatrapping", making unfalsifiable claims against people as a form of "moral" bullying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> On the one hand I completely sympathize with the author. As a parent myself I would not wish this upon anyone.

On the other hand, the author is a journalist, exactly the people who are the cause of this type of witch hunt. If you would leave out the prologue of the story, and make it into a story where the accusations actually were true. Then noone would have blinked about what happened. If they were treated any other way, there would have been a public outrage.

Think about the officers handling this case. There is absolutely zero incentive for them to handle this case differently. If the accused turn out to be guilty, then they better have handled this case with the utmost seriousness. Any leniency can possibly lead to a scandal. And media love childmolesting scandals, so the officers will be part of a nation if not worldwide scandal. They will be singled out, their mistake will be broadcasted for the whole world to see, and they effictively lose their job.

If people turn out to be innocent, psyches have been damaged, it's bad but they'll get over it. More importantly, maybe a complaint will be filed, they will have done the right thing within the rules, and case is closed.

<comment><USER30> "a journalist, exactly the people who are the cause of this type of witch hunt."

And I am a software developer, exactly the kind of people who cause computer viri, identity theft, spams and scams?

<comment><USER31> How many journalists are in jail for causing which hunts? How many have even uttered an apology?

That's the difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I had a similar run in with DCF, not for child pornography but for accusations of child abuse. I helped out a high school friend who had become a heroin addict (I had no idea what I was getting into), by letting his family and himself live with me while he tried to recover. It ended up that this was a common scam with him and his wife and they use a sob story to get friends to help them out and once they wear out their welcome they move on to the next friend. They would exploit their two girls to make you feel bad about putting two little girls out on the street. This worked very well on me.

Anyways, we finally had had enough and we asked them to leave. I notified his brother of this an his brother had had enough as well, fearing for his two nieces the brother called DCF on them and started an investigation in an attempt to get the girls and provide them some stability (they where in and out of school, watched their father do drugs, and eventually watched him OD - more on that latter).

So, after that the crazy wife calls DCF on every family, that had kids, that they stayed with. So we end up getting cops and a DCF agent knocking on our door, conveniently at 11PM, a time when any dirt bag would be doing their nightly supply of drugs and we get this condescending attitude while we are being read a list of charges being levied against us. My father is there, because he is helping me install a wood floor in my living room and the DCF agent gives me a condescending lecture about unsafe environment for children (I answer well that is why we are doing it while they are in bed). She looked at me and asked what is going on here like it was some illicit activity.

They make us wake the kids up, and then they make them disrobe to see if they have any marks and take them on the back porch to ask them questions. Right before that, I asked if I needed a lawyer and the cop told me they are not needed in these situations.

Anyway, they told us we had to be at the court house for a urine test at 8AM the next morning. To which we complied after calling a lawyer once they left the night before.

In the mean time, I call the brother and tell him and his mother what happened. He, his sister and their mother calls the agent handling the case of his brother and tells her that their has been a false report that was used to victimize another person as a form of retaliation. He pretty much has to threaten the lady to contact the DCF agency in my town, which she finally does.

So, pretty open and shut right, nope. I ask our agent if she has been in contact with the (now network) of agents investigation false reports on everyone that has ever let these people stay with them and she tells me that she cannot confirm or deny it due to the fact that she has to protect the anonymity of the reporter but that our case was in active investigation, because they found items of concern in our house (If they provided half the case work diligence that they do to protect the anonymity of a random caller, we would have never been in this mess).

The items of concern was a pot pipe in the room that the family stayed in. I did not allow drugs to be used in my house and the brother clearly described the pot pipe to them as he had seen his brother pipe before, so there was no doubt that this pipe belonged to a known drug addict that lived in that room. Still no go, so now we are being investigated not for child abuse, as the original allegation claimed, but drug abuse, so they go through my medicine cabinet and catalog every pill bottle I have.

Then the drug test come back, and I come back positive for a controlled substance, Alazopram, I have had panic attacks since I was about 10 years old and have been under a doctors care for that long. They know this but feign like they don't.

They then decide to contact my doctor and volunteer the information that I am being investigated for drug abuse and then show up on my door to inform me that I will have to attend mandatory drug classes and enter a rehab facility or they will bring it before the judge. My lawyer called their bluff because they knew I had a prescription for the medication because they interviewed my doctor. Yet when they came to my house they acted like they must have missed the pill bottle with my name on it and asked to see it again. They looked at it for all of .2 seconds and then said well since you have a prescription it is probably best that we go ahead and close the case.

DCF gets brownie points if they can get you entered into some social program if they cannot build a case to get a conviction. They will do everything in their power to do so.

In my case they had a blatant case of their system being used to victimize someone else and instead of upholding justice they saw an opportunity to score a win due to poor circumstances (me not finding a pipe in the closet when we cleaned the room). They would have railroaded me if they could have with no concern as to right and wrong. I feel so bad for those who do not have the resources to retain a lawyer. Nevertheless like the article states the stain remains even after the case is closed. I always wonder if my doctor secretly thinks that I am a drug addict now. I was in a state of fear that my medicine for panic attacks would not be available to me due to the political risk of having me as a patient.

I feared having my children taken away and believe that they had pushed me past the point of breaking. If they had taken my children I believe at that point I could have hurt myself or others. To be innocent with the truth so obvious and to have people ignore it makes you feel victimized and it makes you want to victimize the ones that are doing it to you. I think that is probably the one time in life that someone or some thing had driven me to the edge of sanity. I love my children more than anything in my life and I started to have crazy thought of having to protect my children at all costs. It was insane and they had no regard for the human wreckage they where leaving in their wake.

Fortunately, I held it together, my lawyer, just like the one in the article, constantly reminded me that if I displayed aggression they would use it against me. If I snapped and went postal they would use it against my wife and I would no longer be here to help my wife and children navigate that mess. And if I just killed myself that I would be a coward that left my wife and kids to fend for themselves. It is hard for a man because he has a natural instinct to protect his family and to have to quell that instinct in times of extreme stress when people are truly trying to attack your family is difficult to say the least.

In the end the case was closed, DCF thought they where going to get out quick and quite when they where rebuffed with my prescription, but my lawyer had one last volley with them, in which he insisted that it be noted on our file that the report be marked as a false report. They tried to resist but he threatened civil action against the agency and they relented. I requested the file and on the last line it states subjects request that this be labeled a false report. To the very end they cannot see the victimization that they did.

Anyway, like the article said it fades into a bad memory but leaves you always looking over your shoulder. The part that I am most bitter about is that I asked the agent as she was leaving, are you guys going to bring charges against them for filing all of these false reports. To which she said well the agency dose not really do that, with the case load we don't have time to chase false reports.

The man that we tried to help ended up overdosing 2 months later. The children where never taken from them because they complied with the mandated social programs that DCF required them to do so that DCF could get their check mark. They sent him to a welfare doctor that gave him methadone and klonopin (a stronger relative of the medicine that I take, which they had no issue with their doctor prescribing to a known drug addict), he took too much of both one night and died. His 8yr old and 5y old daughter found him the next day.

EDIT: forgot to mention, wife was pregnant and had baby during the investigation to which they showed up at the hospital to decide whether we could take our new born child home or not.

<comment><USER33> DCF is a really problematic thing. I completely understand where you're coming from and we've had people close to us under false investigation from family services and it's a pretty bad gig. They act like everything you say is such an absurd lie and that you're just waiting for them to walk away so that you can start slamming your children into the floor again. It is really sad that they can't use common sense.

But at the same time, we've had people close to us exhibit a constant pattern of abuse with their children, including using and dealing hard drugs with the children present and leaving things like syringes lying around. We called DCFS and the investigation, as far as I know, has gone nowhere.

