Live data from Hacker News

This is Real, That's Not

streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com

211–220 of 364 posts

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#211
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its possible that it happens, but from my admittedly limited anecdotal experience from seeing a half dozen or so people claim that they were banned for no reason and then taking a look at their comment history, they were absolutely banned for a reason. Do you have an example of someone being banned simply because they shared an unpopular opinion? Also "not true in general" implies that you seem to think that its a wi…

[flagged]

But that's the thing -- I'm a woman in tech. How am I political? I'm just a sack of cells like you. Are you a political topic?

To get back to the parent posters, that's why I keep coming back to HN despite the unfortunately-now-expected friction of, well, comments like the one above me. (And timeeater, to be really clear, I don't care your position on feminism or socialism. The friction is that you label me talking a "political topic".) The conversation here is overall good enough to outweigh that, and I have learned a lot from conservatives/Julia programmers/people who've experienced homelessness/infosec people/homebrewers on HN.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#212
post #7

What a great read. This resonates with me. At one point in my life I was desperately close to homelessness. At the time I was lucky to still be enrolled at a university and could therefore easily take out as many loans as I needed. It was a horribly risky gamble I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but without going into more details of my life story I barely managed to graduate and find a successful career. I was able to pay…

May I ask for how long you took that loan? I’m from Germany and a lot of people live here from around $15 000 per year. 150 thousand seems like such a big amount, but I guess life is also more expensive in the US. I just want to understand, because I come from a different perspective.

How well can a person live in Germany for $15,000? A person in the US could live on that much in an apartment with multiple room mates in a city with a low cost of living, but it’s not much of a life. You would be eating Ramen noodle every night (and not the good kind).

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#213

I tried to read this article, I really did. I tried to read the comments and to be emphatic. I really tried. I just do not feel pitty or any empathy towards anyone in the comments, or the author. I think I am emphatic towards the people I love because I actually deeply love my partner of many years, and my parents. But somehow the idea of homelessness disgusts me: I do not feel any positive emotion towards people who…

I appreciate your inquiry and articulation of your position. I agree that the homeless people you describe are in the direction of repulsive. I can give my answer to your question.

> "so the homeless there to me always seemed like they are homeless due to their own bad choices."

Contrary to your perspective, when I see a homeless person (or anyone) who is being unreasonable, hostile or indecent to me: I try to reflect that they did not have the resources and upbringing that allows them to be decent. I did not choose my upbringing therefore I did not choose my capacity to be a decent human being. It doesn't change them from being repulsive, but I begin to see how I could have been them if I didn't have the resources I had during my upbringing. Resources does not just imply financial capital, but also includes social capital (good relationships, family life), environmental capital (health, nutrition, safety.) So yes you can grow up "poor" (financially/materially) but become a decent human being. Your parents had good virtues instilled in them to not steal or do dodgy things.. I wonder who instilled those virtues in them? I'd like to thank them and make their practices ubiquitous.

Some rhetorical questions I ponder about:

Why am I a decent human being? Am I a decent human being? How much of my inherent decency is from underlying cultural fabric that I may be unaware of and take for granted? What I am doing do insure that I continue to be a decent human being?

.. do I have "blinders" on as the actor in the video suggests. What am I taking for granted that could be taken away? For all I know I could have a future medical condition that breaks me psychologically, or fall to some financial scam that puts me into ruin and I could become an indecent person. How do we create a society that makes it very difficult to become an indecent person? How do we create a society that protects everyone?

When I see an indecent homeless person: I see that society has failed them. Society might fail me too.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#214
post #72

I don't think you're truly economically "upper class" if you have to worry about student loans. I was paying off loans into my 30's, but my children will never have to pay a dime for school unless they make an active decision to ignore the money my wife and I have set aside for that.

> I don't think you're truly economically "upper class" if you have to worry about student loans. If you have to worry about student loans, you probably aren't even middle class (petit bourgeois) even if you are middle or substantially higher income; people with student loan concerns are, almost by definition, members of the proletarian intelligentsia—knowledge-workers, often relatively well paid compared to the rest…

Most people in the US do not think this way, though. Most people in the US feel that if they have 2-3 nice cars and a big house in the suburbs they are upper middle class. (2-3 not-nice cars then lower middle class.) American define class by possessions, often, and then see those possessions as providing security -- which is the false equivalence that your comment starts to get at.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#215
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask for how long you took that loan? I’m from Germany and a lot of people live here from around $15 000 per year. 150 thousand seems like such a big amount, but I guess life is also more expensive in the US. I just want to understand, because I come from a different perspective.

