Why I work remotely has nothing to do with productivity - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/why-i-work-remotely-hint-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-productivity-34ace30f74fc <comment><USER2> Life is short, and I agree with the author, you won't remember most of the hours you spend working.

If I had 10 dollars for every set of stock options that I've been granted I'd be a hundred-aire by now.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been told, that if I just work really hard right now, I'll be able to retire soon.

Every time I read an article about some employees making big bucks off their stock options or six figures off an iPhone app, I see that for what it is: propaganda designed to make sure we keep feeding our young bodies into the machine.

That machine will grind you up and spit you out like hamburger on the other side.

Life is short as I said, and it seems to go faster the further along you are.

Work as little as you can, and if you must work, try to work for yourself.

<comment><USER3> Have you honestly been told that if you were really hard right now, you'll be able to retire soon? What was the context? A manager trying to sell you on putting in extra hours, because the IPO is going to make you rich?

I nodded to a lot of your points (although I have personally done well by 1 of the 3 companies to offer me options), but I've _never_ had a boss actively try to push me like that. It's always been encouragement or constructive criticism, but never (potentially) false promises. That just strikes me as so wrong.

<comment><USER2> >Have you honestly been told that if you were really hard right now, you'll be able to retire soon?

I _have_ been told this, multiple times at startups, from people who probably sincerely believed it.

Luckily, I never agreed to a pay cut in favour of options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Being forced to work from an office is the biggest scandal in the western world.

I can see the highway coming from the Sydney harbour bridge from my office window - it's alway congested, it takes a huge amount of time to get to and from work.

I guarantee most of the people burning fuel, creating congestion and stopping themselves (and everyone else) from getting home to their families on time have jobs that could easily be done from home.

The argument that unexpected collaboration happens when people are forced to go to the office is a joke and certainly not worth protecting when you consider all the other negative effects of commuting and working in a central location:

\- Rising house prices

\- Sprawling high density housing resulting in more people living in smaller areas creating a massive strain on infrastructure and massive reduced living standards

\- Commuting for hours per day which affects family life

\- Creating pollution hot spots

\- Burning large amounts of oil and petrol

A truck spilt several tons of dirt onto the Sydney harbour bridge last week, this caused hours of delays for thousands of people trying to get home. Why should one truck accident hold thousands of people to ransom? How many people missed their kids bed time because of that?

Most companies even being amenable to change based on me bumping into someone from a different department is a laughable idea. We need a massive culture shift in the way we approach most office work. It's an absolute scandal.

<comment><USER5> Speaking of Sydney, are there many tech companies that allow remote work in Australia? (I'm a software developer, primarily .NET but also C++ and embedded firmware FWIW).

Are there any job sites / directories specifically for finding remote-work jobs?

As a fellow Aussie I'd love to work remotely, but I don't necessarily want to work for an overseas company, for example.

<comment><USER6> If theres one country in the world that needs to embrace remote work its Australia.

We seriously need to move away from tech companies only setting up base in Sydney and Melbourne and in turn, killing other cities and making us all live in ridiculously overpriced apartments so we don't have to commute for hours per day.

I would love to live in a more rural area one day but this is just never going to happen while I work in tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Enjoy lunch with your spouse instead of in the break room with Connie from accounts payable!"

I'm fully in favor of the freedom for everyone to work from home, but I think there are unique upsides to being in the office, too. Incidental contact with people from other departments (e.g. "Connie from accounts payable") is one of them, as this can give you a unique perspective on your organization and can spur new ideas/reveal new avenues for improvement you would've never encountered had you been sequestered away in "deliberate contact only" mode at home.

<comment><USER8> I make sure not to talk about work when I'm at lunch.

I step away from my desk to eat lunch when I'm in the office to explicitly take a breather from work.

<comment><USER9> Why this forced line between work and non-work?

Haven't you ever had a moment that your work was so interesting that you wanted to share it with someone else in your 'non-work' time?

I would say: talk about what interests you. Don't focus too much on 'appropriate' timing.

<comment><USER10> As someone who does the same, it's not a _forced_ line. In fact, _not_ talking about work feels far _less_ forced to me. Sure, there could be moments where something is so interesting you want to share it—but that requires talking to someone who won't just stare blankly at you because they lack the requisite knowledge and background to have the conversation.

More often than not, there's nothing so interesting happening with work that I want to talk about it. Before I was self-employed, I frequently hated how going to lunch with work mates meant having to spend time talking about work. It felt like lunch was just another meeting, instead of a break from work. I'd much rather have more _meaningful and personal_ conversation—like, about books, art, traveling, relationships, whatever. Something that elevates us out of our role as workers and focused on our non-working selves. Conversation that helps increase our knowledge and understanding of each other. To be sure, that could mean work-related topics come up. But it gets seriously boring to talk with people who only want to talk shop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a dad, the family argument is the most important one but has already been well stated here.

I'd like to add that we now have the tools to make remote working not only on par but better than in-office work:

\- Chat systems (Spark, Slack, HipChat…) provide the kind of informal communication that offices are good for, but with major improvements: asynchronous by default (though the conversation can easily escalate to become synchronous) and topic-oriented. Even when I was in-office, our team actually preferred chat-based conversation in many cases.

\- Tele-presence (video call) provide the face-to-face communication complete with visual emotional cues that one would get in the office. Use it for structured meetings, or use it as an informal background video feed.

\- Location independence helps the team be geographically dispered. You can then build a team that is spread out and takes advantage of time differences (useful in devops).

Just last week, my wife had a work-related conference out of town and instead of being apart for a whole week, I just worked from the hotel with no change of routine. After the work was done, we got to enjoy the area. Bonus: our child came along.

The one caveat is all this is predicated on reliable network connections, epecially for the telepresence part. However, homes have the option of reliable network access, and for crappy wifi at hotels or coffee shops, it's always possible to tether or fallback to text-only chat.

<comment><USER12> "As a dad" is the reason many men choose to work at the office... ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> * no commute/transportation costs (include extra gas, car maintenance, etc)

* more time with family

* smaller food costs (don't eat out as much)

* smaller clothing budget -- not dressing up

* complete control over my environment (lighting, wall color, music, etc)

* fewer interruptions (even with 5 kids in the house)

* almost no sick days...like I'm not going to work when I have a bad cold? I go stir crazy.

* 1 am eureka moments happen more naturally.

* I can justify my increased home internet bandwidth

<comment><USER14> To play devil's advocate:

\- no routine that gets you going

\- less time with your friends and colleagues

\- less team lunches/nice dinners

\- getting dressed can help you mentally make the switch to start your workday and can translate into higher productivity

\- you have to spent money for office equipment

\- more interruptions (you are at home, surely you can do x)

\- you have more sick days, since kids are bags of disease

\- no eureka moments after water cooler chats

\- extra cost

PS I'm a fan of remote work

<comment><USER15> I'm a fan of remote work too, and your devil's advocates list is pretty much an example of remote-work gone wrong.

It's happened to me, and I found that I needed to:

\- Have a routine, or else one day blends too seamlessly into the other \- Always go out with my friends on the weekend \- Make good food (Blue Apron was a huge help in this respect) \- Get dressed & do it well to make the context switch to being at work \- Set it you up so if i'm at work, I only do work things and not other chores

As for the rest, happily I don't yet have to worry about kids and my only office equipment has always been my computer.

<comment><USER16> I agree with you, but you surely agree that the two main disadvantages are lack of time with your coworkers (many of whom have become friends).

I would say "more interruptions" too, but the office has its own interruptions (someone walks by your desk and starts chatting), which may be even more than home.

<comment><USER17> Maybe this is because I'm in my 30s, or because I'm an introvert, but I don't particularly want to spend a bunch of time with work people; I want to get work done at work, and whether we're in the same room or on Slack or whatever, I still feel like I'm accomplishing a shared goal with other people.

And after work, I have plenty of friends that I don't spend all day working with. I'd rather get supper with a friend I haven't seen in a while, rather than spending more time with the people I already spent the day with. Lunch? It's really great to break up the work day by taking my dogs for a walk.

And I do totally agree about coworkers becoming friends. Most of the people I consider my closest friends are either old classmates or old coworkers.