The woman still has her children because every time the agents show she happens not to have anything particularly incriminating in plain sight. The woman is a serial liar and manipulator and uses people wherever she can. She has many medical problems incidental of her drug use and the way she has treated her body and uses them to her benefit, playing the persecution card. We believe that she is constantly on the edge of sanity and has issues with schizophrenia. She is regularly beaten by her partners, and the children see this. She is always cracked out on legal prescription drugs, which she has a valid prescription to use, because as above, she has abused her body for years and now has serious problems as a result.

Her son has a disability that requires special attention. If he gets injured, he must be administered a booster immediately or he may die. This child is frequently unsupervised while his mother sleeps until 2pm and he runs around outside with kids who don't speak English, jumping off of balconies and stuff. He frequently misses school for a week or so at a time (she makes sure he appears at least once every 10 days, because the school people don't file a report until 10 consecutive absences). But apparently DCFS can't do anything unless they happen to appear at a time when the mother has drugs in reach or sight of the children, and the story is that heretofore they haven't seen this.

I sympathize that it sucks to be falsely investigated, but if you consider that there are people like those described above, who have become expert manipulators and liars to conceal and feed their habits, and DCFS has to investigate them too, you can understand some skepticism on the part of the agents.

Either way, it's a pretty horrible system. I don't really know the answer, but the current setup obviously doesn't work; this woman still has custody of her children six months later (the last time we had contact with them, her boyfriend, who speaks almost no English, called to say that the woman had been away for two days and asked us to take the children so he could go to work) and innocent people get harassed for years because of pettiness and retaliatory reports. Someone should try to fix this, though obviously it's a pretty intractable problem.

<comment><USER34> Your school system doesn't "file a report" until TEN CONSECUTIVE ABSENCES? That's negligent. In ours, a truancy report is filed and the police are involved after ten cumulative absences _or_ tardies throughout the entire semester.

(I found this out the 8th time I managed to drop my kids off 1 minute late).

<comment><USER33> Wow, the tardy thing is excessive imo.

My wife informs me that the 10 days thing was because the child was in kindergarten. My wife had gone down to the school and talked to the teachers about the matter so she knows more about that than I do. Apparently kindergarten isn't considered a "real thing" or something. If the guidelines are stricter for 1st grade, and I hope they are, then hopefully there will be more involvement once the school year starts back up. The case is still open and DCF still drops in occasionally afaik, but I hope additional reports/complaints would cause the process to intensify and/or work faster. The kids are in danger every minute they are with that woman, so I will be pleased to see them removed.

<comment><USER34> The tardy thing is excessive. Getting a social work case opened up because you get out the door a couple minutes late is nonsense. It would be funny, and not at all surprising, if people who's kids are missing weeks of school at a time are having less trouble with the authorities; not giving a shit about anything is a good innoculation against social services, which is part of the tragedy of how these programs tend to work out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> _Besharov also said that the current law should be amended to grant immunity to those who in good faith deem a situation not to be child abuse or pornography. That way, those who report cases of abuse of questionable merit, simply to err on the side of mandatory reporting laws, might feel less pressure to do so. In our case, maybe the responding officer, who initially commented that he didn't find the pictures pornographic, would have dismissed the case at the drugstore and not reported us to child services._

This is the key takeway - and the thing that really needs to change.

In this case, like some many others, the process really broke down at that point.

But it is incredibly difficult, I imagine, to make such a call. If it later turns out you just let a child pornographer go free you will be proverbially screwed; both by the LE services and the media. We ask completely the wrong people to make these choices; inexperienced officers with a lot to lose if they make the wrong call.

<comment><USER36> I think that such a call should be relatively straightforward. A picture of a naked child is not pornography unless there is explicit sexual context, i.e., touching of genitals, etc. Otherwise, a naked child in a bathtub, pool or such activity is the picture of innocence itself.

If there was doubt, bring it before a jury of one's peers as opposed to some back-room morality police.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why wasn't the _Clerk_ investigated for child pornography/molestation?

If you look at a picture of naked kids in non-sexual situations and think you're seeing something sexual then there is something wrong with you. Full stop. Either you've been abused, you're an abuser yourself or you've been horribly brain washed. Any of these possibilities makes you more of a risk than the person who shot the photos.

Taking this a step further, people need to start filing scary "child pornography" charges at judges, lawyers and everyone else who participates in this kind of insanity. If the judge doesn't take one look at the photo, realize it's nothing and dismiss the case then he might well be a consumer of child pornography. Otherwise, why didn't he realize it was innocent? If a few people in power start getting _their_ lives ruined by this nonsense maybe it would stop.

<comment><USER35> That's absurd; there is a distinct difference between seeing something that concerns you and becoming sexually aroused by said image. To suggest they are "consumers of child pornography" is just a bit rude...

For the untrained eye such photo's as in this case may have shocked him/her and prompted the knee-jerk reaction of calling the police. You are right in part; I think the main problem is that, absurdly, any images of naked children are starting to worry people. Part of that is founded in fact; you will find people with thousands of images of different children running around naked on beaches/parks/camping trips. But, clearly, in this case it is just a family camping trip and the clerk has either refused or is unable to process that.

I recall that a few years ago I was taking pics at a family wedding and happened, while taking shots of my cousins running round playing, to take a shot which included my youngest cousin doing a handstand with her skirt over her head. It was a completely innocent picture; and if I was ever investigated for CP it would never be flagged as CP - but my Aunt was absolutely insistent I should delete the photo.

And that is the sort of society we live in.

<comment><USER37> >That's absurd; there is a distinct difference between seeing something that concerns you and becoming sexually aroused by said image. To suggest they are "consumers of child pornography" is just a bit rude...

What is absurd is a situations where natural actions (taking photos of your children) become, randomly, life ruining [1]. You say my suggestion is rude but this is in fact exactly what happened to the author of the story. If one of these two people (the author or the clerk) had to have their life ruined because of the _chance_ that they might be dangerous I would pick the clerk as he/she is _actually_ exhibiting bizarre behavior.

Further, having an extreme reaction to natural things indicates some kind of problem. I can't know if the clerk was sexually aroused by the photos, felt guilty and reacted extremely to fight against those feelings that he/she knew were wrong. I can only see the extreme action they took. I can't know what triggered it, but it's definitely a problem and more worthy of looking into than the random innocent by-stander who triggered this persons episode.

[1] If this were isolated it might not be such a huge issue, but it's happening quite a lot (relatively). Remember the recent case where photos of a _17 year old girl_ in a bikini were investigated as child pornography? What about the guy who was naked in his house making breakfast and was accused of being an exhibitionist? Couple this with the insane "child abuser register" the US has and things look pretty alarming.

<comment><USER35> _If this were isolated it might not be such a huge issue, but it's happening quite a lot (relatively)._

No it isn't. You hear about some of these cases because, rightly, it occasionally hits the media but in general it is not happening a lot (comparatively anyway).

People _are_ getting too cagey over child nudity and prudish in general; but I don't think it is a result of either being a pedophile or sex offender.

 _I would pick the clerk as he/she is actually exhibiting bizarre behavior._

Not to my mind. They are reacting irrationally to images that disturb him/her; it does not make them a sex offender.

I see what you are saying; but I don't think it comes as a result of people being abused or secretly being pedophiles; it is more a reflection of a society where we are slowly becoming terrified of the "bogeyman" pedophile at every turn.

To put your point another way; if you saw, through a living room window, someone strangling another person whilst having sex with them would you call the police? And would it be because you found it sexually arousing? or is because you were worried about the person? See the difference.

<comment><USER37> >No it isn't. You hear about some of these cases because, rightly, it occasionally hits the media but in general it is not happening a lot (comparatively anyway).

I put on the relatively tag for a reason. I heard of about 7 cases in one year, each one of them completely insane. That's a lot relative to where I'm living in Europe where I've heard of zero such cases. It's also a lot relative to how many _should_ have happened, also zero.

>but I don't think it is a result of either being a pedophile or sex offender.

No, most people behave this way because they've been horribly and dangerously brain washed into behaving this way. So how do you "fix" them?

