skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> mass extinctions happened already five times, and humans had nothing to do with those. But now, when it supposedly happens for a sixth time, it's our fault.

Mass extinctions happen for different reasons. What you're saying is tantamount to: "well, it was a cataclysmic volcano ice age that got us last time, so this asteroid could not possibly be dangerous."

> All these evil humans, farming and logging and settling, destroying all the other species. If only the humans would go away, then the other species could live in peace.

It's not about evil. We're transforming the planet, yes, and it's important to be mindful about it, but nobody except a very small fringe is advocating human extinction to rescue species. Instead, what we're realistically doing is gathering data on how we're impacting biodiversity, and how we can minimize that impact in the future. This is going to be a gradual process, but we've been moving in that direction for a long time and will likely continue to do so.

> Of course HN is predominantly left-leaning, so here come the downvotes

I don't think that's true or fair, HN is a mix really. The problem is that your statements about extinction are objectively wrong. Being scientifically literate is not a left wing trait (however, I do make this assertion as a foreign outsider looking in, so I could be wrong).
The whole point of a union is to benefit its members contra the interests of their employer. The problem with public sector unions is that they benefit government employees contra the interests of the public.
Life will continue, that's for sure. Even a nuclear wipe-out will very likely not erase all traces of life from Earth.

Keep in mind that humans are also just a single species and with global air travel and enormous numbers we're setting ourselves up for a pandemic. Nature loves large numbers of well connected individuals in close proximity.

And the way we're using anti-biotics could come back to bite us.
What do you mean by small things? Is a butterfly a small thing? Is a billion butterflies also a "small thing"?

It's not a question of fallacy--it's a question of judgment. Are humans "big enough" to have such a big effect on nature as a whole? This is the question that we have yet to answer for certain. Many people assume that we are more powerful than we have proven to be.

There is a fallacy, though: that of confusing correlation for causation. What is indeed bizarre is to see people accusing humans of causing mass events that have happened for millions of years without human intervention.
You drew a more accurate picture of reality than about 92 percent of people who have tried so far.
You correctly guessed that children from the very poorest families face tough odds in going to college – only about one in four do.
You underestimated the chances of college enrollment for the very richest children. In reality, about 94 percent of children from America’s richest families go to college. (You guessed around 77 percent.)
I am not a supporter of private prisons, but in the public system little of the cost base is variable. If you did not have such guarantees in place then the state would use the private prisons as the provider of swing capacity and hence make it non-viable since private prisons have the same fixed cost structure.
"The first billion is a helluva of a lot harder..." http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-11-05/t-dot-boone-...
Everyone's Not So Favourite Driver
That's the bit that gets missed. Smart Stanford grads might not be initially effective at doling out food, but sometimes their smarts can do a lot more for their supply chain or donor base than their future cashflow from a conventional job.
Now try and compute the same ratio for the XIX, XVIII, XVII, etc. centuries. Really.
Life hacks. On a date in Sweden? Arrange your buddy to send you a text message saying you just saved someone's life. Watch jealousy turn to desire when you get a text message (another girl??), and say, "Oh - I just saved someone's life. See?"

I'm just kidding. My real point is that a mailed letter (or email) sounds more appropriate than a text message. But then again maybe not!
Totally agree. My guess about the curve was wrong the same way as yours and the authors.

If that data's real then I want to know why it's tied to income and not something like wealth.

One wild theory.. quotas are based to income somehow, and that impressively straight line is because admissions officers are really good at their jobs.
it doesn't really matter, does it? I wouldn't ask here, it's not everyone's business.

(not that it implies anything specific, it's just not really strangers' business - OP has detailed profile info up. I would ask in private if you really want to know.)
In different countries, there are various reasons, some better than others. Chronic illnesses like hepatitis, having had gay sex, having lived in Britain in 1980's. These contribute some risk to donating blood.
Will Fitbit Go the Way of the Palm Pilot?
India has been successfully using EVMs for elections since the turn of the century [1].

And an Indian General Election is no menial task. In the latest election of 2014, 814.5 million people were eligible to vote, making it the largest-ever election in the world. A total of 8,251 candidates contested for 543 seats in the Indian parliament. The average election turnout was around 66.38% [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_machines

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_general_election,_2014
Nokia 6300
This is true, I would expect a number of countries to be able to pull it off if they were inclined to. Iran, Russia, China, Syria, US, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia. Those are the choices. Palestine is very unlikely - though they have used video games in the past. Since the target is Syria it rules out China and Russia and Syria. Iraq is in essence a provincial government and isn't do that on its own accord. Iran could, but they aren't in the video game making business. Neither is Saudi Arabia. Given the DoD's investment in expanding propaganda operations to new media including video games, the US makes a lot of sense - though it would make some sense too if it was joint with Turkey.