I generally do remote contract work, but currently have a local gig for 1-2 days/week. There are undoubtedly more interruptions at the office, but fewer temptations (e.g. turning off the clock and having a nap). I dramatically prefer the home office environment though, most of all the fact that I can work with my own flow. If I'm feeling foggy after lunch, I'll totally have a nap and work a little in the evening to make it up. Or work a 16 hour day and sleep in tomorrow. Or whatever works best that day.

<comment><USER18> If you are post college and move to another city, naturally people at work you connect well with will eventually become friends. I am kind of an introvert too and since i spend most of my freetime with my girlfriend it is hard to meet new people outside of work and spend so much time with them so they become real friends. But isn't it the same as in college or school ? Most of your friends are people you spend considerable time with and that is often work/school/studying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The comments here are super interesting. I think the point of the piece has nothing to do with interruptions, eureka moments, or productivity—it's not really about work at all. It's about identity, and the fact that our collective identities are so wrapped up in our work selves that we don't really know what we're working for. Are we working for our families? For retirement? For self worth?

He, and I guess "I" by extension, would argue that you're working to enjoy those little moments in life you'll never get back—the ones you're supposed to savor. If you're in that headspace, working from home is one of modern society's greatest advances.

<comment><USER20> Your spot on here. I work with some great people, but I also have 2 young kids now and I frequently miss dinners at home. Getting everyone out of the house is probably more stressful than it needs to be because I'm 40 mins door to door and that feels more important than being present with family in the morning.

I've been thinking quite a bit over the years that this isn't how raising a family should be. I remember growing up and when my dad got home, work was over. Fat chance now with sms, slack, email, etc - you're never off work anymore.

One one hand, I love tech and it's how our family survives. On the other hand, we're completely disconnected from our planet and appreciation of generations before. We are modern and life is fast paced, but for what reason?

I keep the discussions going in my head and let the glaring issue just kinda dissolve as we go thru another day. That issue is (for me) that this probably isn't how - as a society - we should be living nor should we be valuing the things we do. :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been working from home for the last 7 years.

Interruptions suck and you don't need to embrace them. You can perfectly have a dedicated time for your family as well as dedicated time for your job. It's all about planning and ensuring that people around you understand your schedule.

You can still have 1 hour allocated time with your son during the day and you can be present, that doesn't mean your son needs to interrupt you 5 random times within 3 hours. If you know when he comes home from school, by all means allocate that fixed 30 minutes or whatever to him, perfect.

There is pretty much no difference between allocating random time frames to people you love vs. allocating fixed times to people you love.

We all know from experiments, various sources and for many from personal experiences interruptions do hurt productivity, induce stress and generally bad.

Also, you can turn this around. Instead of being interrupted between your tasks (out of zone moments) just make rounds at the house, talk to your wife, enjoy a snack, take 15 minutes break. Then go back to hacking with a clear, recharged head.

So why sacrifice your focus/productivity when you don't have to?

</comment><comment><USER22> For me, it's that I get to save an hour and an half of not commuting (and my commute is not bad at all, just walking to/from BART), that hour and half is an hour and a half more of sleep or reading or anything else. It also means I dont have to be in an obnoxiously loud open office plan with people some from other department whiteboarding 3ft behind me.

</comment><comment><USER23> I run a 20-person fully distributed product / engineering team at Parse.ly, and this post is a great summary of why we do it. It's not about hating on offices, it's about loving on quality of life.

Work-life balance and harmony is enabled by remote work. I don't have kids, but many of my colleagues do, and they really appreciate the flexibility.

I don't think all roles can work perfectly remotely, but software engineering certainly can. Github (any day but today :)), Trello, Flowdock/Slack/IRC, AWS, GHangout, GDocs -- these are the tools you would use anyway in a good company. And you can trade the money spent on offices for plane tickets to do team retreats and hackathons from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER24> I go to work to eat the free food. THEY SMOKE THEIR OWN BACON. I think companies try to be competitive with the perks (eg google - massages, food within a few steps, a nice space to be.) There is definitely a benefit in that and the social interactions for a young professional to work in a team with smart people can be pretty rewarding too. With modern tooling you can still do that remote - I've seen code review processes work very will with teams that aren't co-located and that has been very rewarding and brought a lot of growth for me personally.

But I understand as a family man what you're saying. If I could do remote work I'd probably be in Tamarindo or similar (which I'd like to do one day.) Until then, bacon is pretty awesome.

<comment><USER25> >THEY SMOKE THEIR OWN BACON.

Where do you work, if you don't mind me asking?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Like many, the ability to be present with your family resonates a lot for me. I've been working remotely (at least 3/5 of my time) for most of the past decade, but in the last two years it has been an absolute godsend.

Without going into detail, we ended up in a high-needs situation with one of our teenage kids a couple of years ago. Fortunately I have a very good relationship with the company I work with, so was able to switch from partially remote to 100% remote, and as things shook out, ended up part-time (3 days a week).

Some days I've been unable to start work until 10 or 11, or I've had to go down to the school three times, or quite frankly I've had days of just being too emotionally drained and upset to be able to work as well as I would like. So have certainly had some late working nights to compensate. Measure based on what I expect to have completed more so than total hours worked, and carefully curate the todo list with my manager regularly.

My wife works in customer service, so she has nowhere near the flexibility in scheduling that I have, so it has worked out the best for the situation we've been in.

Never could have happened if we were both office-bound. One of us would have had to stop working for a couple of years.

(Addendum: Some of the above sounds quite dire, and it has been at times, but we are well into recovering and approaching a more "normal-needs" situation.)

</comment><comment><USER27> I love working remotely for all the usual reasons, plus this more recent one: my 2yo daughter had ever-more-terrible eczema which we eventually learned was caused by molds ubiquitous to the region in which we lived. So we moved. Across the country. The very next day. She's light years better, and the whole family is so much happier. No job hunt, no asking for a transfer; we just moved.

</comment><comment><USER28> I work remotely for past four years, and I totally agree with this. I still go to the office for occasional meetings and events but there is not that much pressure for it since most of my team is remote.

I worked for a lot of companies for the past 15 years, but this is the first time I find it hard to change my job - because working remotely is amazing.

I wish more companies were open to letting people telecommute. I had office based position offers that paid twice what I make but I am never trading that for the ability to get out of the room and hug my daughter. And the productivity argument is still there, it is just not the sole reason why remote rocks.

One of my other favorites: Work is very stressful sometimes, so I go out to a different room and punch my training bag a few times. Instant stress relief - try doing that in the office!

P.S. If you are reading this and are considering hiring for a remote position, drop me a line, I am a sysadmin with a fair bit of coding and extensive networking (Cisco) and teaching/mentoring background, living in central Europe, and I grok programming and web development.

</comment><comment><USER29> Hell yes.

I may be biased since I'm a founder of a 100% distributed company, but I feel the value of working from home every.single.day and I know my employees do too. Midday naps and gym visits, not feeling bad wandering out of the office for a break, getting to be just as productive when at home. No commute.

The modern office is a scam and a relic from the fifties and we are only now able to break free from its chains.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's about quality of life for me. The higher my quality of life, the happier I am, the happier I am, the more productive I am. I'm happier not dealing with a commute, having my own space and seeing my daughter throughout the day. If you're truly happy then the rest follows, i.e. establishing a routine, work/life balance, etc...

</comment><comment><USER31> I've worked from home for years and its worked out well (in my opinion and my employer's). In my 3rd year WFH I just received an "exceeds expectations" in our standard corporate review and was told I carry all the values of the corporation (yikes), trust, respect and all that hand wavey stuff. One thing that has dramatically improved is my general morale and attitude, because I'm not involved with specific "office types".

People in the office that don't seem to really work, but seem to think their only job is trying to find things they can make you work on, so they look like they're managing someone. I already have a boss, tasks and get everything done with stalwart dedication and personal pride. That type of middle-manager intervention is much harder when you're not in a cube. Or just annoyances like spending time looking at your screen when walking by.

I get just as much done as I used to in the office, save the environment, less stressed (just as much over my work but less with those office lice), and now never really want to work another office job again.

Driving stress is real and avoiding that is a health benefit, not to mention my sweet standing desk with treadmill underneath where I've lost 40lbs using while working during the day. I'm less likely to get horribly sick and drain the company's insurance plan. I spent years on a 24/7 pager that went off all the time, and worked from 9AM-3:30AM in offices in downtown Chicago many days/nights. I've done some harm to my health sticking out bad jobs and situations to build a resume. I'm very thankful for my current situation.