Imagine some less extreme behaviors that people could do and how it would be greeted. Imagine some intimate situation like a young man proposing to a young lady in a restaurant. Suddenly some jerk walks up and loudly farts in his face. How would this be reacted to? I can think of a lot of potential reactions, all of which would be extreme enough to let the drive by farter know that this kind of behavior is not acceptable.

Now lets step it up a notch. Someone urinates on the floor in the middle of a semi-crowded area. Now we're talking jail time, right? Maybe the person grew up in a culture where this was acceptable or even expected. Doesn't matter, they did something _more_ extreme than the last example and will be greeted with a more extreme result.

Now back to our clerk. This person looked at some normal family photos and reacted by ruining someone's life. I think this person finding themselves the subject of such an investigation would be appropriate and effective at teaching people that this kind of bizarre behavior is not acceptable and will not be tolerated.

>Not to my mind. They are reacting irrationally to images that disturb him/her; it does not make them a sex offender.

Neither did the person taking the photos. Remember, my statement was _if I had to pick between the two of them_. Would you seriously pick the author in that situation? Then I have some bad news for you...

>if you saw, through a living room window, someone strangling another person whilst having sex with them would you call the police?

Bad example. Enough people are into such behavior that I absolutely would not call the police. Further, if I did I would fully expect to find myself on the business end of a peeping Tom case.

But if we changed your example to me just seeing someone being strangled then I would call the police. Because I saw something extreme happening. I would not call the police if I saw two people hugging. See the difference?

<comment><USER35> _That's a lot relative to where I'm living in Europe where I've heard of zero such cases._

There are similar cases over here (in Europe), you just don't hear about them (for reasons I've never got to the bottom of). 7 cases may seem a lot, and you are right it _should_ be 0. But relative to the number of successful child abusers caught it's a pretty good statistic.

 _No, most people behave this way because they've been horribly and dangerously brain washed into behaving this way. So how do you "fix" them?_

Agreed; this didn't seem to be what you were saying before. But now I see you were less suggesting they _were_ sex offenders but that they should face the consequences too & this would limit their desire for prosecutions.

I disagree with this being the right approach. Where this process failed was the first officer who thought the images were fine but still escalated it; that officer should be someone experienced, qualified and serious enough to have said "no, this is not a concern" - perhaps after quickly talking to the parents.

 _Now back to our clerk. This person looked at some normal family photos and reacted by ruining someone's life. I think this person finding themselves the subject of such an investigation would be appropriate and effective at teaching people that this kind of bizarre behavior is not acceptable and will not be tolerated._

 _This_ is a completely different point to one you were originally making - <USER2> least how it reads anyway. And I agree; there should be consequences if you deliberately ruin someones life. But if the clerk is acting in good faith (in a way that doesn't sync with the examples you highlighted) so I'd argue a serious word/caution is sufficient to show him/her that they made a mistake and to take more care in the future.

 _Would you seriously pick the author in that situation? Then I have some bad news for you..._

I'd pick neither. end of.

 _But if we changed your example to me just seeing someone being strangled then I would call the police. Because I saw something extreme happening. I would not call the police if I saw two people hugging. See the difference?_

Yes. Sadly it is not a comparable example - because two people hugging is not associated with anything sexual or inappropriate. I was trying to highlight the idea that you might see something that others found sexually enticing but that simply concerned you - in such a case you are not a sexually excited by the event, just concerned. This is the mentality of the clerk; and you are right it is a result of a messed up society.

What _should_ have happened (assuming the clerk is still concerned enough in this perfect situation to have called the police) is the police man should have called the parents, chatted informally to assure himself that it was as he suspected and then left it at that.

The failure here appears to be societies attitude to child nudity followed quickly by maddening bureaucracy.

<comment><USER37> >Agreed; this didn't seem to be what you were saying before. But now I see you were less suggesting they were sex offenders but that they should face the consequences too & this would limit their desire for prosecutions.

Yes, sorry I wasn't clear enough. If it came out a bit ambiguous that's because it is for me. I suspect that in most cases none of the people involved are abusers but I maintain that there _is_ something wrong with some of them (especially the officials seeking convictions where a normal person would realize the material in question is innocent).

>But if the clerk is acting in good faith

This a case where I'm ambiguous on. On the one hand the Clerk was probably just trying to stay out of trouble so it was it was the fault of the Cop for not dropping it or other officials who continued to peruse it further.

On the other hand "just doing my job" is no excuse. Further I would punish blind "job doers" much more aggressively than anyone else. They are the enablers of atrocities. No one would have ever heard of everyone's favorite Godwin subject were it not for (literally) armies of "just doing my job"s. Imagine what would have happened in Iraq if the US enlisted soldiers had simply refused to go there. Most any (if not all) atrocity one could name were enabled by people who more often than not didn't like what they were doing but ultimately did as they were told.

>I'd pick neither. end of.

Then your statement doesn't apply to what I said. I said that if I _had to_ (e.g. gun is pointed at me, etc.) pick one of those two I would pick the Clerk.

>because two people hugging is not associated with anything sexual or inappropriate.

Nor were the photos in question.

>I was trying to highlight the idea that you might see something that others found sexually enticing but that simply concerned you - in such a case you are not a sexually excited by the event, just concerned.

I get what you were trying to do but I still maintain that if a person sees something _normal_ and is disturbed by it then they have a disconnect. Something has to highlight this clearly for them so they realize _they_ have the issue and can fix it. We should not cater to such eccentricity as this causes it to get even more extreme.

>What should have happened (assuming the clerk is still concerned enough in this perfect situation to have called the police) is the police man should have called the parents, chatted informally to assure himself that it was as he suspected and then left it at that.

That would have been a better result to be sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "If we get down to the bottom line, there is no clear-cut definition," said Dean Tong, who wrote "Elusive Innocence: Survival Guide for the Falsely Accused," after being jailed and then spending 10 years and $150,000 to clear himself of abusing his young daughter. Now a forensic consultant in thousands of false-accusation cases across the country, Tong told me that even most police officers are not well enough trained to interpret the law, let alone photo lab employees. Tong said that when facing the slightest doubt, law enforcement officers "err on the side of the child," noting the potential results: "I see families stripped and ripped apart in the middle of the night."

</comment><comment><USER38> It makes a mockery of the life, liberty and property clause that family can be threatened so lightly.

In my opinion, it is a fundamental right to raise your children according to your standards. Parents should be in control of the risks, ideas, and experiences their children are exposed to. Minority views on what is appropriate should be protected as rigorously as minority political or religious views.

I would like to see limits on state intervention in families. I'd like to see CPS investigations require probable cause, warrants, and time limits. I'd like to see a clear standard for circumstances under which the state can take action. Personally, I think the standard for _any_ enforced separation should be clear and convincing evidence before a jury of gross neglect (lack of life necessities, repeated serious reckless injury, serious risk of death) or malicious, repetitive physical abuse. And even in those cases, I'd prefer the first conviction to result in parole, not immediate action.

Child abuse is serious business, but separating families is serious business too.

<comment><USER39> First of all, there's no such thing as the "life, liberty and property clause" in American law.

Second, what if my standards for raising children are similar to Josef Fritzl's? Is that a fundamental right? You'd probably say no, but now the black-and-white rule is turning gray, and we're heading back toward the maddening uncertainty that our society has developed.

<comment><USER38> Well, I was thinking of the piece of the 5th amendment that says "No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". I don't know what you call that clause, but there is definitely such a thing.

In my opinion, it's intended to protect against government oppression in the form of taking away things you value. But if you were to include "access to family" on that list, I'd put it about where I'd put "avoidance of bodily injury". Here: "Life, family, liberty, property".

That government institutions can so casually disrupt family bonds, either temporarily, permanently, or during a long investigation? It makes a mockery of the protection against government we are supposed to have. They can't search your car without a warrant, but keep your head down or someone might call the CPS and they might arbitrarily decide to TAKE YOU FROM YOUR PARENTS.

