I agree that HN has jumped the shark. As an example case, I dare you to try to express an opinion on HN which does not toe the party line.
And for those of you about to down-vote this comment: where are the articles pointing out the problems with HN, where are the articles showing the flaws in Lisp, where are the articles which denounce venture-capital-funded startups as the snake-oil of the modern age?
"But those positions are wrong!", the puppeteers cry. Really? Last time I checked, questioning conventional wisdom is what made the modern western world possible.
...where are the articles showing the flaws in Lisp...
I've been reading about Lisp since I first learned of its existence in the early 90s. In all that time I can't think of a really good critical article that I've read about Lisp (there is some decent stuff about the various drawbacks of Common Lisp, or Scheme, or Lisp-1 vs Lisp-2, etc. And then there's some really bad stuff that's just old recycled FUD), but nothing good that really attacks Lisp as a whole critically.
I bet if such an article was written, it would actually get very far on Hacker News indeed. I'd certainly be interested to read it!
I get upmodded when I criticize Lisp or useless startups. I think people are generally receptive to things that are contrary to the party line. Most of my Apple-hate comments don't even get downmodded anymore.
I don't think HN has jumped any sharks in this respect. But we do get a lot more "popular" articles now, and these lead to a lot of controversial-but-substanceless comments, which are annoying. (And I'm not saying I'm not guilty of writing comments like that, BTW.)
I was at the OOPSLA (+- a few years of 2002) where Gabriel denounced being a programmer and claimed to be a "code poet"... Looking at dreamsongs it looks like he's mostly followed through on that statement.
> where are the articles pointing out the problems with HN
There's guidelines telling you what to do with this feedback. Better to contact them directly with feedback than post an article.
> where are the articles showing the flaws in Lisp
Heresy. Lisp has no flaws. But I'd read a well written article on the subject.
> where are the articles which denounce venture-capital-funded startups as the snake-oil of the modern age
I remember reading plenty of those. There is a lot of information/articles around about bootstrapping and running without VC funding. It does help to browse around rather than just reading the homepage. Some good articles unfortunately don't get the upvotes they deserve. C'est la vie.
Actually jfornear, yes it is visionary. To think otherwise means you have only skimmed their material.
Based on their posts, they appear to be positioning themselves as a "Facebook Killer" solely to take advantage of the current backlash against Facebook (considering their current funding, I would say it's working). What they are attempting to create transcends anything we currently have; the closest you might come would be if you hosted a cryptographically secured peer-to-peer server only your friends could access (once you have that, now make it easily replicable and spread it across the net).
"Reason: Is Britain irrevocably on the road to serfdom?
Hayek: No, not irrevocably. That's one of the misunderstandings. The Road to Selfdom was meant to be a warning: "Unless you mend your ways, you ll go to the devil." And you can always mend your ways.
Reason: What policy measures are currently possible to reverse the trend in Britain?
Hayek: So long as you give one body of organized interests, namely the trade unions, specific powers to use force to get a larger share of the market, then the market will not function. And this is supported by the public because of the historic belief that in past the trade unions have done so much to raise the standard of living of the poor that you must be kind to them. So long as this view is prevalent, I don't believe there is any hope. But you can induce change. We must now put our hope in a change of attitude.
I'm afraid many of my British friends still believe, as Keynes believed, that the existing moral convictions of the English would protect them against such a fate. This is non- sense. The character of a people is as much made by the institutions as the institutions are made by the character of the people. The present British institutions contribute everything to change the British character. You cannot rely on an inherent "British character" saving the British people from their fate. But you must create institutions in which the old kinds of attitudes will be revived which are rapidly disappearing under the present system.",
on the (historically) current effect of unions is priceless.
I keep wondering how long it will be until the people of the U.K. realize whose company they are in (Russia and China), pull their heads out of their @$$, and reverse course.
I am also in the process of canceling my Facebook account. But I am doing so in a way which will (hopefully) educate my Facebook friends on the "Why?" part (i.e., posting links to relevant web-pages).
We are not going to achieve critical mass simply by walking away ourselves.
If only the silence meant that people were sharpening their pitchforks. Unfortunately, this is the USA -- we would rather die by a thousand paper-cuts than stand up and say "No!"...
Particularly when those cuts are delivered by people wrapped in the flag, promising safety.
