The Unexotic Underclass • Hacker News Board

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#191

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:09 PM UTC

facepalm wrote: post #157

TeMPOraL wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where I live, many landlords prefer tenants who are on welfare. The state pays their rent, so it's practically guaranteed. So I think single mothers might be a lucrative market. Doesn't this have a side effect of locking those single mothers into poverty? A place to stay offers stabilization, but that alone doesn't help if trying to find a job means losing benefits and not being able to afford a cheap flat, because…

Not just single mothers, everybody who is on welfare. I suppose it is always tricky to set up such a system with minimal side effects. I'm not saying the system is good, but it exists. There were cases here (Germany) where people had to leave their flat for one with higher rent, because the old flat was too big (welfare recipients being entitled only to so much space). But that was the government forcing them to move…

> There were cases here (Germany) where people had to leave their flat for one with higher rent, because the old flat was too big (welfare recipients being entitled only to so much space). But that was the government forcing them to move, not the landlords.

I know personally of a family in a similar situation in Poland. A single mother living with with three children; the moment the eldest will leave house to live on his own, the family will have to sell the flat and move to a smaller one, because with one less person living there, the flat will be considered a little too big and suddenly, all benefits related to it will evaporate.

> Not sure if the other thing would happen, landlords throwing out tenants when they don't receive welfare anymore. There are laws to protect tenants once they are in the house, too.

It doesn't necessarily have to be throwing out, it might just be "renegotiating the contract". Also the person who just switched from welfare to a job might not have a very stable income at the beginning. Unfortunately, welfare trap is a real thing.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#192

Post by chillingeffect » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:10 PM UTC

johngalt wrote: post #28

Afforess wrote: post #7

Maybe I lack vision - but I don't see how any of the problems of the white collar and working poor can be solved by Silicon Valley. It would be impossible for a startup to work with the government in processing Veterns claims, for example. The regulations barriers are immense and the security and compliance problems are legion. Similarly, how are startups supposed to improve the earning potentials of the working poor…

Domain specific knowledge would help. Find a vet that landed on their feet and ask what worked. Talk to a few people inside the VA and figure out what makes claims go faster vs slower. There are businesses that exist today where their sole revenue stream is providing accurate and up to date court forms. To think that technology can't help the poor or unskilled is ignorant of history. The assembly line was a means to…

I feel you're dead-on about domain-specific knowledge.

An effect of hyper-capital (not a problem with moderate capitalism) is that everyone gets hyper-specialized. No one experiences the Veteran's Administration until... they're in it with brain damage and can't write code for it.

But I would bet that any who regularly reads this website could hang out in the V.A. as an intern for 30 days and add at least $100,000 worth of annual value.

Even if it was just improving paperwork - machine learning for diagnoses - delivering education - encouraging exercise.

These problems are unexotic at first glance, b/c our society's values are so crazily skewed.

> Articles like this one paint the situation as a moral imperative, but its actually an opportunity.

I guess the author failed in this regard, b/c I read it as trying to show how it's an opportunity, although the article itself lacked your insight about domain-specific knowledge.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#193

Post by sbierwagen » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:13 PM UTC

disjointrevelry wrote: post #104

The article boils down to a basic fact: "The unexotic underclass are unexploitable." Despite all the dancing around this fact, it pops out in the article like a pimple on an ivy leaguing debutant's nose in their weekly dermotalogist face cleansing. There is more than a hint of the populist a. randist philosophy throughout this article. Maybe this is a cult, and it goes without saying. The privileged group (such as th…

Ayn Rand was hardly a populist, and Libertarianism is not a populist ideology.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#194

Post by jerf » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:15 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #184

jerf wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually surprised when I read the summary, because that would be a surprising level of poverty in the US. If anything, we are unnecessarily generous with the food stamps here. (Which I am not necessarily complaining about, just observing that they are relatively easy to get.) And lo, it turns out this was in Britain, so saying they can't afford $44 is sort of deceptive. I well believe she couldn't afford £44.…

> There's a certain segment in American politics who really doesn't like to talk about this, but for all the drama, the poor in America are still better off than they are in almost any other country, which, yes, includes all (AFAIK) the European countries, and while that doesn't prove anything about what we do or do not need to do in that area, it does suggest that rhetoric about poverty in the US can occasionally ge…

The propaganda about the poor's lack of access to health care is also overstated for various political reasons.

Note the difference between "overstated" and "false", and I'll even more explicitly say that that isn't proof that everything's hunky dory and nothing needs to be changed. But it's hardly like it's paradise for the poor in Europe and in the US you're just left out on your own... it's way more nuanced than that. (Everybody's books have to balance.)

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#195

Post by PeterisP » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:16 PM UTC

aianus wrote: post #61

potatolicious wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It is not about class, it is about solving a want or a need in a sustainable way." Of course it's about class. YC (and everyone else in this industry) is very good at solving a want that they understand, and very bad at solving wants they don't understand. And our industry is consisted almost exclusively of upper-middle class white urban men. In fact, this demographic is even more prominent in the entrepreneur cla…

All progress is aimed at the rich. The first people with light bulbs were rich, the first people with indoor plumbing were rich, the first people with cell phones and automobiles were rich, etc, etc. It's not nearly as much fun to solve poor people's problems since often the solutions already exist; they just can't afford or otherwise access them.

Well no, for quite a few inventions, the first creation is a toy and the important inventions and actual progress are those that make it cheap enough.

