Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble • Hacker News Board

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#241

Post by wutbrodo » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:42 AM UTC

josiahpeters wrote: post #200

lotsofpulp wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a credit card is not the same as going into debt to make your purchase. In the US, you can easily get 1% to 4% back from the credit card company by using your credit card, and so you actually save money by paying with your credit card. Whether or not you want to pay off the balance at the end of your credit card's billing cycle decides whether or not you are going into debt, but many, many people pay it off. It…

Its not like you're just pulling free money out of thin air by using a credit card. And it seems likely that the finance institutions behind the credit cards are offering them as a product that makes money and not as an act of goodwill. If everyone paid their credit cards off at the end of the month like they say they do, do you think credit cards would be advertised or pushed as hard as they are? The finance institu…

> i'm sure there are some people are responsible enough to never incur a finance charge from a credit card by always paying their monthly balance. I've never actually met one of those people. I used to say I was one of those people, but in reality if you had asked to look at my statement history I would have been embarrassed by how many times I ended up paying interest charges for things I probably shouldn't have purchased in the first place.

This is a really bizarre assertion: my bubble is such that I've literally never met someone (that I'm aware of, just as with your claim) who _doesn't_ pay their credit cards off in full each month. Hell, I don't think I've ever done anything but set auto-pay for my credit cards, and would turn it off on the rare occasion that I decided to use it as it was intended, as a liquidity buffer. (The difference between us being that I'm not narrow-minded enough to assume that this tells me something about credit cards in general as a product).

> Two years ago my wife and I cut up our credit cards, closed those accounts and never looked back. Initially that change hurt my brain and went against everything I thought I knew was normal. It was one one of the best financial decisions we ever made.

If you were having so much trouble, why not just use auto-pay from your bank account? I don't really understand this urge to universalize your inability to use credit responsibly to somehow claim that credit cards in general are a net negative. I don't mean "irresponsible" as an insult here: I don't keep desserts in the house because having to go out and get dessert when I want it is the most effective way for me to maintain my healthy diet in the face of my one dietary willpower weak spot (a wicked sweet tooth). But I don't justify my weakness by claiming that we'd be better of if dessert never existed[1].

[1] To be clear, I'm aware that the modern role sugar plays in most people's diet is unhealthy: I eat (non-fruit) sweets about once a week and I'm pretty happy with that level of consumption. To me, desserts are a delightful part of life, if you're adult enough to use them responsibly (excluding those unfortunate enough to have severely bad dietary habits from childhood: the deck is stacked against them physiologically).

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#242

Post by darod » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:50 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #225

darod wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think UBI would be unsustainable without additional investments in education. If you are going to be taking public monies, that time should be used to educate oneself or provide some form of public service.

What's the point, if the jobs keep getting automated? Why should we force people to do "public service" that robots can and will do better?

so what do you do with the people?

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#243

Post by foxhop » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:51 AM UTC

I work remote for Silicon Valley type companies but live in a location very similar to the author's New England vacation home. I try to buy locally and often joke that I'm slowly siphoning money out of the tech bubble and re-purposing it here.

All joking aside many parts of this country are struggling and I think we need to come up with more local solutions.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#244

Post by x0x0 » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:52 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #217

unknown_apostle wrote: post #60

Working class people are being subjected to ultra efficient hypercapitalism, as in Uber drivers discovering they worked for free when they need to purchase a new car. Meanwhile Wall Street has been bailed out 2 times in the last 15 years alone with monetary policy. How many people went to jail? (And they haven’t learned a thing, on the contrary and quite spectacularly so.) If you want to know where the tech bubble co…

It's interesting that you identify ultra efficient hyper capitalism as the problem, then point the finger at Wall Street traders betting on mortgage backed securities. They really have nothing to do with each other. To the extent you can blame anyone for ultra efficient hyper capitalism, blame programmers. It's programmers that allowed Uber to turn the inefficient and leisurely taxi industry into the Uber/Lyft rat ra…

No, those are all policy choices we made.

Policy choices that

- encouraged capital mobility

- tax advantaged capital vs labor

- gave an ever larger share of the national income to the ultra rich

- to not enforce regulations against allowing unlimited supply of taxi cabs.

- to subsidize walmart to the tune of $6.2B in 2013 [1]

- to bail out banks and screw mortgage holders

- to allow banks to get so large they implicitly carry the backing of the US government and then turn around and go gambling, keeping all the profits and dumping the losses off onto you and me

- to allow Amazon not to charge tax and undercut local businesses for most of their history

- to subsidize amazon with the USPS [2]

I'm not saying any of these are necessarily right or wrong, but they weren't programmers. They were choices we as a society made via our representatives.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

[2] http://fortune.com/2017/07/16/amazon-postal-service-subsidy/

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#245

Post by jmenn » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 3:01 AM UTC

ptero wrote: post #168

closeparen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did everyone suddenly forget all the un/underemployed college graduates we've got? Are they stupid, too? I think you'll find the HN consensus is that they're stupid (or were tragically misled) for going to college in a major other than computer science or engineering.

