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

#321

Post by pizza » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 1:39 PM UTC

cvsh wrote: post #105

losteric wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause of most American problems is poor public education. We're still over-emphasizing passing grades over effectively growing new American citizens... Personal finance is rarely offered and never mandatory, yet we collectively bare the burden of financial ignorance. The same applies to other subjects like statistics or civics.

>We're still over-emphasizing passing grades over effectively growing new American citizens... 2/3rds of state legislatures are actively hostile to basic tenets of science, let alone the government teaching "effective American citizenship". We just recently legalized malpractice for financial advisors. The rules preventing them from screwing their clients out of their retirement savings were spun as hurting consumer…

It would be nice if schools allocated more time for the young kids to get to share with teachers which topics that they wanted to know more about, just a block of unstructured time like the agoras of Ancient Greece. Just some form of rubric-free authentic curiosity-driven discourse, to break out of the teacher-student hierarchical relation a bit and to widen their understanding of learning, I suppose.

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

#322

Post by sumedh » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #102

jboggan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not easy to uproot and move from an economically depressed area to an active metropolis. I've done it (Athens, GA to San Francisco in late 2012) and it was incredibly expensive and involved a large amount of personal credit use, cash assistance from family, and time. It was a huge stretch at the time for me to move across the country and break into a new industry, and I did it as a single man, willing and…

What I don't understand is why people don't use the time they have in the low cost-of-living area to develop the skills (via the Internet) that would make them attractive to employers in big cities? That was my approach - I lived at home with my parents after graduation, basically did nothing but program (both for work and after work), and after 3 years Google came knocking and paid for my move out to Silicon Valley.…

> I don't understand is why people don't use the time they have in the low cost-of-living area to develop the skills (via the Internet)

I have thought about this question for a long time and I have observed people for a long time and I can sum it up with this phrase "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."

I have heard so many people (with or without jobs) that they cannot learn new skills now and then I shout in my mind that if you are not willing to learn new skills why should an employer hire you, of course I cannot say that to their face because I have to be polite.

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

#323

Post by bsaunder » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #58

bsaunder wrote: post #51

This is the use case for universal basic income. Its largely not their fault for their current economic situation. They played by the rules. They worked hard. If we could only remove the "necessity" of a job and the puritan shame of unemployment to live a moderate life of meager means. People should be encouraged to contribute to society not to simply "get a job".

The solution to some people getting played by the system surely isn't to play everyone even more by that same system. I figure UBI will look like it's succeeding for ~10-20 years, then we'll see what the real impact of it is (as people grow up with it). There's also little consensus on how comfortable the basic income should be; I get the impression that if it is too comfortable, you'd be a fool to work, if it's too…

I think for UBI to work, it has to be paired with a VAT/sales/transaction tax. Its also not a boolean: no UBI or gushing UBI. In fact it seems much more reasonable and palatable to start small with periodic up/down adjustments to keep the economy running (perhaps very similar to the current fed interest rate adjustments).

Surely at some modest level UBI is likely to greatly benefit the bottom (who will likely immediately inject the money into the economy). As with anything in life, yes, people will argue over it. That's probably a good thing.

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

#324

Post by bsaunder » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:21 PM UTC

darod wrote: post #81

bsaunder wrote: post #51

This is the use case for universal basic income. Its largely not their fault for their current economic situation. They played by the rules. They worked hard. If we could only remove the "necessity" of a job and the puritan shame of unemployment to live a moderate life of meager means. People should be encouraged to contribute to society not to simply "get a job".

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.

As others have mentioned, I think requiring education would be a bit of fighting reality (with eventual automation outperforming humans in many tasks). I think, as in the current world, some people will naturally choose to produce and contribute while others will not. Largely this is okay... (open source software, wikipedia, school PTA groups, hacker news, ...). Encouraging people to contribute to society seems like an undebatable good thing, requiring them to do so, not so much.

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

#325

Post by bsaunder » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:24 PM UTC

base698 wrote: post #79

bsaunder wrote: post #51

This is the use case for universal basic income. Its largely not their fault for their current economic situation. They played by the rules. They worked hard. If we could only remove the "necessity" of a job and the puritan shame of unemployment to live a moderate life of meager means. People should be encouraged to contribute to society not to simply "get a job".