(And it's silly to bring up a seriously abusive case like Josef Fritzl. The right to exercise your parenting philosophy is like the right to exercise your religion. I want to defend it against busybodies. I even want to defend your ability to hurt people, up to a degree. But there's a limit; we don't tolerate sexual assault in the context of cults, and we shouldn't tolerate it in the context of parenting either.

With that said, would I want to limit the state's ability to ACT IMMEDIATELY to separate kids and parents in a seriously and clearly abusive case, in order to offer normal people the protection of due process? Yes, I think I would make that tradeoff. Abuse is rare, and the kid who's lived with the problem for years can manage another six hours while you get your expedited, emergency warrant.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I've read just over 30 pages of the comments on Salon to this story, and undoubtedly I'll read many more. My main observation is that most of the commenters seem to be sensible people who do understand what parenting is like, and how kids really act. Thank _God_. But some of the other comments just make me facepalm terrifically.

Legally, I'm going to be an adult within the month. I'm certainly not a parent, but I am a kid, and I haven't been so brainwashed as to lose sight of what pre-adolescence is like. I could go on and on about the funny, stupid, and downright embarrassing things I did, particularly before I turned "double- digits".

Side-point: Giving these decidedly private photos to a public agency to develop was an absolutely stupid thing to do, but by no stretch of the imagination can I blame everything on him because of it. That's a lesson learned, for sure, but the idea that anything else he did was "wrong" just blows my mind. I'd like to say to some of the salon commenters... don't impose your personal morals on everyone else, please. I know there's a fantastic one- word term for people who do that, but it escapes me.

<comment><USER41> _Giving these decidedly private photos to a public agency to develop was an absolutely stupid thing to do_

But that's the way we used to live. Before digital, very few of us could develop our own film. Just like most of us buy our beer at a store rather than making it- and therefore some agency could get a handle on how much we consume. In the future this may look like a stupid thing to do, but now it's all we really have and nobody thinks about it twice. My parents had no alternative to developing the pictures of me at a store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This guy's anger is justified and I think his lawyer failed him.

<comment><USER32> _I think his lawyer failed him_

No he did not, this is not court, you have no right to due process. Your rights are considered secondary to the rights of the children given that you are in question you can not by nature be the child advocate. The DCF (whoever your states agency is) takes that role. So they get to decide if a lawyer is present or not for child questioning, etc.

All you really can get from a lawyer in this situation is advice and legal counsel if they decide to bring charges as well as a agent to act on your (not your children) behalf.

It is a nightmare where they have you and your lawyer over a barrel until you can catch them up and get them to relent.

<comment><USER42> I have no idea if this is settled law or not, but in this instance where the DCF is causing irreparable harm to both the children and the parents it seems a court's intervention could at least be asked for, i.e. file an injunction on the investigation or something to that effect. I'm not a lawyer but I don't think I would feel right just sitting back and being a passive message-passer for the DCF while they destroy my client's lives.

<comment><USER32> It is complicated and I don't remember all the in's and outs, you can try to get in front of a judge and have him rule that you can provide funding for an independent 3rd party lawyer. He cannot be the same as your defense. But you have to show cause which I remember my lawyer saying that it was hard to do. My lawyer in the end was right you just have to show them that you are not easy to pick on and they will move on. They need to make their numbers and if they spend too much time on you, they miss other opportunities. It is a war of attrition in which you have a severe psychological disadvantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Sometimes I'm pretty scared of the missing of common sense and disgusted by the people who are "just" doing their job, without compunction what this might imply for other people.

It's a confession of failure for a society, if the determinant of acting is fear.

</comment><comment><USER9> Thank god for digital cameras. I've avoided film since that Robin Williams movie about the crazy at the 1-hour place.

<comment><USER44> Not saying this applies to you but a lot of possibly questionable material that is bypassing the eyes of processing at a drug store is now being made available to many more than a couple of people online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I half expect these stories to end with:

"He loved Big Brother."

We use "Orwellian" a little too loosely but for the victims of this, it seems almost that bad.

</comment><comment><USER46> Story in comic form: [http://www.pbfcomics.com/archive_b/PBF215-Kitty_Photographer...](http://www.pbfcomics.com/archive_b/PBF215-Kitty_Photographer.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER47> I tend to hold the Thoreauvian point that one ought to resist unfair laws. As I noticed, Child Protective Services are state agencies. If someone was falsely accused of child abuse/child porn, with no hope of winning the case whatsoever, how effective would it be to run away with the family?

<comment><USER33> IANAL, but in general, I think meritless cases like this one eventually get dismissed, though it's a lot of hassle and waste in the meantime. Even if your case doesn't get dismissed and your children are about to get taken away, running away with the children could only vastly, vastly aggravate the matter, as far as I am aware. In many cases you'll be able to get the children back. If you flee, that is much less likely. You'd be a fugitive and you'd be in serious, serious trouble, I think, even if the state's case was baseless to start out.

I think the best option is to do as the person in the article did and deal with it in a cooperative and respectful manner, as much as we may resent it.

<comment><USER48> I think it depends on what phase you're in with regards to leaving. If at the very beginning of the investigation, after the first visit from DFS, they had left for France I imagine this case would have simply been forgotten. They hadn't been charged with any crime, so they're not legal fugitives in any sense. They may never want to return to that particular state on the off chance someone from DFS who remembers the case notices them, but I imagine even that to be a very slim possibility. Even later in the case though, I'm troubled to think of a law they're breaking by simply moving to another state.

If I'm ever in a situation similar to this, I will heavily weigh moving, or at least sending my wife and kids out of state, before entrusting my family to a random bureaucrat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I don't think the fact that false leads are investigated is really the problem. But that investigation should be resolved much more quickly and much more transparently.

Really the harm seems to be in they way people are being treated not in trying to prevent child abuse etc...

</comment><comment><USER50> The spectrum of human sexuality that is accepted by society is narrower than the human biological spectrum of sexuality. Rightfully, we reject behaviour that can damage children.

Wrongfully, many modern societies (until recently) fiercely rejected homosexuality, with often tragic results.

The current methods of dealing with pedophilia - by suspecting everyone, every man in a park taking photos of his children - are a blight.

At some point, society will have to stop trying to drive pedophilia into the ocean and find a different way to deal with it. Nobody chooses to be a pedophile, they can just choose to repress their behaviour. We should find them and help them instead of victimizing the innocent.

<comment><USER51> What can we really do to "help" pedophiles, though? Chemically castrate them, like we did to homosexuals (e.g. Alan Turing)? Teach them how to go through life having desires but not acting on them (which is what 99% of them already do successfully)?

<comment><USER50> I don't know, but I think we need to accept that they do exist, now and in the future, and find a way to deal with it.

This is not the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> This is tremendously disturbing, but according to the article pretty common. It's a tough line.

On the one hand, nobody wants children to suffer. If at all possible, every child should be protected from abuse. I think the key, as the author elaborates on, is education. Knowing the difference between a crazy hippy family and pedophiles seems like common sense -- but if you, as an uneducated clerk at a crappy CVS in the middle of nowhere, saw something that offended your sensibilities and seemed perverse... Without education things like this will happen again and again. Once something like this gets into the bureaucratic pipeline it becomes an unfortunate problem of due diligence.

<comment><USER53> In practice it just doesn't work very well sometimes. I think it's better to risk letting more child abusers off the hook, than potentially ruining the lives of decent parents like these.

<comment><USER54> If it's hurt adults or let children be hurt, I don't know if I can agree with you. Children are much more powerless than most adults, and the strong should always stick up for the weak.

<comment><USER55> You're ignoring how this directly hurts the children, and indirectly by messing up their parents and the latter's relationship with their children.

It really comes down to a simple question: who owns your children, you or the state? As of late, it's the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I remember reading this when it first came out and reminded me of my own run in with DFS right around the same time. Stopping real child abuse is important, but the system is so lopsided that merely being accused makes you the criminal. People spread the rumor of you being investigated by DFS, they don't spread the rumor of you being cleared.

