Report: WeWork expected to cut 500 tech roles - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/wework-layoffs-2/ <comment><USER2> Say you own a co-working space. You probably should have some way to let:

\- People book conference rooms.

\- Let people check in and check out.

\- Let people book hot desks.

\- Manage access for members, hot desks, event participants etc.

\- Lots of other stuff.

At some point, the off the shelf software is no good, especially if you're looking to... build a single experience around the world for lots and lots of office buildings under your management! The software will have a lot of other admin and reporting doodads. Especially if you're trying to turn your office company into an everything company. Then the scope goes way up.

You might even start thinking about managing _everything_ because you're a control freak... stuff like central air con control and energy use analytics across all properties... I'm just throwing stuff out there, I've never worked for WeWork.

Does this justify hundreds of engineers? It is so easy to hire more people when you have a massive war chest. Projects begin to justify themselves because you'll need them "soon enough". And if the founder pulls it off, then they're a genius! Or not.

<comment><USER3> It's a classic case of hire engineers first and figure out problems to solve later. This works great if the company already has a massive revenue stream (Google, Facebook etc.) so the engineers can just mess around and once in a while come up with something great. For a company losing $2B+ a year, not so much.

Once WeWork solved its core engineering problems (bookings), engineering job descriptions got more and more abstract - "build the operating system for the workspace", "bridge the gap between physical and digital", "create a sense of community", "humanize through technology" (all copied directly from their engineering website), so it's clear that they are paying thousands of engineers to do nothing.

I know for a fact that they have large data and machine learning teams spread across SF, NYC, Tel Aviv, Shanghai and maybe more that collect and analyze data from all their operations - few hundred offices and few hundred thousand members. At this scale there is zero reason not to use off-the-shelf products (or pay one of the dozens of companies out there that specialize in this), but they decided to custom build all the infra in-house from scratch.

<comment><USER4> _> I know for a fact that they have large data and machine learning teams spread across SF, NYC, Tel Aviv, Shanghai and maybe more_

That's going to be an awkward presentation to management when they present their revenue forecasts under different economic scenarios...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I kinda wish there was a job for like, DevOps Hatchet Men. I don't want to lay people off, but after they're laid off I feel like I could probably delete about a million dollars a year worth of their AWS bill right now and they'd never even notice the stuff missing.

<comment><USER6> I sort of did that for a while. The differences between what management thinks they have, what is actually running, what data centers are charging back, what licenses are being invoiced, what finance is depreciating, and what is actually needed for operations can be astonishingly large.

<comment><USER7> I just took on a project that uses micro service style architecture (8 services total) and runs on AWS, has no customers, and costs more per month than I've seen very high revenue projects spend in over 6 months for hosting. I can't imagine how bad it would be with older projects with more cruft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I saw folks do this for Buzzfeed layoffs and Uber layoffs a while back, and I think it was helpful (context here : [https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-uber- employee-has-created...](https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-uber-employee-has- created-spreadsheet-of-laid-off-staffers-2019-8))

If you're affected by the WeWork layoffs and looking for a new role, fill this out: [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdx4TOVN7AdgvyAZGbq...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdx4TOVN7AdgvyAZGbquEV7gd4Ok5pJcTAtBXgPWY3sPe0ufg/viewform?usp=sf_link)

If you're interested in recruiting ex-WeWork folks, you can look them up here: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14CAtBsn3ZTL59tNMVbew...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14CAtBsn3ZTL59tNMVbew2AlAh_mzPaSL5wOm4Sh8FD0/edit#gid=1753458875)

<comment><USER9> FYI, may want to take a gander at "WeWork Role", whatever your options are didn't save and just lists 'option 1'.

<comment><USER8> Thx. Fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you've been inside of a WeWork office, there is a pretty advanced process in place for checking in and alerting different people about you being there. It felt a bit over-engineered when I went there, but I suppose that is the kind of stuff these "tech roles" worked on.

</comment><comment><USER11> What do five HUNDRED people in tech do at an office rental company?

<comment><USER12> Without meaning any offense to anyone, I am also genuinely curious how is a company such as Twitter have so many employees? Outsiders like myself know what goes into running GE or Tesla (and is easy to understand), but I would really appreciate someone from silicon valley enlighten about various needs for a company such as Twitter (or WeWork, etc.); what really goes on inside the doors, how are teams organized, what are some of the most challenging problems?

If I were running Twitter, I would freeze the feature creep, have a robust security and site-reliability team, perhaps make small improvements to UI/UX by eliminating friction/impedance. Similar to how Craigslist and surprisingly how Ebay is today - it is pretty much the same experience as 2008, I vividly remember. Instead, engineering resources can be channeled to new ventures (or augmentation projects) for additional growth.

<comment><USER13> Because at scale small changes can save or make a company more money than an engineers salary.

Simply making a process 2% more efficient can save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Or increasing advertising conversions by 1%. etc etc.

<comment><USER14> Right, but system creation+enhancements can be made by a single engineer in a large % of those cases. Overwhelmingly so if you already have a working live system to start with and you are seeking incremental improvements (vs a full rewrite).

There aren't many technical challenges I have encountered, when reduced to their smallest functional dimensions, that couldn't be fundamentally addressed by a single engineer. Obviously, efforts like writing an entire (practical) operating system are impossible for a single engineer to accomplish, but even then a single engineer could _lead_ the entire effort or massive parts of the effort (e.g. the Linux kernel).

Conversely, I have seen far too many cases of "too many chefs in the kitchen" when it comes to a software project. This is the end of the spectrum where you end up stuck on Docker with a stochastic and otherwise insane architecture that isn't even consistent within each product, much less across the entire organization.

<comment><USER15> Most of the time one competent 10x engineer could indeed build out all the special features that a company needs. The problem is that one person generally doesn't know all the best practices required of every problem domain, so they may implement things poorly. Furthermore, the one dev thing really doesn't scale up. As soon as your product gains any critical mass and you have an outage then the platform is hosed because no one knows how to fix anything except MAYBE that one engineer who implemented all the special features.

<comment><USER16> There are no systems running Windows 10X in production yet.

<comment><USER17> Can't tell if you're trolling, so in case you've confused others.

[http://svdictionary.com/words/10x-engineer](http://svdictionary.com/words/10x-engineer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There IS a market for a WeWork like service.

A WeWork-like model has appeal to someone like me that would love good coffee and an office/hoteling space! Especially as I travel a lot and sometimes want a reliable private workspace in an arbitrary city. Coffee shops frankly don't cut it for working/meeting with people all day.

Also there's often a need for meeting spaces in arbitrary cities. my company would have used an airBNB style conference room scheduling solution half a dozen times last year.

All to say there's at least a potential customer base here. Whether it's a profitable business model, well, maybe :)

<comment><USER19> I feel like a missed opportunity for WeWork was a kitchen. AFAIK none of them sell food for purchase. Why not get all the workweek lunch revenue?

<comment><USER9> If my friend who owns real estate can be used as an anecdotal bulletpoint: At the pub last night he told me how he and numerous other property owners here in Chicago have people who are trying to start their own catering/dinner party businesses and will rent out airbnb's with especially nice/large kitchens to do all of their food prep over a couple of days, check out and leave. A couple of them graduated to being able to sign leases on their own commercial kitchens once their respective client bases grew large enough.

At first, he said he was confused why the kitchen of all places was constantly the most time-costly area of his properties to clean. Then one of the renters let him know what was going on.

Now _there 's_ an opportunity.

<comment><USER19> Yes, I mean that is what Travis Kalanick is doing with his new company Cloudkitchens

<comment><USER9> Oh you gotta be kidding, really?

Edit: Googled it, You are NOT kidding wow. On the one hand, it's a great idea. On the other hand _Cloud_ Kitchens?

I grok that, but...is the target market here DevOps people who make a great alfredo on the side?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Literally last week I got an email from WeWork looking for a Senior Data Engineer with "High Comp". I never understand these companies, aggressively hiring before they lay everyone off

<comment><USER21> I think it will cause a lot of cognitive dissonance if you treat large companies like you'd treat a single person. Imagine there is one person in charge of everything; it would be super weird if they bring you in for an interview on the day they're firing everyone else. But that's not how these large companies work; one person made the hire someone and some other person that's never met the first person made the decision to lay everyone off. You have to look at it like a distributed eventually-consistent database. In that context, everything should make sense; there was a netsplit and the consensus algorithm produced a different state in each cluster.