The first cars didn't change the world. The first cheap cars did - Ford deserves more credit than Benz's Patentwagen.

The invention of lightbulbs at early 19th century wasn't a significant progress and didn't solve any significant problems - the cheap lightbulbs that came a generation later, involving Edison among others, did that.

Making stuff possible is just a tiny part of the total solution - making it cheap is what matters. If "solutions already exist" but aren't affordable, then those are not solutions - those are unsuccessful attempts at solving the real problem; and the world is still waiting for a proper solution of doing X in a way that scales efficiently and becomes affordable.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#196

Post by enraged_camel » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:21 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #60

rattray wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. VC's fund companies that target markets that can be served by VC-fundable companies. And most young entrepreneurs from top schools hear that it's easiest to Get Rich Quick by founding a VC-funded company. But those aren't the only kinds of companies worth building, and "young entrepreneurs from top schools" aren't the only people who can build good companies. We shouldn't look to them (err, ourselves) as "hum…

Agree with the "young entrepreneurs from top schools" bit. Going to a top school doesn't correlate with being a good entrepreneur. It maybe correlates with intelligence and drive, but more closely correlates with privilege and connection. There's an interesting correlation between immigrants and entrepreneurship (old-school building a profitable business entrepreneurship, not SV-type scaling an unprofitable business…

>>There's an interesting correlation between immigrants and entrepreneurship (old-school building a profitable business entrepreneurship, not SV-type scaling an unprofitable business entrepreneurship). My take on this (utterly my own opinion) is that immigrants are less likely to get jobs, so more likely to start their own businesses.

As an immigrant, I think it's more that we're more comfortable with taking risks (leaving one's home country and emigrating anywhere is a huge risk, after all), so we don't have a big problem with abandoning steady paychecks and diving (back) into a sea of uncertainty.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#197

Post by PeterisP » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:21 PM UTC

jcalvinowens wrote: post #109

vixen99 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with most issues, there are costs and benefits with the minimum wage. It appears that Norway, Austria and Germany, amongst others, do not see a balance in favor of the benefits. Unsurprisingly their unemployment rates are low. Were I useless to an employer (as once I was) I would rather work for some wage (as I did) rather than exist (and get used to existing) on handouts from the wealth created by other tax payer…

> It appears that Norway, Austria and Germany, amongst others, do not see a balance in favor of the benefits. Germany just approved a minimum wage. > Unsurprisingly their unemployment rates are low. I have never bought this argument. A business hires employees because it has some amount of work it needs to be done. The amount of work to be done doesn't change as a function of how much workers are paid. Arguing that t…

There is a clear link between minimum wage and unemployment.

We already have a bunch of automation technologies where machines and software can do a better job than a low-wage person can, simply the people currently are cheaper even at USA minimum wage.

Once the minimum wage rises above that cost (or the tech drops in price), those jobs will be gone for good.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#198

Post by count » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

oftenwrong wrote: post #138

asuffield wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The core thing that any business has to do is make a product that people will pay for at a price that at least breaks even. You can't sell salvation to a person that doesn't have any spare cash. This sort of thing is the role of governments, not businesses. The core problem you have in the US is that your government is one of those incumbent inefficient dinosaurs that doesn't really do much of anything useful…

Why does the US government insist on being an "inefficient dinosaur"? Stacks of paper forms processed by hand? It seems as though the process is designed to be as inefficient as is possible. Perhaps the US government delays paying the war veterans on purpose because it saves money. 9 months of being unemployed and disabled with possible mental trauma from war: >In the past 5 years, the number of vets who’ve died befo…

Disability benefits are paid to spouses on death, in many cases, so, no, it can't be stated that way.

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#199

Post by heironimus » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:26 PM UTC

tsunamifury wrote: post #164

I built language learning applications that reached over 10 million users in the developing world and my brother built a startup that employs only ex-cons in one of the worst neighborhoods in America. We learned a few things from actually doing this: TL;DR its really expensive to make products for the 'forgotten underclass' due to many unforeseen issues. 1) Poor areas are overrun with corruption and graft. Its very h…

Very well said. I greatly respect you for what you are doing/have been doing. It's obvious from your comments that you are not just talking nice, but have been there.

I'm pretty sure no one has responded because no one knows how to respond to your bleak ending. Probably because it exposes our selfishness. I know I don't know what to say.

Do you have any further info about the work you and your brother are doing/have done?

Re: The Unexotic Underclass

#200

Post by MaxBarraclough » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #194

lmm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a certain segment in American politics who really doesn't like to talk about this, but for all the drama, the poor in America are still better off than they are in almost any other country, which, yes, includes all (AFAIK) the European countries, and while that doesn't prove anything about what we do or do not need to do in that area, it does suggest that rhetoric about poverty in the US can occasionally ge…

The propaganda about the poor's lack of access to health care is also overstated for various political reasons. Note the difference between "overstated" and "false", and I'll even more explicitly say that that isn't proof that everything's hunky dory and nothing needs to be changed. But it's hardly like it's paradise for the poor in Europe and in the US you're just left out on your own... it's way more nuanced than t…

> The propaganda about the poor's lack of access to health care is also overstated for various political reasons.

Brit here. Enlighten me as to how not being able to afford to visit a GP is 'overstated'.

As I understand it, if you are poor in the USA, there's a real chance you won't be able to pay for the pills you need, or for mental health treatment, etc. That simply doesn't happen here in the UK.

> Everybody's books have to balance.

But that doesn't mean anything. Different countries invest different amounts in welfare.