My run-in was no where near as large of scale, but aggrivating, humiliating, time wasting, and ridiculous. I'm no hippy journalist letting my kids run free, basically just your run of the mill suburbanite developer 8-to-5 schmoe and my wife is a Special Ed teacher . One day, we come home from work to find that DFS had tried to visit and that we must call back with a time we can be interviewed. At the time, we had a six year old and a less than 1 year old. Someone had reported us for child abuse. It was like a record scratch. What? I don't hit my kids. My oldest went to a private school. I spent plenty of time with them. Our #1 fear is leaving them somewhere so my wife watches them like a hawk. It made no sense.

We called back and an agent came by the next day. We tried to leave our oldest at school because at that age, he would babble about what was happening and other parents would find out and the stigma would be set. But she demanded to see him, so my wife went and got him while I got the 5th degree. We were accused of some stuff that seemed hilariously lame.

* We made our son pee in a dollhouse toilet and just left it there full. --- Uh, yeah, one day we found it in the back of his room behind the shelf. We think he did it and hid it. Kids do weird things. * We let our oldest run around screaming and being reckless and has untreated ADHD. -- Yeah, he has ADHD, he's took Ritalin since he was 5 and is now on Adderall. * Our home is unsafe with rotten food all over. -- Yes, my wife is messy, but not to the level of fire hazard or health violation. Rotten food? You mean like having cans from last night's dinner still next to the stove? * And numerous other things like this...

After being checked out, she said that it was most likely a false report and that it would most likely be dropped, but the file stays around permanently and that we can't find out who made the report.

Of course, our son blabbed about the experience, and now even 5 years later, none of his school friend's parents let their kids come over to our house because the original rumor. No one makes false claims, right?

I figured out who made the report through the neighborhood network. Some old guy across the street who was mad that I left the trashcans out on the front of my home instead of the side and one time when I had let our grass grow too long because every night that I got home from work and all weekend for 3 weeks it had rained a crap-ton. I still catch him taking pictures of our house to call the Neighborhood Preservation office with when I let the slightest thing go wrong. (ie, a storm gutter fell off over the night and I didn't notice until I got home from work that evening)

The worst part is, there is little you can do. Everything is "anonymous". You can't hire a lawyer to go and tell this guy to piss off. Retaliation would be stupid. You are just "stuck".

<comment><USER57> Neighbors can be the worst people.

You think you bought your dream house, and someone moves in next door who is a total nightmare and makes you feel completely trapped and miserable.

<comment><USER3> And if they're there only because of "Section 8" funding you get to revel in the knowledge that it's _your tax dollars_ "at work" subsidizing the mayhem next door! [BTDT] Hey, another bureaucracy at work!

<comment><USER58> Most likely, nosey NIMBY douchebags like the person described at very unequivocally _not_ section 8.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Changing your name may help.

</comment><comment><USER60> Sickening.

It seems like the best way to handle something like this is to bring public scrutiny to bear on the insanity. Make a politician answer for it and the case will probably disappear.

</comment><comment><USER61> The DCFS/CPS employees are your wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, uncles, ..., basically they are _you_. So stop whining and just think for a second whose life you're going to make miserable today.

</comment><comment><USER62> Yikes!

</comment><comment><USER55> Recently I've noticed a ... crystallization of a meme about America's ruling class and this is the most trenchant essay on the subject ... and one that just happens to explain a whole lot of what's going on here at the broad level. Highly recommended: [http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas- ruling-cla...](http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class- and-the/print)

</comment><comment><USER63> I read this story, and it's very sad. But I just feel the need to ask... why is this on Hacker News? Surely this is Reddit type content?

I read loads of really interesting and eye-opening posts about all sorts of non-tech subjects... but I don't feel they should be on Hacker News to the detriment of other tech stories that could be on the front page.

<comment><USER64> Because it's very interesting and very high quality. Also, from the guidelines of this site: _Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did._

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> "I took a few of my youngest daughter, Eliza, then age 3, skinny-dipping in the lake, and my son, Noah, then age 8, swimming in the lake in his underwear, and another of Noah naked, hamming it up while using a long stick to hold his underwear over the fire to dry. Finally, I took a photo of everyone, as was our camping tradition, peeing on the ashes of the fire to put it out for the last time."

</comment><comment><USER66> Horrible story, and I totally empathize with their situation. yes, the US is practically insane sometimes in how they deal with sexuality and minors, and yes there's a history of witch hunts in this area. all horrible.

That said, they did make 2 very big mistakes, and if they hadn't done either or both of them, none of the rest would have happened. first, they took pictures of the kids naked. two, they let those pictures get into the hands of strangers, ones who can then misinterpret and/or be legally obliged to do certain actions which could start a witch hunt. These people knew they were innocent, that's fine, but the problem is that from a stranger's POV, what they see is that two adult men went into the forest with some some kids, some of the kids got naked, they took photos of it. Connect the dots. It paints a bad picture. They were incredibly naive to have not realized this ahead of time.

But yes, we have a horrible system, and we need to find some way to make it better so we can protect children while at the same time not persecuting innocent adults. I'm not quite sure how we can do that.

<comment><USER67> My parents had childhood pictures of me, developed through the local grocery store, completely naked aside from a few layers of mud and a huge grin on my face. My teenage self might not have appreciated the opportunity to grandstand in such a manner quite as much. (I honestly thought I'd found and destroyed all of the copies. My parents were much sneakier than I gave them credit for.) My adult self thinks it's all rather funny.

Almost every other child I grew up with had "nekkid pictures" of them, taken by their parents: bathing, having done something foolish or amusing, or just generally running around the house like kids do.

Your post paints you as a reasonable person, and that actually terrifies me: a reasonable person _shouldn't_ see an error in judgement here. These were parents doing what parents do, taking pictures of their kids doing what kids do. Proud parents, possibly thinking, "we'll embarrass the hell out of them when they're 16". (I may be projecting a bit of my father here.)

We're shaping a society that's cynical and distrustful, and it starts with reasonable people associating behavior like this with phrases like "they should have known better".

<comment><USER66> I didn't say we want to live in a world like this. I'm saying this is the world we live in. A reasonable, non-naive person would think twice about taking pictures of a kid naked, if they had any knowledge of the current state of society & laws in the US. This position should not terrify you. If there's no upside to it, but a pretty significant downside, then don't do it. Exercise willpower.

To put it another way, it's like running across a highway at rush hour. Why do it? Upside is a brief thrill (if you survive). Downside is you die horribly. Conclusion: don't do it.

<comment><USER68> It _is_ deeply terrifying that we should not just self-censor completely innocent acts, but that you think it should be second nature to any "reasonable, non-naive person".

Avoiding completely normal behaviour because of a fear of constant surveillance and being turned in by those around you? This does not strike you as completely f*cked up?

<comment><USER66> What is "normal" is subjective and varies by person and society. Would you agree with that?

Some people don't think it's normal to want to photograph children naked. Others do. Some may not think it's abnormal, but on the other hand think it is not wise. Clearly, you think it's okay to do. Or you just think it is not unwise, or should not be banned. Those are each distinct nuanced states of mind on the matter. That's fine.

I don't see where all this "being terrified" angle is coming from actually. I guess I have a different understanding of the word terror and terrifying.

Having an awareness of the state of one's society is a useful thing. To be aware of possibilities, and make choices accordingly I'd argue is a smart thing. It's not being fucked up, it's being wise and pragmatic. As was shown in the OA, in theory everybody is innocent until proven guilty. But in practice, especially regarding this particular issue, it's effectively the opposite. Clearly we want to change that. But the world is not like that at the moment. Should we try to make it better? Yes. Can we make it better? Possibly not. Should we do the wisest thing in the meantime? You'll probably have a happier life if you do, but it is up to you whether the tradeoff is worth it. From my perspective, there's almost no upside and therefore no tradeoff to consider. YMMV. But do not be "terrified" of my position. Be terrified of a giant flying shark in the night or something. But not something like this. :P

<comment><USER69> It's terrifying because your position is that one shouldn't do something that is entirely harmless and innocent, for fear that you will be branded for life as something evil. It's even more terrifying because your position appears to be tacit acceptance of that situation.