(There's a reason why we try not to design database like that. Perhaps there is a management lesson in there somewhere.)

<comment><USER22> This ... it is incredibly easy to trap yourself into thinking large companies are even aware of everything they're doing in every little niche and nuance pocket of their operations. In many cases, there can be a growth area that had job requisitions approved for a high-growth investment in a small part of the company while the entire rest of the company experiences a massive layoff. This can occur both with central knowledge of the hiring in that small pocket of the company or without. Either way, the effect is the same and so is the reaction ... it just looks weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> But I was told WeWork is a tech company. Repeatedly.

<comment><USER24> I don't know who told you that, but Adam didn't: according to him WeWork is a community company, a new category.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article on Masa from January gives some insight on what engineers were doing: [https://www.fastcompany.com/90285552/the-most-powerful- perso...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90285552/the-most-powerful-person-in- silicon-valley)

tl;dr They used sensors to determine that people drink coffee in the morning and the line was long. They also used sensors to determine that small groups of people were booking large conference rooms so they made more small conference rooms.

Relevant part:

 _WeWork's potential lies in what might happen when you apply AI to the environment where most of us spend the majority of our waking hours. I head down one floor to meet Mark Tanner, a WeWork product manager, who shows me a proprietary software system that the company has built to manage the 335 locations it now operates around the world. He starts by pulling up an aerial view of the WeWork floor I had just visited. My movements, from the moment I stepped off the elevator, have been monitored and captured by a sophisticated system of sensors that live under tables, above couches, and so forth. It's part of a pilot that WeWork is testing to explore how people move through their workday. The machines pick up all kinds of details, which WeWork then uses to adjust everything from design to hiring. For example, sensors installed near this office's main-floor self-serve coffee station helped WeWork discern that the morning lines were too long, so they added a barista. The larger conference rooms rarely got filled to capacity–often just two or three people would use rooms designed for 20–so the company is refashioning some spaces for smaller groups. (WeWork executives assure me that "the sensors do not capture personal identifiable information.")_

<comment><USER25> This is it. A friend who worked in the analytics team mentioned how everything is measured and taken into account when renovating and buying new buildings. Things like exposure to sunlight, time spent at a desk, etc. These analytics are offered to FB/Amazon/big-co along with office as a service.

As someone else mentioned, cool/potentially profitable company. Just not worth 40B.

<comment><USER19> Do you think so? I posted this mostly as a joke.

The idea that this was anything close to being "AI" is a bit silly. The insight that there were long lines for coffee in the morning and small groups were taking large conference rooms are simple observations that one person could've made and written a report about.

<comment><USER26> There should totally be a cottage industry of AI snakeoil salesmen that travel the valley in colorful wagons claiming to provide cure-all data insight tonic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is why they are a pretend tech company. Tech roles are the company otherwise. This is part of the likely 2,000/15,000.

</comment><comment><USER28> A WeWork recruiter recently sent me a SRE job role and I just laughed.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wait, they have _more than 500_ tech roles? For a shitty office space leasing company?

<comment><USER30> 1500 tech employees (out of 15000 total).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why does wework even have tech roles?

<comment><USER28> Infrastructure and software are hard.

<comment><USER32> What hard problems related to software and infrastructure WeWork was solving? I can not imagine a single one. Handling check-ins? Counting number of beers consumed?

<comment><USER33> "Counting number of beers consumed?"

This spring I talked to their software engineering manager/lead at a tech meetup in Shanghai (the guy was from SF) and he said that they plan to hire tens of engineers just to analyze their beer consumption data to optimize supply.

<comment><USER32> This should be top level comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> They may as well just close down now.

The morale there must be terrible. Anyone good who survives the cuts will GTFO to greener pastures.

Anyone who stays or anyone desperate enough to join will be terrible.

Good bye We, consider this my eulogy, we hardly knew ye, and may you rest in peepee.</comment>


Artificial intelligence is trying to write the next Game of Thrones book - <AUTHOR> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/artificial-intelligence-is-trying-to-write-the-next-game-of-thrones-book <comment><AUTHOR> Github Link for the chapters:

[https://github.com/zackthoutt/got- book-6/tree/master/generat...](https://github.com/zackthoutt/got- book-6/tree/master/generated-book-v1)

<comment><USER2> Interesting. It's nonsense, but it's a higher grade of nonsense than you'd get from just using a Markov chain or something. Sentences are of an appropriate length, and largely make grammatical sense.

 _He woke and threw desperately, his fat skin twisted in black, and the long wind was closing around, the watchers pushed past the walls, while the wildling fights set bread and hizdahr's fires, the galleys of the night's watch ate their food for the last time._

The way it intersperses dialogues with descriptive text feels like a real novel, and it correctly figures out that the grammatical construction of things inside quotes can be very different to the grammatical construction outside quotes -- e.g. characters can say things like "Lord Eddard has gone south" and "We have no glory, only a world upon my roofs" but the voice of the novel has to keep to third person simple past tense.

I have no idea how to get from here to the point where it actually constructs a story, even a bad one, though.</comment></comment>


Garry Kasparov Arrested By Russian Police  - <AUTHOR> http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120817/175282580.html <comment><USER5> "Breaking news! Corruption and totalitarianism of the Russian government, KGB and orthodox church exposed by the unimaginable injustice dealt to the members of the Pussy Riot and undisputed chess champion Gary Kasparov"

Anyways, here's what I was motivated to write in an earlier post on this topic:

Why isn't Madonna or these other outraged people protesting over the 32 miners killed in South Africa? I understand 3 years (or is it 2?) is a tough punishment for what is basically vandalism by western standards (although I'm sure we can find examples or worse injustices in any of the western judicial systems). The organized and overblown reaction to all of this is much more about ruining Russia's reputation as a democratic nation than anything else. I've actually heard the nightly news-anchor here in Canada report on "International condemnation" of the sentencing. Are you fucking kidding me? Miners being gunned down for protesting in South Africa, Omahr Khadr still sitting in Guantanamo for something he might've been involved when he was 16, all the Wikileaks shit from Iraq Afghanistan... and the Pussy Riot going for a 2 year stint for vandalism is causing "international condemnation"?! If anything's made me aware of how alive the cold war is, this is it.

Also this: I don't want to be misunderstood.. I'm in favour of Kasparov and the Pussy Riot doing what they're doing and fighting for a better government in Russia... as anyone should be doing for their country! But I am just irritated by the "better than thou" indignations echoed in media channels of the equally unjust western world that tends to ignore massive wrongdoings that are too inconvenient to the larger narrative.

<comment><USER6> I don't get it. Each time somebody protests some injustice or evil happening somewhere, some people couldn't find anything better to do but chime in with "why you protest X but not Y? if you don't protest every single injustice I want you to protest, you must be a hypocrite!" Come on people, how it even makes sense to you? Who on earth could live up to this impossible standard of protesting every single injustice?

It makes it only worse that your other demands of condemnations are full of factual inaccuracies - Omahr Khadr is sitting in Gitmo not for "something he might've been involved" but for, among other terrorist activities, murdering an American - Sergeant Christopher James Speer, to which he admitted and plead guilty. Pussy Riot had nothing to do with vandalism and weren't accused of vandalism. Western world is not "equally unjust" as nobody is imprisoned for 2 years for protesting the head of state. The press is not "ignoring" any of the issues you raised - Wikileaks revelations, Gitmo prisoners and other events are extensively discussed in the press and nobody is being imprisoned for doing so.

<comment><USER7> It is a classical Russian propaganda defense: answer an accusation on human rights violations with "and you are lynching Negroes" or similar.

See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes> , <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque>

Kremlin is paying bloggers and commenters in Russia to post positive things about authorities:

[http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/06/10/russia-networks- of-...](http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/06/10/russia-networks-of-paid- bloggers-exposed/) , [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/07/hacked- emails-na...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/07/hacked-emails-nashi- putin-bloggers)

Russian authorities may also be paying or employing some users of HN.