While someday I'd like to land a Django gig, I hope when my wife and I have children I'm still working from home. I don't want to die having missed out on the things this author mentioned. And definitely not my wife, I'll go back into an office if it means a big enough pay raise so she can quit her job as a teacher not miss those moments.

</comment><comment><USER32> Not commuting saves a ton of time and energy, not only in gas but also calories for me.

I have found a lot of people don't communicate enough when working remotely though. So you have to remind people to get in Slack/Skype/Hangouts/phone. Also a video or voice chat is higher bandwidth so it is good to do that at least once a week or more often depending on tight the collaboration is.

But considering that most office jobs can actually be done over the internet now, the highway congestion, the logistical/military implications of maintaining the massive imbalance of fossil fuel distribution largely to support the commuting in oversize vehicles, global warming, etc., it surprises me that we even allow so much commuting to continue. Seems unethical.

</comment><comment><USER33> Where do people find these jobs? Every time I look for one I only see complete bullshit jobs from companies that don't really pay all that well.

</comment><comment><USER34> I enjoy remote work and dislike the stigma it has with some people. I hear a lot of "everyone else deals with it!" when you mention the (significant) time you save on getting ready and commuting each morning, and some people are suspicious that remote workers slack off because they're not in an office.

</comment><comment><USER35> Maybe raw productivity is not increased, but all of these reasons have the effect of increasing morale and thus productivity.

</comment><comment><USER36> I just want to emphasize, it really do depends on the industry. Software, yes. for some nope.

</comment><comment><USER37> The only thing better than working remotely is not working remotely.

</comment><comment><USER38> i just knew that Medium supports custom domain now.</comment>


You Google Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/11/you-google-wrong/59013/ <comment><USER2> This article is pretty sad when you realize that what he's teaching pales in comparison to what search engines in the nineties were offering. Google has actually /stripped away/ advanced search functionality and dumbed down the search engine.

Still the bible on web searching: <http://www.searchlores.org/indexo.htm></comment>


Tribalism is the enemy within - <AUTHOR> http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/439 <comment><USER2> Tribalism in politics leads to identity politics rather than governance politics. I grew up in Lebanon where there is no single religious majority. Political discourse has mostly been about how different factions (sunni, shia, maronite christian, orthodox christians, etc.) should be represented within the ruling coalition. Deadlocks are common and appropriation of ministries is mostly based on sectarian identity rather than competence. Discourse is rarely about fiscal, educational, or health policy. I think a similar unhealthy situation can exist within open source projects or professional organizations.

</comment><comment><USER3> If Greg had started his post with a question along the lines of:

      "Dear Mark, what can GNOME do to help
       Canonical integrate your  work & devs
       with upstream?"

Rather than:

      "*omfgroflcopter* you Canonical dudes
       are all like soooo lame and have never
       done anything for GNOME"

...then maybe his post would have translated to a measurable improvement in my reality.

As it stands all he's created is a distraction from getting code written.

 _sigh_

<comment><USER4> I've often wondered what it would be like to work on Open Source projects and contribute to something like that, but I've never done it before. This post piqued my interest, so I read it and followed the links and read the comments and, in general, spent more than an hour on reading the discussion.

Which leads me to my question: is this normal, widespread behavior in Open Source? I'm honestly interested in answers, because, frankly, to me this looked like a boatload of politics. I get enough of that at work.

<comment><USER3> Is normal, widespread behavior for humans when we are not getting what we want I think!

One practice is to be more conscious of when we're not getting what we want and pay extra special attention to how we're reacting to others as a result.

Greg says he wants Canonical to contribute more to upstream.

Mark probably wanted Greg to not badmouth Canonical.

Now neither party are getting what they want so the question is can everyone pay enough attention to their reactions to avoid a full-blown civil war?

Oy vey.

<comment><USER5> _Is normal, widespread behavior for humans when we are not getting what we want I think!_

Or in pathological cases, even when we are. :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn Tribalistic thinking is something I've been trying to break myself of over the last few years.

When I avoid it, I end up being better off. I used to be firmly in the "all conservative republicans are gibbering idiots" camp, but was able to break out and have a genuinely useful discussion with one.

He and I still don't agree on most things, but we did convince each other of a few things (he no longer believes atheists are inherently amoral, which I consider a big success). Tribalism wouldn't permit that.

</comment><comment><USER6> In my anecdotal experience, Canonical hasn't exactly been a shining example of working with the community instead of being tribal. They have open source projects, but they don't tend to go very far out of their way to make those projects useful to other organizations. The pace at which changes from outside Canonical get merged into their projects is very glacial.

But that's just my experience. I'm sure others have had plenty of great experiences with them.

<comment><USER7> Hmmm... that doesn't sound like tribalism, that sounds like Canonical has a strong product vision and strong internal engineering culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> And here's Greg's response to Mark's response: [http://gregdekspeaks.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/its-not- about-...](http://gregdekspeaks.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/its-not-about- tribalism-mark/)

</comment><comment><USER9> You also should recognize that whether you like it or not tribalism is part of everyone. There always exists the temptation, especially when under pressure or in a crisis, to revert to a tribalist mode of thinking. Tribalism no doubt had adaptive advantages in our past in terms of group cohesion, but it can also be one of the most destructive forces.

</comment><comment><USER10> _Don't do it because you feel intimidated or threatened or belittled._

I suppose ideally, no. However, it runs against basic psychology to fail to consider the enormity of the motivating force that is this kind of coercion throughout human history. It has untold power. So many things - good and bad, but all having enormous displacement - have been spurred by motives like proving something to someone, showing someone up, avenging an insult, publicly righting a false claim, establishing identity, going through a socially acknowledged rite of passage, validating strength, etc. Sex, money, power...

It seems to me patently self-evident that such forces underlie, in whole or in part, the actual activities of open-source developers, and technologists in general, though the level of indirection that must be navigated in order to see it is often greater than in more naked and crude testosterone plays like much hedge fund management and so on.

Don't pretend that we're somehow above the general liabilities of humanity (if that's how you see them).

</comment><comment><USER11> Two thoughts -

First, I agree with the author on tribalism in general and technology specifically, but he falls into another common unwritten trap - all his examples are of discrimination against women or minorities. That's subtly saying - "White males, don't be tribalistic" - maybe the particular author doesn't feel that way, but certainly a lot of people tell Caucasians and men to stop hating/oppressing/discriminating, but ignore very real instances of discrimination and hate against men or Caucasians. No one bats an eye at anti- male/anti-Caucasian rhetoric, which is certainly tribalism. I haven't seen any equality movements to make everyone register equally for the military draft in the United States, for instance, or make traditionally women's work environments more open to men working there, nor are there any advocacy groups for a white person is wronged on account of their race.

Second, mildly contrarian point - if you've never lived somewhere where nationalism/tribalism is rampant, you haven't really experienced it. Yeah, it sucks and produces all kinds of idiocy. But there's actually a few good things about it that never makes it into the literature - if you've never been somewhere like South Korea, you don't really know what it looks like. Frustrating as it was for me as an outsider, I did admire a few points about it. There's an attitude of, "I am KOREAN and STRONG" built into most Koreans - this can be insufferable if you're not allowed to eat at a restaurant, but I also find Koreans to be a bit more confident and proud than people in surrounding areas, and I've some time in all of those places and admire all those cultures. I guess it's unfashionable to say this, but my eyes say there are a few limited upsides to tribalism.

<comment><USER12> I would guess that the Shirley Sherrod mess is a clear rebuttal to the statement: "no one bats an eye at anti-male/anti-Caucasian rhetoric." Not only were eyes batted, but heads rolled (even though it was an entirely false accusation of discrimination).

Other examples of widely condemned figures who are, or appear to be, anti- white or anti-male: Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and Andrea Dworkin.

<comment><USER11> > clear rebuttal to the statement

I don't know, you picked three extreme nutjobs[1] and one person who looked like they were completely derelicting their duty but it turned out it the evidence was mistaken... I'm not sure there's a clear rebuttal of anything.

But regardless, that was a small part of the comment. The bigger point was about discrimination articles that focus on examples of discrimination against women and non-whites and not the other way around. Seems like that's a bad thing that teaches bad lessons in the modern world. Would you agree that's a bad thing?