Some things should not have to be worked around. Some things are wrong, and should be decried. A situation where parents are scared to photograph and document the growth of their families is exactly wrong, and should exactly be decried.

<comment><USER54> You can crack jokes in the airport about bombing planes, and carry bundles of wire in your luggage, and fight the system. Jokes are harmless and innocent, and you should be allowed to make them. Stand up against the injustice.

Or, you could simply not do those things and get on your flight and on with your life.

<comment><USER26> I believe it's important to pick at least one fight with the establishment on principle in your life. The largest check on government power is when responsible citizens stand up for what's right. The government can bring a lot of leverage vs. a single person, but spread the issue around and things break down. A great example would be traffic tickets from a traffic camera; with a little effort you can cost the government more to prosecute the case than they collect from it.

PS: I would hate to be the (edit: completely innocent) person that tries to stand up to CPS, but create a blog, document everything. Hell, insist on a warrant, it's a constitutionally protected right etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Taking pictures of naked 8 year old boys and groups peeing on a fire is really weird. If I were the random drug store employee processing that film (for $8/hr) I'd report that without hesitation. If I worked for the government agency tasked with such things, I'd investigate it too.

I know this won't be a popular sentiment here because there's so much loathing of government in general. It's hard to make a judgment about how well the situation was handled from one side of the story, but that he was investigated seems about right.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like the system worked. She was accused of a crime, an investigation was performed, the state realized they had no case and that nothing was wrong, and the charges were dropped.

I guess it's kind of a pain to be the target of an investigation, but nobody's life was ruined.

<comment><USER71> That is entirely false:

a) If the system worked, the initial photos would have been checked and then the complaint would have been disregarded.

b) If the system worked, innocent parents who provided a loving and safe home for their children would not have been treated like criminals.

c) If the system worked, the state would not have kept pushing in the hope of getting some sort of conviction in a case where it was manifestly clear that nothing had happened.

d) If the system worked, the children in the case would not have been subjected to invasive and personal questioning by government functionaries.

Accusations of pedophilia do ruin lives, and no one should ever have to go through the hell of proving their innocence in a case as flimsy as this.

<comment><USER15> >b) If the system worked, innocent parents who provided a loving and safe home for their children would not have been treated like criminals.

Your statements (a) and (c) seem sound to me. (b) and possibly (d) is a necessary part of the system. If guilt can not be ascertained without investigation then practically some innocent people will be treated like criminals by being investigated. (d) may be a necessary part of such investigation depending on the allegations.

That said in the OP's case I don't think (d) should have happened and I'm concerned that the investigators could have effectively opened the door to improper sexual activity by asking the children questions like "did an adult touch you between your legs" or something that would lead the child to see this as a forbidden fruit that they had previously not regarded but now desired to explore.</comment></comment></comment>


Let over Lambda – Common Lisp Book (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://letoverlambda.com/ <comment><USER2> Interesting, possibly flawed analogy: The Build Your Own Lisp book explains how, and the LoL book explains why. Build your own lisp book is the natural pairing for LoL, despite many people claiming it goes best with Seibel's common lisp book or whatever.

Seibel's book is good, don't get me wrong; I just don't think its the proper pairing in the sense of culinary arts putting together a plate of well paired books.

The common lisp people and the clojure people fight viciously as only siblings can; this will infuriate those in the common lisp tribe but the ideal introductory lisp book in the general sense of the language is probably not Seibel's book its probably the comedic Clojure for the Brave and True. Not aware of anything quite like that, for common lisp.

</comment><comment><USER3> I enjoyed this book. I personally did not find it condescending. Additionally, the implementation of a Forth interpreter in this book is the best introduction to Forth I've seen (even after years spent playing with Forth and reading one or two books on Forth). But I don't recommend this book as an introduction to (Common) Lisp.

I recommend this order:

1\. Practical Common Lisp

2\. On Lisp (kind of a big jump, so maybe check out ANSI Common Lisp)

3\. Let over Lambda

4\. Lisp in Small Pieces (especially if you want to implement a Scheme or Common Lisp)

With Common Lisp the Language (Guy Steele) and ANSI Common Lisp (Paul Graham) somewhere in the mix.

These are all excellent books and must-reads for anyone interested in programming languages and/or the Lisp family.

<comment><USER4> Good list. Practical Common Lisp deserves that spot at the top. It's very approachable and provides examples of all those features you keep hearing good things about. I remember running through the spam filter chapter and finding an email that SpamAssassin misclassified about four years prior.

I think my favorite Forth introduction comes at it from the other direction, though: [https://github.com/nornagon/jonesforth/blob/master/jonesfort...](https://github.com/nornagon/jonesforth/blob/master/jonesforth.S)

<comment><USER3> That is a really impressive guide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> slightly related: the clasp/cando team has some news to share

Putting this here because I'm not aware of a lot of research done in/with lisp these days (only other thing I know is the quantum computer dsl)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/axu858/here_is_what_w...](https://old.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/axu858/here_is_what_we_are_doing_with_common_lisp/)

> This our (thirdlaw.tech's) computational chemistry system Cando. Some might > remember it from Lisp conferences or our previous videos. Here is a demo of > going through a free energy perturbation calculation. FEP is very important > in chemistry right now. > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZRuGt4TcD8&list=PLbl4KVdl9U...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZRuGt4TcD8&list=PLbl4KVdl9U3I3MhFWgauT0cz-x7SymZmn&index=4&t=0s)

<comment><USER6> That is me, I'm half of that team (Martin Cracauer).

If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer.

If you want to learn more about the programming side of our work (not so chemical), check out our other videos. They are from programming conferences: Longer talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X69_42Mj-g&t=177s&index=3&l...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X69_42Mj-g&t=177s&index=3&list=PLbl4KVdl9U3I3MhFWgauT0cz-x7SymZmn)

Shorter one from the LLVM meeting: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYYH2zF41fc&list=PLbl4KVdl9U...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYYH2zF41fc&list=PLbl4KVdl9U3I3MhFWgauT0cz-x7SymZmn&index=2&t=201s)

(yes, the whole system is a compiler using LLVM as the last stage to make machine code from abstract assembly. The thing I always missed in SBCL)

<comment><USER5> Oh well I just had a question but not related to cando itself more about how you structure your research project / team / finance. But maybe that's not a place to discuss this.

<comment><USER6> Feel free to message, here or on twitter or whereever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It can be abrasive at times but is full of gems of knowledge. Well worth a read.

</comment><comment> t-sin This nice book is a Lisp book but also a Forth book. Forth is great.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there a prominent open source project written in Common Lisp? Something like Pandoc for Haskell or RabbitMQ for Erlang?

<comment><USER6> Common Lisp has a package manager/source repository called Quicklisp. [https://www.cliki.net/Quicklisp%20tutorial](https://www.cliki.net/Quicklisp%20tutorial)

There are some web frameworks in there that are fairly impressive.

There is very little advertising going on. It goes a bit back to what your folks mentioned here, a bit of dejection and being condescending to other languages. Common Lisp is the only language with reasonable compile-time computing right now, and it is hard to bring that concept over to people who still think about writing software, as opposed to living with changing software for 30 years. So the Lisp community is a bit in the mindset that those who get it do so on their own, and software is distributed among those who already know they want.

The Cando chemical computation system (based on Clasp) in the video posted below/above is open source, BTW.

<comment><USER9> >Common Lisp is the only language with reasonable compile-time computing right now

How does D compare, with its CTFE (Compile-Time Function Evaluation/Execution)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I bought Land of Lisp by Conrad Barski but never really read it due to procrastination. I really wanna read Lisp one day. Also, I didn't see Land of Lisp mentioned here. What do experience lispers think about it?