That's how I get it. I was expecting to find the "lynching Negroes" comment upvoted high by just seeing the title. It does not mean that the user who posted it is employed by Kremlin, but you know, the message will be upvoted...

<comment><USER5> Ah busted! I'll have to go report to Putin that my cover has been compromised.

Not that I have to validate my objectivity to you, but I am typing this from a comfortable home in Toronto, Ontario and my paycheques are signed by a B2B publisher for my services rendered as a marketing specialist. It must be too shocking for you to accept that someone might actually have an opinion that doesn't perfectly align with the western media narrative.

<comment><USER8> Complaining that most people find interesting something that you see as banal, and demanding they protest what _you_ deem significant is not having a contrarian opinion. It's just being innapropiate to this conversation. Posting about the Marinaka Mine Massacre on HN would be more constructive.

Now, blaming all of this on the "western media narrative", a mindset relic of the hawkest hawks of the Cold War, who exaggerate a simple incident of "vandalism" in order to discredit the democratic government of Putin... Yeah, that's a contrarian opinion. Which just happens to be false. Western media simply does not give that much of a fuck now about Rusia. Past protests in Russia about the legitimacy of the elections? Here covered, at most, in passing. The law banning reunions? Don't care. The Pussy Riot incident? It's only on HN's front page because Kasparov was arrested.

<comment><USER5> I am not demanding that anyone find my observations important or central to the discussion of the pussy riot events. If you want to express condemnation of the sentence or the Russian government in general there are plenty of places for you to do so (including in this HN thread). It just so happens that my post reached enough upvotes that it made it to the top of this thread (democracy and free speech at work, ironically) so it must be something that HN is interested in as well.

You replying to me by telling me that my opinion is inappropriate to the conversation (which I started by the way... there are other conversations below you can express your approval of) is an attempt to censor me. Calling my thought process a relic of the cold war is either an intentional distraction or just naivete on your part.

If you disagree with my opinion about the double standards with which western media handles events from countries whose regimes it approves of and those that it doesn't that's completely fine. But I'd like you to consider a hypothetical incident which I've mentioned below: a few guys walk into a Manhattan synagogue, put Balaklavas over their heads and scream out profanities against Israel and capitalism. Would you really be as outraged if they were carted off to jail and put on some terrorist watch-list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The tactics of the Putin regime are getting more concerning every day. In case anyone is curious, here's the backstory on the protest Kasparov was attending at the time: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot- sente...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-sentenced- prison-putin)

[EDIT] Here's a link to the BBC for background, for those that don't like the Guardian: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19302986>

<comment> old-gregg Quite amusing to see the word "regime" used so casually and self-righteously. As much as you may dislike Putin, I bet he's got more popular votes than Obama did, just visit an average Russian town 50 miles outside of Moscow and ask around.

As a Russian I know first hand things aren't rosy, but they aren't so simplistic and cartoonishly evil as western media and comments on HN portray.

<comment><USER10> As a Russian, I think you're full of shit. It's not about the votes (officially, Putin got 46 million votes; Obama got 69 million). It's about the harassment, media manipulation, gutting of the judiciary, vote rigging, and now, terror.

In the long run, the terror may be something of a good thing: it may hasten Putin's demise. In the short run, he has squandered the last of the opportunities that the Soviet industrial and technological base had given him.

And it's not that he always was evil: until 2002, he legitimately did a good job of strengthening the state when it was weak and reeling from Chechnya. But then he never stopped.

<comment><USER11> _It's about the harassment, media manipulation, gutting of the judiciary, vote rigging, and now, terror._

I seriously couldn't tell: are you talking about Russia or the US here...?

<comment><USER11> Not sure about the downvotes... But my point stands: As an American, these seem to be common political tactics here too. If GP doesn't want to compare Putin and Obama on votes, I'd appreciate a point-by-point breakdown along these axes.

<comment><USER12> This is a puzzling comment which makes me wonder about your perception of both the US and Russia.

Can you really imagine a punk rock band in the US getting two years in prison (a felony in any state in the US) for a stunt like Pussy Riot pulled, involving absolutely no property damage or physical harm? Or journalists critical of the regime being assassinated pretty frequently (with little hope of those murders ever being solved)? Or gay protesters being beaten in the streets?

Where are you living in the US that the exercise of government power seems somehow similar to all that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Garry was famously beaten by another machine in 1997.

The most intriguing part of this affair to me has been the revelations of the patriarchy as basically tools of the KGB and now Putin. The airbrushed out $30K watch that bloggers found the reflection of. Wild stuff. Not that we don't have our share of corrupt clergy in the US but that the story we've always been told was of how the Russian church was oppressed and quietly waited out the evil Socialist overlords.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Kirill_I_of_Mo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Kirill_I_of_Moscow)

his predecessor:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Alexy_II_of_Moscow#Al...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Alexy_II_of_Moscow#Alleged_work_for_the_KGB)

<comment><USER14> influential people get corrupted, film at eleven.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Kasparov is a totally manufactured 'Russian opposition' figure.

As late as 2004 he was a member of a US "Security Advisory Council" (NSAC). It was funny to see Kasparov's name on the website under the slogan: "Advisory Council members have dedicated their careers to American security", right next to assistant Secretary of Defence [http://img717.imageshack.us.nyud.net/img717/1337/kasparov.jp...](http://img717.imageshack.us.nyud.net/img717/1337/kasparov.jpg)

I respect his anti-Putin views, and his chess achievements, but how exactly can he make a political career in Russia with such a background?

His current role is to get beaten occasionally by the police and to remind Western audience that Russian president is evil.

<comment><USER16> > His current role is to get beaten occasionally by the police and to remind > Western audience that Russian president is evil.

Maybe so. I for one have been reminded that the Russian president is evil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Karsparov has a history of staging or attending protests and getting arrested. After his chess career ended he has been trying to reinvent himself as a "people's champion" and "pro-democracy" leader. So far this has mostly amounted to him getting marginalized and beaten up by police.

<comment><USER18> That's because his only support is outside of Russia. He's just a nuisance at most.

<comment><USER19> Is your paycheck issued by the Russian government?

<comment><USER20> That's truth. In Russia we do not have normal opposition.

Nemtsov - unpopular because of his past, Limonov - too radical, Kasparov - <USER2> just a clown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One fragment from a BBC documentary by Adam Curtis explains rather well the mechanics of current Russian pro-democracy campaign in the Western media. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=26Ir2xhL_po#t=9s)

The video deals with PR guru Edward Bernays work for his client, a United Fruit Company (UFCO). When a newly elected Guatemala president Jacobo Árbenz threatened to nationalize UFCO's plantations, Bernays engineered a campaign to turn the popularly elected president doing hugely popular things for his people, into a threat to democratic values and a communist with links to Moscow.

In reality, Arbenz was no communist and no dictator, as the documentary points out. But Bernays has set up a shell American press agency which bombarded US media with reports about alleged freedom violations in Guatemala. Bernays has also apparently organised a few violent anti-US actions in Guatemala to support his thesis.

As a result, president Arbenz was ousted in a coup and replaced with a proper dictator, which was generally viewed as a good thing by the freedom-loving public in the US. Interestingly, the whole time the United Fruit Company has been kept out of the picture, even through it was paying for the campaign.

The whole BBC documentary <http://centuryself.blogspot.com/> is quite interesting.

<comment><USER6> So you're saying Western media invented the 2 year sentence and in fact nothing like that happened? There are no freedom violations in Russia and only reason why such reports appear is because some corporations want to take over Russia? Or what that Guatemala example has to do with Russia and Putin?

<comment><USER15> Pussy Riot performance looks like a planned provocation.

There are many ways to get yourself arrested, if you really want to. In Europe, you can get jail for hate speech, for example, (though not in the US, where it is constitutionally protected) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech>

Don't forget, Pussy Riot have been jailed not for singing an anti-Putin song, but for inciting religious hatred. They were screaming profanities in the cathedral. (They didn't sing in the church, had no time, they were removed after 40s, the song about Putin was added later to their YouTube video).