It seems we have healthier debate over the government's ability to pass blanket public-space no-smoking laws, than the executive's new-found legal ability to ignore the constitution, the judicial and the legislative at its whim.
You can get tens of thousands to protest the deficit, or health care reform, or gay rights - but the steady erosion of our rights barely raises an eyebrow.
It's the whole "I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care if they are watching me" standpoint that most people have. The problem of course is that the people watching you are the ones who decide what's wrong. Of course there is the famous other quote: "If I have nothing to hide then why do you need to watch me?" or something like that.
I like that quote. It is a good description of what happens when people ignore basic rights infringements. The core of the US's glory is our rights, and if we let them be taken away for any reason... well... that's not why I came to the US.
In any case, what was the quote from Ben Franklin? "He who lets his rights be taken away in the name of security, deserves neither."
Obama selected Joe "I wrote the Patriot Act" Biden as his VP. This is the same Joe Biden who tried to ban Turing machines because they could be used to encrypt files that the government would be unable to crack.
Plenty of people knew this, but voted for Obama anyway.
For many people, "the government is violating privacy rights" is not a genuine policy position. It's just a club to beat their political opponents with.
This is not how US politcs works. If you agree with a side on some points and disagree with others you are ostracized by all groups. It is stupid, but unfortunately the US is a place where (for example) you are pro-death penalty and anti-abortion or pro-abortion and anti-death penalty. If you are pro both or anti both, almost everyone hates you.
You almost had a point here, but your unfortunate choice of terms demonstrates a lot of what's wrong with US politics. Rather than referring to the pro-choice movement as such, you've adopted a label, pro-abortion, that is simply misleading. Here we have a debate over women's reproductive health rights, and it gets reduced to misleading soundbites like "pro-abortion."
In the same way, I think much of what is being protested in this thread comes from the false dichotomy between "pro-security" and "anti-security" that ignores how important the ideals of personal rights are to the debate. US politics is well-characterized by a practiced reduction of complex political issues to misleading soundbites.
Just goes to highlight why electoral reform is important. When we start talking about more expressive ballots (i.e. expressing more than just a tactical first preference), your options aren't nearly as limited.
I have no idea where you got this info but it is not true. I'm not a big Biden fan but he did not have anything to do with crafting the Patriot Act. Here, go to the Wikipedia article and do a search for Biden, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_USA_PATRIOT_Act , you'll come up empty. You will find names like Specter, Leahy, Sarbanes, Lott, Hatch, Daschel, etc. Biden did vote for it, but so did 98 of his useless colleagues. Russ Feingold was the only true patriot in the senate.
"When I was chairman in '94 I introduced a major antiterrorism bill--back then,...I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up [the Patriot act] was my bill." - Joe Biden
Whatever you may think about Joe Biden, I can guarantee you he's a better VP than Sarah 'Drill baby drill' Palin (who now, ironically, has a TV series on Discovery where she talks about the natural beauty of Alaska that she kept trying to destroy).
(The comment I am about to make is not supported by a link to a paper published by a widely respected, peer-reviewed scientific journal. You can safely assume that it contains nothing but falsehood and moderate accordintly.)
It's possible that the purpose of the comment was merely to express an opinion, and that the commenter had no intention of persuading you, or anyone else, of anything.
Right, cuz that's what we're about here at HN, just expressing opinions. We don't care about which opinions are right or wrong, we just want people to be able to express themselves and have a positive self image.
I'm happy he just said what he meant, instead of all the 'extensive footnoting' that sometimes goes on here. Footnotes do not make your arguments more solid, on the web you can find articles to link to support just about any position.
No extensive footnoting is needed for saying that the sky is blue. The evidence of Palin's incompetence is easily available to anyone with an actual interest.
Whatever you may think about implementing an entire e-commerce site in full-screen Flash and flat XML files, I can guarantee you it's a better solution than implementing an entire e-commerce site in a hybrid Java and ActiveX environment with an Access 97 backend.
Yes, and if your "ballot" had only had those two options, I would hope that you choose the former, as horrendous as it is. What's really objectionable, though, is that the political system in the US effectively presents you with a narrow set of unpalatable options.
An audience of voters that has been given two options, one of which is a disaster on wheels will choose the lesser of two evils. America needs a serious third party contender.