<comment><USER11> I have some experience with Common Lisp, although not too much. I have read Land of Lisp and enjoyed it very much. It may not adhere to software engineering best practices, such as avoiding mutating the global state, etc., but for learning CL without getting bored, this is the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I tried to read it as a first Lisp book, that was very theoretical. I just write Lisp these days while looking up what I need on-demand. Will probably give it another read when I have a better idea of what Lisp is.

</comment><comment> maze-le >> it describes the most advanced features of the most advanced language: COMMON LISP

... really? the most advanced language (?), are we back in the 50ies again?

<comment><USER13> Common Lisp was finalized in the 90s. And it's not its fault that the other languages haven't caught up yet.

<comment> maze-le Still, its a trip to hell to maintain any lisp codebase -- especially if it contains macros. I think it is actively hostile to collaborative programming, and that is a structural problem where there is no remedy but obscure programming patterns (which are amplifying these problems in some instances). With that in mind -- boasting about 'the most advanced language' is a bit of a stretch -- to say the least...

<comment><USER14> Do you say that out of experience? That is certainly not my _experience_. Lisp codebases tend to be easily "appropiable"

<comment><USER15> It sounds more like someone's musing of why Lisp should be bad idea rather than anything practical. Doubly so when they don't seem to know what Common Lisp is.

<comment><USER14> I agree it _sounds_ like an armchair critic, but I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they had a bad experience involving Lisp?

The actively hostile to collaborative programming seems particularly misguided. Even an extreme case like the code from hu.dwim, which is written in practically a new language they built on top of CL and has barely any documentation is still fairly easy to understand.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, and the other thing is that the macrostep expander in slime makes it fairly straightforward to understand how an unfamiliar macro works: you just expand it a couple steps and see how its mapping the surface syntax to utilities you know. In fact, I often find function calls harder to grok now than custom macros :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Worth a read because it is one the most condescending computing books I have ever read. While reading I got the impression that I read the text of a really immature fanboy in a web forum of the 2000s.

I hope the author has matured by now. Seriously, don't buy this book.

<comment> black-tea I thought it was great, but I know it's not a book for snowflakes. When I hear someone say "this is right" or "this is wrong", I am able to effortlessly interpret this as "I believe this is right/wrong". It's just being efficient with language. I don't need people to add extra words for fear of offending me.

Maybe the author was immature. That's great. Let it remind you what it's like to be young and so excited about something that you'd write a book about it. This book is great.

<comment><USER18> Do you think it is useful for a Lisp noob?

<comment><USER16> This book is sort of a trap because some of the macros it defines make assumptions that are not guaranteed by the language specification: every once in a while, you'll find people on IRC or similar asking for help with some of the examples from this book.

Also, IMO, the defmacro/g macro defined in this book would have been better defined as a reader macro than as a codewalking macro.

<comment><USER19> If I recall somewhere around SBCL 1.2 they changed the way the backquote worked (totally fine for them to do that as it wasn't specified in the standard..) which broke the Let over Lambda macro.

I think CCL still works.

The code here should fix the problems : [https://github.com/thephoeron/let- over-lambda](https://github.com/thephoeron/let-over-lambda)

Note, it's been a while since I looked at it so I could have some of the details wrong. The book is still well worth reading to help you understand the possibilities with a programmable programming language, but just bear in mind the various caveats..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _> it describes the most advanced features of the most advanced language: COMMON LISP._

I thought Haskell surpassed it a long time ago already.

<comment><USER21> So where's Haskell's advanced object system or the restart/condition system that Common Lisp has? Even its performance is hardly on par with CL for all the flexibility of the latter.

<comment><USER20> I'm not saying it has everything that Common Lisp has - it's _different_.</comment></comment></comment>


Bing Now Bigger Than Digg, Twitter and CNN - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2009/07/08/bing-numbers/ <comment><USER2> So, 50 million people tried it, with the amount of press and money poured into the launch anything less and it should be considered a total failure.

Now lets wait half a year before we're going to talk about how many people it has attracted and how it is going to unseat google.

Also, and this is no small point, MSN traffic has dropped significantly because of the re-routing of MSN search to bing.

That's not exactly a zero sum game but there is more to this than just going from unknown to 13th spot in 30 days.

I know alexa should be taken with a grain of salt, but this graph:

<http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bing.com>

Shows someting quite different than the compete graph in the article which only focuses on the month as a whole, the day by day graphs paint a completely different picture.

Extrapolation from too little data is fraught with peril.

<comment><USER3> I'm tired of people conceding that Alexa is next to worthless and then going on to use an Alexa graph to make a point. It doesn't work that way. It can't be either unreliable or of some small value depending on when it's convenient.

 _Extrapolation from too little data is fraught with peril._

The author of this article made this mistake. How is your argument any different? The Alexa stats you cite are an even smaller data set than what is used in the article!

I do agree that we just need to wait this out. Even with good stats there's no way to know whether Bing is a worthy competitor. It's obvious that Bing hasn't been a complete flop in the way Cuil was. So far it's good enough that people are going to try it out for a while, but what's really important is whether they're still using it in 6 months or a year.

<comment><USER2> Alexa is good for relative figures and larger trends, not for detail. The 'compete' graph has exactly 3 data points, the 'alexa' one has 30 and shows a completely different graph (and imho a more realistic one).

The lack of accounting for the influx of MSN traffic is a major omission, so my point is - and I think this is a big difference from the original article - that there is better data available than that used in the article which would suggest a different conclusion and that no matter what source of data you use you have to be careful to extrapolate at this point in time.

Better like that ?

<comment><USER3> I agree with most of what you're saying. MSN definitely should have been taken into account and it's way to early to call Bing a success. Where I disagree is with the criticism of the data used for the article and then use of equally unreliable data to prove the point.

The Alexa data has more points, but it's looking at the same period of time so I'm not buying into the idea that it's more realistic. Not to mention day to day numbers are a microscopic view of a much larger picture.

We've got two measurements of the same thing that seem to be drawing two different conclusions. I don't think anyone could reliably come to the conclusion that one is more accurate than the other based on the information we have.

<comment><USER2> A common trick to show an upward trend is to show just the first and last point of something that has gone up in a certain period without showing the data in between. Like that it always looks like you are going 'up', no matter what.

If you look at the datapoints in between you get to see more detail, in this case a meteoric rise over the first couple of days and then a fairly steady decline, which is a more realistic picture. So, in this respect I'm more inclined to believe alexa.com over compete, not because they give me a story that I'd like to hear but simply because their data offers more transparency. In the long run (over many month) there will be more convergence between the shapes of the graphs, but for the moment alexa gives a more realistic image to extrapolate from, simply because it shows you more intermediate points. If alexa had just shown the first and last datapoints then the graph would have been the same but the conclusion would have been completely different.

Of course you're entirely free to disagree with that :)

For the record, I use my own site (ww.com) as a benchmark whenever I look at other sites to try to figure out the bias of the reporting agency but with sites as large as msn, google and bing that is not a useful technique because my own site is so much smaller that it is simply a flat line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wasn't MSN search already bigger than Digg, Twitter, and CNN before they renamed it to Bing? How about a comparison of traffic between MSN search before and Bing after?

<comment><USER2> it dropped...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> News Flash: When combined, MSN and Windows Live are bigger than Digg, Twitter and CNN.

CNN is the website of a 24/hour _television_ network; twitter and digg are Web 2.0 social networking things. None of which Microsoft is proud to be "bigger than".</comment>


Domino-effect of climate events could move Earth into a 'hothouse' state - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/06/domino-effect-of-climate-events-could-push-earth-into-a-hothouse-state <comment><USER2> I am getting to a point of internalizing the planet's health that I have been keeping my eyes open for therapists that specialize on this topic. It's difficult to not ruminate on what increasingly sounds like dystopian autumn years and winter years that aren't worth living to. It's extremely distressing to read headlines day after day, and the accelerating tone is building. Has anyone had any luck finding a way to put perspective on it, or figure out a lie that helps keep you going? I know there's still a lot to figure out. But each time we figure out more, it seems it's actually worse.