<comment><USER6> Please do not bullshit me. They were jailed for singling anti-Putin and anti- Church song, and everybody knows that. The official charge was "inciting religious hatred", but nobody in his sane mind can see any trace of religious hatred anywhere near there, they did not try to incite any religious hatred, did not incite any religious hatred and nobody ever believed they tried to incite any religious hatred.

Of course they had it planned, and of course it was a "provocation". In sane countries, such "provocations" - public performances aimed at focusing public attention on important public issues - are called demonstrations, and it is a regular part of public discourse. Rosa Park's actions were "planned provocation". Martin Luther King made "planned provocations". People that went to the Red Square in 1968 to protest Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia made a "planned provocation". <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Red_Square_demonstration>

Since the official Church in Russia is not only completely united with the state, despite formal separation of church and state, but also enjoys multiple benefits of such arrangement, both pecuniary and otherwise, it also is a legitimate target for protest.

As for "screaming profanities in the cathedral" - this is factually incorrect, they did not. But even if they did, it is not a criminal offense - <USER3> somebody a mild butthurt is not a crime warranting imprisonment.

Your comment of "there are many ways to get yourself arrested" is classical case of blaming the victim - if they just would shut up and gave up their rights and freedoms as other good boys and girls did, nothing would happen. Probably so. But some people are not OK with their freedoms taken away. Some protest. Putting a blame on them for "provoking" oh so innocent regime into locking them up for 2 years is disingenuous at best.

<comment><USER15>
      "screaming profanities in the cathedral" - this is
      factually incorrect, they did not.

BBC thinks otherwise, reporting on "Their brief, obscenity-laced performance" <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19297373>

Listen, I am actually against hate speech laws everywhere, including Europe, and I believe the church has no place in the modern state.

But I fail to see any Putin connection in Pussy Riot arrest and their jail time. Pussy Riot got jailed for hate speech. That's a fact. Any Putin association is a result of a well executed PR campaign. Everybody knows that... ))

<comment><USER21> >Everybody knows that.

I don't think they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I know a lot of people believe Putin saved Russia, but I gotta say, having the same people in power for too long is never a good thing: they get comfortable, they lose their focus, things get stagnant and everything goes downhill from there.

There's a reason why the US does not allow the same person to be president more than twice in their life (although that doesn't stop them from putting someone they trust in power).

<comment><USER18> Would you have someone with a vested interest in the country running it, or someone who gets elected, steals from the country and runs off without consequence after 8 years? ;)

<comment><USER23> Is there any particular reason you believe Russia is unable to elect someone who doesn't steal from the country and is also not a borderline autocrat? I know the track record isn't great, but I'm curious if you reckon that's inherent.

<comment><USER18> Seems like it's inherent to me, and I really can't describe why. It just seems that in terms of internal politics, Russia has always been very dark and bleak. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Kasparov's political role is interesting. He's been a thorn in the regime's side for some years now, but has only been moderately harassed. Not entirely sure why; perhaps the cost/benefit analysis of how much they fear him (probably not greatly) versus how much negative PR they get from going after him.

<comment><USER25> What's Kasparov's status like with the people? Is he a kind of star or folk hero from the old chess days? Or has he been marginalized?

<comment><USER26> [http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face- Unlikely/dp/15944...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Without-Face- Unlikely/dp/1594488428) discusses it in great length.

Whenever he shows up, the venues seem to be either cancelled outright or suffer from all sorts of electrical and infrastructure problems all of a sudden. Couple of times he chose to take his message to the people outside the closed venue, he was egged, with police preventing his followers from chasing the perpetrators. Of course, those are also the images that TV stations choose display whenever mentioning Kasparov in passing.

When you control the media, it's easy to hand-pick quotes and stock photos to portray even the most eloquent and intellectual speaker as crazy bum who's shouting in public places to gain self-promotion.

<comment><USER21> What about his internet presence?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Here in the US, the mainstream media has been showing clips of the protests, including footage of Kasporov being arrested, but not identifying him. I had to do a double-take (I used to play chess a lot). I was 99.9% sure it was him. I hope he is treated humanely by the police.

<comment><USER28> > I hope he is treated humanely by the police. Russian police can be very > brutal, here is the video of Kasparov being arrested: > <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf55YyMC6qk> He is put into police bus, and > then you can hear him screaming: "What are you doing?!" and "Aaaay"(not sure > if it is transliterated correctly).

I've read some blog post(from an activist who was in the same bus) pointing that he was actually beaten.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> There's an awful lot of throwaway comments claiming that Kasparov is given undue coverage by the western media.

Linking to some sort of actual analysis of this might be interesting; littering the threads with multiple repetitions of this as a fact is not.

<comment><USER30> here is a Reuter's quote: "Kasparov and his Other Russia dissident movement are not standing in Sunday's parliamentary election because they could not get registered as a party. They enjoy little public support among Russians but have a big following in the West." Taken from: [http://in.reuters.com/article/2007/12/02/idINIndia-307909200...](http://in.reuters.com/article/2007/12/02/idINIndia-30790920071202)

By MIKE WHITNEY:

"And a final word on Garry Kasparov

On Sunday, while Putin's party "United Russia" was screeching to a landslide victory, Reuters News was busy taking mug-shots of the stony-faced Kasparov holding up Florida-style ballots claiming the voting was rigged. "They are not just rigging the vote," Kasparov moaned, "They are raping the whole electoral system. These elections are a reminder of Soviet elections when there was no choice.....Putin is going to have a hard time trying to rule like Stalin."

Stalin? So now Putin is Stalin? First of all, when did Reuters begin to take such a keen interest in voting irregularities? It must be a recent development, becuase they were nowhere to be found in the 2000 presidential election. And when did they start to pay attention to "political dissent"? They certainly never wasted any video-footage on the antiwar rallies in the US. Are we to believe that they are more interested in democracy in Russia than America?

And why is Reuters so eager to provide valuable column-space to a washed-up chessmaster who's only interested in making a nuisance of himself by bellyaching about voter fraud? That's not news; it's propaganda." From article dated December 05, 2007 Why the Council on Foreign Relations Hates Putin Why Murdoch's Journal Loves Kasparov

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Humanity is truly lost when a band named _Pussy Riot_ can upset an entire government.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is in fact good news. Things like that keeps Russia repelling talented people. It will ensure divestment of Russia of talent, and generation ahead it will be like big North Korea - country of destitute, drunk peasants - <USER4> than like Iran - well-educated, agressive and strong. At least it will be safe for the outside world.

<comment><USER33> some startup's recrutiment bus with a 'Go work in sunny and democratic California' slogan, would have looked interesting nearby Khamovnichesky court

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> it is hard to see the truth if you grew up in the Western world and take a lot of freedoms for granted. What the "sipping cappuccino in the safety of Starbucks" crowd(i.e. most of you) fails to see is that the trial and sentencing is not about the girls or what they did or how the same act would've been treated elsewhere. It was about showing that in this land of arrogant and righteous thieves any hope for fair justice is lost.

</comment><comment><USER35> I am surprised by the fact that there were no news about Pussy Riot getting jail time for dancing in balaclavas in the church, Quinisext Council (692 A.D.) being cited in court in 2012, but instead there is an article about Kasparov arrested by police. Oh wow. Don't worry about the guy, he'll be released in 15 days tops.

Not that I think that any of this should be on HN front page.

</comment><comment><USER36> Kasparov made a gambit, and finally Russia has bitten. Next move is Kasparov's.

</comment><comment><USER37> How hard is it to verify a brutal beating? Bruises at least, right?

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen TIL naming your band Pussy Riot can keep you out of jail.

<comment><USER35> Did you mean the other way round? They got jail time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> > _"Breaking news! Corruption and totalitarianism of the Russian government, > KGB and orthodox church exposed by the unimaginable injustice dealt to the > members of the Pussy Riot and undisputed chess champion Gary Kasparov"_

How about: undisputed chess champion Gary Kasparov also double-times as a champion of a certain western power's interests in Russia and goes around challenging the democratically elected government that has a huge popular vote behind it?

The same western powers that want some idiot controllable puppet running Russia, and pretend that their issue is with Putin's "cronyism" and "corruption" (because, stuff like multi-billion war contracts to friends under Bush, or the trillion dollar financial firm bailout, or all the laws passed in favor of this or that lobby, are not cronyism/corruption).

