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Poor in Tech

megelison.com

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Re: Poor in Tech

#321

Post by LAC-Tech »

leoc wrote: post #282
avancemos wrote: post #7

Instead of seeing the bright side of life, in which this person clearly vastly improved their situation in life, all they can see is what they don’t have. “I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I had the only fat body in the building.” I’m sorry, but no, being poor doesn’t make you fat. Your eating choices make you fat. Poor people have agency too. Agency is not something you buy. This is comin…

It seems that much of Chapter 6 of Wigan Pier is still pretty relevant: http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/5.html

Ah we posted this at almost the same time :)

I'm glad I didn't read that book when I was still "poor", it's so relatable and hits hard. I recommend it for anyone kind of wondering (he's not exactly kind to the working class, but he does try hard to understand it all and does have insight).

Re: Poor in Tech

#322

Post by isomorph »

bnralt wrote: post #286
isomorph wrote: post #116

Many of the comments on this article are so cold. I can’t believe it. When I read the original article I was imagining all the constructive ways HN readers would interpret it and hold a mirror up to their own behaviour. Some commenters are doing this. But it surprises and depresses me how many people are commenting saying “no, this list isn’t what it says it is, it’s a list showing the author has a negative mindset /…

I seem to run into more and more responses like this these days. Instead of responding to any specific comment a person has written, it attempts to paint any differing opinion as being somehow immoral. I can't say that this type of approach is conducive to open discussion.

I summarised a bunch of comments. If you have an issue with my summary you can critique it directly, just like you wanted me to do. To me they don’t look like differing opinions that have been thought through. They seem like kneejerk dismissals, which are against the HN rules.

Re: Poor in Tech

#323

Post by Kharvok »

est31 wrote: post #31
avancemos wrote: post #7

Instead of seeing the bright side of life, in which this person clearly vastly improved their situation in life, all they can see is what they don’t have. “I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I had the only fat body in the building.” I’m sorry, but no, being poor doesn’t make you fat. Your eating choices make you fat. Poor people have agency too. Agency is not something you buy. This is comin…

There are food deserts in the USA, where you literally can't buy high quality food like vegetables in a large area, and have to resort to only eating the highly processed and highly unhealthy food. These food deserts usually are located in the poorer neighbourhoods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

Food deserts mostly myth. I'm looking for the study in my notes but there is only a very slight difference in diets between tax brackets.

Re: Poor in Tech

#324

Post by username90 »

> Elison is a high school dropout, a graduate of UC Berkeley

> Meg Elison is a California Bay Area author and essayist

So basically she went to one of the better universities in the country, but choose to follow her dream and become an author rather than an engineer. That is a rich person choice, a poor person would choose the career with high pay. She can only blame herself here.

Re: Poor in Tech

#325

Post by dkirill »

kybernetyk wrote: post #256

>"I am so poor" - sent from my $1200 Macbook. Typical tech bubble bullshit. She doesn't even realize what real poverty is.

Agree. Strongly dislike this American sentiment of self victimisation. If you are born in USA you are not poor. If you are born in USA and work in tech, you are not poor even relative to other Americans. I mean most of the world (including me) dream of having an opportunity to migrate to USA, because living there is enormous privilege to have

Re: Poor in Tech

#326

Post by username90 »

domador wrote: post #302
username90 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the solution is to acknowledge that they are dumb and therefore focus resources with the assumption that they are dumb. USA assumes that poor people are smart, Europe assumes poor people are dumb. The European way is much better, and yes poor people in American are dumb, just like they are in Europe.

Is this sarcasm?

No. I think that dumb people deserve good lives as well, having policies that only works for non dumb people is dumb.

Re: Poor in Tech

#327

Post by blacktriangle »

Kharvok wrote: post #314

Why is it always people in tech-adjacent roles that trot this out? This kind of reads like someone falsely attributing class as a barrier when actually it's their cognitive abilities compared to peers. It always seems like the majority of the writer's woes would be solved if they were themselves more competent at what they do.

Because the current US corporate culture has decided to reward victimhood, therefore we get more of it. Simple as that.

Re: Poor in Tech

#328

Post by ghaff »

drewbug01 wrote: post #263
GlennS wrote: post #128

Some interesting culture differences in there. For example, one of the reasons that soccer/football is popular worldwide is because it's very cheap. Is it not so in the US? Also the assumption that everyone takes painkillers?

> For example, one of the reasons that soccer/football is popular worldwide is because it's very cheap. Is it not so in the US? It is relatively cheap in the US as far as I know, but it's not nearly as common as basketball for pickup sports. I think the racial / class connections here are fascinating (and too lengthy to dissect here), but my general sense in the US is that soccer is actually perceived as more "other"…

>It is relatively cheap in the US as far as I know, but it's not nearly as common as basketball for pickup sports.

In the US, while less broadly true today, poor has often been associated with urban. And basketball is probably easier in an urban environment than soccer/football, at least with anything approaching a standard playing field. It's also just never been a very popular US sport although at some point, it became mildly popular among the suburban soccer mom demographic, among others, for various reasons.

Re: Poor in Tech

#329

Post by dukeyukey »

kybernetyk wrote: post #256

>"I am so poor" - sent from my $1200 Macbook. Typical tech bubble bullshit. She doesn't even realize what real poverty is.

Where does it say she owned a MacBook? She had one belonging to her workplace, but I've worked minimum-wage jobs where I've used equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars before.

Re: Poor in Tech

#330

Post by lawn »

username90 wrote: post #290
bsanr2 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tl;dr Poor people (and racial and ethnic minorities, and women, and queer folk) are not dumb. They just have to turn their equal cognitive resources towards things other (and more fundamental to survival) than their magnum opus/business idea/etc. Those who overcome this are HIGHLY effective, but it's not fair that we ask it of them. That's not how an effective or efficient or just society runs, and we leave money on…

No, the solution is to acknowledge that they are dumb and therefore focus resources with the assumption that they are dumb. USA assumes that poor people are smart, Europe assumes poor people are dumb. The European way is much better, and yes poor people in American are dumb, just like they are in Europe.

What an absolutely dumb comment.
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