By some estimates we have 20 million opiate addicts. What happens when the opiate addict runs out of his basic income on day 5 of a 31 day month?

Opiate addiction is an important, yet unrelated problem. With regards to UBI, its no different than a million other addictions (gambling, alcohol, social media, etc)... We, as a society should look at reasonable ways to address addiction issues of all sorts, coupling that solution with UBI implementation doesn't seem like a great idea.

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

#326

Post by levicole » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:28 PM UTC

Micoloth wrote: post #295

nicky0 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor you having to interact with your environment and acknowledge briefly another human being. Perhaps we can invent an app for this.

While your comment is hilarious, i still think if cashiers at supermarkets weren't a thing that would make for a MORE enjoyable and healthy environement to interact with our peers

It'd be more enjoyable if there were no checkout at all.

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

#327

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:28 PM UTC

Micoloth wrote: post #295

nicky0 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor you having to interact with your environment and acknowledge briefly another human being. Perhaps we can invent an app for this.

While your comment is hilarious, i still think if cashiers at supermarkets weren't a thing that would make for a MORE enjoyable and healthy environement to interact with our peers

[deleted]

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

#328

Post by Denzel » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:34 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #170

nostrademons wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be right - I think about what I'd need to do to switch careers now, at 36, and it's a lot harder than when I was 19. Luckily I have a bit of a cushion, which was built up over those years as a computer programmer, so I wouldn't go homeless or anything while retraining. Many other people are not so lucky. I wonder what sort of education would be necessary to bring that opportunity to everyone, though. I was lu…

Let's say everybody got the necessary education to follow your path. Can Silicon Valley absorb the 27 million unemployed or underemployed workers in the US?

If any industry would like to absorb the 27 million underemployed or unemployed, then they could if they were willing to invest in training them... versus offloading to upstream providers like schools. Of course, you could instate a hybrid approach between company training and traditional schooling as well. And it'd be a smart idea!

My question has always been: why aren't companies doing this?

We're talking multi-year (1-3 years) investment in training. Why not?

Seems crazy, but it's not so crazy if companies would:

1. Provide clear training milestones of accomplishment (tied to compensation advancement)

2. Support trainee with necessary personnel and materials

3. Backload compensation

Think about it, the company starts you out at say $8/hr. Then for each progressive level you ratchet up to $10, $12, $15, $18, $22, $26, etc. This ratcheting can happen as quickly as the trainee progresses -- no set time limits.

The beauty is that this provides ample motivation; it's easy for a candidate to see how they can achieve success. It also reduces the company's risk, should either side determine the relationship isn't a good fit; the company will have minimized their financial outlay.

I understand that most startups can't do this (unless it's an explicit part of their plan), but I don't understand why larger cash-rich corporations don't do this. It seems like there's massive untapped potential out there.

Don't we believe Google would be able to take a sufficiently motivated individual and turn them into a world-class engineer after 3 years, at the most, of focused training? I think the odds in favor are far greater than 50-50. I mean, who would turn down a job at Google starting at $8/hr with the chance to rocket up to $50/hr (ignoring wage depression as supply increases).

So why hasn't Google tested this? How much do they spend on trying to find the "best" instead of creating them... that's a question I wish I had the answer to.

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

#329

Post by ThomPete » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:48 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #297

jventura wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you but I would say that programmers are not the problem but are the "technical" part of it..

Without programmers, businesses still have the gamut of other control and efficiency professionals at their disposal -- mathematicians, statisticians, business psychologists, lawyers, accountants, and so on. Workers have been squeezed for all time, with or without programmers.

But bosted through the scaleability of technology and optimized by programmers.

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

#330

Post by magnetic » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 2:58 PM 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.

...until today!

Hi! I'm "magnetic" - nice to meet you!

It's not as uncommon as you think: many tools allow you to not miss payments nowadays, from email/SMS/push notification reminders to automatic payments.

If you have the money to afford what you buy on the CC, there is really no reason you should be paying any fees, unless you are sloppy with finances.

I believe you when you say you're hit with charges, but I also think you are the reason for it. Sorry! (nothing personal)