Strange how little the same western powers and their mass media protest the Assange situation.</comment>


Going undercover as a sex worker - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/06/magazine-undercover-sex-worker-human-trafficking-150610072623672.html <comment><USER2> When reading works like this one I tend to find three stories being merged into one. It focuses on slavery where most of the evil aspects of humans tend to come out, as in order to reduce a human person into something that can be traded, everything that gives that person a social context must be torn down. This is where the "break down" period comes from and it's a common theme in everything from the African slave trade to forced labor camps. Slaves are broken down, displaced, and controlled in order to place them outside the social economics shared by everyone else.

The second story is one about social stigma. We live in a society which views sex trade to be worse than going into a life of crime. From a social standpoint, it means that providing a sexual service in return for money is worse than breaking the law and social order that society is built on.

The third, although one which often is used as an introduction, is one about poverty. In order to get food on the table people will agree to many kinds of dangerous, dirty, and unwanted lines of work. People have entered the death sentence called a coal mine, gone into work which has a life expectancy of months, but in contrast to prostitution those are often viewed as sacrifices rather than something shameful. I suspect this has something to do with gender roles, where a man who is forced by poverty to unwanted work is a hero while a woman doing the same is a victim.

<comment><USER3> Many (most?) of the women involved in these situations don't go there out of choice or with full knowledge of what they're getting involved in; they're either lied to and subsequently trapped, sold by their families (which is where poverty is a big factor, and certainly is not a choice made by the girls themselves), or outright kidnapped. That's the difference in your man vs. woman scenario - someone working in a coal mine may not feel like they have much choice but as you say they are agreeing to the work. Of course this is not to say that some men aren't likewise tricked or forced into such jobs but they too are victims.

<comment><USER4> If their choice is to watch themselves or their families starve or die of disease, or to go to a likely death in terrible work conditions where they can at least help their families with the money they earn, it's not really much of a choice at all.

<comment><USER3> Quite right but it is still a choice, they at least have some agency. I'm not in any way attempting to downplay the awful situations we're discussing, but there is still a significant psychological difference between "I'm doing this to make my life and my families lives better" and "This is being done to me against my will for other peoples' benefit", is there not?

<comment><USER5> I disagree.

The line between consensual, coerced or exploited are sometimes vague but they _are_ real. It's like the pornography line. It's vague, some things are grey, it's culturally contextual but it is a real line. people usually know it when they see it.

When extremely disempowered, poor and desperate people interact with much richer, more powerful people who see them as just a means to an end and are completely contemptuous of their humanity (their dignity, their desires..), we cannot call this agency. If a university teacher dates a student or a boss dates an employee, we view it with suspicion because we know that dynamic can be abusive, though it is not necessarily so.

Sometimes things _are_ what they seem. Sometimes a name on a dotted line or other symbol of agency means nothing. If you find a dozen girls from rural moldova living in an Istanbul basement, making almost no money, ostracized by society and another group of people making the money and the decisions… I think it's prudent to assume what seems obvious.

<comment><USER6> I would argue that that 'Pornography line' is a very personal distinction you've made. Pornography still crosses the line into coerced and exploited. Read the firsthand accounts of women who have left the porn industry. Watch documentaries about people going into the porn industry. These are people who are desperate and taken advantage of, hurt and abused. I've seen a few statistics, but all of them have said that the average life expectancy of a porn performer is under 50, due to the high rates of suicide and drug abuse. I really don't see much grey there -- I don't think letting poor people sell their kidneys is moral, just like I don't think pornography is moral.

Completely agree with the rest of your post though.

<comment><USER7> There's a lot of muddy water here. Self-selection for one. Who knows whether the folks going into the business are already selected for an mtbf of 50?

'Desperate and taken advantage of' is a big category, and those folks often come to no great end. Its not a unique feature of this industry - heck even WalMart employees fit there. Cause and effect might be getting confused here.

<comment><USER6> However, Walmart employers do not offer their potential addict employees drugs before they go to work. They don't have them participate in labor that frequently compromises their ability to work with no effort to support them when this happens. The employees of Walmart have actual worker's rights and nearly universal standards of employment in this country, while Pornography, especially amateur pornography, has none of this.

The self-selection claim is not independent from the claim I'm making -- in fact I find them to be very correlated. You're getting a specific subset of people who are willing to do Pornography, most notably people who are desperate, potentially addicted/suicidal young women. Providing them this predatory avenue and calling it 'empowerment' is beyond unethical.

<comment> vezzy-fnord _You 're getting a specific subset of people who are willing to do Pornography, most notably people who are desperate, potentially addicted/suicidal young women._

A common trope, but highly dubious. The majority of women who enter pornography come from relatively stable or average backgrounds, and go in there through their own volition. Quite ironically, the more underground subcultures like S/M are disproportionate examples of this. Regular women who have taken up modeling and promote themselves in the scene, accepting it as their lifestyle.

It should be noted that "porn stars" and plain old "models" intersect a lot. Many of the former also belong to the latter, and vice versa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked with the author, Mimi, at UC Berkeley and she took enormous risks in the Middle East and Moldovia for the sake of getting her story. Several others did as well including my two collegues who spent two years locked up in Iran after being lured across the border while reporting in Iraq.

Funding for investigative journalism has all but completely dried up, due to disruption for Silicon Valley and other factors. Journalists like this are taking risks on their own now with no backing if something goes wrong.

<comment><USER9> Maybe I overlooked something in the story, but I don't quite understand how she did it? For example she describes three girls locked into a backroom of a family, living on a couple of bananas a day. How did she get that story? I don't think she posed as one of those girls, nor does it sound as if those girls would ever go out?

<comment><USER10> My guess is that the local police eventually shut down that brothel and she later was able to interview someone involved - one of the prostitute, family member, police, etc?

It is very reasonable in cases like this for her to leave out some of the details about her sources.

<comment><USER9> I don't expect her to reveal sources. I just had troubles following the story. I didn't understand how the banana story came into the story out of the blue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I live in a country where prostitution is legal and not taken as taboo. All I can say is that it makes things easier for everybody.

Many use their bodies as a "small business", having their own personal marketing, credit card processor and online clients, increasing and improving their portfolio.

Because they have such leverage, they end up being strict on what they'd do and even who their client is. In case something goes wrong, they can still go to the police and report the incident.

<comment><USER12> > All I can say is that it makes things easier for everybody.

Which country is that? The Netherlands, Austria and Germany, for example, all have horrible trafficking problems. In Nevada, the women are ostracised and harrassed by the police at the legal brothels. In New Zealand, the police cannot tell the difference between legal prostitution and illegal pimping.

So which country are you in that is doing better than these with legalised prostitution?

<comment><USER9> Do you have some numbers+sources? I live in Germany and the official statement from the police seems to be that it is not actually a huge problem.

<comment><USER13> I'm just following links others have posted, but [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany#Human_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany#Human_trafficking).

Also, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Germany) links to a US Trafficking in Persons Report 2010. Here are some quotes:

"Ninety percent of identified victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation came from Europe, including 28 percent from Germany ..."

"... approximately one third of identified sex trafficking victims reported that they had agreed initially to engage in prostitution."

"Police estimate that gangs brought around 1,000 Chinese people to Germany over the past decade and forced them to work in restaurants under exploitative conditions."

<comment><USER9> So about 700 victims uncovered per year? Although it would also be interesting how it is defined.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Much like with drugs, the best way to reduce human trafficking and abusive prostitution would be to fully legalize and regulate sex work. In countries where prostitution is accepted and legal, it's safer for both the sex workers and the customers, with less risk of disease and abuse. Sex workers are treated humanely and not condemned. Society in general benefits too, through properly paid taxes, lower crime rates, and reduced healthcare costs.

<comment><USER15> That wasn't the case with Germany. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Germany)

It seems to reduce the violence against workers, but increases human trafficking, because Germany now acts as a safe haven for traffickers. Maybe trafficking would disappear, if all societies made prostitution illegal and not a looked down profession, but I somehow doubt it[1].

So if your goal is to reduce human trafficking, it might not be the most worthwhile of means.

Also there is the silly issue, of woman losing her unemployment status because she didn't refused to work as a prostitute.

