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Poor in Tech

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Re: Poor in Tech

#431

Post by Mauricebranagh »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #394
Mauricebranagh wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also surprising the author did not experience it at Uni where even well off middle class people, suddenly are mixing with much wealthier people. I remeber my cousin who went to UMIST saying this and that side of the family was well off. Its even more noticeable if you went to oxbridge and bumped into some one like Borris Johnson and his Bullingdon mates.

I think this is school dependent. In my experience, many wealthy kids will hide behaviors they know are associated with being wealthy / hide their backgrounds in order to better fit in. The awkwardness goes both ways.

Middle class kids might, not upper class wealthy ones not so much.

Re: Poor in Tech

#432

Post by elzbardico »

nerdponx wrote: post #372
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…

Well-said. Can you blame the author for being overweight and not wanting to put up with feeling self-conscious at the gym? Being poor can push you to your limits even just trying to survive every day, not to mention be an effective worker, and being a good parent/spouse/partner/friend/family/etc to whoever is in your life. Doing 45 minutes of cardio while also feeling like an outsider is just not in the time or energ…

And when you worry about the possibility of someday not being able to afford food due to some extend unemployment episode, when you feel vulnerable any time you hear the word "recession" on the news, it is hard to convince your body not to eat as much as possible now, while food is abundant.

Re: Poor in Tech

#433

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

GeriatricYouth wrote: post #36

> I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I was afraid to seek mentorship from anyone above me, convinced that even asking would seem like bothersome begging. I watched the people around me network effortlessly, assured of favors and good words put in. I could only think in terms of what I could offer and how I could survive; they were thinking on the next level where they never had to wonder if…

See it in a different way: all of those "mentor" type people, they have valuable knowledge in their heads. They have spent years and years building it up, refining their experiences and intuition etc. etc., you have the opportunity to go and ingest as much of that knowledge as possible at relatively no time expense!

As soon as I realized this, I started obsessively drilling their heads for every little scrap (up until the point they would start being annoyed with me). It's free!

Re: Poor in Tech

#434

Post by zozbot234 »

jmt_ wrote: post #239
phone8675309 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can be poor and still act more “upper class” and you can be rich and still act “working class”. You are stunningly naive if you think that a poor person acting more "upper class" isn't reminded that they're "out of their lane" more than someone rich acting "working class".

Spot on. Every time I wear "fancy" clothes I'm constantly worrying that everyone is pointing at me thinking "we know who you really are, you're poor and don't deserve to be acting this way". This is despite me moving away from my poor town years ago and establishing a solid job for myself. Nobody in my new town knows me at all yet I assume they know I came from a "less than" background. A poor person must undo decade…

You don't need anything even close to overly "fancy"; if you're the average poor person, you can vastly improve your image simply by wearing any sort of formal clothes, as in a suit and tie. Even if others "know who you really are" they'll still appreciate that you're making the effort to relate to them, and that's what matters. We tend to forget stuff like this as we lose sight of the value of enduring traditions, but if you look at visual records of how older generations behaved you'll see plenty of poorer folks looking quite comfortable in formal wear.

Re: Poor in Tech

#435

Post by rvense »

username90 wrote: post #347
StavrosK wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment cannot be saying what it seems to be saying, can you clarify what you mean? Maybe it was worded oddly.

First point: I live in Scandinavia. Poor people are just as dumb here as in USA, but we take better care of them. USA assumes that poor people should be able to take care of themselves, which doesn't work. Taking care of them doesn't make them smarter, but it makes their lives better which is the point.

I'm also from Scandinavia and I just don't agree with you. What you're saying doesn't line up with my own experiences, nor with my understanding of the statistics.

In general, it seems like you are attributing all academic performance to some innate "intelligence" in the singular. This is just a bad assumption. There are many factors behind how well you do in school, and most of them are quite obviously social. That doesn't mean that your parents academic performance doesn't influence your, but there's no basis for claiming that it's genetic. We can help people do better, and we have done so. Of course, what we're doing now isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it.

