I would suggest travel over most of these. Particularly if you live in a fairly inward looking society like the US. Forget SF - live in another country, learn another language while your brain is still plastic enough to become truly fluent, understand your own culture by spending time among others, realise how fortunate you are to be born in a developed country.
Advice
141–150 of 223 posts
Re: Advice
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry if I offended you, that wasn't my intention.
Hahaha that was one of the most ridiculous (and succinct) 180's I've ever seen online.
Actually I think I apologised too soon, looking at @ritchiea's posts and web site I reckon I was right on the mark.
Re: Advice
#143Re: Advice
#144Advice for SF people: Stop talking about changing the god damned world when what you're actually working on is a middleman payment processor. You sound like your head is planted so far up into your ass you can see daylight again. E: Just to point out what I actually believe so I’m not just doing a drive-by insult - let capitalism and self interest be just that, like how a pizza delivery guy or payday loan provider pr…
> payday loan provider probably isn’t deluding themselves about making an impact Having worked at a YC-backed alternative to payday lender ( https://www.//lendup.com ) and having spent a lot of the time in the call center listening to our customers, I'd suggest that a lender to folks without access to credit can have much more impact than you could possibly imagine. Being able to instantly inject $500 into the bank a…
>Having worked at a YC-backed alternative to payday lender (https://www.//lendup.com) and having spent a lot of the time in the call center listening to our customers, I'd suggest that a lender to folks without access to credit can have much more impact than you could possibly imagine. Being able to instantly inject $500 into the bank account of someone that needed it for a car repair or they'd lose their job when they couldn't get it elsewhere was only one of the many, many examples. Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of customers, and the impact is not trivial by any measure.
This is exactly the mindless "head-in-ass" crap the OP was talking about. You're not helping that person by lending them $500 at 400%+ APR [0]. You are trapping them into a debt cycle they will most likely never recover from until default. Subprime lending is a predatory practice which has been around forever, no matter how you flip it. It is legal under our system though, so you're more than welcome to do it and profit from people's financial ignorance. Just don't try to pretend like you're helping anybody.
Re: Advice
#145> But having good social skills confers life-long benefits. So, don't write them off. Get good at making a good first impression, being funny (if possible... this author still working on it...), speaking publicly.
I would be careful with this point. Young people who don't have great social skills already tend to feel that they are somehow missing out on something important. But those who have good social skills in our culture will have a hard time forming new and unique ideas, and will often get talked into believing big, fundamental ideas that are wrong or crazy. I'd compare it to being a smoker in the 1960s. In exchange for being cooler, you suffer irreducible risk, that is made more dangerous by the fact that few people realize it's there. Until our culture changes, it's probably better to encourage people to learn about human nature than about "social skills".
Re: Advice
#146Advice for SF people: Stop talking about changing the god damned world when what you're actually working on is a middleman payment processor. You sound like your head is planted so far up into your ass you can see daylight again. E: Just to point out what I actually believe so I’m not just doing a drive-by insult - let capitalism and self interest be just that, like how a pizza delivery guy or payday loan provider pr…
> payday loan provider probably isn’t deluding themselves about making an impact Having worked at a YC-backed alternative to payday lender ( https://www.//lendup.com ) and having spent a lot of the time in the call center listening to our customers, I'd suggest that a lender to folks without access to credit can have much more impact than you could possibly imagine. Being able to instantly inject $500 into the bank a…
To translate what was just said: payday lenders do, in fact, delude themsleves into thinking they are making an impact. It’s always the same material about “helping people in their time of need”.
But the point isn’t about the immediate impact on people’s lives at the moment of funding ... rather the longer impact during the time that they will hold the debt, and the high interest cost to those who can afford it least. Multiply that into man-years per your Steve Jobs anecdote! ️(smh)
There’s a reason usury is illegal, and why payday lenders have to pair with sovereign nations and shady legal structures, and why google won’t even list you, etc.
shame.
But oh no. I’ve just bad-mouthed a YC company on HN! Here comes dang!!
Re: Advice
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Orange County (if that zoning bill ever gets passed), Austin, Salt Lake City? Probably Portland.
>Orange County (if that zoning bill ever gets passed) lol >Austin Texas. >Salt Lake City Mormons. >Probably Portland. Bingo.
If "Texas" is a downside for Austin, then surely Portland has the same problem? Isn't the rest of the state strongly conservative?
Honestly I doubt it will be a city on the tier of Austin/Portland/Seattle, when San Francisco was still the obvious place to go for people who wanted to do weird things it was much cheaper relatively. The same goes for NYC back when it was a musical/artistic hotspot - living space was much much more affordable than any of these cities.
Re: Advice
#148For some of us who are in 20~30, I recommend Sam Altman's "The days are long but the decades are short"[0]. [0]: http://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades-...
> 30) Existential angst is part of life.
Definitely a 20-30 thing, never even crossed my mind before I was 25.
Re: Advice
#149I'm a bit amused by the advice to move to SF because that's what all the other nonconformists are doing.
His point was that openness is highly valued. The way I'd put it is that in SF, it is completely OK to be a nonconformist and to do things your own way. It's actually hard to be fully aware of the high levels of conformity one finds elsewhere until you have spent 6+ months in SF. That's not to say that there aren't widespread prejudices held in SF.. the biggest one I have encountered is the belief that people living…
> It's actually hard to be fully aware of the high levels of conformity one finds elsewhere until you have spent 6+ months in SF.
I haven't found this to be the case at all, at least compared to LA/NY/Seattle.
Re: Advice
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I think in order for the Bay Area (and California in general) to really become good for creatives, they need to take a deep existential look at themselves and really decide that they're willing to solve the problems. That means making radical, Marshall Plan levels of reform to zoning and property tax laws, establishment of strong regional metropolitan governments, and significant investments in better transportation…
Having lived there and now living in a cheaper real estate market I am grateful for having lived there, where I could not afford a house. I am now no longer interested in owning residential real estate no matter where I go!
The housing market is flooded with buyers right now, all-cash offers and waived inspections. It's obvious to me that most buyers don't realize the risks associated with their investment, don't understand how to monetize them against rents from long-term buyers, and are just generally thinking emotionally and irrationally. Terrible market to buy in if you don't like spending the rest of your life paying off a money pit, unless you're somewhere like Cleveland where there's a lot of decent supply and less demand (I saw some pretty solid houses there for ~50k).
Good general rule of thumb is your cost of housing shouldn't exceed 30% of your income.