[1] Even if all countries made prostitution legal, nothing stops a gangster from kidnapping a woman and dragging her from say Mexico to US to serve as sex worker. She could escape and there would be less stigma; but it sounds to me like those poor workers trapped in Dubai/Quatar and they had no reprieve. As someone mentioned, there is a supply/demand problem that can't be solved via prositutes.

<comment><USER16> I don't agree with your points - they echo the recent campaign by Spiegel Online; looking at your Wikipedia article, it seems more to be an issue with open borders and no passport control, and the fact that Germany is in the "middle" of Europe and a relatively rich country, which makes Germany a good target for trafficking.

The numbers of yearly cases seem to be fairly low (about 700-800 cases per year in your Wiki-article), and pimps who force people into prostitution are arrested and jailed.

If anything, I'd say that legality makes it much better for these forced prostitutes to escape - they don't have any fear of persecution.

>Also there is the silly issue, of woman losing her unemployment status because she didn't refused to work as a prostitute.

That was a single mistake - the Arbeitsagentur accidentally sent along a job offer which was from a brothel, and the media made it into a big case (see [http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/berufsleben/arbeitsagentur- in...](http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/berufsleben/arbeitsagentur-in-augsburg- wollte-19-jaehrige-an-bordell-vermitteln-a-881825.html) ). Of course she didn't have to take the job, there have been rulings that you can't force unemployed to work as prostitutes (see same article).

<comment><USER15> You do make a fine point that case regarding unemployment status.

But, I think there is a difference between legalizing prostitution and preventing what's essentially human enslavement.

I'm not saying legalizing prostitution won't help or shouldn't be done, I just don't think it will have as big impact as people claimed, and that it will have possible negative impact if other states don't adopt it.

IMO it's akin to legalizing drugs, just legalizing it won't make drug problem disappear. For instance in cases where some states legalized drugs and most didn't; a state that legalized drugs can become safe haven for criminals from other countries, where drugs aren't legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What makes me very uncomfortable is that are enough men that not only not care about, but actually enjoy rape to make it a huge market.

This is not something that happens "between two consenting adults". If you read the article you'll see that there is no way in hell that they don't know what they are participating in. In fact many seek out the worst treated girls.

There looks to me that there are more than one type of prostitution and maybe going after a particular type of John is very reasonable.

<comment><USER18> The sad truth is that rape (like many disturbing behaviours including murder and child abuse) is entirely natural, it's not actually aberrant behaviour. Of course we're capable of recognizing it as harmful behaviour we would rather not see happen, but that's a matter of "ought" not "is".

I think the best bet at preventing rape is education and empathy (violence becomes more difficult if you can relate to your victim). But with human trafficking the situation is a bit more difficult than with "rape culture" at large: the victims are in a uniquely helpless position, legal (or social) consequences are practically absent and as a "customer" you're already engaging in a highly illegal environment. Psychologically this is entirely different from overpowering or drugging a free person and raping them.

Our best bet at preventing rape in human trafficking is likely just to eliminate human trafficking -- which seems like a worthy enough (if Herculean) task in itself.

<comment><USER19> By your definition, everything that ever happens is natuaral. That makes the word completely meaningless.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but what gave you the idea that "natural" equals "good"? I'm using the term entirely objectively.

Of course everything that happens in nature is "natural". That's what the word means. The distinction I'm making should be obvious: a behaviour that happens in other, closely-related animals, especially if it happens quite frequently, and especially if it is "beneficial" in natural selection (like lions killing their young, chimps raiding and murdering other groups or dolphins engaging in gang rapes), is by definition "natural" and shouldn't be surprising if it occurs in humans. Non-consensual sex (i.e. rape in the most straightforward sense) is one such behaviour.

That it shouldn't be surprising doesn't mean we should tolerate it or that we can't do anything about it. We're in the quasi-uniquely privileged position that we can reason about our collective behaviour and decide what kind of behaviour we do or don't want to tolerate and what we can do about it.

In other words, because we're capable of sculpting our own human nature, yes, the term "natural" is pretty arbitrary when it comes to human behaviour. But it's entirely appropriate when looking at how other species behave without our interference.

<comment><USER20> You're trying to be reasonable and logical, which is good. But I think you err in looking to animals to define what is natural behavior for humans. Doing that collapses the enormous gulf which lies between animals and humans. And it also generalizes across all humans.

Instead, I think it's better to consider what is "natural" for certain societies and cultures. For example, most people in average, relatively prosperous Western countries (and many Eastern ones) would not "naturally" treat another human being the way the "clients" in the article do. A few sociopaths, but that's a very small percentage of the population.

Why? I think it's pretty simple: it's how people are raised. Children who are raised by loving parents, taught to treat others well, disciplined when they don't, grow up to be adults who wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. But a child who is raised by abusive parents, who witnesses the parents treating others like animals, may grow up and emulate that behavior. If they are taught that it's acceptable to treat other humans like animals and property, then that is what they will do.

Nature vs. nurture is a bit of a false dichotomy. No one grows up in a vacuum. People are shaped by family, society, culture. People tend to emulate what they see. Getting people to change their behavior and values by reasoning with them is very difficult, and impossible with some people.

This is an element that seems sorely lacking in the article: there's no mention of cultural and societal values. She mentions corruption in police and judicial systems, and she calls for unilateral, cross-border action--which would effectively be going to war. She doesn't recognize that you can't fix those problems by going to war, because war doesn't rewrite societal values. (On the other hand, one might point to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and post-WWII as counter-examples, but I think that is a bit different: it was a world war, and the nations were occupied for many years afterwards, and a government had arose which lead the people in evil ways. The cultures weren't necessarily innately evil in their values.)

The reason human trafficking flourishes in these places and police and judicial corruption allow it to continue is that the societal values are corrupt. There's an element of oppressive governments not accurately reflecting the values of the people as well, but still, the government isn't forcing these atrocities to occur.

And to bring it back to where we started: by defining "natural" by what seems natural to _animals_ , you perpetuate the problem. Animals have no concept of right and wrong. Human trafficking and slavery are wrong because they are wrong, because they are evil. You might say that that's circular reasoning, but if we agree on that basic morality, regardless of where it comes from, then it stands.

And therefore, the reason these other places continue to allow it is because of defective moral values in a large percentage of the population.

That isn't a popular thing to say, because it's "judgmental." Well, yes, I do judge that that behavior is abhorrent, and that the people engaging in it and permitting it are acting abhorrently.

And if you want to argue that it's not a result of defective cultural values, you'll have to do better than an "animal nature"-based argument, because that would logically erase cultural differences. And, no, a few outliers in cultures that largely don't have the same problem do not wash away the distinctions. Some cultures _do_ have better moral values than others. (If you disagree with this, you're a moral relativist, and there's no basis for discussing it.)

<comment><USER18> I don't think we're fundamentally in disagreement, but I object the notion that people raised in Western countries wouldn't behave like the "clients" in the article do. "Culture" isn't as simple as that -- social norms differ widely within Western cultures and even at the regional or family level. Based on older stories about human trafficking, a lot of "patrons" hail from countries we would consider better than that, and many of them are middle- class or even upper-class, so it's not just a matter of social status either.

Yes, it's difficult to change someone's behaviour by talking at them. The only reliable long-term change in behaviour can be brought about during childhood. Just consider religion: sure, there are adult converts, but a fraction of adults converts from the religion they were raised in to another. A person's religion (and religiosity) is mostly an artefact of how and where they grew up.

> Human trafficking and slavery are wrong because they are wrong, because they > are evil.

Evil is an intuitive but ultimately ineffective concept. These behaviours are harmful both to the individual and to society at large. They unilaterally violate the personal liberty and human rights of the victim. That's why we consider them evil, not the other way around.

I'm defining natural in terms of animal behaviour because it's the closest we can get in order to draw conclusions about how humans would behave in the absence of ethics and a functioning society. Rape and murder in cold blood are what we see in extreme situations where society has effectively collapsed (e.g. during war, starvation or epidemics).

There's a reason we say people act like animals in these situations: it's because they do. Starvation, anxiety, duress, etc, they all impact a person's capability of rational thought and lead to people following their most basic instincts. Many people still act "human" in these situations, but in general, you're going to see far more horrific behaviour than otherwise (especially if "one thing leads to another", e.g. because of group dynamics).