Re: Poor in Tech

#436

Post by rkk3 »

UncleMeat wrote: post #235
est31 wrote: post #10

> I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I was the only person who would say hello to the cleaning lady as she meekly made her rounds around us when we worked late. Everyone else had a long habit of ignoring anyone like her. That's IMO the worst behaviour of the rich listed in this article. I've heard stories that at Google, the non-engineering workers at campus may not socialize with engineers…

> I've heard stories that at Google, the non-engineering workers at campus may not socialize with engineers at all. Googler for many years here. I've never heard of this kind of thing. One of the most prolific and loved content creators on the internal meme board is in sales. The closest thing I've ever heard like this in the entire valley is that at Apple they don't pay for the lunch bill of non-engineers, so having…

How about earlier this month when corporate asked child care workers to come back to the office to take care of your kids and refused to re instate their transportation benefits?

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/552403-google-childcar...

Re: Poor in Tech

#437

Post by ecshafer »

giantg2 wrote: post #121
DigitalSea wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a few papers out there on the subject. As someone who has studied a little bit of sociology, I can tell you there are numerous sociological factors which basically determine that wealthier people have access to better food, better medical care and live healthier lives in comparison to lower-socioeconomic people. Where you live alone determines your health equity, if you live in a remote area or small…

"if you live in a remote area or small town away from a large city, your access to fresh and non-processed foods is heavily reduced." This simply isn't true. Most food deserts are in the poorer areas of the cities because nobody is bringing fresh produce in there to sell. If you live in the country or small town, many of these places have farm stands, farmers markets, and local farmers providing seasonal produce to t…

I grew up in a rural area and I think I can count on 1 hand how many times I saw a farm stand. People do not shop at farm stands and farmers markets in rural areas that often.

Re: Poor in Tech

#438

Post by Kye »

Aeolun wrote: post #93
GeriatricYouth wrote: post #36

> I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I was afraid to seek mentorship from anyone above me, convinced that even asking would seem like bothersome begging. I watched the people around me network effortlessly, assured of favors and good words put in. I could only think in terms of what I could offer and how I could survive; they were thinking on the next level where they never had to wonder if…

But... they’re literally there to teach you stuff. And they like you better if you show interest. Why would you not ask the teacher stuff.

IME they mostly didn't know how to teach anything once someone fell off the rails of the curriculum. I quickly learned that, for whatever reason, the "normal" way things were taught didn't work for me. The people whose job it was to navigate it didn't know how to help me. I was fortunate to have parents who, despite not having much money, knew computers would be important and always kept us in a working computer and internet connection.

Even the early web in K-12 and early YouTube in tech school were more helpful because there were ways of teaching out there that worked for me, and I could find them. Math was the hardest because the teachers were mostly people who Just Got Math and didn't know how to help someone who didn't. They would get so into explaining something that they didn't hear me begging them to slow down so I could process it.

Re: Poor in Tech

#439

Post by StavrosK »

iagovar wrote: post #362
maury91 wrote: post #209

I'm from a "poorish" family, but from Europe. Some stuff is relatable some is not: - People ordering lunch always felt weird for me, in my mind I think "why should I pay 10€ for a bowl of salad, when I can go to the grocery store below the office and have the same for 1€", or even better pay 70 cents for the raw vegetables, wash them and chop them in the office and they will last 3 days - Student debt doesn't apply,…

I'm from Spain and I find relatable. I've been in places where I didn't have to eat, so when people orders food every day I just compute in my head how much money goes to waste. Another thing that I do, is consider the ability to repair tech without lock-in. Being a techie poor teachs you to be careful about this decisions, but people seem perfectly fine to be locked in and just buy new stuff every time. There has be…

> how much money goes to waste.

Eh, it doesn't go to waste, it goes to other people.

> Being a techie poor teachs you to be careful about this decisions, but people seem perfectly fine to be locked in and just buy new stuff every time.

Yes, this is a big one! Ever since I got into hardware as a hobby I can repair many more devices with a 3D-printed part or replacing a burnt component, now I'm horrified at how often people will just get a new device. Repair shops should be more common, and repair should be easier, as that is truly wasting money (because you're throwing away a usually perfectly usable device that just needs a bit of repair).

Re: Poor in Tech

#440

Post by marcosdumay »

faraaz98 wrote: post #351
StavrosK wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they mean that in many places around the world, public transportation is more usable, so people don't need cars.

or someone that's considered poor, can't afford one.

Those have "no car problems" that are objectively worse than "old car problems", since the (often disastrous) consequence of the later is throwing some of the former at you.

Yes, there are some places where public transportation both exists, doesn't take most of your day, and is cheaper than cars. Those places must be great, but as a 3rd worlder I barely know them (it's not a huge problem for me, personally, it's just enraging).

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