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Instead of stopping to show these "recommendations", we could leverage the information that this customer intents to commit suicide. Contact authorities and get

Instead of stopping to show these "recommendations", we could leverage the information that this customer intents to commit suicide. Contact authorities and get this person into therapy with professionals. That's two birds with one stone. Amazon preserves a long-term customer AND gets to keep the extra $20 for their Q3 results!

caslon 4y ago
The general trend of authoritarian intervention around suicide is taking away their autonomy or, in some cases, police raiding their house because they're a "threat." I'm sure that your proposal would have no adverse outcomes, though. People should fix society instead of treating symptoms.
xcdzvyn 4y ago
This is a horrifically dystopian suggestion. I do not need the police called to my home because I searched "suicide" on Amazon.
- super256 4y ago
  Oh heck, I strongly agree. I just meant it as a joke to optimize for maximum profits. :)
raxxorraxor 4y ago
No search query should ever result in a visit from authorities, especially for therapy or psychological evaluation. There are quite a few books that thoroughly describe why this is a bad idea. Probably available on Amazon. This is just a result of the ruleset and can happen with any recommendation. You have to add an exception for certain keywords until there is outrage about another combination again. Because neither taste, sensibility nor any thought is part of the recommendation process.
- MonkeyClub 4y ago
  True story: In the UK, a mate buying household cleaning supplies in bulk triggered a visit by two very polite MI5 boys. Just to check.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    To me this is indicative that law enforcement either doesn't have enough to do or that they have wrong priorities. Also they should not have access to information of what people are buying in the first place because you end up with such surprise visits. That you see terror everywhere is a known occupational hazard.
pseudo0 4y ago
So any HNer who was curious and searched 'sodium nitrate' to see their personalized recommendations should get a visit from the authorities? Surely there is no way this could go wrong or be abused... The next generation of swatting would be tricking people to click on links for Amazon searches for poison or pressure cookers.
- CommitSyn 4y ago
  As said elsewhere, it's actually 'sodium nitrite' and searching for 'sodium nitrate' does not show the relevant suggestions. For anyone that might be curious to search it from this comment.
  - cge 4y ago
    More specifically, sodium nitrAte [1], with an a, NaNO₃, has a rat LD50 of over 3 g/kg, has a signal word of Warning, and has no toxicity label (it has H272 and H319, an oxidizer and causes serious eye irritation). Sodium nitrIte [2], with an i, NaNO₂, has a rat LD50 of around 85 mg/kg, almost two orders of magnitude smaller, has a signal word of Danger, and has H301/acute toxicity with a skull-and-crossbones label, in addition to H272 and H319, and H400 (very toxic to aquatic life) too. The two are very different. Somewhat distressingly, searching for sodium nitrite on Amazon comes up with some sodium nitrate results, and searching sodium nitrate comes up with at least one product that is mostly (if still only 6%) sodium nitrite. I wish search engine developers would not insist on assuming any similar word is just a typo: that's a potentially very dangerous mixup. Searching for sodium nitrite and selecting a seller of >98% on Amazon (US) did give a suicide-instruction book as a suggestion when I searched initially (logged out, private tab), but after looking up the SDSs and coming back to this, I no longer get anything of the sort. I doubt that legitimate chemical suppliers like Fisher/VWR/Sigma-Aldrich/etc would sell sodium nitrite to a buyer without an approved account (though VWR if I recall correctly won't sell chemicals at all to residential addresses, even sodium chloride, so it's not necessarily the best comparison). [1]: https://www.alfa.com/en/msds/?language=EE&subformat=CLP1&sku=A18668 https://www.alfa.com/en/msds/?language=EE&subformat=CLP1&sku... [2]: https://www.fishersci.com/store/msds?partNumber=AAA186680B&productDescription=SODIUM+NITRITE+98%25+1KG&vendorId=VN00024248&countryCode=US&language=en https://www.fishersci.com/store/msds?partNumber=AAA186680B&p...

caslon 4y ago

The general trend of authoritarian intervention around suicide is taking away their autonomy or, in some cases, police raiding their house because they're a "threat." I'm sure that your proposal would have no adverse outcomes, though. People should fix society instead of treating symptoms.

xcdzvyn 4y ago

This is a horrifically dystopian suggestion. I do not need the police called to my home because I searched "suicide" on Amazon.

super256 4y ago
Oh heck, I strongly agree. I just meant it as a joke to optimize for maximum profits. :)

raxxorraxor 4y ago

No search query should ever result in a visit from authorities, especially for therapy or psychological evaluation. There are quite a few books that thoroughly describe why this is a bad idea. Probably available on Amazon. This is just a result of the ruleset and can happen with any recommendation. You have to add an exception for certain keywords until there is outrage about another combination again. Because neither taste, sensibility nor any thought is part of the recommendation process.

MonkeyClub 4y ago
True story: In the UK, a mate buying household cleaning supplies in bulk triggered a visit by two very polite MI5 boys. Just to check.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  To me this is indicative that law enforcement either doesn't have enough to do or that they have wrong priorities. Also they should not have access to information of what people are buying in the first place because you end up with such surprise visits. That you see terror everywhere is a known occupational hazard.

pseudo0 4y ago

So any HNer who was curious and searched 'sodium nitrate' to see their personalized recommendations should get a visit from the authorities? Surely there is no way this could go wrong or be abused... The next generation of swatting would be tricking people to click on links for Amazon searches for poison or pressure cookers.

CommitSyn 4y ago
As said elsewhere, it's actually 'sodium nitrite' and searching for 'sodium nitrate' does not show the relevant suggestions. For anyone that might be curious to search it from this comment.
- cge 4y ago
  More specifically, sodium nitrAte [1], with an a, NaNO₃, has a rat LD50 of over 3 g/kg, has a signal word of Warning, and has no toxicity label (it has H272 and H319, an oxidizer and causes serious eye irritation). Sodium nitrIte [2], with an i, NaNO₂, has a rat LD50 of around 85 mg/kg, almost two orders of magnitude smaller, has a signal word of Danger, and has H301/acute toxicity with a skull-and-crossbones label, in addition to H272 and H319, and H400 (very toxic to aquatic life) too. The two are very different. Somewhat distressingly, searching for sodium nitrite on Amazon comes up with some sodium nitrate results, and searching sodium nitrate comes up with at least one product that is mostly (if still only 6%) sodium nitrite. I wish search engine developers would not insist on assuming any similar word is just a typo: that's a potentially very dangerous mixup. Searching for sodium nitrite and selecting a seller of >98% on Amazon (US) did give a suicide-instruction book as a suggestion when I searched initially (logged out, private tab), but after looking up the SDSs and coming back to this, I no longer get anything of the sort. I doubt that legitimate chemical suppliers like Fisher/VWR/Sigma-Aldrich/etc would sell sodium nitrite to a buyer without an approved account (though VWR if I recall correctly won't sell chemicals at all to residential addresses, even sodium chloride, so it's not necessarily the best comparison). [1]: https://www.alfa.com/en/msds/?language=EE&subformat=CLP1&sku=A18668 https://www.alfa.com/en/msds/?language=EE&subformat=CLP1&sku... [2]: https://www.fishersci.com/store/msds?partNumber=AAA186680B&productDescription=SODIUM+NITRITE+98%25+1KG&vendorId=VN00024248&countryCode=US&language=en https://www.fishersci.com/store/msds?partNumber=AAA186680B&p...