Also, if we understand that slavery is wrong not just because it is evil, but because it is demonstrably incompatible with a notion of right and wrong based on minimizing human suffering while maximum personal liberty, it is obvious why it is objectionable to tolerate cultures that consider this behaviour acceptable.

In other words, aside from the ethically neutral aspects of a culture (e.g. creation myths, funny hats and silly rituals), one culture _can_ be objectively better or worse than another.

Of course changing worse cultures for the better is a long and time-consuming process. The recent failures in the Middle East and the Arab world are good examples of why you can't just invade a place and force the inhabitants to adopt modern values.

But teaching someone to be a good person is much easier when they're well-fed and don't have to fear for their life, health or fortune.

(For the record, this isn't about Islam or Christianity or even any religion at all -- any culture that perpetuates harmful values has to change, whether those values are based on religion, tradition or mere lack of consideration; religions just tend to get more offended when you try to tell them they are wrong.)

<comment><USER20> I think you're right that we mostly agree. And you make some good points about there being people in Western cultures who would do those things. Of course, there are evil people in every culture and place in the world. Sociopaths are a fact of life to a certain degree.

What I meant was, it seems to me that these evil practices are far more culturally accepted in these places compared to an average Western culture. And I think there are reasons for that other than mere poverty. People have lived in poverty throughout history, throughout the world. Poverty is essentially universal. But selling one's own children into sex slavery is not. Plenty of people living in poverty still have strong moral values.

> Evil is an intuitive but ultimately ineffective concept. These behaviours > are harmful both to the individual and to society at large. They > unilaterally violate the personal liberty and human rights of the victim. > That's why we consider them evil, not the other way around.

Respectfully, I think this is a narrow view. There are other cultures which place much lower value on personal liberty and individual rights, but would still consider such practices abhorrent. Now you are right that these behaviors do violate personal liberty and rights, and so to us, that is another reason why they are wrong. But there are groups who have little concept of personal liberty and rights, yet would never consider such a thing acceptable.

In fact, this is part of the problem: here we have people divided into two groups, geographically at least. One group can exploit the other--with no cost to its own society. These evil men get on a plane, have their fun, and return home, thousands of miles away, leaving their wake of destruction far behind.

And the families of these exploited children do not care about their children's personal liberty or rights. They sell them and then shut the door in their faces when they return. To them, it's acceptable to dispose of one family member to get a few dollars that the rest of the family can use.

> That's why we consider them evil, not the other way around.

I don't think it is a one-way function. Violating personal liberty and individual rights _are_ innately evil. If this were not so, then whether they were evil would only depend on whether you valued personal liberty and rights. If you don't--and many people don't!--then they would not be considered evil. And this is exactly what we are seeing here.

You can go to them and try to convince them that they are harming optimal social interactions, but why should they care? To them, the people being harmed are not even part of society. They are...no better than animals.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that, what is considered "natural" is irrelevant. People can "naturally" behave one way or another, depending on how they were raised, genetic disorders, mental illnesses, brain injuries, etc.

What _matters_ is right and wrong, good and evil. These behaviors are not merely _suboptimal_ \--they are innately wrong. They are not wrong because they are inefficient--they are wrong because they are wrong. (Yes, circular, unless you want to go into the sources of morality. And ultimately that is probably required.)

The reason I want to emphasize that is that defining evil by harm to society is completely relative. If you exclude someone from society, then whether something harms them no longer matters, and then it would no longer be evil. And then when you try to tell someone to stop doing it, they look at you funny and say, "Why?"

Utilitarianism and relativism lead to tyranny. If something works, and the victim doesn't count, then they aren't a victim, and it isn't wrong. And for the people on the safe side of the line, without external, absolute moral values, they have no reason to change their behavior.

<comment><USER18> I'm not arguing for moral relativism, quite the opposite.

I'm arguing for ethics based on fundamental axioms, most of which can be broken down to the Golden Rule. This isn't Western, this is just frequently obscured by irrelevant "morals", like those set forth by various religions.

Heck, the international human rights are a pretty good rendition of it: every human is equal (i.e. disregard kinship bias), every human is free, personal freedoms end where they impact the freedom of others. Yes, the hard questions are hard, but the level of the vast majority of real world problems does not even come close to them.

If anything, I'm arguing for Kant's Moral Imperative, but that's just me being German.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > 'Going undercover as a sex worker'

This article is about human trafficking, not sex work. The title makes as much sense as 'Going undercover as a construction worker' and then writing about a construction worker kept as a slave in Dubai.

<comment><USER22> And yet, that's exactly what occurred.

The journalist had to pose as a prostitute to get close to other (unwilling) prostitutes who had been trafficked into the country.

<comment><USER21> Well yes. The point is the journalist tried to get close to unwilling prostitutes, not prostitutes per se.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This has been going on for a thousand years in the region. The Ottoman empire was constantly capturing slaves from the Balkans and East Europe. It was a cornerstone of their civilization. Slavery was abolished in the 19th century but the market just moved underground.

<comment><USER24> Even their military was based on the enslavement of children from their conquered territories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What is the level of opportunity for these young women (and lets call them women that is what they usually, calling them girls makes them sound like less human and more of a commodity) in the origin countries.

Fighting pimps and such is all good but cut off supply then there is no need to deal with pimps. Are hiring laws enforced in these countries?

<comment><USER19> Cut off supply? When the women get into trafficing from kidnapping... How?

<comment><USER26> He likely means border control. The USA only has security theater for the middle class victims and none for everyone else, the rest of the world varies greatly in its enforcement level. Also regardless of paper laws, corruption levels at border control vary greatly by country. If you can't get them into a country, you cut off the supply, which cuts off the supply of money to kidnappers and traffickers eventually, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I can't really fully comprehend this. Did she actually work as a sex worker and exposed herself to all sort of STDs? And not only that - having to deal with all sorts of nasty people... what a brave woman.

<comment><USER28> She posed as a prostitute, but thankfully I don't believe she actually worked as one, or at least she doesn't talk about about it in the documentary.

I do strongly recommend watching it, though not if you're depressed - it's very heavy for the _petite bourgeoisie_ like me, not used to seeing this kind of misery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Problems like this one, and other that rank as high in crimes against humanity, make me wish we had a global citizenship and effort, that everyone should have the right for safe passage into any place in the world.

Global rights of free passage would be a goal for all people under extreme opression and ilegality, from North Korea, ISIS, slavery, sex trafficking, people trafficking. If people could leave where they are and go somewhere: maybe not everywhere, but somewhere. A place they know they can go to.

Maybe someday.

<comment><USER20> Global citizenship requires global government which comes with its own set of problems. What if the majority favored a certain behavior, such as this one? Then it would be globally legal. Maybe it's not globally favored now--that doesn't mean it will always be this way.

Compartmentalization is better than globalization. Humans are fallible and often evil. That is not going to change. The best thing to do is compartmentalize people and government to prevent cancerous evil from affecting everyone.

Anything else is wishful thinking. History shows that evil's not going anywhere, and contemporary events do as well.

<comment><USER29> It doesn't work if there is no free movement from one "compartiment" to another. Im not saying the whole world should be the same, as far as we know we live in a bubble as much as NK does. But I cant go in there freely and people there definitely can't go out. The guarantee of being able to flee would have helped a lot of people in all the humanitarian crisis of the past, and all those current. In these days, having simply global funding to move refugees and provide safe passage into open immigration countries (to the which there are many) would help a lot.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure what you mean. Don't a lot of nations already receive refugees and those seeking asylum?

How could anyone make a guarantee of being able to "go in" and get someone out without infringing upon other nations' sovereignty?

<comment><USER29> You can't, but sovereignty isn't holy.

Today war is waged for oil, might as well be fought for actual freedom. I'd say that providing safe exit from ISIS might be infinitely more effective than bombing them.

An exit from extreme poverty and abuse would render vast criminal organizations without victims or workers.

The consensus to provide "right of exit" or "passage" should overpower any single country's decision, though in this world only what the US wants is military relevant for the moment. Replacing one of the military planes might be enough financial relief for thousands of refugees.