[1] I should clarify - Wright and Farrakhan are serious, serious anti-Semites to the point of being totally offensive. Dworkin... well, you can google for quotes from her if you've never been exposed to it.

<comment><USER12> I was just pointing out that anti-white, anti-male bias is clearly not considered acceptable, contrary to what you stated. The evidence against Sherrod was not mistaken so much as manipulated to project an anti-white bias that immediately got her fired.

In the essay, the examples were chosen to illustrate his point, and were very non-contentious in my opinion. I see no "bad lesson," per say, but I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.

<comment><USER13> _The evidence against Sherrod was not mistaken so much as manipulated to project an anti-white bias that immediately got her fired._

The evidence "against Sherrod" was not about Sherrod at all. It was about demonstrating that her audience (the NAACP) is tolerant of racism, as long as it is the right kind of racism. From the original article:

 _In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer[...]_ Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. _But she decides that he should get help from "one of his own kind"...Sherrod's racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups' racial tolerance._

Go read the article - Sherrod is nothing but a minor anecdote in what is primarily a criticism of liberals, the media and the NAACP and a defense of the Tea Party.

[http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/07/19/video- proof-t...](http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/07/19/video-proof-the- naacp-awards-racism2010/)

<comment><USER14> Yes, a criticism of liberals, the media, and the NAACP, that hinges on doctoring a video to make an innocent woman look like a racist.

The dude she was allegedly being racist to, white farmer, actually went on a bunch of media shows to say how great she was and how she helped them in their time of need. Darn white-hating liberals.

<comment><USER15> > Yes, a criticism of liberals, the media, and the NAACP, that hinges on > doctoring a video to make an innocent woman look like a racist.

Criticism of the media hinges on the fact that they cover some things (e.g. white kids beating up a black kid) extremely intensely, but ignores cases where the reverse happens.

<comment><USER14> Dude, give me a break. If you're a white American male, and you're gonna whine about the discrimination you face in life, you need to wake the fuck up. Literally everybody else on earth has it worse than you. Grow up and take responsibility for your own situation.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _Literally everybody else on earth has it worse than you. Grow up and take > responsibility for your own situation._

So when I was trying to go to university and my family was too poor to pay my tuition, but I could only apply to <40% of scholarships available because I was white instead of a "minority", that's better off than everybody else? How is "taking responsibility" going to fix that sort of reverse discrimination? Why is it OK for scholarships to focus on poor minorities, but it's not OK for scholarships to focus on poor caucasions?

<comment><USER14> Start your own scholarships if you're such a big believe in self-reliance.

More to the point -- yes, you still had it way the hell easier than you likely would have if you were black or hispanic. White males are not victims -- we have it easier than every other group. If you forget that, you're being an asshole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Tribalism": a great term for what's wrong with the world today in general. I'd been fishing for a word, calling it "the team sports mentality" for lack of something more insightful and concise.

<comment><USER17> If that were true, the entire history of humanity would be wrong in general.

<comment><USER18> Most of the meaningful (and most interesting/worth talking about) events in humanity's history have been because of an us-vs-them mentality. Even something good and benign like landing on the moon was partially because of a desire to best, and differentiate from, another world superpower. The critique ("wrong with the world today") is if this is a good way to go about it when it's used in the extreme (or tending towards being extreme), not the quality of the results. Does the means justify the ends?

<comment><USER16> The _money_ comes from those with us-vs-them mentalities (your example of the Moon shots), but that isn't where the urge to innovate usually comes from.

 _when it's used in the extreme (or tending towards being extreme)_

That's what I was trying to get across -- extreme behavior considered to be normal. Everyone on the freeways driving either 45 or 90, no sane moderation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He starts off by saying tribalism is the root of racism. Then he says it's judging people on choices they've made. These are obviously mutually exclusive definitions!

<comment><USER20> Tribalism is "the other". Racism is "the other". People who have made other choices, such as religious choices, can be "the other".

There's no contradiction here. It's just two different elaborations on how you get to "the other".</comment></comment>


European parliament committee approves vote on 'disastrous' copyright bill - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44546620 <comment><AUTHOR> Technically, a law like this is prone to be abused for censorship purposes. Whether this "dual use" is intended or not by parliamentarian voters, is obviously unclear.

To make it even worse, such laws don't "outlaw" some behaviour, but put a high risk on it through civil law. So, it helps multinationals (and a possible malevolent regime) and hurts small companies as well as citizens. To me, it's hard to believe this is not intended (like so many other (mostly) EU laws.

However, always bear in mind Ayn Rand:

> "Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We > want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch > of boy scouts you're up against… We're after power and we mean it… There's > no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power > to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one > makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes > impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law- > abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of > laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – > and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now > that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, > you'll be much easier to deal with."

<comment><USER2> I want to say, I heard all this talk of Ayn Rand as some kind of evil bogeyman, and then I listened to her speak on YouTube. She grew up in a horrible communist dictatorship, and then found refuge in the US. She spoke about how unfair governments can be, and spoke out against forced control of the people. I found her to be super reasonable! She only represents one persons view and I feel that libertarians often fail to appreciate the benefits of collectivization, but I think a lot of normal people that criticize Ayn Rand are actually mad about the jerks who use her name in political conversations to justify being self centered. Especially in this age of overbearing governments, I encourage everyone to look her up on YouTube and listen to her own words.

<comment><USER3> Being that her friend and apprentice was Alan Greenspan you can see where people get a little weird about rand. Also the rand think tank that spews serious amounts of fascist policy.

<comment><USER4> > the rand think tank that spews serious amounts of fascist policy.

Like so many ideologies, the fan club is what most people dislike. If you are capable of taking Rands philosophies with a grain of salt, there are many brilliant concepts to glean.

<comment><USER5> "If you are capable of taking Rands philosophies with a grain of salt, there are many brilliant concepts to glean."

Such as?

Minitel:It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. --Adam Smith

Except in practice societies require self interest and benevolence and structures designed to promote the latter in order that we can all enjoy the fruits of our respective labor in a functional society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It was approved on in a committee of the European parliament (for legal matters), which means that now they will enter negotiations with the European Council and then after some time and processes laid out in Art. 293ff TFEU, it will be debated in the European Parliament at some point.

So yes, there is still plenty of room and time to discuss this rather unfortunate policy.

EDIT:

For more info: [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press- room/20180618IPR...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press- room/20180618IPR06024/copyright-meps-update-rules-for-the-digital-age)

Votes: Yes - 14 MEPs No - 9 MEPs Abstentions - 2 MEPs

<comment><USER7> Is there a list of who voted and how available anywhere?

<comment><USER8> I wonder if any of these people have received campaign funding from entrenched industries that benefit from draconian copyright laws?

Having said that, GDPR has actually turned out to be a very well thought through piece of legislation - I actually agree with it's premises largely and the fact we can't take a database dump anymore and have full access to people's personal details is an extremely good thing IMO.

How Facebook are in compliance with it I have no idea as it would seem impossible to justify a lot of their more intrusive/social features.

<comment><USER9> Facebook doesn't need to justify it. All they need to do is send a notice to their users asking for consent. How many of them do will read what that entails, and how many of those would decide their privacy is more important for them than facebook?

<comment><USER10> My understanding is that consent is not sufficient. In addition, data collection must directly serve a legitimate business purpose. Though I guess Facebook has lawyers willing to argue that anything they do serves their core business.

<comment><USER11> My reading of it was that you need either consent or a legitimate business purpose, not both.[0]

[0]: Article 6(1), [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32016R0679)

<comment><USER10> Ah, yes. Agreed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is what happens when those in control don't understand, know or care about the things they regulate.

So I guess this is bad.

 _\--goes and reads article--_

> Article 11, requiring online platforms to pay publishers a fee if they link > to their news content, was also approved.

What the fucking FUCK?

Pay to send companies actual traffic? Pay to be allowed to use the basic building-block of the world wide web on the world wide web?

Just how is it possible to be so out of touch with how things work, and still be allowed to pass regulation?

I'm honestly not able to come up with an analogy which sufficiently illustrates just how backwards this whole thing is.

<comment><USER13> The law was basically made at the publisher's behest to get Google to pay them. So far, it has spectularly backfired.

