Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union • Hacker News Board

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#121

Post by bepotts » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #85

jpzisme wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more.

This claim sticks in the throat of a lot of Europeans, because of the visible level of inequality in the US. We see many of your citizens suffering in ways that simply wouldn't happen in our countries; we struggle to find a charitable way of reconciling that with the claim that America is the best country. If you're the richest and most powerful nation in history, why do you have the highest incarceration rate in the…

Even when Europeans critique the United States, they're critiquing the US from the US liberal perspective.

> Why do so many sick and injured Americans end up bankrupt or die prematurely?

Because we don't have a national healthcare system. Why? Because people vote against it. The party in charge of the entire country would cut the government by half if it had the power to do so, and they keep getting elected because a large portion of the country agrees with them. Even within the Democratic party, large portions don't want a national healthcare system (though polling on this has changed in recent years). Why? Because if you have a job you probably have a healthcare plan, and a good portion of the country doesn't want their taxes raised to pay for healthcare ran by the government. Even liberals in the US have trouble understanding this.

> Why do parts of Michigan look post-apocalyptic?

Michigan is a gorgeous state (you'd know this if you were at all familiar with it) with one of the best universities in the world, and a GDP higher than most EU countries. If Michigan is post-apocalyptic, then most EU countries are favelas in Rio after a nuclear holocaust.

> Why are many of your schools still de-facto segregated? Why is there a Wikipedia article titled "List of tent cities in the United States"?

We have income inequality. We don't have a consensus on what to do about it.

> We could understand a claim like "America is really weird - we're ridiculously wealthy, but our government is profoundly dysfunctional in ways that are hard to fix, which causes a great deal of avoidable suffering". That makes sense to us. A claim like "America is the greatest country the world has ever seen" sounds obscenely callous without some very strong caveats attached.

Sure, but many Americans don't understand why you guys are so reliant and on your government and refuse to take ownership of your own lives. Many would argue that your constant need for government to provide for you is why the EU, for being almost twice the size of the US, lacks the cultural and political influence, and innovation that the US has.

The US, for better or worse, is a "get mine and don't worry about anyone else" country. Even the "left" in the US gets upset when something of "theirs" is threatened to be taken for the better good - just look at the housing situation in liberal San Francisco.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#122

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #77

lostconfused wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine why that would be intended to be humuoruos. The content of the post seems like a genuine attempt at trying to point out the potential flaws in purely text based communication via internet. To expand on such, text doesn't carry any of the social cues that human beings learn during their development. There's no facial expressions, tone of voice, any form of body language such as posture or hand gestures…

I think the "Are you kidding?" post was sarcastic and because either you or I are wrong in that interpretation, it proves the point of the comment it was replying to.

[deleted]

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#123

Post by myth_buster » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:50 PM UTC

atroyn wrote: post #58

OP here. It's tongue-in cheek, in the same way that Mike Judge's "Silicon Valley" is tongue-in-cheek. Please don't hurt me.

> The truth is funny. Honest discovery, observation, and reaction is better than contrived invention.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#124

Post by jogjayr » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

brighteyes wrote: post #59

woah wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a contractor for startups in SF for 6 years and now a founder for 1, I have found the opposite of what you have about business relationships. The homeless problem is not caused by the tech industry, it is caused by the homeowners who have been blocking apartment building construction in 90% of the city for 50 years.

The homeowners have much of the blame, you're right, but tech has made things worse by rapid job growth that contributed to rising rent costs.

That reminds me of the apocryphal story of the drowning man who sued his rescuer for breaking his arm during the rescue.

The tech industry is doing what it's supposed to - building their business and making money. Along the way it's created a lot of jobs for a lot of people and paid them plenty of money. These are generally considered to be good things. If anything, industry would love lower housing prices because then they could justify paying lower salaries.

