We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators • Hacker News Board

Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators

#231

Post by jzellis » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 3:36 AM UTC

wildgift wrote: post #228

jzellis wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why fuck me? I mean, I'm just curious. If you're going to tell a stranger on the Internet "fuck you", it might be illuminating to find out why. And it's Josh. Josh Ellis. Since you sort-of asked.

You're deploying a really fucked up stereotype of poor people being heavy drinkers and alcoholics. It's like saying let's go to the ghetto and participate in the culture by doing something self-destructive and negative. That kind of slumming is offensive. You might as well have said go to a Mexican neighborhood and buy some weed and smoke out on the corner, or say go to a Black neighborhood and buy some crack and smo…

You didn't have context. It's not an article, it's notes for a talk I gave. The audience were a bunch of Las Vegas hacker kids and entrepreneur types, who tend to be forty drinkers anyway. It was shorthand for "sit and chill outside". Which I think they understood.

On the other hand, I've spent a lot of time being poor and being around poor people -- in the ghetto, in rural trailer parks, etc -- and actually, in my extensive experience, poor people do tend to be heavy drinkers. Are you seriously suggesting that sitting around in the hood getting your beer on isn't a staple of working class life? If so, we've been experiencing completely different parts of America.

Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators

#232

Post by wildgift » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 4:04 AM UTC

jzellis wrote: post #231

wildgift wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're deploying a really fucked up stereotype of poor people being heavy drinkers and alcoholics. It's like saying let's go to the ghetto and participate in the culture by doing something self-destructive and negative. That kind of slumming is offensive. You might as well have said go to a Mexican neighborhood and buy some weed and smoke out on the corner, or say go to a Black neighborhood and buy some crack and smo…

You didn't have context. It's not an article, it's notes for a talk I gave. The audience were a bunch of Las Vegas hacker kids and entrepreneur types, who tend to be forty drinkers anyway. It was shorthand for "sit and chill outside". Which I think they understood. On the other hand, I've spent a lot of time being poor and being around poor people -- in the ghetto, in rural trailer parks, etc -- and actually, in my e…

There are drinkers of all classes, but I think people who have more money drink more alcohol, and more people drink at all. That's been my experience. Just to verify, I did a search on the topic, and research bears it out.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/drinking-statistic...

The one big difference is how and when people drink. I think poor people tend to drink at home, maybe in the yard, out in the sun, but don't drink at bars. Middle class people are more likely to drink at bars, or drink indoors at home. That's what you do when you have more money and nicer interiors. :) (And it's probably easy to quit drinking when you can't afford it.)

The exception might be winos and alkies, who are poor because they are alkies. I think the constant presence of socially non-functional addicts in poor communities is probably a contributor to the stats in the linked article.

And that article states something that I mentioned in another comment: that people with more money drink to socialize and network.

[Edit: I can see how the statement would work for that audience... but it's still a damaging stereotype. Now we know it's not grounded in fact, and worse than I thought.]

Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators

#233

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 4:05 AM UTC

jzellis wrote: post #231

wildgift wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're deploying a really fucked up stereotype of poor people being heavy drinkers and alcoholics. It's like saying let's go to the ghetto and participate in the culture by doing something self-destructive and negative. That kind of slumming is offensive. You might as well have said go to a Mexican neighborhood and buy some weed and smoke out on the corner, or say go to a Black neighborhood and buy some crack and smo…

You didn't have context. It's not an article, it's notes for a talk I gave. The audience were a bunch of Las Vegas hacker kids and entrepreneur types, who tend to be forty drinkers anyway. It was shorthand for "sit and chill outside". Which I think they understood. On the other hand, I've spent a lot of time being poor and being around poor people -- in the ghetto, in rural trailer parks, etc -- and actually, in my e…

[deleted]

Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators

#234

Post by precisioncoder » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 11:40 AM UTC

wildgift wrote: post #225

precisioncoder wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's circular. You drink because you're depressed because you're poor because you spend all your money on booze. Yes food is expensive, but you can buy a bag of rice and a bag of onions and a bag of potatoes, and eat decent meals of stir fried rice and onions, baked potatoes, onion soup, etc for far less than mcdonalds. Takes almost no time to prepare too. People just don't realize it. That's where targeted education…

I don't think that's a fair characterization. Most of the teetotalers and very light drinkers I've met in my life are or were working class or poor people. I think middle class people drink more than poor people. If you go to a party with poor people, there's hardly any alcohol at all. When you go to a party with middle class people, there's a little keg of some craft brew and a few bottles of liquor. (In fact, I thi…

It may be different where you're from, but I'm from NS Canada in GDP/capita the second lowest in Canada with the lowest PEI. Alcohol aside, people spend their money on luxuries rather than saving it. Which is just fine as a personal choice, but when it's a societal trend that the lower class are going in to debt or not saving in order to buy luxuries I would say there are some gaps in education. I lived on minimum wage for years and saved large amounts in little time while watching people making more than me living paycheck to paycheck struggling simply because they didn't know how to manage their expenses.

Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators

#235

Post by wildgift » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 3:59 PM UTC

precisioncoder wrote: post #234

wildgift wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a fair characterization. Most of the teetotalers and very light drinkers I've met in my life are or were working class or poor people. I think middle class people drink more than poor people. If you go to a party with poor people, there's hardly any alcohol at all. When you go to a party with middle class people, there's a little keg of some craft brew and a few bottles of liquor. (In fact, I thi…

It may be different where you're from, but I'm from NS Canada in GDP/capita the second lowest in Canada with the lowest PEI. Alcohol aside, people spend their money on luxuries rather than saving it. Which is just fine as a personal choice, but when it's a societal trend that the lower class are going in to debt or not saving in order to buy luxuries I would say there are some gaps in education. I lived on minimum wa…

Maybe the situation is different in Canada. I've been there only a couple times, and it seemed cleaner and wealthier. I'm in an area of L.A. where a lot of families cram into 1 bedroom apartments.

Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators

#236

Post by mns2 » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 7:50 PM UTC

csense wrote: post #223

angersock wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

prisoners are kept in jail That's cool, but if you are in the US, given the fairly dumb laws on a lot of things (drugs, mainly), how do you feel about helping to oppress the population? Are you only helping with really violent offenders? insurance claims are processed properly Isn't this just propping up an awful system? Wouldn't it be better to actually try and fix the base system? ~ As for the rest, good work!

> prisoners are kept in jail We need prisons. If you can't put people in jail, what do you do with people who rape or kill innocent people because it's fun and/or profitable to do so? I assume from the tone of your post that you'd disapprove even more strongly of using torture or a swift and sure death penalty to deal with such people (assuming the specifics were found not to run afoul of the Constitution's prohibiti…

Kill them, and only kill the people who would rape or kill innocent people or anything to that degree of crime.