In Germany, Google started to delist news sites from their index. After traffic dropped, the publishers gave Google a license to link freely. Law defeated.

In Spain, they went a bit further and wrote into the law that Google had to list news sites in their index. So Google News shut down in Spain. Law defeated.

I guess, third time's the charm?

<comment><USER14> >>> In Germany, Google started to delist news sites from their index. After traffic dropped, the publishers gave Google a license to link freely. Law defeated.

I don't know the detail but the way you put it seems very fair to me. Law protect publishers against Google, so they can say to Google "no", except that their interest is to say "yes". So they say "yes". Looks to me that even if the end result is the same, the publishers had a say. Without the law, Google takes whatever it wants without asking. Now, it has to ask. Looks fair to me.

<comment><USER15> Except you always have a say in whether or not Google takes any part of your site. Google have always respected robots.txt and it's trivial to block your site, or parts of it, from being indexed and shown in searches.

<comment><USER16> Except you won't be able to delist content without first allowing their crawler to rummage your site and returning 404 to Googlebot. Happened to me - I wanted to delist a single URL because it was generating unwanted traffic but still keep it accessible to those who have a direct link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a EU citizen I have always been (and still am) a strong advocate for the European Union. I think the founding of the European Union was one of the greatest things that could ever happen to European citizens. I full heartedly believe this institution played a major role in retaining the piece after World War 2. The concept of open borders in (most of) Europe is something I would never want to miss.

But seeing the lawmakers fucking up more and more on these kind of laws makes it harder to build a reasonable argument against all the so called "EU critics" (most of the time just straight up racists).

It also makes me wonder if the laws they pass in other areas are as disconnected from reality as this is.

<comment><USER18> Retaining the "piece"... WW2 ended in 1945. The EU came into being in 1993. Was it retaining it in previous guises as a trade federation - the EEC, and before that the European Coal and Steel Community?

Or are you thinking of NATO?

> The concept of open borders in (most of) Europe is something I would never > want to miss.

In what context?

"I don't have to show my passport on holidays - yay!"

or

"people can drive from a ghetto on the outskirts of Brussels with a trunkload of Kalashnikov's, spray bullets at Paris cafe society, and immediately afterwards they can be traced to.....er dunno..."

<comment><USER19> The European Coal and Steel Community was explicitly started to stop war in Europe. As the original proposal of the community said directly: _" The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible"_ [0].

Steel and coal (or more generally energy) are necessary in order to to wage war. Pooling these things in a super national organization makes war between the member states impossible.

[0] [https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe- day...](https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe-day/schuman- declaration_en)

<comment><USER20> This claim that the EU/predecessor organisations have secured the peace since WW2 is often made but I think is impossible to verify, since we have no way of rerunning history without the EU in place. Some point to NATO as far more significant a guarantor of peace than the EU.

<comment><USER19> Yes correlation does not mean causation. But sometimes the correlation is so obvious that it becomes hard to ignore.

So what I would say is this: Ignore this correlation at your mortal peril. The risk is that of total war.

<comment><USER21> Yet the folks who make this assertion about EU helpfulness are all too happy to ignore the correlation with NATO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-307-26993-5](https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-307-26993-5)

 _> According to Columbia professor and policy advocate Wu (Who Controls the Internet), the great information empires of the 20th century have followed a clear and distinctive pattern: after the chaos that follows a major technological innovation, a corporate power intervenes and centralizes control of the new medium—the "master switch."

> Wu chronicles the turning points of the century's information landscape: > those decisive moments when a medium opens or closes, from the development > of radio to the Internet revolution, where centralizing control could have > devastating consequences. To Wu, subjecting the information economy to the > traditional methods of dealing with concentrations of industrial power is an > unacceptable control of our most essential resource.

> He advocates "not a regulatory approach but rather a constitutional > approach" that would enforce distance between the major functions in the > information economy—those who develop information, those who own the network > infrastructure on which it travels, and those who control the venues of > access—and keep corporate and governmental power in check. By fighting > vertical integration, a "Separations Principle" would remove the temptations > and vulnerabilities to which such entities are prone. Wu's engaging > narrative and remarkable historical detail make this a compelling and > galvanizing cry for sanity—and necessary deregulation—in the information > age._

</comment><comment><USER23> This bill pretty much demands that YouTube Content ID like systems are introduced across the web. With the wording, it's better for the site to delete more content on false positives than risk false negatives. All in the name of mighty copyright.

Side effects of these false/negative averse copyright takedown systems can be easily seen on YouTube: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17338700](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17338700)

<comment><USER24> An update to the original article you linked says that the issue was not with Content ID, but is "related to its updated partner agreements."

<comment><USER23> You can take example of any of the other thousands of false postive copyright takedowns happening across YouTube. Android Play Store too.

<comment><USER24> Sure. But not that one.

<comment><USER23> You have a point there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I once wrote a thesis on DMCA and Youtube during that huge Viacom vs Youtube litigation was going on. The copyright holders wanted to shift more of the burden of detecting and blocking copyright breach onto the web services by removing the DMCA safe harbor. Youtube ultimately won the case but they also implemented much of what Viacom wanted anyway - a fairly aggressive content filter that probably caught most of what Viacom wanted. However, the automated systems also prevented the posting of much fair use content since it can't really make the nuanced judgement call between blatant copying and fair uses. If Viacom had won that case, Youtube would have been forced to be much more restrictive in their automated filtering. Other video platforms would either have had to invest in the filtering tech or go out of business. The Coase theorem says that where there are two rational negotiating parties, the laws governing property rights don't really matter. The parties will generally negotiate their way to an optimal outcome. What does matter is the impact of those laws on the transaction costs. The transaction costs are higher for smaller parties and for parties where there is no significant financial interests at stake.

Thus in evaluating these new laws, it's not really Google or big European news that we need to consider - rather we should ask how small news aggregators, independent bloggers, small news outlets, and individual readers going to react to this. Are small content creators going to go through the trouble of negotiating payment schemes with each and every news aggregator and vice versa?

All laws that increase transaction costs will concentrate more market power in larger firms that have the scale to deal with the additional costs and undermine smaller players who do not. Lawmakers focus too much on the Google and the like. Google can look after itself.

<comment><USER26> Regarding the small aggregators, perhaps they shouldn't be aggregating, but rather producing their own content? It's a problem when a blog copies a Reuters or Associated Press article verbatim just to garner some ad views.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A Couple of things:

Mainstream news outlets on this side of the atlantic didn't do much reporting on this vote which might signal tacit support on their part (at least for the link payment portion of this thing which is frankly the sillies part) and that should shape everyone's understanding of their coverage of tech companies in general.

Second, it's hard not to notice that much of what the EU does is trying to hurt US tech companies be that: copyright, GDPR, antitrust, taxes, and many other initiatives the goals of which are to control and "punish" these companies. It's easy to complaint about silly steel tariffs while they keep enacting these trade barriers on US industry, the fact the the news media isn't making that connection brings it back to the first point.

<comment><USER28> > Second it's hard not to notice that much of what the EU does is try to hurt > US tech companies

I totally understand what you are saying, but on the other hand: maybe a lot of US tech companies do unethical/bad things? Antitrust cases must be based on something, so it's not just tariff on tech company products, it's more like a fine for bad behaviour.

<comment><USER29> > Antitrust cases must be based on something

A study of the history of Antitrust would abuse of of that naive thinking.

<comment><USER30> I'm truly not overly familiar with the history of such cases. I'd appreciate some direction on how to undertake such a study. Any good places to start reading about this?

<comment><USER31> I would strongly recommend Tim Wu's _Master Switch_, because it is well- written, and focused on how those conversation influence today controls.

The overall trend in anti-trust is that most of the issue is _not_ that people have done demonstrably bad things: Rockefeller typically would over-pay for the distributors and wells that he purchased–and he was the only buyer. The issue was more that prior to the negotiation, he used often unconventional but legal tactics (like showing his books) to make clear that he could conduct a price war, and would ruin the company that he was offering to purchase. The price he did pay typically was low without that in mind, but every other potential buyer knew as much and stepped away.