<comment><USER20> I still don't understand what you mean. You seem to assume that all the evil acts in the world are motivated by poverty and injustice; that if ISIS only had enough money, they'd stop kidnapping and torturing and killing and destroying.

But ISIS is actually well-funded--that's part of the reason they are able to do the things they are doing. They don't need money; they have plenty. They are motivated by evil, not by poverty.

Also, are you comparing ISIS to mere criminal organizations, like organized crime? If you are, I think that's ridiculous. These are two different kinds of problems. ISIS is not committing identity theft and credit card fraud.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you seem to think that erasing borders would result in peace and prosperity. Again, not sure that's what you mean, but I think that doing so would have the opposite effect. Borders and separation help prevent tyranny from spreading. They do also permit evil to take root here and there--but evil is never going to go away for good. Just like it's never going to stop raining on this planet, so putting us all in one giant bathtub would only ensure that we all drown when it floods.

What do you mean by "replacing one of the military planes"? If you mean taking the money it costs to build one and giving it to refugees: well, sure, money helps, but many charities are already doing that. And the U.S. military itself spends a lot of time and money helping people. In fact, American soldiers have died recently on pure aid missions in remote places. You don't see the Chinese or Russian military (or ISIS) flying food to starving people free of charge and giving their lives in the process.

So please be careful not to simply vilify the U.S. and its military. There are serious problems in the U.S. government right now, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. That's trying to take the easy way out, and it's based on half-truths at best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you want to read more about modern day slavery, human trafficking and sex workers, I highly recommend "A Crime So Monstrous" by Benjamin Skinner.

[http://acrimesomonstrous.com](http://acrimesomonstrous.com)

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the whole thing is very difficult to deal with while it is all criminalized and taboo, in the dark and so shameful. "It" can mean sex in general, not just prostitution.

I heard recently that prostitution in "the west" has gone off a cliff over the last few generations. Recreational sex, including homosexuality and other stigmatized tastes became a more normal part of our culture and demand for prostitution declined. We stopped demonizing extramarital sex (or women, really) and the "problem" got a lot smaller. Thousands of years and thousands of cultures and god-knows how many gods worth of banning, ostracizing, preaching and tut-tutting about prostitution or promiscuity and the one thing that actually made a dent makes a difference is getting sluttier as a culture.

I think this is a metaphor for (or a specific instance of) a bigger principle.

 _an example_

I was at university when grameen bank won a nobel prize for micro-lending. This was around the same time many governments and regulators (in a bunch of places) were trying to pressure out "predatory lending practices." Normal banks got out of the high risk, small loan business. They had a reputation to maintain and $400 loans to the broke and unemployed is not particularly lucrative anyway.

The market was left to "payday loan" shops who tended to be a lot shadier. Then the financial crisis happened and business boomed. If payday loan shops get banned (as some want), the market will almost certainly be reborn as loan sharking, a traditionally criminal trade. The deeper the taboos & bans, the worse it will get. The actual thing won't go away though. Taboos, laws or fiery political rhetoric can't make it go away. The harder these things squeeze, the worse it will get. Terry Pratchett would have been the person to describe but alas…

This is all quite ironic considering that a nobel prize was won by a bank basically doing payday loans, but with a totally different attitude. Ironic, but informative. Grameen bank has high interest rate and uses social pressure tactics to improve repayment rates, practices considered unethical in the larger financial world. Practices shared with others in this "sector" of small high risk loans to the people no "real" lender would bother with. The practices seem to be part and parcel of the market.

But, Grameen bank is not like loan sharks or payday loan shops at all, culturally. Their impact on their customers and their relationship with them (and society) is far more positive. So is their impact. They won the _nobel peace prize._! The people working at grameen bank think and act completely different than the culture of the payday loan industry. Perception matters. It shapes the thing. The perception of the employees, society, etc. are all interlinked.

Criminalize an industry and it becomes more criminal (with violence, abuse and all the other things that go with criminality). Label someone a pariah and they will act like one.

Banning, or even stigmatizing payday loans doesn't make the industry go away, it just makes it uglier. Give it a nobel peace prize, and they become humanitarians. I'm simplifying, I know. But, I think this is a decent low resolution description of the concept.

It works the same way with drugs. Same with prostitution. The public perception of prostitutes, johns, madams and pimps. The taboos and laws, the disdain and ostracization. I think these things are a big part of why it is all so dark. Society tells us that it's dark. That might keep some people away, but if it doesn't… The johns walk into it knowing they are doing something bad and act like it. The pimps act like pimps with the characteristic dehumanization of prostitutes and the prostitutes, knowing that they are the lowest of the low.. they act like it. Suicide, depression, drug abuse and general self abuse and self hate.

</comment><comment><USER31> You might want to google "rescue industry".

<comment><USER32> I wasn't aware of those keywords, they mostly direct to a book titled "Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue" and the works of Dr. Laura Agustin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It is not only the imbalanced lust of few men that this horrible ecosystem is built around, the whole social structure is equally responsible for its existence and growth. Lack of strong social bond, lack of respect to the existence of other humans, lack of proper education on ethics and humanity, hypocrisy in the name of freedom, idea of living in the moments, greed etc are the reasons behind the existence of prostitution, pornography, and other sex related abuses. No government in the world can end this until the society acts as a whole to reject it. Perhaps the effective starting point to minimize it is to avoid double standards.

"O faithful! Why do you say one thing and do another? It is most hateful to God that you do not practise what you preach" (61: 2-3) -- the holy Quran

"Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you." -- Confucius

(Couldn't Quote from the Bible for the lack of knowledge in it.)

<comment> vezzy-fnord Pornography is not a "sex related abuse".

Nor is the reason behind prostitution's existence the lack of a strong social bond. In fact, prostitution was relatively out in the open and brothels widespread during the medieval period, though views on it ranged variably from reluctant acceptance in the name of compromise (by the Catholic Church) to a more complete one, like in East Asia. Brothels often served as an attraction for travelers, too. Some were even run by women, and ironically enough most European countries didn't ban brothels until the 20th century. U.S. states also mostly had them legal in the 19th century.

Prostitution is weaker now than ever, in a time when social bonds are supposedly at an all time low according to most demagogues. Furthermore, nothing about ethics that is intrinsically opposed to it.

Islam has always been against it, though. So it's no surprise you don't think of it highly.

<comment><USER33> The origin of girls allured to both industries (prostitution and pornography) is probably the same. The recent documentary of Rashida Jones, "Hot girls wanted", sheds modest light on this issue. On the other hand, prostitution is not weaker than before, it has been outsourced far away, so the victims' voices cannot be heard. An example- prostitution business in the East and South East Asia are stronger than ever. There are several documentaries on how children and teenagers in those countries are taken by the prostitution rings to sell to pedophiles, sex abusers and addicts from all over the world. Western European addicts go to the East in groups for orgy and sex trips. And this article uses few cases in the middle East to clearly show the extremity of hypocrisy. These are few documented stories I am talking about. There maybe hundreds of different sort of incidents yet to be documented.

Sex industries have been evolving. And none of these industries treat girls as human beings, rather as sex tools. None of these industries produce respect to any human kind. Prostitution at least has physical boundaries, porn doesn't. And that makes us and our future generation more vulnerable to sex related abuses, not only the people involved in those businesses, but also sometimes out close ones as well. And I don't see why we should not stand against both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > I was given an award for courage at the Lincoln Center in New York. I said > they should have given me an award for anger instead. There is nothing > courageous about what I've done.

That _is_ courage. Not being afraid of dangerous things is not courage: it's stupidity.</comment>


The World's First Field-Programmable RF Chip - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1320986&itc=eetimes_sitedefault&_mc=SM_EET <comment><USER2> Very interesting and starts to make the posibilities of more open baseband software much more viable. Also Software defined radio projects become cheaper.

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$110 per chip for one at joe blogs consumer price, so good indication upon bulk price, let alone trade.

I do somehow wonder how long it will be to reuire some sort of radio license just to purchase such items. I recall how in the UK you needed to know and pass a test in morse code to legaly use a HAM radio, not the case now.

<comment><USER3> I just visited link you have shared,

It will take some time but i am sure it is going to big business in the future.</comment></comment>