didn't someone on hn pose this exact analogy (to Puritans) a couple of days ago? sometimes I wonder if editors lurk on hn/reddit for headline ideas (the writers themselves need more turnaround time than 2 days I imagine)
Techies Are the New Puritans
51–60 of 150 posts
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#52As a software engineer, this problem has been prevalent in my mind lately. My main question is this: how can we, as members of the technology industry, use our skills to help solve the homelessness problem? I've seen a lot of people suggesting that learning to code is a solution, which feels like a very disconnected kind of response. If you're trying to stay warm and survive from day to day, buying a computer is sure…
If a homeless individual can approach me in an honest, respectful manner, I'd be more inclined to help. This has not yet been the case. I prefer to reward civility with civility.
I bet it has but you had no idea they were homeless.
Crazy antisocial people often become homeless and are the visible side of it, but the vast majority of homeless people are not antisocial or crazy.
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#53As a software engineer, this problem has been prevalent in my mind lately. My main question is this: how can we, as members of the technology industry, use our skills to help solve the homelessness problem? I've seen a lot of people suggesting that learning to code is a solution, which feels like a very disconnected kind of response. If you're trying to stay warm and survive from day to day, buying a computer is sure…
Buy groceries at Safeway. Drop them off at a soup kitchen or a battered woman's shelter. I donate my old cell phones and any I come across to the local battered woman's shelter shelter. They might not work but they can still call 911 and this is a tremendous help.
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#54As a software engineer, this problem has been prevalent in my mind lately. My main question is this: how can we, as members of the technology industry, use our skills to help solve the homelessness problem? I've seen a lot of people suggesting that learning to code is a solution, which feels like a very disconnected kind of response. If you're trying to stay warm and survive from day to day, buying a computer is sure…
If a homeless individual can approach me in an honest, respectful manner, I'd be more inclined to help. This has not yet been the case. I prefer to reward civility with civility.
The Golden Rule? My goodness, Citizen, how positively regressionist of you!
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#55Cities that don't care for their homeless tend not to have a homeless problem. SF actually has relatively great care for homeless people compared to the majority of the US. Therefore a lot more homeless end up there. The homeless problem is striking because it's almost entirely artificial. If SF didn't care for it's homeless, and didn't rent control areas to allow affordable housing it would probably be like midtown…
What part of midtown Manhattan is beneficial for the poor? Also, what makes you think NYC doesn't have a homeless problem? Unless of course your definition of "homeless problem" is: "homeless people are bothering me", and not "homeless people don't have a warm place to sleep".
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#56Is the relation really all that surprising to people? We programmers tend to be a fairly self-reliant bunch. Ever told someone "RTFM"? Many of us are self-motivated, and probably self-taught to at least a certain degree. You think "It's just so easy, anyone can do it if they put in the work" and as a result you see unsuccessful, downtrodden people and think they just didn't want to put in their 10.000 hours like the…
Self reliant is an Ouroboros; a serpent eating its tail.
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#57Techies like to think of themselves as different from the very wealthy, but many of our attitudes are very similar and most techies aspire to join their ranks. There's a persistent belief in common with the wealthy that we have earned, solely through our hard work and perseverance, our position in society. Never mind the advantages we had along the way.
I see so many comments on HN, especially as of late, basically to the effect of "the poor deserve to be poor" and usually with a "they could work hard like I do" tacked on. It's been leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. I've been both rich and poor and never forget where I've been in life. A lot of people forget how much support they've had to get where they are. When you really take a good hard look at why many p…
Exactly! I come from a middle-class background. Not trust-fund level, but enough to shield me from the catch-22s of poverty. It disturbs me, when I reflect back on my life, just how many "steps to success" would have been complicated had my family been lower on the economic totem pole. It disturbs me even more how many of my peers (disproportionately many of which share the same background) don't acknowledge this fact with respect to their own lives. It's easy to be a libertarian when the market is treating you well.
It saddens me that the concept of "class struggle" was sullied by its connection with a certain well-known failed attempt to solve the problem. Just because our rivals failed doesn't mean we have succeeded!
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#58As a software engineer, this problem has been prevalent in my mind lately. My main question is this: how can we, as members of the technology industry, use our skills to help solve the homelessness problem? I've seen a lot of people suggesting that learning to code is a solution, which feels like a very disconnected kind of response. If you're trying to stay warm and survive from day to day, buying a computer is sure…
Go volunteer, that's step one.
There are likely many, many ways we can leverage our abilities and talents to contribute to a solution, but many are non-obvious until you're on the inside and start ascertaining the size, scope, and nature of the problems.
Go find local shelters, soup kitchens, and other humanitarian services. Take the most rank and file (but front-facing) opportunity you can get. Work. Talk to people - the hopelessly homeless, the temporarily homeless, the people who work with them. Learn about these problems up close instead of speculating from the comfort of an armchair like most of the world.
Don't expect to be welcomed with open arms. Expect some measure of hostility. The homeless are all too familiar with being paraded around like animals in a zoo. Many of the people you will be volunteering with are presumptuous people with savior complexes, who will be patronizing to the people they're trying to help. Many people you work with will initially assume you're one of them also.
You're not going to write a world-changing piece of code having never written code before. You're definitely not going to turn homelessness upside down with no inside experience.
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#59Cities that don't care for their homeless tend not to have a homeless problem. SF actually has relatively great care for homeless people compared to the majority of the US. Therefore a lot more homeless end up there. The homeless problem is striking because it's almost entirely artificial. If SF didn't care for it's homeless, and didn't rent control areas to allow affordable housing it would probably be like midtown…
Cities that don't care for their homeless tend not to have a homeless problem.
The same is not true of countries.
Re: Techies Are the New Puritans
#60I'm sure they wouldn't feel the same way if the tech industry go to shit and they end up homeless. Having a degree and/or a job in demand doesn't give them the right to look down upon the unfortunates. I believe there are a huge population of veteran homeless too. It's not like all them chose to be homeless. They're just assholes that are sitting around bitching. They're not the ones that are going to try to solve th…
Christ fed the hungry. He did not petition the Pharisaical council to establish a steering committee to look toward the establishment of a working group to consider the possibility of soliciting public input from all interested stakeholders with the eventual goal of producing a synergistic plan for improving the condition of the urban disadvantaged.