The whole debate wasn't focusing on measurable harm, but the ability to threaten, hence a focus on __market share __. Since, it has gone up, to catch less blatant, but not unjustified potential to harm the market: the key measure went from market share to __Lerner index __which measure the ability to raise your own price without loosing share. Apple typically has a small market share of smartphones worldwide, but seem to be able to raise their prices without loosing much sales; that allows them to corner supplies by over-bidding and retain feature exclusivity. It's less morally obvious that this would hurt the market, but some executives at Samsung are probably adamant that this is a major concern, let alone smaller player.

There are still some hard evidence, but the bar has become surprisingly low: three cellphone providers in France were fined one Billion Euros (with a B) for price-fixing, based on the testimony of a taxi driver and a _penciled-in and rubbered-off_ "Ok on Yalta" on someone's notebook (and significant econometric proof that prices stopped going down). The discretionary ability of the Competition Authority becomes key, i.e. they ability to enforce a loosely defined norm of market preservation.

Current trend is closer to consider __dynamic __considerations, the ability of currently non-existent firms to enter the market: has Facebook's ability to purchase Instagram and challenge Snap discouraged entrepreneurs? Facebook did nothing illegal buying one or offering feature that they users enjoyed on the other; however, that behaviour, couple with the ability to invest a lot of developers, can seem threatening and discourage entrepreneurs. Who do you ask if that was significant? Investors who said they wouldn't invest on that basis? Young CS graduates?

 __Disclaimer: __I was personally involved in most of the cases that I mention, either working for the company being looked into, or serving as an expert for regulators. I'm happy to provide context, but none of this should be considered testimony.

<comment><USER30> That's a fantastic response, thanks very much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What I haven't heard mentioned yet is, that for the big companies like Google and Facebook, there won't actually be much change in regards to upload filters, because they already do this. The DMCA has led to quite a similar problem for them, so that for example youtube provides big license holders with backend to decide themselves which videos to block for reasons of copyright infringement. So in the end, they wont even have to do anything, they already have the infrastructure in place to overblock and have indeed done so for many years.

But at the same time, where this becomes really disastrous is smaller communities, where admins and moderators have no chance of checking every post themselves for violations and neither the technological means to do it automatically.

In Germany at least, this was from time to time reason for lawsuits but until now, the consensus of the courts was, that it is enough for the admin to remove the offending content after he was made aware of it. This changes now of course, which makes it practically impossible to offer these kind of services if you are not a big company with huge resources. I know Forums and the like are not as far spread as they once were, but this will make it practically impossible to create these kind of communities.

<comment><USER33> You are right. This bill is a disaster for smaller platforms.

My company [0] built business around Content ID-like technology, so we should be celebrating, but we don't. We are going to announce, that our services will be provided to all impacted platforms free of charge. We are hoping to facilitate licensing deal between rights holders and the platforms, preferably on pay-per-play basis, instead of completely blocking content from being uploaded to the platforms.

It still is not a great outcome, but at least it will not put smaller platforms out of business, and hopefully not completely stiff the innovation.

[0] [https://pex.com](https://pex.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> If I may play the devil's advocate for a moment here, isn't this a boon for decentralizing media? If third-party publishers like YouTube are crippled, perhaps there's more room for self-hosting your content, enabling you to build your brand on your own terms rather than YouTube's? Perhaps it's time to stop outsourcing the publication of our content to third-parties and host it ourselves, especially now that granularly-scaling cloud servers are an option?

But I'm not very familiar with this bill aside from the fact everyone hates it, so someone can probably point out why I'm wrong.

<comment><USER35> I does not matter who hosts. Because, if you haven't paid your royalties, your are not allowed to host the remix/meme/... yourself.

It hurts also decentralization has anybody who provides space becomes responsible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Here's the final document: [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52016PC0593&from=EN)

Searching for "article 11" (the link one) and "article 13" (the filter one) will help you find the relevant paragraphs. They're both very short and fairly easy to understand.

<comment><USER10> That's a document from 2016. It's only "final" in the sense that it's the final version of the Commission's proposal, I think.

[https://edri.org/copyright-reform-document-pool/](https://edri.org/copyright- reform-document-pool/) has a whole lot of different versions of the text, though I don't know how to find out what text was actually voted on today. I expect it to show up at [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?lang=&reference=2016/0280\(COD\)) though apparently that may take a few days.

Anyway, the version at [http://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/35373/st09134-en18.pdf](http://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/35373/st09134-en18.pdf) for example adds the following paragraph to Article 11: "The rights referred to in the first subparagraph shall not apply in respect of uses of insubstantial parts of a press publication. Member States shall be free to determine the insubstantial nature of parts of press publications taking into account whether these parts are the expression of the intellectual creation of their authors, or whether these parts are individual words or very short excerpts, or both criteria."

I don't find this particularly easy to understand, but one reading is "Member States may define article titles to be 'substantial'", in which case any use of them (as in linking) would be prohibited without a license.

<comment><USER37> Agenda: [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2f...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fNONSGML%2bCOMPARL%2bJURI- OJ-20180620-1%2b01%2bDOC%2bPDF%2bV0%2f%2fEN)

Documents: [http://www.emeeting.europarl.europa.eu/committees/agenda/201...](http://www.emeeting.europarl.europa.eu/committees/agenda/201806/JURI/JURI\(2018\)0620_1/sitt-8204228)

Relevant amendment: 746 ([http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COMM...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COMMITTEES/JURI/AM/2018/06-20/1124644EN.pdf))

"including an unwaivable right to equitable remuneration for this use. That unwaivable right to equitable remuneration can be enforced only by a collective management organisation"

(Yes, it took me for ever to find this. I didn't find the results of the voting though)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > They voted to approve the controversial Article 13, which critics warn could > put an end to memes, remixes and other user-generated content.

This won't put an end to memes. It might encourage innovation around decentralization, though. It won't end the internet, but given all of the stuff like this happening recently, it might be time for the internet to evolve. The technologies have been around for a while as a curiosity, and now there might be the market need.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope you're right on this.

Decentralization is what the internet was actually build for. Centralization, on the other side, brought the web to less technical people and thus scaled so massively. Can technical literacy which certainly increased (in some ways) lead to a new era of decentralization or will that be the fatal end of a symbolic "Eternal September"?

<comment><USER39> I was kinda skeptic about federation at first (mastodon, GNU.social etc), but i've installed and tested a nextcloud platform for one of my client and i've been really impressed so far.

It's clunky, a bit bloated (for me, TUI > GUI for 90% of apps, so take it with a grain of salt) and have an average documentation (a pretty good documentation for a free software /s). But despite that, once installed successfully, it is better than most free cloud services i have used imo, except maybe gDrive (integration with email, android calendar and gSuite is hard to beat).

If other federated services can see light, and if people start to care about it, internet will be a better place i think

(sightly related: is lichess federated too? I know you can host a server yourself, but i'm not sure if it's true).

<comment><AUTHOR> A long way to go: Have a professional install nextcloud for you vs. sign up at dropbox.

And that's basically just for hoarding private files.

The network effect makes it even worse: Why should I use XYZ if all my friends are on Facebook/WhatsApp/WhatsOEver?

Decentralized infrastructure (as in email, usenet, irc, ...) needs to have a bigger popularity than every walled garden. Then, the internet will become "a better place" rather than "there is a better niche for hacker kind of people on the net"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I remember the Internet Blackout Day in 2012, to stop SOPA/PIPA.

I'm all in to organize something similar this time as well. The suggested replace snippets and linked titles with [censored by the EU] could work quite well, but it all needs coordination, and big players, like Wikipedia, Google, Twitter.

Please, if you're in a position at large traffic sites, consider doing a campaign.

</comment><comment><USER41> I submitted this link to HN a week ago [1]:

[https://savethelink.org/](https://savethelink.org/)

The site highlights whats going on, and encourages people to write to their MEPs.

If I understand the bill correctly, it will become illegal for 3rd party sites to use all those 'graph' meta-tags that provide rich snippets/previews when you post a link to your status etc. If so, then the impact of this will be _massive_.

\--

[1] but it failed to get any traction.

</comment><comment><USER42> Vint Cerf AND Tim Berners-Lee declare it "an imminent threat to the future of the Internet." Then Cory Doctorow calls it foolish. This feels like a no- brainer for opposition.

<comment><USER40> Those voices don't seem to reach MEPs.

<comment><USER43> ... none of those voices are from the EU[*].

(Well, I guess Tim Berners-Lee still is until Brexit finishes.)