No smoking gun and not strong enough evidence to assume it, but it's not a crazy speculation.
> My impression is that HN's readership is mostly left-leaning.

That is because you are so far-right. Everything looks left wing from over there, even the soft right wing that makes up most of HN.
You forgot Booth Capturing, the most blatant threat of all [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booth_capturing
>Is it not possible that there are natural forces and cycles at work, far larger than we can comprehend or control?

When you are presented with any situation in your life it's always possible that you have incomplete information and there is the theoretical possibility of some 'uncomprehendable' factor at work. In response to that dilemma you could refuse to ever try and make any action to improve your life because you might have misunderstood the situation. You could believe that any attempt to gain knowledge and act on that knowledge is wrong because there are always greater 'mystical' forces at play and you can never be sure if you are right. That is a radically anti-science and anti-civilisation position.

It's funny that in your desire to absolve yourself and the political and economic systems you support from any kind of responsibility you have ended up holding a position that is more politically extreme than even most radical super left wing anarcho-primitivist. Namely that any attempt to understand or interact with the world at all is futile because of mystical forces.
Same in France, except that it is so high that CDs are ~10x the price of the ones in Germany (literally) so everyone is buying their CDs in Germany instead (or any other country, even the UK has cheaper CDs). Copy related taxes per country in europe: http://static.pcinpact.com/images/bd/news/120599.png (In French but easily understandable)
Booth Capturing
Well, if it helps, I agree with everything you said. I can't stand reddit. It's totally co-opted.
You left out the source for that quote, but it appears to be from Wikipedia, which has this[1] as a source.

From that article I get the impression that the $100 million refers to all money paid during the existance of Bandcamp, while I suppose the 15B is annual? The article says that Bandcamp has revenue of $3.5 million a month (= $42 million a year), most of which goes to artists.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2015/03/10/direct-t...
Men who have sex with men; intravenous drug use; are the two big restrictions that are common.

http://www.blood.co.uk/giving-blood/who-cant-give-blood/
A point on "best."

There seems to be a lot of interest, some coming from the tech culture of evaluating charity and its efficiency. This is a good thing and could make a lot of difference. But for an individual that wants to give, you don't necessarily need it. You just need to find a destination for your donation. Try to understand that single organisation.

I like the idea of simple things where the money = thing equation is understandable. For example, I have a distant cousin in the Philippines who builds "houses" for squatters with arrangements with land owners. It started after the storm. He lives locally and understands building. It's about £400 per hut. Most of the cost is labour. Materials are largely donated. The crew are locals that he knows. The recipients are living rough otherwise.

This may not scale to millions, but it works for individual donations. IE, you can find a charity that has the capacity to take your donation. Understand what they do and make an effective choice. It's a much easier problem to solve than the "how to make global donations more effective" problem and is really the problem at hand when you make a choice.

Also..

Why was I doing it? Maybe the donation was the equivalent of an agnostic’s prayer, on the off-chance the supernatural listens to altruism.

I like that. I'd apply an atheist version for myself. A prayer to human solidarity and fraternity, the things I hope for. I don't expect to make these things happen personally, but I can offer my prayer.
I was about to say the same: Argentina isn't a "capital" of something, it's a country.
How is that any different from any other software project? You talk to the client about their needs, you agree on the price, and you build it.
> I don't think that's true or fair, HN is a mix really. The problem is that your statements about extinction are objectively wrong. Being scientifically literate is not necessarily a left wing trait (however, I do make this assertion as a foreign outsider looking in, so I could be wrong).

Sure it's a mix, but it seems predominantly left to me. I may be wrong, but I don't think it's possible to prove it either way.

How are my statements about extinction objectively wrong?

> Mass extinctions happen for different reasons. What you're saying is tantamount to: "well, it was a cataclysmic volcano ice age that got us last time, so this asteroid could not possibly be dangerous."

No, you're (probably unintentionally) misrepresenting my point. It would be closer to, "We have no idea whether that asteroid is going to come anywhere near us, and even if it were, it's highly unlikely we could do anything to stop it. However, devoting enough resources to mount a significant attempt to stop it would definitely harm people. So we shouldn't start doing that until it's much clearer that 1) it's going to hit us, and 2) we could stop it."

> It's not about evil. We're transforming the planet, yes, and it's important to be mindful about it, but nobody except a very small fringe is advocating human extinction to rescue species. Instead, what we're realistically doing is gathering data on how we're impacting biodiversity, and how we can minimize that impact in the future. This is going to be a gradual process, but we've been moving in that direction for a long time and will likely continue to do so.