<comment><USER3> Man, you don't have any faith in human resilience?

An average global temperature increase of 4c is bad, but survivable easily with modern technology and good planning.

80% of the worlds population live within 50 miles of a coast line. There's still plenty of room inland.

You want a retirement plan? Buy land in the the Rockies or the Alps.

<comment><USER4> You're joking, right? It's hard to tell, because people propose "adaptation" seriously quite often.

The loss of all coastal cities would be apocalyptic.

<comment><USER5> While many cities are on a coast, very few of those are built within 1m of sea level, which the 'worst case' (by 2100) projected in AR5. Loss of coastal cities over 100 years is not apocalytic, that is a time scale where people can/will just replace buildings near the advancing coastline with buildings further inland.

<comment><USER6> I am not sure things are quite that linear. Sure, few US cities are on the coasts, but the ones that are happen to be some of the most important pieces of the freight distribution network and economy of North America. If the frequency of catastrophic storms increases by a relatively small amount, we will cross an inflection point and there will be a rapid cascading failure across the entire continent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is nothing new: we have long known that positive feedback loops will accelerate the warming of the planet. First, the polar regions will warm most quickly due to the earliest feedback loops: snow is reflective, heating removes snow, water/ground is much less reflective, more snow melts. Second, we will have more fires (huge GHG emitters), more water vapor (the #1 GHG by far), and more methane emissions from natural sources which are exposed due to snow melt.

I don't see much way around this: we're going to have to alter our atmosphere even further if we want a habitable planet. We're both going to need to stop altering it by emitting far less GHG, then emit other compounds like aerosolized sulfates which reflect sunlight, then we'll need to pull out CO2 from the air to deal with the ocean acidification and restore the proper amount of carbon in the air.

<comment><USER8> How many fossil fuels do we need to burn to accomplish all of this? The solution is to greatly reduce unnecessary consumption, decentralize agriculture, avoid private transportation. It's to do less not more

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Based on climate predictions which always seem to be best-case, but end up as worst-case, it seems possible that the hothouse scenario could come to pass within my lifetime. I'm 44 years old. I have young children, ages 1 and 5. It seems entirely possible to me that they could die of non-natural causes related to climate change and specifically the hothouse scenario. The surreal thing is that nobody I know seems to be concerned about this. We live in a conservative neighborhood so anytime I bring up climate change as an issue of concern to any of our neighbors, I get blank stares. They prefer to talk about their pets. I feel like the protagonist in a sci-fi movie, the only one who knows that disaster is just around the corner. Is really possible that I will be present for the end of human civilization? Its not guaranteed but is seems increasingly possible, and up to now I never imagined I'd have to deal with something like this.</comment>


If I incorporate a US LLC, can I work abroad without a local work permit? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone have experience with this?  Also, how does this work from a local IRS perspective? <comment><USER2> the idea being the American LLC is paying an American via an American bank accounts. Neglecting the physical location of the individual. The person in question could be working somewhere on a tourist visa conceptually.</comment>


Dear Jeff [Bezos] - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/dear-jeff-a6319829f92a <comment><USER2> It's my impression that people who've achieved such immense wealth & power don't operate with anything resembling the moral compass the rest of us peasants do.

A peasant friend recently approached a billionaire pitching a service the billionaire could actually use. The billionaire proceeded to push & grind him down on price to save a few hundred dollars.

To me, if I had billion$, I'd like to think I'd be benevolent: "Hey, that sounds useful, and yes I'd pay for it!". It just seems you don't get to the top with kindness or charity.

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I alone in not seeing the problem here? Cities went into this with their eyes open, no? It was a bidding war to attract a major employer to the city.

Amazon's employees will pay taxes, buy property, and spend money, all of which enrich the local economy and government. That's why they're willing to offer tax breaks.

Any subsidies Amazon could have received from a city, but chose not to would amount to a gift to the city. Why would they do this? City governments are not the first place I would think of when giving to charity.

<comment><USER4> The article is asking what is the point? Why make cities compete for your presence. Amazons presence in a city brings along with it all the good things you mention above, as the richest man in the world and one of the richest companies in the world, the article is asking why be greedy and make cities grovel at your feet for the "good" you can bring, why doesn't Amazon just be an agent of good and bring good to the city? Not only because it is the ethical thing to do (doing good and not asking for repayment) but because in the future it will have positive repercussions for Amazon, rather than having people strike "bad" deals with Amazon cause Amazon has the upper hand now but then later on someone else uses it (The deal) as a campaign point to witch hunt Amazon cause the city made a bad deal. He is asking Bezos to Just be generous, everyone will gain.

<comment><USER3> I got what the article was saying. The point just makes no sense to me. Amazon got $2.4B in subsidies. To say, "it's unethical to ask for that" is functionally equivalent to saying "the only ethical thing is for Amazon to donate $2.4B to the cities."

And if the argument is Amazon shouldn't take the subsidies because it's bad PR, well you'll have to weigh the cost of that bad PR against the $2.4B savings they've negotiated for themselves.

You assume it's a "bad" deal. But Amazon says they'll spend $5B on construction costs and upwards of $5B per year paying their employees for years and years to come. Seems like a smart deal for the city on the face, assuming maximizing tax revenue is a goal.

<comment><USER5> I think what is trying to be said is that Amazon doesn't need a handout. They are fully capable of picking any city in the US to set up shop. What would have happened if nobody bit on the whole scheme anyway? Would have they just picked some random Townsville,USA and paid full price? Without the subsidies, Amazon wouldn't have been "donating" $2.4B, that's just the extra cost of doing business there. Amazon will be great for wherever they go but the money, in my opinion, is better spent on other things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I admire DHH taking a stand, I doubt much will come out off the current backlash that Amazon or Jeff faces. As for legacy, that too is in no harm. Look at Bill Gates for example - after making some of the most unethical decisions in the industry, he is hailed as one of the biggest philanthropist of our times.

</comment><comment><USER7> Bezos doesn't care. Resistance is futile.</comment>


Value of YC Companies - <AUTHOR>

I read this article about the value of YC companies: http://ycombinator.com/nums.html. The line that jumps out at me is "The combined value of the top 21 companies is $4.7 billion [...] $4.7 billion / 210 = $22.4 million, so the average value of startups we've funded is about $22.4 million." In a similar way, Accel Partners could say something like: "The average value of the past ten companies we funded is about $10 billion", but take away Facebook and perhaps that number drops to 2% of that figure.<p>I am looking to find more discerning statistics about YC-funded companies. The truth of the matter is I am a huge fan of YC and some of the companies that have come out of there. And with 6+ years and 300+ startups that have gone through it, they do have meaningful statistics. This would help those companies that are interested in applying make informed decision on whether YC would be a good fit for it. <comment><USER2> Since they are measuring exits, you would need to add companies that closed into the calculation, as that is a form of 'exit'. Then you can average it, but to get a better idea, dump the numbers into a standard deviation calculator and you will get a range between the 2 standard deviation to get a better idea. This way, it will take into account 'variance'. <http://easycalculation.com/statistics/standard-deviation.php>

<comment><USER3> Not exits. From pg's writeup linked above:

> For 18 of the top 21 I used the postmoney valuation of the most recent > funding round.

<comment><USER2> ok, in that case should also include data of the terminal value of companies that shut up shop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Startups are a hit based business, for any angel investor in startups less than 20% of their investments are going to be responsible for almost all of the returns. So from a fund/investors point of perspective that's the figure you want to be looking at.

I did a more indepth analysis of YC at the end of 2009 but obviously it's a bit out of date now:

[http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2009/12/analyzing-y- combinator...](http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2009/12/analyzing-y- combinator.html)</comment>