<comment><USER40> That shouldn't matter at all, especially when it's about the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's really not very clear what the outcome of this is going to be although it doesn't look good. So "internet platforms" are going to filter all the content we post? Seeing as this isn't going to work properly what is the point of setting it down as a law? Someone's going to end up in court and only then are we going to know exactly how bad it is.

<comment><USER45> I wonder if this can be interpreted as a future edge for distributed platforms like mastodon, where you might not find "the responsible person/company" right away?

<comment><USER46> I'm seeing the opposite, as independent platforms like Mastodon won't be able to implement content ID they won't be complying with this new law, which means it'll potentially become legally dangerous to run Mastodon within the EU. It's like the EU parliament is bent on giving all the cards to Google and Facebook and shutting down European competition...

<comment><USER47> I guess the EU's reasoning is that because there hasn't been any European competition for all these years, there probably won't ever be, so they might as well make those pesky American companies miserable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> EU has long proven record of making laws targeting specific big players and not caring about smaller local businesses and specifically not caring about promoting competition. VAT MOSS disaster didn't generate that much discussion because the ones hurt were busy selling their sweaters on Etsy and didn't have time to take it to the streets.

I just hope with this one we can get some mechanism where you waive your fees/licensing in the html header and then your stuff is freely linked by the engines. Old media will fight for their licenses and fees and die there as sites will just stop aggregating from them. That would be great outcome, they are pretty useless anyway and they give a lot of power to morons currently residing in EU structures. With some luck it can become a win-win. I just hope bloggers and small publishers won't need to run circles just to get their stuff indexed and linked.

<comment><USER49> > _I just hope with this one we can get some mechanism where you waive your > fees /licensing in the html header and then your stuff is freely linked by > the engines._

There's actually a proposal by Axel Voss (the MEP pushing this the most) to explicit forbid waiving it, since previous laws like this "didn't work" because nearly everyone waived their fees... It's truly a disgrace.

<comment> loa-in-backup Horrid! The extension mentioned in parent would be making this whole thing _passable_ , it is really something worth considering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> We are not progressing as a world society. The world is retreating. This is why people of conscience and ethics must double our effects to secure freedom for every person in the world.

I condemn this legislation by the European parliament.

<comment><USER51> The legislation comes from the European Commission. It has been voted for by a committee of MEPs (they don't have the power to make changes to the legislation, but they could have sent it back).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> IIRC, EU citizens helped defeat ACTA by taking to the streets and influencing parliament.

Would I be mistaken in believing it can be done again, even without the additional anti-US/trade treaty attitudes that helped against ACTA?

<comment><USER53> European newspapers are left-leaning, so they were happy to write pieces criticizing free trade treaties.

But now with the proposed link tax in Article 11, the newspapers pretty much support the proposed new copyright law. Without old media, it might be difficult to reach and inform a critical mass of people for demonstrations to happen.

<comment><USER54> "left-leaning". Hehe.

Goes to show how much the left-right axis has tilted to the right since WW2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So, saying this goes into effect, what are the real consequences going to be? If I'm hosting outside the EU, do I have to deal with this Article 13 nonsense?

It's a little funny, we just went through a cycle where people were moving their datacenters off of US territory because of NSA revelations, often to Europe. Are we going to see a backswing now, as EU regulations get more and more onerous (not to mention it keeps coming out that everyone and their brother was doing the same tapping as the NSA did...)?

</comment><comment><USER56> Does anyone have a list of which MEPs voted for and against? I can't find it yet.

<comment><USER51> The minutes will be published in the next few days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Can't wait for the first person jailed for operating a darknet news aggregator with links and thumbnail previews. The horror!

</comment><comment><USER58> _" Those measures, such as the use of effective content recognition technologies, shall be appropriate and proportionate."_

They may as well request providers to deploy magical leprechauns riding on rainbow unicorns, because such "effective" technologies don't exist. Case in point: Google's copyright detection.

</comment><comment><USER41> Managed to find a good legal take on the proposed bill:

[http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2018/06/18/julia- reda-d...](http://copyrightblog.kluweriplaw.com/2018/06/18/julia-reda- discusses-current-proposal-directive-copyright-digital-single-market/)

</comment><comment><USER59> So in the case of this link does that mean that HN would have to pay the BBC or filter the link out?

<comment><USER60> Only for EU IP addresses. Seems like a good way to keep their people ignorant akin to China or NK firewalls. But in a way that appears less authoritarian and "to protect EU business interests".

Lets face it - power structures are terrified of the open communication available today and how everyone is able to organize and see through their BS.

<comment><USER61> Why not just range ban IP addresses originating from the EU? Seems like a simple and fair solution to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I dislike this bill as much as other HNers but writing "Disastrous" in the title makes this look more like an option piece rather than a news piece. How hard is it to ask for news to report facts and for me to decide if the facts are disastrous or not?

</comment><comment><USER63> This copyright bill is a complete disaster.

Here's a potential solution: A third party could create a website that allows website owners to register with them and agree to sell their links for some trivially small amount (if they want to give away their traffic), say .00000001 cents (effectively making it free). Then social sites with potential links would have a list they could check to ensure they're not accidentally linking to sites that require payment.

Sure, it's a hack. imperfect solution to a disastrous regulations.

</comment><comment><USER64> I believe that this bill would make copyleft licenses ineffective. I remember reading a more detailed article, but at the moment all I can find is this post by the FSF[0].

[0]: [https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/free-software-is-at- risk...](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/free-software-is-at-risk-in-the- eu-take-action-now)

</comment><comment><USER65> I'm excited about this. This will boost VPN, Tor and other technologies that protect users from inane regulations.

[https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/cryp...](https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/crypto/cypherpunks/may- crypto-manifesto.html)

<comment><USER66> It is very easy to block VPN, Tor and other technologies. These can be in fact criminalised the same way drugs are. Possession of a VPN on your device could give you a criminal record.

<comment><USER65> This will in turn make encrypted devices, plausible deniability setups and steganography more pervasive.

The US lost the crypto wars, EU lost the piracy wars once, and they will lose again.

<comment><USER66> In some countries you can do time for not disclosing passwords. In the UK it is 5 years.

<comment><USER65> Again, this is where plausible deniability setups kick in.

Of course the EU can go full police state, but at that point I hope the regular citizens pushes back.

The goal is to raise the cost of enforcement.

<comment><USER66> Problem is that you cannot pretend you can't remember the password. So unless what you hide can give you more time than for not disclosing the password, then yes having things encrypted could help...

<comment><USER65> You can have different volumes for different passwords.

Plausible deniability.

<comment><USER66> This can be easily checked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> This bill reminds me of the 'Melancholy Elephants'[0] story by Spider Robinson, about the dangers of unchecked copyright.

[0]: [http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html](http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html)

</comment><comment><USER68> Here are the actual votes: [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/149721/juri- committee-...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/149721/juri-committee- result-roll-call-votes-20062018.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER69> Why is this even necessary? Publishers can just block Google Referer: links until Google pays them.

</comment><comment><USER70> Article 13 puts more onus on websites to enforce copyright and could mean that every online platform that allows users to post text, sounds, code or images will need some form of content-recognition system to review all material that users upload.

</comment><comment><USER71> The pro-Brexit people must be happy with this news.

"No, don't pay any attention to our complete lack of planning despite us wanting to leave the EU for decades. Pay attention to this thing they've done instead!"

</comment><comment><USER72> I hope it goes through and it truly is 'disastrous'. People who make bad laws need to be held accountable. And I'm sure they will be after the affects of this law are seen first hand.

</comment><comment><USER73> See everything evens out at the end, you get some good and some bad. In this case the good we got is the G.D.P.R. and the bad is this. Its like karma, it evens out eventually.

</comment><comment><USER74> They should stop beating around the bush and pass a law that says, "Google must share ad revenue with all links returned by the search that generated the revenue."

</comment><comment><USER75> As a european citizen, I fear that this marks the beginning of a new age of china-like censorship in europe. The EU was a very nice idea that got executed very badly.

</comment><comment><USER76> Maybe I don't understand the Article 11, but does it essentially mean problems for Hacker News?

</comment><comment><USER77> "This content is not available in your region" should go on their flag.