I disagree--evil is involved, at small and large scales. At smaller scales, people are unwilling to admit certain possibilities, because doing so would harm their careers--they are not seeking the truth, but sticking with lies, which is evil. On a larger scale, certain people want to control other people for their own gain, both in power and fortune. That is also evil.

And AGW/climate-change is a powerful vehicle to effect policy change for those in power to preserve and increase their power. CC was promoted as such a policy vehicle back in the 70s, and it's still being used for it today. Very little of the "science" is about actual facts--most of it is about politics.

This undermines the search for the truth. But people who don't recognize this accept the "data" at face value. Then they advocate trying to stop climate change. But doing that would line the pockets of certain powerful, wealthy people and corporations. And it would keep certain parties and nations in positions of weakness. This is why it is ultimately about evil. If all that was being done was "gathering data," that would be fine.
Something else that bugs me is in the inherent contradiction in his advice..

1. tell people about your concept and ask for money.

2. if people give you money start work.

3. you will pivot 20+ times anyway

Wouldn't that be basically like sell a dream and then figure out a product/service that may make money.

Not much different to how YC like Accelerators/Incubators invest in "teams"..

Shouldn't conmen begin to flock towards such "investors" or are they already?
> what does your friend have to do with Hestenes’s paper?

The comment is clearly totally irrelevant, so I did some googling, and it appears that "trane" is a bot created on Kuro5hin by MichaelCrawford, and that references to "Kuro5hin's trane" are some sort of inside joke.

Which in turn makes it look like the non sequitur above was posted by that bot, even if other posts from that account were by human.

In any case it's just adding noise to the conversation.
Canadian government websites go offline after cyber attack
So, how long until someone figures out that they don't actually need to save someone's life to send a text message? And what about using the blood when someone's life is not saved, does that not warrant a text message?

How come the entities using the blood and/or distributing it have access to the phone numbers of the donors?
It's the same on reddit. Large corporations (who are running the show) are themselves putting out this propaganda. Many are right to point out the "Large Corporations" as part of the problem. However, they don't see the greater pattern. As our world becomes ever-more automated, the labour market requires less human workforce. Once the "top" of society have completely automated their profit making, they no longer have a use for the rest of humanity. Hence the propaganda of "You lot are the problem" and everyone is like "oh yes, we're the problem".. WELL, NO. THEY are the problem. What's the solution? Cryptocurrencies and balls of steel, I guess. The whole show is organized and humans no longer form a part of the picture for the overlords so rather than clean up the environment themselves and ALLOW (yes, allow) the use of alternative CLEAN energy, their next ploy is to convince us that we're useless CO2 breathers who are taking up space in their back yard and are no longer necessary - and that "we're the problem". Well, we're THEIR problem I guess... IF we actually did something about it.
I think it's a terrible idea. That reverse track from specific use of blood to phone number of the source should not even exist.
This could work not just for donating blood, but for pretty much any kind of service.

Imagine if you could see, in real time, how your job affects other people's lives, even in the most mundane way. It would let you see the value of what you do, and give you a reason to do it better.
The % of equity is the % of worth that is fulfilled by a $100m purchase. If you receive a $10 off voucher for any purchase in s shop could you tell me right now what the % is?
>Are humans "big enough" to have such a big effect on nature as a whole? This is the question that we have yet to answer for certain.

Yes. We have answer that pretty conclusively. Humans are capable of and have carried out global scale changes to the biosphere.

>What is indeed bizarre is to see people accusing humans of causing mass events that have happened for millions of years without human intervention.

Mass extinction events have not been happening continuously for millions of years. Perhaps that is the cause of your confusion.

Just because something can happen without human intervention doesn't mean humans can't cause it. Trees can fall in the wind, but you would have to be a rather special person to argue that because trees can fall in the wind that it's impossible for a human to cut down a tree (humans being so much smaller than trees).
I think he implied that it is for a dumb reason why he isn't allowed, that's why i asked. But yeah, i shouldn't.
>How is that any different from any other software project? You talk to the client about their needs, you agree on the price, and you build it.

In other software projects I'm used to, you build something to a client's specifications, and with the expectation you will not license the same codebase to their competitors.

That seems pretty different to getting customers to pay up front for a generic product that will be available on the general market.
Announcing the Node.js Foundation
So unfortunate
What's your point?