I think people will protest what they know about. Regardless of your opinion on the people taking part in the tea party protests, there are a lot of people taking time off work or away from other activities to go to rallies. The economy is the front and center issues right now, and I really don't know what has to happen for online privacy to get a stage.
I am more concerned about the organizations that were so vocal during the last administration, since they seem to be out to lunch now. I really think your beliefs about what is right and wrong shouldn't change just because someone else got the job. I guess I want consistency of message and action.
> "I am more concerned about the organizations that were so vocal during the last administration, since they seem to be out to lunch now."
Which organizations and how has their message or activity changed? Last I checked the EFF and ACLU were rolling right along with their press releases, briefs and lawsuits.
> "I really don't know what has to happen for online privacy to get a stage"
How about this? Why is this not enough?
Why was the revelation of wholesale privacy invasion as in the well-publicized AT&T/San Fran case not enough?
Why is the revelation of easy-access warrant-free 'meta-data wiretapping' not enough?
"Why is this not enough?" - this is a little higher Maslow's hierarchy then worries about jobs. Plus, the fourth estate has totally failed the people by not going after this. I am still amazed with a 24-hour news cycle how little is covered.
Some technical understanding of this issue is prerequisite to understanding how the negative consequences outweigh the positive.
Most of the tea-bagging protesters are protesting stuff that is way over their head, but they don't need a good technical understanding of since the issues are dumbed down to terms which fit their competence. I'm afraid this issue has been dumbed down as well. "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about."
Of course they'll treat this like a once-size fits all psuedo-ratiocination and utter it whenever something about "privacy on the internet" pops up.
Basically, I don't think this'll find its way on stage until it's too late. Like roc said, this alone should be enough.
I really don't believe anything anybody says when they use phrases like "tea-bagging", "tree hugger",or "pinko". I have lived in rural areas most of my life, and I don't think any of the current discussion is over these people's heads. I think it is a comfortable way of dismissing and diminishing people. It makes you feel superior. This has happened since the beginning of the country (ignorant colonists) through the ages (anti-war protestors, suffrage).
Sorry for the misunderstanding. Just to be clear I wasn't actually disagreeing with you. Just adding to what you said.
So you don't like the phrase "tea-bagging" and you don't like someone seemingly decreasing a group of people's relative value. I'm on your side.
Saying "tea-bagging" was lazy. Forgive me. As for the second cause for offense (perhaps too strong a word), well someone has to be qualified to make decisions. That's why we're a republic and not a democracy, because a mob (a group of people) can be ignorant.
And keep in mind that I was talking about technical understanding, not intelligence.
Anyway, I don't really have time for this right now, which is part of the reason I wasn't too careful choosing my words before. And this post will probably turn out to be not-so-fleshed out too, which I don't really care about right now.
I tend to get a little touchy about this type of "word" stuff.... Your right, mobs are often ignorant, but some of the key moments in our history of civil rights were described by one side as mobs.
I am not sure technical understanding is really the necessary item. I think it comes down to understanding the implications on your daily life. I know I get caught up in explaining the technical workings of things, but the best explanations to a general audience are almost always the little stories about what this will do in real life (tech example: technical specifications vs an Apple product introduction).
I guess I am in "the technical understanding makes it much easier to see all the implications, but I think understanding just the implications is good enough" camp. I am not sure this is a good thing, but with all the stuff in life, it might have to do.
Taking an example, I think the whole school webcam spying story is ripe for this type of thing. Really, I think the technical understanding is well above the heads of most people (including some tech writers I see). But, the implications won't be lost on any father of a teenage daughter. I expect that with our current media's prejudice towards the juicy, if the student who was suspended at the start of this was female and not male, well...
I appreciate why you're touchy, but think about it:
GOVT DEATH PANELS!
That's all you need to know, to realize that the assessment of "semi-facts, lies, and emotion blended into an easily palatable gruel" is, in fact, the majority of Tea Party-er thinking.
Not all of the people who are against socialized healthcare believe the "death panel" idiocy. Not all of them pretend they're doing some revolutionary act by joining the Tea Party.
But they're all hopelessly ignorant of how socialized medicine really works. And what the word "socialism" means.
Well, putting the whole bill http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text on a billboard would be rather tough, so that's the sound bite that summarizes some of the believed implications of section 3403.
