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Poor in Tech

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Re: Poor in Tech

#541

Post by godfreyantonell »

zozbot234 wrote: post #420
domador wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only other implicit criticism toward her coworkers was ignoring and not greeting the cleaning staff. For the most part, her coworkers come across as privileged, rather than mean or otherwise morally deficient.

I'm not sure I see anything wrong with not bothering the cleaning staff while they're at work. The whole reason they've been hired is to spare everyone else the time and effort involved in cleaning, so to have everyone waste time on greetings would just be demeaning their work.

Shame on you for telling the truth. You have a right not to speak to anyone you don't want to speak to. You are probably smart as shit and make close to a million a year. Hell, I'd be a dick if I made that kind of cheese.

Re: Poor in Tech

#542

Post by watwut »

bumby wrote: post #536
watwut wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard…

> I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point. I did not read the article as commenting about what is "bad" about the tech industry but rather abou…

Did you read my comment and comment I was responding to before writing yours? The parent complains that article listed things "act like wankers". Which clearly means "bad".

Second, I worked with people who had completely different hobbies and interests than I do. I am not always in dominant majority, with climbing in that team I was.

As far as I know, people having hobbies I don't care about is completely normal.

Re: Poor in Tech

#543

Post by nine_k »

cryptica wrote: post #497
pnutjam wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed where the writer found out they were the lowest paid person. This is how the wealthy class really keep people from moving up. Your pay is forever tied to what you used to make. It's hard enough to break the circuit in your mind, it's near impossible to do so with your employer. At my current employer, they offered me a 10% paycut to convert from contract to FTE. I could not afford that, but I also can't aff…

>> Your pay is forever tied to what you used to make. It's not just a psychological "avoid the subject" kind of trick. They literally refuse to give you raises no matter what. In my last job, I was likely the top developer in the company (the company had hundreds of millions of $ of runway just sitting there) and I was putting constant pressure on my boss for a raise and promotion for years (they even admitted that I…

If you push yourself beyond the bounds of the expected, one good thing happens. Other companies are more willing to hire you.

Pay rises happened to me several times. Promotions within the same company, never. The way to step up, as on a proper stairway, is to also step forward.

Re: Poor in Tech

#544

Post by gonehome »

istjohn wrote: post #413
fmajid wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much racism in America is actually classism. That's why something like Henry Louis Gates being profiled by a neighbor and a policeman as he was trying to get back to his Harvard home makes the news: Gates is an educated upper-class black man, and in this case he was treated as the latter rather than the former.

I think you could argue that the opposite is true. Much classism in America is actually racism. For example, opposition to welfare programs have often been motivated by racist tropes like welfare queens. The truth is that racism and classism in America are deeply intertwined.

Welfare may be a bad example because I think there are more white people on welfare in general? Would potentially be evidence of class divide.

I think there’s truth in what you’re saying though - single family zoning is an easy example. Also when they talk about welfare on the news and only show black people (even though more white people are on welfare iirc) - or how the sister reply to your comment gets indignant demanding you “explain how opposition to welfare is racism” and in the next sentence complains about minority communities. So there’s definitely a racial component.

I guess I mostly agree, we just see race more easily than class because of arbitrary skin color categorization. I hope in the future both are irrelevant.

Re: Poor in Tech

#545

Post by fzil »

sdenton4 wrote: post #494
sokoloff wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people wildly over-estimate the costs of driving an older (say 5-15 years old) car and so are prone to over-pay for a new or newer car, believing they're making a good choice based on flawed data. (They remember the time they had to dump $1200 into repairs into some old heap that isn't even shiny anymore. They don't remember that for the last 24 months in a row, they saved $450 in payments, $200 in depreciati…

(Consider also: just not owning a car. Bikes and transit for the day to day and occasional outlays for wknds in the mountains is cheaper than owning any car.)

That requires living in an expensive city, at least in North America.

Re: Poor in Tech

#546

Post by bumby »

watwut wrote: post #542
bumby wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point. I did not read the article as commenting about what is "bad" about the tech industry but rather abou…

Did you read my comment and comment I was responding to before writing yours? The parent complains that article listed things "act like wankers". Which clearly means "bad". Second, I worked with people who had completely different hobbies and interests than I do. I am not always in dominant majority, with climbing in that team I was. As far as I know, people having hobbies I don't care about is completely normal.

Yes, I read the parent comment. I originally typed out in my previous post that I felt you may have missed the point of the article, but I felt that was too harsh. I don't think the main takeaway from the article should be certain things commonplace in tech culture are "bad" but how it can be alienating. To that point, both yours and the parent post seem overly concerned with the "bad vs. good" distinction. I do have some issues with the article, but I think alienating certain people (whether conscious or not) is something we should be concerned about.

Edit: it looks like you've edited your comment quite a bit since I first replied but I think there's another important clarification:

>As far as I know, people having hobbies I don't care about is completely normal.

I'm not using "normative" to define "weird or not-weird" but rather commonplace. So regarding the article and your example, indoor climbing may be commonplace in your peer-group while still being non-normative in someone like the author's peer-group. Pile enough of these together and it's easy to see how one may begin to feel alienated.

Re: Poor in Tech

#547

Post by OOPMan »

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 /…

Expecting HN commenters not to behave like the vapid nuts they're they're mocked as on n-gate is a big ask ;-)

Re: Poor in Tech

#548

Post by bluecalm »

chris11 wrote: post #514
CountDrewku wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain how opposition to welfare programs is racism. Also, please explain why impoverished minority communities have not vastly improved regardless of the constantly increasing money tossed into welfare programs.

The comment wasn't that opposition to welfare programs was solely caused by racism, just that it was one motivation. It's easier to defend a racist policy if racism is never explicitly brought up, the policy just has a disparate impact along racial lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#%22Southern_strate...

Opposition to welfare programs happens in countries without race related problems as well. How do you distinguish between such opposition if you're going along with "that affects particular race more that's why they oppose it" argument. You can paint everyone to be racist this way.

Re: Poor in Tech

#549

Post by giantg2 »

CountDrewku wrote: post #510
giantg2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

>ost food deserts are in the poorer areas of the cities because nobody is bringing fresh produce in there to sell. Talking about things that simply aren't true.... Every major city in the US has a large farmer's market present and typically more than one happening in neighborhoods all over the city. These cities also have free/cheap public transportation to get people to the farmer's market. Additionally, you don't n…

"The is just trope along the same lines of black people can't get their own ID's or figure out the internet. It's an incredibly racist way of thinking."

I never said black people. That's your own bias talking.

I agree that people can travel to a supermarket (and that supermarkets have healthy food). It's much more difficult to take a weekly trip for a family's needs in public transportation as opposed to loading up a car. More frequent trips tend to incur higher opportunity cost due to the commute times.

IDs are a completely different matter. The need for those trips are about once every 4-6 years and generally lower expense too.

Re: Poor in Tech

#550

Post by giantg2 »

ecshafer wrote: post #437
giantg2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

What area do you live in? I've had the opposite experience in a few states.
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