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This Is Silicon Valley

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Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#161

Post by smallgovt »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #155
sebastos wrote: post #148

>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…

While it may not live up to your editorial standards, it's clearly resonating with this audience. 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.

> It has nothing to do with the author "finding meaning."

I think it has a whole lot (if not entirely) to do with the author finding meaning. In particular, the reason this "bankrupt" culture takes a toll on the author's happiness is because she doesn't find Silicon Valley's value structure to be meaningful. In other words, surrounding yourself with people who have a different value structure than yourself can cause mental health problems (especially when you haven't taken the time to explicitly inspect your values bc you either feel like there's something wrong with you or everyone around you is a horrible person).

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#162

Post by triviatise »

cknoxrun wrote: post #64
cabaalis wrote: post #36

> So, I’m leaving. But I do hope to come back someday. You've made what I think is a good choice. Don't turn it into a bad one by just going to some different urban center. You will learn that there are hard-working, good-natured, intelligent people all over the country living in very diverse neighborhoods. They understand math and engineering just as well as you do, yet they are constantly told they are flyover hick…

I live and co-founded my current company in a colder northern Canadian city. Often we get derided by larger urban centres in Canada, similar to being labeled "flyover" country. But what I've found is that there is a sweet spot in terms of city size (mine is about 1 million) where the community feels small enough that people seem to legitimately care about each other, and champion each other's successes, but the benef…

Austin is still like this (pop 1M). You can be anywhere in town and still run into people you know.

People can still work 9 to 5 and comfortably raise a family. While it is becoming more pretentious with tech money, it isn't too bad.

Austin is a tier 4 city that can at times still feel like a small town with some bigger city amenities.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#163

Post by Nasrudith »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #89
thedz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did... you read the same article I did? The author describes a hyper competitive childhood that explicit took a mental and physical toll on the student body

It seems a lot of people commenting here basically just see money == happiness. Basically, these commenters are proving the article’s point. Why be depressed when you have money? Who needs empathy for the homeless when you live in a gated community away from them?

It is a lack of scope for the problems - people would understand "even being rich being stuck in a wheelchair/an orphan/etc. still sucks it beats being poor and x".

Given that they are in a better situation than most and no experience with the problems it gets triaged as "not really a problem".

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#164

Post by refurb »

conanbatt wrote: post #134
anxman wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords don't get it either. I'm a landlord and most of that money goes to the banks and property taxes. I might see profits in 10-20 years if I'm lucky but even that's a gamble.

I would've been ready to disagree with you 2 months ago, until I looked at the SF budget and saw they spend 2600U$S per household every month. Landlords cant be getting too much of that: but they do get a piece, particularly old time landlords.

The landlords making money hand over fist are the ones that bought long ago AND had the tenants turn over (reset rent control).

Right now it’s cheaper to rent a place than buy in SF (rent to home price ratio is almost 1:30 where 1:15 means it’s equal).

Most landlords are betting on property appreciation, but even that isn’t guaranteed if you have tenants as they lower the value of the home.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#165

Post by Apocryphon »

cromwellian wrote: post #114

How much of the author's early childhood stress is the result not of SV, but of tiger mom/dad competitiveness? Kids crying over getting an A- and being loaded up with 7 after school classes and college prep activities usually indicates parental pressure more than peer pressure. So some of her commentary is transferring blame to SV culture as a whole for what is probably a result of the culture of the parents.

Tiger mom parenting has become a part of SV culture, or at least many schools in SV.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#167

Post by Para2016 »

thedz wrote: post #45
Para2016 wrote: post #26

I had to stop reading this. The complaints of a wealthy narcissist and her wonderful childhood are absurd, despicable even.

Did... you read the same article I did? The author describes a hyper competitive childhood that explicit took a mental and physical toll on the student body

Yes. I grew up in a lower middle class family with uneducated parents. Then I was enlisted in the military. Now I'm a resident physician working primarily in a county hospital. So when I say someone is a narcissist it's backed up by current DSM knowledge. And when I say despicable, I say it knowing that this spoiled author has no idea how the majority of America lives.

SV types seem to not understand that a "hyper competitive" educational environment is not a pitiable condition.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#168

Post by cromwellian »

Apocryphon wrote: post #165
cromwellian wrote: post #114

How much of the author's early childhood stress is the result not of SV, but of tiger mom/dad competitiveness? Kids crying over getting an A- and being loaded up with 7 after school classes and college prep activities usually indicates parental pressure more than peer pressure. So some of her commentary is transferring blame to SV culture as a whole for what is probably a result of the culture of the parents.

Tiger mom parenting has become a part of SV culture, or at least many schools in SV.

True but it’s much more prevalent in first generation immigrant families especially from Asia, so there’s some selection bias.

Yes, some areas can be 30-90% this demographic makeup (eg cupertino schools) but it is not the norm for the entire Bay Area.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#169

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #72
xiphias2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was living in Zurich and before Tinder I had no idea how much difference can my sexual value be between cities. I really wish I knew that my dating life would have been so much easier if I move to NYC.

Dating in Silicon Valley is legitimately awful. It's staggeringly bad.

I feel like that problem is hardly unique to SV, though it also seems likely that interpersonal relationships and the SV cultural mindset are fundamentally incompatible.

Re: This Is Silicon Valley

#170

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

jjulius wrote: post #120
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #25

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…

I couldn't agree more. The Bay Area was always one of the only places my wife and I could mutually agree on whenever we'd chat about places we'd like to move to. I grew up in Seattle and have family scattered throughout SF and the East Bay, and was fortunate enough to have made multiple trips per year to the area since I was a kid. Those trips fostered a love for the region, for SF as a city, and the people here. The…

I have a somewhat similar perspective, having moved to Colorado about four years ago. There are clearly a lot of transplants here, but if you go for a walk around Denver, it's A LOT of affluent white people. Go to Boulder and it's even more pronounced (similar to a miniature Silicon Valley). I'm very conflicted because there is a lot to like about Colorado, but I sometimes wish I moved to an area that was not so white.

The article's mention about Patagonia made me laugh and cringe, because sometimes it feels like Colorado is sponsored by Patagonia. That being said, I'm "guilty" too, because I wear Patagonia. But part of that is because they make solid items and they are generally environmentally conscious about their production (I still wear a jacket of theirs from 2013 that looks brand new).

On the more perverse end of consumption, I am now starting to see Canada Goose jackets all over Colorado; they are about 2x or 3x what Patagonia costs, which I believe is already quite expensive. I remember seeing something similar happen with North Face jackets years ago; once they became ubiquitous, the wealthy find something more expensive to show off.

Seeing all of this happen while the homeless population increases and more people that grew up in Colorado get pushed out due to rising housing costs, it's enough to make me feel hopeless that this situation can improve and overall disgusted about my part in it, as well. So I can definitely understand this feeling of "wanting to get out" due to hopelessness.

That being said, states like Colorado and California are some of the few areas with solid protections for LGBTQ people. There is a certain amount of unacknowledged privilege in seeing other posts on this site, mostly by straight, mostly white, men who talk about moving to "the middle of the country" to get out the bubble. But I think that a lot of people forget that many marginalized people move to these areas precisely because they provide legal and cultural protections and generally more openness.

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