That the city can't/won't build enough housing for its inhabitants is the voters' fault, and theirs alone. Every voter in every Bay Area that opposes new construction is responsible for each and every single person rendered homeless due to rising rents.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#125

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #93

closeparen wrote: post #63

> living five adults to a two room apartment This one has become terrifyingly normalized - even within the industry, people who don’t live this way are decadent irresponsible pigs. People who resent living this way are entitled redneck whiners. And despite all that, don’t you dare suggest you’re not really a member of the evil elite 1%.

See also the “dense urban apartments are the only morally acceptable housing solution” trope that emerges from every Bay Area Housing thread.

[deleted]

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#126

Post by fjsousa » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

woah wrote: post #23

zug_zug wrote: post #12

"- being told you are constructing utopia while the system crumbles around you" This is the one that resonated with me. Obviously "the system" as a whole isn't objectively crumbling by traditional measures like GDP, but there were things that could give that feeling: Homeless sleeping in the subway and on the main streets, the smells, crime so rampant it's basically ignored (my car was broken into > 5 times), working…

As a contractor for startups in SF for 6 years and now a founder for 1, I have found the opposite of what you have about business relationships. The homeless problem is not caused by the tech industry, it is caused by the homeowners who have been blocking apartment building construction in 90% of the city for 50 years.

yeah, of course you can't blame tech itself, but the whole social democracy project is crumbling down. As an european visiting SF it was heart breaking, the disparity of living conditions. spending the first few days commuting from russian hill to the financial district vs visiting the tenderloin in my last few days. I simply can't understand how a city so socially minded accepts such a wealth gap. I mean, it was like visiting some parts of Brazil. I've found that everyone leaves SF a notch to the left of the political spectrum.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#127

Post by bepotts » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

JBReefer wrote: post #114

afpx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By Americans or non-Americans? I am an American, in SF about half time, and I don’t hear this. But, my friends are mostly American.

The people that tend to think America is awful in my experience overwhelmingly tend to be American. Most non-Americans seem to have good things to say.

It's a leftist/European critique of America. If you don't have free healthcare and free college, your nation is filled with neanderthals.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#128

Post by endisukaj » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

jpzisme wrote: post #14

21 wrote: post #7

> the United States as a whole is depicted as evil by default So true. The USA is viewed worse than China, Russia or Saudi Arabia. I also see a lot of it on HN.

I'll go ahead and say the United States is the greatest country the world has ever seen. It's not perfect, but once you live in other countries for a bit, even if you enjoy the experience, you appreciate the U.S. a lot more.

People who say stuff like this are usually people who have never set foot outside the US.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#129

Post by zug_zug » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

woah wrote: post #23

zug_zug wrote: post #12

"- being told you are constructing utopia while the system crumbles around you" This is the one that resonated with me. Obviously "the system" as a whole isn't objectively crumbling by traditional measures like GDP, but there were things that could give that feeling: Homeless sleeping in the subway and on the main streets, the smells, crime so rampant it's basically ignored (my car was broken into > 5 times), working…

As a contractor for startups in SF for 6 years and now a founder for 1, I have found the opposite of what you have about business relationships. The homeless problem is not caused by the tech industry, it is caused by the homeowners who have been blocking apartment building construction in 90% of the city for 50 years.

> As a contractor for startups in SF for 6 years and now a founder for 1, I have found the opposite of what you have about business relationships.

I'm glad not everybody had such a callous experience as mine.

> The homeless problem is not caused by the tech industry

I don't buy either tech nor housing as the root cause, but at the end of the day I didn't really care who to blame, I just wanted to be able to walk down the street without feeling like I was going to get ebola. But nobody felt safe even acknowledging the problem ("How dare you admit that a half-dressed drug-addict screaming sexual profanities at the woman in front of you makes you uncomfortable! Privilege much?"). People just wanted to blame someone or not even open that can of worms.

Re: Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

#130

Post by lainga » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

I might add "- the government tries very hard to depict other places as deprived, backward wastelands so nobody wants to leave"

and thus nobody wants to work in somewhere more affordable than SF, e.g. Charlotte, where a roving pack of bloodthirsty rednecks will surely swarm out of the woods and tear them to pieces.