Unlike in Europe, in the US going to university or college requires huge amounts of money and usually require students to take loans. And unlike other types of loans it is nearly impossible to declare bankruptcy for student loans. There is a great summarising it: https://youtu.be/pVKEsiNMPNc

Father of 3 here, one recently graduated and one about to start US college.

With reasonable preparation, college is very affordable. Scholarships are easily obtained with a good ACT or SAT score. Both of these are well documented, a few months of self-study practically guarantees a good score.

My experience has been that good preparation puts out of pocket costs below $10k per year. (I think that's actually on the high side.)

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#216
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask for how long you took that loan? I’m from Germany and a lot of people live here from around $15 000 per year. 150 thousand seems like such a big amount, but I guess life is also more expensive in the US. I just want to understand, because I come from a different perspective.

Unlike in Europe, in the US going to university or college requires huge amounts of money and usually require students to take loans. And unlike other types of loans it is nearly impossible to declare bankruptcy for student loans. There is a great summarising it: https://youtu.be/pVKEsiNMPNc

Yeah, this was the most messed up part of the whole article:

> I got back into housing a few weeks after I made my last student loan payment.

I graduated undergrad with $4k in student loans. The fact that there are people becoming homeless due to student loan debt is insane.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#217
post #72

I don't think you're truly economically "upper class" if you have to worry about student loans. I was paying off loans into my 30's, but my children will never have to pay a dime for school unless they make an active decision to ignore the money my wife and I have set aside for that.

> I don't think you're truly economically "upper class" if you have to worry about student loans. If you have to worry about student loans, you probably aren't even middle class (petit bourgeois) even if you are middle or substantially higher income; people with student loan concerns are, almost by definition, members of the proletarian intelligentsia—knowledge-workers, often relatively well paid compared to the rest…

Under this definition, presumably a house flipper doing all their own decorating would be petit bourgeois (applying their own labor to their own capital), while a senior manager earning $500,000/year at Google would be proleteriat (selling their labor for wages)?

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask for how long you took that loan? I’m from Germany and a lot of people live here from around $15 000 per year. 150 thousand seems like such a big amount, but I guess life is also more expensive in the US. I just want to understand, because I come from a different perspective.

How well can a person live in Germany for $15,000? A person in the US could live on that much in an apartment with multiple room mates in a city with a low cost of living, but it’s not much of a life. You would be eating Ramen noodle every night (and not the good kind).

German rents are relatively reasonable:

"The price of Monthly rent for a 45 m2 (480 Sqft) furnished studio in NORMAL area in Leipzig is €352" i.e. slightly over $5,000 per year.

[Source https://www.expatistan.com/price/studio-rent-normal-area/lei...]

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#219
post #216
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike in Europe, in the US going to university or college requires huge amounts of money and usually require students to take loans. And unlike other types of loans it is nearly impossible to declare bankruptcy for student loans. There is a great summarising it: https://youtu.be/pVKEsiNMPNc

Yeah, this was the most messed up part of the whole article: > I got back into housing a few weeks after I made my last student loan payment. I graduated undergrad with $4k in student loans. The fact that there are people becoming homeless due to student loan debt is insane.

In a different post[1], the author writes: > As my finances tanked due to a combination of divorce and medical crisis

[1] https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2020/07/independent...

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#220
post #105

Under the medically justified urgency of covid, Victoria took a significant number of homeless rough sleeping people (as they are called here in australia) into some kind of housing. Queensland did the same using surplus student purpose built dense housing. I'm not going to pretend this "solved the problems" but I am told a number of the less intractable cases got put into a better situation,simply having secure shel…

Homelessness exists because the landlords and business people prefer it. Homelessness is a demonstrated threat of what not paying the rent and having a job will do to you. If you remove that dire threat, the housing market and job market becomes far more competitive for the workers and the owner class is disadvantaged. In the US, we have many more vacant houses than we have homeless people. The market system is incap…

I want to believe this is hyperbolic.

Do you really believe business owners, and landlords are sitting in some smokey room plotting to keep people homeless so people will pay their rent?

Really, that is your honest held belief of the situation?

Post reply on HN