This actually goes along with the back and forth between myself and RevRal. To have a technical understanding of the bill, you probably need to be a serious specialist lawyer (after waiting for the RFP and rule making). Since most people don't fit those qualification, you tend to see people explaining the implications to people. One of the implications mentioned is cutting off money to do life saving procedures based on a medical panels ruling. In a world where people use the words "prolife" and "prochoice", I don't think "GOVT DEATH PANELS" is such a stretch.
(now to really wander) As to government socialized medicine. I grew up under US gov provided health care. They very nearly killed one family member, lost critical records on another, and misdiagnosed my and my brother's backs. I don't think all of those people are "hopelessly ignorant". I would imagine quite a few have family members "served" by the VA. Go google IHS and "don't get sick in June".
> It is well established that socialized medicine entails rationing.
Every system entails rationing.
In a private system, your resources and your choices determine how decisions are made.
In a "public" system, govt decides. Yup - they'll take resources that you might have used for for your care and spend it on someone else and deny you care.
We already hear "we're not going to pay to care for fatties or smokers". If they're not going to get care, I think that it's wrong to take their money. That's just me.
At the risk of being further downvoted :).
The proper definition of "rationing" is ; Government allocation of scarce resources and consumer goods, usually adopted during wars, famines, or other national emergencies.
http://www.answers.com/topic/rationing
The conflation of private and governmental actions is exactly one of the things that has gotten us into the current troubles. If I choose to buy cake and not pencils today, I am not rationing myself. If the government says I can only have so many pencils or cake, I am subject to rationing.
Government is the only authorized agent of force. Private citizens are not allowed to force others to do their bidding. That is against the law: you cannot take my cake from me by force. Unfortunately, with our government becoming more and more unlimited, the force it can exert is correspondingly larger.
> Most of the tea-bagging protesters are protesting stuff that is way over their head
Oh really? You need to keep up. While the story used to be "ignorant", when folks actually looked at them, instead of relying on the US-lef "anyone who opposes me must be dumb" stereotype, they found that the Tea Party folks were, on the whole, better educated etc.
Man, this whole tea-party thing was fairly inconsequential to the point I was trying to make. I brought it up as an example and because my parent brought it up.
This was the supplement I was trying to tack onto my parent's comment: "Some technical understanding of this issue is prerequisite to understanding how the negative consequences outweigh the positive." This concerning internet privacy.
And I said "tea-bagging protesters" as a quick, lazy, way to refer to a group of people. My intent wasn't pejorative, but I am aware of the sexual act. I just didn't make the connection while writing.
I am aware of the seething tone of my comment, but besides that I didn't say anything untruthful. I could have said this:
Most [members of almost any group of people] are [discussing|protesting] stuff that is way over their head, but they don't need a good technical understanding of since the issues are dumbed down to terms which fit their competence.
I emphasized the word "need" for a reason.
If a person has a low level of competence or technical understanding of a subject, then it makes sense that you're going to have to dumb down the communication in order for them to get some semblance of understanding.
Thus, we place our trust in qualified experts. Thus we (generally) accept what is taught to us in schools about chemistry and mathematics, because it's better than re-learning it for ourselves and because we assume we're learning from an expert.
But my position on internet privacy is a little different. I feel that you do need a minimal technical understanding of the issue. A technical understanding that most people don't have, thus the issue slips by. All this in response to this part of my parent's comment: "I really don't know what has to happen for online privacy to get a stage."
So again, I'm basically saying I don't think this'll find its way on stage until it's too late. Because there aren't enough people who have enough technical understanding of this issue.
So, This: Some technical understanding of this issue is prerequisite to understanding how the negative consequences outweigh the positive.
Then the Tea-party thing as an example of where the issue would slip through (though I admit I may be wrong on this point).
Then This: I don't think this'll find its way on stage until it's too late. Because there aren't enough people who have enough technical understanding of this issue.
Anyway, this is all my fault for not writing clearly enough. I'm outta here. I should also apologize if I sound like an irritated a-hole. I didn't sleep last night.
So let's say we have a process that has consequences.
If I get you right, you believe the crowd doesn't need a technical understanding of the process as long experts (people with the technical understanding) provide a dumbed-down explanation. Except in the case of internet privacy where the crowd needs a minimal technical understanding of the issue. My basic belief is that a minimal explanation of process and an explanation of the consequences of the process is enough for the crowd.
Would you say internet privacy is different from say health care because of the technical nature or because it is more abstract or......
