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The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

theguardian.com

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Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#211

Post by lacker »

Joe-Z wrote: post #70
nostrademons wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you're saying. I think it's an appeal to personal responsibility, which I don't disagree with but misses the point. Correct me if I'm wrong on that interpretation. The root of Silicon Valley's successes and its problems are the same thing, and they both stem from how markets operate. New technologies in automation allow companies to successfully compete with incumbents but use drastically less…

>What do you do with the people left behind? What do you do with the engineers once they've written all the software to automate our daily lives? But haven't you read what the very empathetic and kind poster before suggested as an answer?: These fucking losers should move to whatever hill cave's still vacant, because they are to blame for not having gotten rich fast enough. I really like your writing, very precise an…

I do believe everyone should have a right to live in the Bay Area.

No amount of taxing and redistribution will achieve that, because the supply of housing in the Bay Area is restricted to grow slower than population growth. The only way to make that happen is to build more housing.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#212

Post by dragonwriter »

elgenie wrote: post #65
d--b wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? How do you move to Nebraska when you have $100/week for food? How do you find a job, when you have literally 0-day you can spend without working? Are there really than many jobs for people who flip burgers in Lincoln, Nebraska? And are people who flip burgers in Nebraska so much better?

> How do you move? A train or bus from the Bay Area to Nebraska will run around $100. That’s around the same amount as Bay Area rent costs for just the time spent on the train/bus during the trip. > How do you find a job? To start, “Help Wanted” signs and odd jobs in the usual places (e.g. Home Depot). Then, network or use free internet at public libraries to search for something better. > Are there really many jobs…

> A train or bus from the Bay Area to Nebraska will run around $100. That’s around the same amount as Bay Area rent costs for just the time spent on the train/bus during the trip.

Congratulations, you're now broke, homeless, jobless, with weak creditworthiness, no connections to local private and public support in Nebraska, needing to somehow acquire food, shelter, and some mechanism of paying for it.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#214

Post by mcgrath_sh »

nine_k wrote: post #183
mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

I did nearly that: I moved to a relatively small city away from technology centers, where my wages from a remote developer job were enough for quite comfortable life. No, nothing like a primitive wasteland, of course. But that the next position offered to me, paying, say, 3x my then-current wage, was in NYC, full-time and on-premises only, so I moved, despite the cost of living. Probably once communications improve i…

Define “remote area.” I can name a half dozen cities with cheaper cost of living within ~6 hours drive time of NYC. Pittsburgh. Buffalo. Rochester. Philly. Newark, DE. I don’t think communication systems are the problem. There are cities that have low(er) cost of living.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#215

Post by jpao79 »

mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

Maybe there could be a case for a YC startup focused on relocation. The idea is to simplify the process for non-tech people to discover options for employment, housing, culture, community, etc. in the various smaller towns and cities in the US.

The ability for people to do any product discovery (where the product is the city/town) prior to relocating is quite limited with huge ramifications/risk if you get your selection wrong.

A bit like a Lonely Planet/Tripadvisor/Yelp but for real life. It could crowd source ratings of cities by some basic quality of life score based on various attributes - housing costs, openness to new ideas, food scene, etc. It could verify residency by requiring you to provide GPS coordinates for a month before letting you rate. It could even be monetized by apartment providers, employers, restaurants, etc.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#216

Post by lovich »

b6 wrote: post #53
d--b wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? How do you move to Nebraska when you have $100/week for food? How do you find a job, when you have literally 0-day you can spend without working? Are there really than many jobs for people who flip burgers in Lincoln, Nebraska? And are people who flip burgers in Nebraska so much better?

> How do you move to Nebraska when you have $100/week for food? How could anyone here answer that question? It's not specific enough to answer. Could it be difficult to do? Yes. Are you trying to claim it's impossible, that people are actually truly trapped ? It's not impossible, they are not truly trapped.

Bears aren't actually trapped in "bear traps", they can just chew their arm off and bleed to death elsewhere. If you don't have enough money to eat, it's not like you can scrimp and save to spend a lot of money to move while also looking for a new job and still live.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#217

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

beaconstudios wrote: post #196
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth are you talking about? You believe the entire first world is a monstrous dictatorship?

the first world doesn't generally engage in wealth redistribution of that kind. Taxation for public services, yes, but straight up taking the money of the rich and successful and giving it to Joe Bluecollar? Not really.

What else would you call foodstamps, housing assistance and TANF?

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#218

Post by julesqs »

Helmet wrote: post #146
wpietri wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That your parents once did something in different circumstances does not mean everybody can here and now. Even if we value family connections on a pure cash basis -- which I don't recommend -- moving can be bad for people. E.g., the cost of replacing grandparents with professional childcare can be astronomical. Family also provides an economic buffer against the ups and downs that are especially hard on the poor. Wha…

We had no family here. If your car breaks down and you can't take it in, you fix it - been there, done that. I sympathize with their situation, I have personally LIVED their situation, but if they cannot afford to live somewhere they need to figure out how to move.

> they need to figure out how to move

no, they don't.

You need to consider that telling people to leave the geographic area that is their family home is a shitty response. You need to consider whether, perhaps, there are government policies that can help these people. You need to consider whether sneering at poor people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps makes you a shitty person.

Also how is a single working mother going to have time to learn to fix her own car? you're on another planet right now.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#219

Post by nostrademons »

jpao79 wrote: post #215
mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

Maybe there could be a case for a YC startup focused on relocation. The idea is to simplify the process for non-tech people to discover options for employment, housing, culture, community, etc. in the various smaller towns and cities in the US. The ability for people to do any product discovery (where the product is the city/town) prior to relocating is quite limited with huge ramifications/risk if you get your selec…

I know founders who've tried to do a relocation-financing startup. They failed to get traction and ended up running out of money. AFAIK, so did most of their competitors, as well as startups in the general "here are some nice other places to live" category you describe. (It was a pretty crowded space...you can bet that any market where there are Internet commenters saying "Why isn't there a startup doing X?" actually has several startups doing X.)

The root problem seems to be that the decision to move is basically emotional, and usually depends on life factors that no startup can influence. I'm here for two reasons: family and startup (my wife's family all lives around here, and I have a nascent startup where if it takes off, it'll be really handy to be close to investors). Among the other people I know who are thinking of leaving, or whom it doesn't really make economic sense to be here, what's keeping them is always similar things. They work for Google and there's no Google office near where the rest of their family lives. They grew up here and have sentimental attachment to the place. They really love the warm Mediterranean climate and can't imagine living in a place with snow or rain. When you dig into their lives, usually staying is actually the right choice despite the high expense, and it's more "Well, I wish I didn't have to put up with the cost of living and massive traffic snarls."

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#220

Post by CocaKoala »

Helmet wrote: post #197
CocaKoala wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your proposal is that the single parent work a second job in order to move to Nebraska. Who takes care of her child while she does this? Does the kid go to child care? How does the single parent pay for the child care? Does she need to get a third job to pay for the expense of her second job? What happens when the car she takes to work breaks down, and wipes out her savings? What about when she gets sick because s…

> So your proposal is that the single parent work a second job in order to move to Nebraska. My proposal is that they do everything they can possibly do to better their position in life. If it means taking a second job, then they should take a second job. Are you asking me for specifics? Here is how my parents did it when they couldn't afford daycare: My father worked 3rd shift (through the night) and my mother worke…

> Are you asking me for specifics?

Yes, because there's a specific example in the article that your solution doesn't do anything to address, and when I brought up that your solution doesn't do anything to address that example all you did was show me more examples that are irrelevant. So yes, I am asking you for specifics.

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