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Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

programmingisterrible.com

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Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#11

Post by wting »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #4

The guy's Scottish, he thinks it's about San Fran specifically, it's really about AMERICA. Maybe San Fran puts it even more in your face. But compared to most any other country even half as rich as America, the lack of social safety net in the U.S. is kind of shocking. People in Europe don't really realize the extent of it.

The wealth disparity is probably more evident in SF.

For example, Honolulu has a huge homeless population despite the huge tourism industry. The city just pushes homeless towards parts of the island where tourists don't visit and thus aren't aware of the problem.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#13

Post by smacktoward »

bluedino wrote: post #8

Not everyone can create, whether it's a website or designing the next iPhone. Very few people can. Those people that do are rewarded very well. Besides, if we were all trying to cure hunger or house the homeless who would be creating all the fancy computers we use every day? And why blame 'programmers', there are plenty of doctors, lawyers, and financial workers in SF that have to 'step over' the homeless every day o…

"Besides, if we were all trying to cure hunger or house the homeless who would be creating all the fancy computers we use every day?"

You're right, it is hard to imagine how we would survive without Yet Another SocialMobilePhotoSharing Application.

Remember the Dark Days, my friends? When to share a photo you actually had to be around people, and talk to them? Ugh. I shudder to think upon it. We lived like savages, back then; filthy, stinking savages.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#14

Post by maheart »

madaxe wrote: post #9

"Last night, someone told me “In California, there isn’t a conflict between being a Capitalist, and a Liberal”, with a wry grin on his face." Of course there isn't. Liberalism in its purest form (as espoused by Hayek, say) is, in effect, free market capitalism with a light but universally applicable (no "special cases", as those lead to totalitarianism) set of regulations to prevent bad actors (e.g. hey, let's put he…

I agree with agriculture, but how are banks unprofitable?

EDIT: I should say "unprofitable without legislation"

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#15

Post by jneen »

Yeah, housing. It's the big issue of the day here, and you can see how much it affects our culture.

Basically we created a mortgage system that only works as long as property values continue to rise, which created a lot of political will behind "improvement" measures like eliminating public housing, like we did in the early 80s.

(see http://www.wraphome.org/downloads/without_housing.pdf [pdf] for a fascinating study on the origins of modern homelessness)

I'm doing some experiments with cooperative housing and income-sharing right now, which slightly mitigates my contribution to gentrification, but something else is needed, and I'm not sure what.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#16

Post by beatpanda »

I make a point of maintaining a clean separation between my work and my social life for exactly the reasons this author describes. The biggest problem San Francisco has right now is a bunch of people who came here for money, with no interest in being part of its social fabric. Many of whom loudly complain about how much San Francisco sucks, and how it should change to meet their needs.

You either need to start actually being a part of this city, or move your ass down the peninsula. Or better yet, move your company somewhere else. I hear they've got lower taxes and cheaper engineers pretty much everywhere else.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#17

Post by beatpanda »

jneen wrote: post #15

Yeah, housing. It's the big issue of the day here, and you can see how much it affects our culture. Basically we created a mortgage system that only works as long as property values continue to rise, which created a lot of political will behind "improvement" measures like eliminating public housing, like we did in the early 80s. (see http://www.wraphome.org/downloads/without_housing.pdf [pdf] for a fascinating study…

If you're interested in cooperative housing and income sharing, you might be interested in this idea - raising money from well-paid engineers for the San Francisco Public Land Trust, in order to create permanent affordable housing (with the added bonus of not depending on the government to manage it) and home-ownership options for low-income families.

Email is in my profile if you want to chat.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#18

Post by glesica »

I think that when people say "hard problems" they mean "problems that almost certainly have solutions if you are willing to put in the effort". Poverty on the other hand is a much, much harder problem than that. In fact, no one quite knows how to solve it in a general way (there are things that seem to work in certain contexts but not in others, many special case half-solutions). And on top of that, there probably isn't a clear path between solving the poverty problem and wealth the way there is between solving the {photo sharing, social media, web search, ...} problem and wealth.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#19

Post by downandout »

This speaks to a larger problem: The world simply doesn't need many of the people born into it. Parents in the US have children for recreational purposes - child birth rates do not fluctuate with the demand for labor. These kids grow up, and many of them wind up sleeping on the streets of their chosen city or more commonly just barely living paycheck-to-paycheck, because there is no societal need for them. This bears itself out in statistics: 25% of households have a net worth of zero or less (negative net worth). 22% of children in the US live in homes below the poverty line.

In our world, the needs of many can be met by the work of a few. Only those few will prosper, while the rest languish. The harsh reality is that prospective parents that don't have anything to pass onto their children need to take a hard look at whether they should be having children, given that going forward there may very well be no way for those children to earn a living.

Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep

#20

Post by rottyguy »

jneen wrote: post #15

Yeah, housing. It's the big issue of the day here, and you can see how much it affects our culture. Basically we created a mortgage system that only works as long as property values continue to rise, which created a lot of political will behind "improvement" measures like eliminating public housing, like we did in the early 80s. (see http://www.wraphome.org/downloads/without_housing.pdf [pdf] for a fascinating study…

I actually think we created a mortgage system that will keep most people working (income earning) for the majority of their lives (30yrs). Now that our life span is increasing, will the norm be 40yrs?
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