</comment><comment><USER78> Can we just block Europe? Like, partition the internet or something... /s

<comment><USER79> This is likely what's gonna happen if these bills get passed. The Chinese GFW has created a "Chinternet" already, which not only blocks access to Google, Facebook, etc., but also throttles the bandwidth going out of China down to 1990s dial-up modem speed. The EU is not authoritarian but I suspect that EU regulators may do the same to block US websites that do not comply with their copyright laws in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> > _it requires online platforms to pay publishers a fee if they link to their > news content._

This is such ridiculous government overreach. Forcing people to create a business transaction that neither party wants?? The EU was a mistake.

</comment><comment><USER81> So corruption prevailed?

<comment><USER82> Corruption always prevails in the end. Humanity is weak. We are no better than babboons with diseased brains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Honestly, I think it might be better if these old news companies die off, and clear space for a newer generation that understands the internet better. We have 20 years years of anecdata now.

The old news publishers will never make it online. They see their financials problems as being cause by a moral failing in society: " _People do not value quality, and won 't pay for it_" or somesuch. They see the solutions as legalistic. Some law or industry association which will guarantee them an income.

Meanwhile, on their own sites... They run one small square of content, overlaid and surrounded by loud, flashing ads. They plug in every last bit of ad-spy software available. They run fake news, via their "native content" widgets selling scams using blatant lies on literally fake news articles. Kettle, meet Pot.

The only solutions they can think of are legalistic. An industry association that can stand up to google and demand money. A law that guarantees someone (anyone) pays them.

There's no vision. The few, moderate paywall success stories are considered revolutionary. What does this add up to? Eveyone picks a newspaper or two, subscribes and reads just them? Have you not noticed how the internet works?

Meanwhile, at least 50% of any broadsheet is straight plagiarism. Plagiarism is normal in news media. Does a paper pay another paper when they report on a report? Does twitter (or trump) get paid when your front page is an article about a tweet? Kettle, remember Pot from before?

I really think there's no hope. Most of these dinos aren't going to make it. Don't let them break the internet on their way out.

<comment><USER84> >Honestly, I think it might be better if these old news companies die off, and clear space for a newer generation that understands the internet better. We have 20 years years of anecdata now.

The internet isn't some hip new technology only the young people understand. You act as if old media companies must still use rotary phones and manual typewriters, but these companies have changed with the decades and have adapted to the internet like everyone else. They understand the internet perfectly well, they just disagree with you about how they should use it.

<comment><USER83> I'm claiming that many/most news companies that formed their culture in the pre-internet days have failed to find stable business models, and they are looking to legislation for a fix.

<comment><USER84> But most companies on the internet have failed to find a stable business model - including companies which presumably do "understand the internet better." Even Google has trouble making money on Youtube, which is about as new media as new media gets. That problem isn't unique to pre-web companies or their cultures, it's a result of the nature of the web itself.

<comment><USER83> I'm not saying if you started before a certain year you are guaranteed to fail, I'm observing that many did.

I'm also observing that they are trying to solve their problems by lobbying for specific laws, ones that (imo) are, on balance, bad.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kia demonstrates mild hybrid auto drivetrain with lead-carbon battery - <AUTHOR> http://www.automobilemag.com/auto_shows/geneva/2014/1403-kia-dual-clutch-transmission-mild-hybrid-system/

<comment><AUTHOR> Personal research opinion is that the lead-carbon battery is one made by Axion Power (AXPW), called the PbC.

The PbC has a carbon based electrode, which allows fast charge acceptance and discharge. In addition it has a long life cycle because unlike normal lead acid batteries, the carbon electrode doesn't sulfate. Thus, the PbC is ideal for hybrid and storage applications.

This is a first real alternative to lithium based batteries, which has high cost and safety issues.

www.axionpower.com</comment>


Las Vegas Bets on Elon Musk's Boring Company for Tunnel Project - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/6/18252302/boring-company-las-vegas-dig-plans-2021 <comment><USER2> I just don't understand how a tunnel filled with Tesla cars can work in practice. Do you walk to a "station" and load into a Tesla? This sounds a lot more complex than loading in a regular PeopleMover or automated train. There would need to be two tunnels or some kind of turnaround point.</comment>


Final draft of ECMA-262 (ECMAScript 3.1) has been published - <AUTHOR> http://www.ecma-international.org/news/PressReleases/PR_Ecma_finalises_major_revision_of_ECMAScript.htm <comment><USER2> I thought this release was supposed to have ActionScript style optional type annotations and classical inheritance. Not to say I'm sad to not see them here (JS being dynamic and prototypal seems nicer to me), but anyone know what happened to those?

<comment><USER3> The latest official ECMAScript standard is ECMAScript 3rd edition from 1999. Since then there have been several attempts to create an upgrade, known as ECMAScript 4. For example ActionScript 3 and Microsofts JScript.Net is actually based on an abandoned ECMAScript 4 proposal from around 2000-2003, a spec that way heavily influenced by Java. A new ECMAScript 4 effort started a few years ago with Brendan Eich as editor, which was more inspired by dynamic and functional languages.

However the new ECMAScript 4 spec was pretty large and ambitious, and some parts of the working groups called for a lesser, incremental spec release to fix some of the most needed fixes. This proposal was called ECMASCript 3.1. Then it was decided to scale the ambitious ECMAScript 4 spec back, and this scaled back version (which is still in flux) is called ECMAScript Harmony.

Now ECMAScript 3.1 has been released, but they have decided to give it the official name ECMAScript 5th edition, thereby leapfrogging the 4th edition! This might be because "ECMAScript 4" have gotten a bad name because of the several failed attempts. Also, it is obviously confusing when widely different specs gets the same name.

Harmony will then probably be 6th edition, and if some of the features from ES4 which was culled from Harmony appears in a later spec, it might be in 7th edition!

<comment><USER2> Ah yes, that rings a bell—thanks for the thorough refresher!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has anyone digested this to summarize the significant changes/improvements?

<comment><USER5> A quick look. I may have got a few details wrong, since the standard is rather terse:

JSON support (adds Internaltype.prototype.toJSON, JSON.parse and JSON.stringify).

Object.create now exists, allowing you to create an object from another object's prototypes and, optionally, a set of properties (i.e. equivalent to var constructor = { }; var blah = new constructor(); blah.prototype = originalobject.prototype;). JavaScript has been crying out for this for years.

There's also ways of preventing modifications to objects (Object.preventExtensions, Object.seal, Object.freeze) and ways to check them (Object.isFrozen, Object.isExtensible and Object.isFrozen).

Data objects have new properties: writable (i.e. whether something is read only), enumerable (i.e. whether it appears in a for-in loop) and configurable (i.e. whether deletable).

It now exposes most internal properties of objects via defineProperty/defineProperties, getOwnPropertyNames, getOwnPropertyDescriptor and hasOwnProperty. I think this is what it does anyway: it seems a little subtle when combined with the interaction of prototypes. One subtlety is that it provides syntax for interaction with the properties of HTML elements.

I believe it has warm Microsoft support and IE8 already implements large parts of this standard, so it's going to be usable sometime in the future.

<comment><USER6> > enumerable (i.e. whether it appears in a for-in loop

Huh? I can see "can appear in a for-in loop", but "appears" is different and I'm not sure why I care or what it even means means. (Appears when is one question.)

<comment><USER5> I meant "whether it can appear". Apologies for any confusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish people would listen to Steve Yegge about marketing...

<http://blip.tv/file/319044/>

...and call this one "Harmony".

<comment><USER3> Harmony is the code name for the version after this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> They changed the version name to 5th edition, thereby skipping the 4th edition.</comment>


Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> Https://www.pcmaffey.com/finally-i-closed-my-linkedin <comment><USER2> This can be said for any social network that plays on the FOMO idea. So LinkedIn is just one of many accounts that one needs to closed down or limit to avoid FOMO.

Social media is a giant psychological and interconnected computer game where no-one but the creator wins. The only way to win is to not play the game. Well done for closing your account.</comment>


Simple to Use Virtual Stock Market game for kids. Need more ideas - <AUTHOR> http://stocksga.me/

<comment><USER2> Hi, I had in the past created a virtual stock market - what sort of ideas do you want?

<comment><AUTHOR> how to make it useful for kids of say Grade 9-12 and upto what level of details is fine to keep. I was initially planning to include F&O into this but dropped the idea. Will commodity trading be useful for kids - to learn how these crude, gold etc</comment></comment>