> But my position on internet privacy is a little different. I feel that you do need a minimal technical understanding of the issue.
> Some technical understanding of this issue is prerequisite to understanding how the negative consequences outweigh the positive.
What technical understanding do you think that someone needs in this case?
I'll help - do they need to understand more than "if your mail is hosted by Yahoo, Yahoo stores it" and "if your mail is in outlook, it's on your machine or that of your employer"? Those those two pieces of information establish where your mail is stored both before and after reading.
Note that the distinction that the DoJ was trying to make, that read mail stored outside your control isn't private, is not a technical issue, but a legal one.
> And I said "tea-bagging protesters" as a quick, lazy, way to refer to a group of people.
If it had been a similar reference about a different group of people, you have been driven out as a racist.
On the contrary, living in Europe I see you in the US as a great example of society which dares to stand up and say "No!". By comparison, you are exceptionally well-educated, conscious and actively taking care of your rights.
Living in the US, I accept the claim that not many get together to say "No". Compare to Asian/European countries where the slightest rift creates huge protests.
To cite UK as an example, we always hear British Airways going on strikes(not saying it's a good/bad thing); When was the last time we heard such a thing in the US? I often bring this up in conversations and a common argument thrown at me is that US is an individualistic society - neighbors are strangers to each other. Not all are interested in the big picture to change things. The common man in the US, lured by the media is content in accepting stories on the face value. I have this friend who listens to the radio archives of 60s/70s and often cites "Weather Underground" as an example of changing face of US.
could you provide some cases where in the last 20 years you see "US as a great example of society which dares to stand up and say "No!""
> Living in the US, I accept the claim that not many get together to say "No". Compare to Asian/European countries where the slightest rift creates huge protests.
What gives you the impression that "the slightest rift causes huge protests" in Asia and Europe?
I will be oversimplifying now, but still my observation is that in western Europe most people who oppose to something are those for whom it's a way of life, like leftists (or, contrary, extreme right-wing people). Insane example: people who created Baader-Meinhof, they didn't remotely know the real sides of life of the people they supposedly represented; they just found a way to utilize rage and pump their egos.
On the other hand there are post-communist countries, where I come from, where most of the people just don't care; they look at the west, want to become a middle class and they choose to be opportunistic.
But in the US people, common folk -- not any extremists, even if they just want to be a middle class, are quite good informed what they want, what the govt should do for them and what not, and are caring of it. This is deeply rooted in a foundation of the US.
Maybe you will have a clue what I have in mind when you compare the bureaucracy needed to create and maintain a business in the US and in the EU.
> I used to live 15 minutes from the Capitol Building.
So you lived in the imperial seat in the US, the one are where 75% of people are working for the government (directly or indirectly), and the one place that actually GREW during the current recession ... and you use that background to argue that Americans-as-a-whole are naive and love big intrusive government?
Capitols attract protests. I work two blocks from my state capitol, and I see more protests than I have anywhere else. I doubt the percentage of government employment is as high here, but it's still decently high.
There are more variables involved than you're accounting for. I'd say your logic is more flawed than hers.
I also live a few blocks from my state capitol building and I rarely see protests. Maybe one or two a year with 20 or 30 people. It just doesn't happen.
There have been crazies ranting about how the government reads all your e-mail for years. Now that they're ACTUALLY trying to do that, no one is listening, because it's the same message as before.
If the people spouting unfounded conspiracy theories all the time would just shut the hell up, then maybe people wouldn't see this as crying wolf.
> There have been crazies ranting about how the government reads all your e-mail for years.
Yeah, those of us who were protesting Bill Clinton and Al Gore's backing of the Clipper Chip 17 years ago were just lunatics. It's not like we managed to stop a horrible government program or anything. It's YOU young heroes who are the first ones EVER to stand up for your rights against government monitoring communications.
I'm not sure if they read all email, but they definitely warrantlessly monitored telecommunications during the Bush administration, severely enough that our government had to pass a bill saying you couldn't sue your phone company for breaking surveillance laws.
And for those of you about to down-vote this comment: where are the articles pointing out the problems with HN, where are the articles showing the flaws in Lisp, where are the articles which denounce venture-capital-funded startups as the snake-oil of the modern age?
"But those positions are wrong!", the puppeteers cry. Really? Last time I checked, questioning conventional wisdom is what made the modern western world possible.