151–160 of 227 posts
>I just started working at Google and it wasn't everything I had hoped This person just graduated college. This is a wildly unremarkable piece of writing about a widely discussed issue, and the author has no unique insight into the problem. The sanctimony of repeating "This is Silicon Valley" over and over as if this pedestrian blogpost carries the weight of an MLK speech is just silly. Yes, life can be disappointing…
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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
>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.
>I just started working at Google and it wasn't everything I had hoped This person just graduated college. This is a wildly unremarkable piece of writing about a widely discussed issue, and the author has no unique insight into the problem. The sanctimony of repeating "This is Silicon Valley" over and over as if this pedestrian blogpost carries the weight of an MLK speech is just silly. Yes, life can be disappointing…
Maybe attack the ideas and not the structure / style of the piece?
It has nothing to do with the author "finding meaning." It's critiquing an overpriced, socially bankrupt culture and area, and the toll that can take on mental health and happiness.
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How would you solve it? I think it's a really tough problem and a significant fraction of the homeless population has serious mental health problems. I live in a city (Salt Lake City) that did a great job fixing its homelessness problem... for a couple of years. Now it's worse than it has ever been. Partly this is because more homeless people are coming to the area because they've heard about how great the resources…
Really I think that hints that homelessness should be addressed federally just to stop the buck passing. Not helping matters is the electoral college biasing against urban areas where homelessness is more of a problem.
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> SV isn't that nice, and it's not worth the price premium. For lifestyle, yes. For the opportunities in tech, there's no place like it. Before you name the other not quite as good tech hubs, yes there is opportunity but not like there is here.
Agreed with you on this, but I'm in Marketing so I can go anywhere I'd like for similar opportunities. But 100% agreed that if you're an engineer or programmer, you need to be here.
This is what people unhappy that they live in a dystopian hellscape tell themselves to try to justify why they live in a dystopian hellscape.
An extreme tiny minority of "engineers and programmers" live in SF. You absolutely do not "need" to be there.
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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…
>... sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country... Are they really the best if they're putting that much pressure on kids? Surely there's an argument that can be made that schools that are one tier down from the quality of these public schools (read: still good schools overall) while putting less pressure on children might be better than high-pressure public schools in the…
I've had several friends in the bay who grew up there struggle coming out high school - one wasn't really up for college at the time, and the only option to move out on the $16-ish an hour service job into a doubled-up apartment in a bad part of town. Surprise surprise, extreme depression. The other had their parents just paying for their rent - they got to mostly sit around and play video games, but mental health was fine other than just general lethargy.
Hi Gloria, yes this is the real world, where -- if we fixate on negativity -- everything is worse than we'd like it to be. Running away from the problems you see is a sure way NOT to fix them, and if everyone thought the way you did (or never grew out of that mindset) then problems would not be solved. Unfortunately, you seemed to focus on how bad YOUR city was and criticize the people YOU associate with and ultimate…
I don't live there. I can't comment on whether this is an accurate representation of the area or not but certainly I can say a viable answer to things you don't like is to leave. It's perfectly fine to try to be the change you want to see but it's absurd to state that leaving any situation that feeds into your depression and anxiety makes you juvenile. You wouldn't stay in a relationship that made you feel that way. Why would you stay in a city that made you feel that way?
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I agree about the lack of culture, but I'm not sure it's much better anywhere else in the US. I used to love NYC for its out-there, underground cultural options, but now it just feels like a mall geared for tourists.
Have you lived in NYC? I don’t get this sense at all, as long as I stay away from the touristy parts of Manhattan.
I lived there for a little over a year...agree that Manhattan is not necessarily that inspiring.
I could never figure out what to do on the weekends. It felt like I was always stepping outside into a financial district and all anyone did was go to mediocre & expensive brunches.