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This Is Silicon Valley

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Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#51
post #3

>The lack of diversity doesn’t stop at work — it permeates every aspect of life. Everyone wears Patagonia and North Face, everyone has AirPods hanging from their ears, and everyone goes to Lake Tahoe on weekends. And everyone talks about the same things: startups, blockchain, machine learning, and startups with blockchain and machine learning. Superficial, much? This entire article sounds like a parody.

It actually isn't superficial at all. It's startlingly accurate.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#52
Somber, sobering truth. It is discouraging that young people are giving up and leaving because of the lack of critical mass of caring people who "don't have the time" to roll up sleeves and help make change. They're too busy pursuing that "perfect life" to see that life is never perfect, but can be perfectly fulfilling when helping others.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#53
post #3

>The lack of diversity doesn’t stop at work — it permeates every aspect of life. Everyone wears Patagonia and North Face, everyone has AirPods hanging from their ears, and everyone goes to Lake Tahoe on weekends. And everyone talks about the same things: startups, blockchain, machine learning, and startups with blockchain and machine learning. Superficial, much? This entire article sounds like a parody.

HN, where wishing you could talk to your neighbors and co-workers about something other than blockchain makes you superficial.

Exactly. The problem isn't the writer of this piece, it's the person you're replying to.

pot/kettle/black/etc

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#55
I grew up and went to school in Silicon Valley ('02 - '08), and remember one of the most stark contrasts was the difference in sociodemographics when you crossed from Palo Alto to EPA. Crazy difference in school quality, poverty, etc; it was unimaginable that people could live so close to one another and have such a different experience. I don't remember the really extreme academic pressures in high school that OP mentioned in Mountain View/Los Altos area, though.

After recently being back, one of the things that really hit me was what a monoculture it seemed. Of course in the 2000s a lot of people worked in tech, but it had a really different vibe to it now; it was never that obvious before when you spoke to them, and peoples' parents had a wide variety of jobs. SF seemed more like a normal city. When I spend time there now, after living in London, it does seem really, really homogenous. This is quite possibly a huge bias on my part as I was a teenager.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#56

>In my liberal arts college, conversations varied dramatically, from British literature to public policy to moral philosophy to socioeconomic inequality. Compare this to my product management program filled with new grads, where even social conversations revolve around tech — whether it’s spilling the hottest gossip on the new VP, plotting how to get “double promoted” from a Level 3 to a Level 5 product manager in ex…

Politics became the new religion for a lot of people and they act a lot like religious zealots - they feel very strongly about their worldview and will defend it, and at the same time, they're not interested in other points of view. So, just as it was never wise to discuss religion in a work environment, now it's better to not talk politics.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#57
post #5

Weird flex, but okay. But seriously, it’s hard to read “look how tough we have it” about getting a 6 figure job out of school. You didn’t get into Harvard. That’s not a life defining tragedy... hoping this is parody. The vast vast vast majority of the world works harder for less. We should be thankful, not weirdly bragging about how hard our childhoods were. Try Detroit or Bangladesh....

Checking out your profiles on other social media, looks like the only thing you ever do is code related, so of course this article goes over your head. Nothing in this article says "look how tough we have it". It's a thought provoking piece on how broken an entire city is, and just how tone deaf people like you are to all of it. You're so busy worrying about code and lack any sort of empathy with others that you can'…

I think it's a little invasive to go out of your way to find someone's social media profiles to help prove a point in a thread on a hacker news post

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#58

I'm gonna offer a slightly different perspective: SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. There is a distinct lack of culture, of nightlife, of arts and humanities - even in San Francisco. We're a mediocre land of strip malls and suburbs masquerading as an international destination. Go to any other city and tell me that it's not MORE vibrant (Chicago, LA, NYC, Miami, Austin, Portland, Seattle, Houst…

The price premium you are paying, especially for housing, is really all about raising kids e.g. sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country all while keeping your high paying SV jobs.

Basically assume that the quality of public SV schools are high enough that high earning parents are "OK" sending their kids to those schools rather than paying for private school. If you have 2 kids and would otherwise spend $20k/year for ~14 years of PreK-12 then living in your preferred public school district will save you over $500k+ in tuition.

If you are single or have no plans to have kids (thus shifting more free time toward cultural activities vs raising kids) then agreed living in SV is really boring and uninspiring and not worth it.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checking out your profiles on other social media, looks like the only thing you ever do is code related, so of course this article goes over your head. Nothing in this article says "look how tough we have it". It's a thought provoking piece on how broken an entire city is, and just how tone deaf people like you are to all of it. You're so busy worrying about code and lack any sort of empathy with others that you can'…

The problem is that there's so many people like the commenter you're replying to, I'm convinced it's why this area feels completely and utterly culturally broken.

Agreed. I think the worst part is that I'm a long ways from SF, but it leaks all over the tech communities everywhere. I know enough people who've lived there, pass through, visit friends, etc and even I understand from the other side of the country having never been.
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