Here's mine: We don't know for certain how big an effect we actually have. We don't know whether we are actually responsible for these events (e.g. mass extinction, climate change). But what we do know is that trying to prevent or reverse these things would definitely harm real people, right now, while making certain groups more wealthy and powerful, and keeping certain other groups poor and weak.

Therefore, we should not do what we know will certainly cause harm, unless and until we know that not doing it will certainly cause greater harm.
The same story as reported by Ars technica[1] paints the EU law as the hero that produced some slight advances in copyright regulations based on essentially a completely reversed causuality than reported by the eff.

"The UK's music industry has successfully landed a significant judgement from the UK's High Court, countering a copyright exception that was brought in by the UK government last year. Since last October, there was a law that allowed you to make private copies of your own music; now the future of that law is uncertain."

"The UK government brought in the new copyright exception under a European Union directive that gives national governments that power, but which requires compensation to be paid to artists unless the harm caused to them by the change in copyright law is minimal."

It is also fun to contrast the position on the rights holders between the eff:

"Neither can we fully absolve the rightsholders from blame;"

and Arstechnica:

"The refusal to accept gracefully legislative changes is not new for the copyright industry. Perhaps the most egregious example of its dog-in-the-manger attitude [snip]"

[1]: http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/06/music-industry-...
> Now to get Shen running on PicoLisp after Alex adds networking!

That shouldn't be an issue :)
I can actually answer this. The idea that started my company way back in the 1990s was an ok idea, but it was not fantastic. What was fantastic about it was it had a magic balance between complexity and intuitiveness. What happened when I told people about it is was the first 30 minutes they sat there totally confused, but at some point around the 30 to 45 minute mark they would have an eureka moment where everything would fall into place and they would get it. The effect of this was truely amazing - basically people would come to believe that they had thought of it themselves and of course at that point selling was not a problem - people literally gave me large amounts of money for free because of this effect.

I should mention that while I have had much better ideas since (as well as lots of worse ones), none have ever had that magic quality. All I can say is look for ideas that allow people to discover the eureka moment themselves after 30 minutes. Once you have this you almost can't fail to raise money.
Probably the biggest two that we have are mentioned in the article. Blood pressure and cholesterol. Hopefully you are getting your yearly checkups including blood work done.
> It's not a question of fallacy--it's a question of judgment. Are humans "big enough" to have such a big effect on nature as a whole? This is the question that we have yet to answer for certain. Many people assume that we are more powerful than we have proven to be.

Cod stocks collapsed because of over fishing. They recovered when we stopped fishing.

Buffalo went near extinct when we killed most of them.

The passenger pigeon went extinct when we killed all of them.

Dodos went extinct because we killed all of them.

These are all clear and direct examples.

What you're doing is dishonest - "show me something unclear and with complex causes as an example of human destruction, and then when you do I'll quibble with the small areas of doubt provided in your example even though most of science agree the cause was human".
His website is http://www.subbot.org/

His real name is Robert Mitchell. He has a BA in Classical Greek as well as a Master's of some sort from U of Chicago. He worked for several years as a Java coder but for reasons I don't fully understand, decided that paying work is somehow evil and so flatly refuses even to apply for a job.

In part that's because he is very shy and so cannot tolerate office politics, and in part - again for reasons I don't understand - he has a passionate hatred for women and so cannot tolerate being in their presence.

He's heavily into jazz and swing music; he likes to call himself "trane" because that was John Coltrane's nickname.
I would really like to see this with actual income on the x axis rather than just the percentile. And then again with the log of income.
I too am highly disturbed by the loss of ecosystems. I'm just describing the reality of what the planet is becoming & will probably continue to become. Very sad, but quite possibly true.

In reality, we could all probably continue to live on a planet that has just 20 or so species left.

Everything else, we'll have to describe to children with stories.
Yes I want too, but I might be forced to eat Lutefisk!
Wouldn't work in the US, I find that the social value of having saved someone's life is somewhere between zero and negative, unless that someone belongs to your interlocutor's subculture.

You tell an investor in SF, in passing, "I talked a junkie off the bridge and took her away before the cops showed up, and let her stay at my place for six months until she cleaned up", and they'll think you are mad, not honorable.

(Not a true story; composite of three separate incidents)
What if trying to stop a process--which we only have a 10% chance of stopping--would have a 100% chance of harming people? Is definitely harming people "playing it safe"?
Well, for one (and I'm not saying this is the explanation, just an answer to your question), FAFSA student aid eligibility is based on income, not wealth.
He somehow managed to mention both of his companies and I still have no idea what he "does."
Yes because the vast majority of the public is not in a union. If they were then their union would be fighting for their interest and prevent the public sector unions capturing all the benefits at their expense.