Ok, I will bite. I do not think blanked statements "CS or fools" make any sense, but I think a number of folks who dedicated 4-8 years of their lives to getting a liberal arts degree did this without a clear idea of what they can realistically expect at the end and making backup plans. A PhD in English or French culture may make sense, but one must realize that professional opportunities outside academia are sparse a…

They're probably a lot worse inside academia for those fields. That said, everyone I know with an MA in English is doing really well for themselves, both inside and outside the academy. Maybe it's my small sample size though.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#246

Post by darod » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 3:03 AM UTC

nandorsky wrote: post #121

darod wrote: post #43

I wonder how long it will take for this thought to fade from Steve's mind once he returns to SV. It's easy for people come to these realizations after getting outside of their comfort zone but just as easily return to the status quo. I think one of the biggest myths about tech in general is that it's here to help people. It's really not. It's job is to remove barriers to make workflows more efficient, typically to th…

"I think one of the biggest myths about tech in general is that it's here to help people." It does... if it didn't, it wouldn't exist. Tech is a net positive for society. You typed that on a machine that gives you access to the world's information in seconds at minimal cost. Efficiencies drive down costs which benefits society as a whole. Can you imagine how much your computer/phone would cost if the production of it…

"Efficiencies drive down costs which benefits society as a whole."

Those same efficiencies remove people from their jobs. First blue collar jobs and later, as we will see, more technical and intricate fields. So the cost cutting yes is beneficial to the company and yes a potential side effect is prices decreasing but another side effect is more unemployment. For people that are highly educated, they potentially have the ability to transition to other fields. For people less educated, they're stuck. That doesn't necessarily benefit society as a whole.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#247

Post by nibstwo » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 3:03 AM UTC

If you feel guilty enjoying the product of your work, you were probably doing pointless zero-sum work that did not need to be done. It is fine to say you want other people to be economically empowered, but the amount of guilt flying around here is incredible. Why not apply the constraint of only doing things that actually benefit other real humans at the start of your career, and feel good when you end up being successful at whatever constrained but moral venture you undertake. Feeling guilty about it accomplishes nothing. We made the collective bargain to build a technological society, we cannot go back now. Fix the real problems and it won't feel dirty.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#248

Post by wutbrodo » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 3:03 AM UTC

manmal wrote: post #171

opencl wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of CS/engineering majors who end up un/underemployed too.

Here in Austria, you have to behave really bad to not make a decent living if you can code, or at least pretend to be able to code. Developer conferences are _flooded_ with recruiters and CTOs trying to recruit.

That's true here too, but it's not true of every part of the US. If you're stuck somewhere with a weak labor market and unable to move, that's pretty much the only way you'd end up unemployed with a CS degree at this point in time.

I don't imagine it will continue like this forever, obviously, but the labor market is tight enough that I know multiple people who changed tired for a living, were waitresses, etc and went through a bootcamp and now make a solid living as an engineer. For those who actually have Computer Science degrees, the demand is infinitely higher.

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#249

Post by thinkfurther » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 3:05 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #219

nostrademons wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that many classic dystopian stories are actually written about today , the time and place where they were written, and not about some hypothetical future. 1984 was based on Orwell's experiences as a propaganda writer for Britain in WW2. Animal Farm was about the Soviet Union. Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by McCarthyism. Saruman's orcs and trollocs in Lord of the Rings were supposed to represent industry,…

...because otherwise most of us would be dead. Or would never have lived, which is the same thing, kind of.

If anything had been slightly different whole other sets of sperm would have fertilized the egg, so that's not such an impressive argument. Especially since all of us will be dead at some point, regardless. And funny how that "compassion" doesn't extend to the people crushed every day, the people shrieking in anguish as we speak.

The question isn't just how many people are "alive", but what life are they living. What would make someone seek power over others? Why has this defect been normalized?

Let's say even more abuse allows even more people to get squeezed on the planet. Big whoop? To me that's like overloading a truck to the point where it doesn't move one inch anymore, and not even seeing how counterproductive that is.

I'll just say it: one healthy person is worth more than an infinite number of clones of an alienated person. We can discuss "health" and how subjective that may be, but sheer number of people is worth nothing in my books, that's for sure.

> It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain... and love.

-- "Network"

Re: Annual note to self: most of the world exists outside the tech bubble

#250

Post by 8fGTBjZxBcHq » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 3:15 AM UTC

ptero wrote: post #168

closeparen wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did everyone suddenly forget all the un/underemployed college graduates we've got? Are they stupid, too? I think you'll find the HN consensus is that they're stupid (or were tragically misled) for going to college in a major other than computer science or engineering.

Ok, I will bite. I do not think blanked statements "CS or fools" make any sense, but I think a number of folks who dedicated 4-8 years of their lives to getting a liberal arts degree did this without a clear idea of what they can realistically expect at the end and making backup plans. A PhD in English or French culture may make sense, but one must realize that professional opportunities outside academia are sparse a…

This argument is strong only if you consider a BS or BA program a vocational school.