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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

#191

Post by eric_the_read »

mabhatter wrote: post #68
georgefox wrote: post #26

Welcome to a very individualistic and, by consequence, antisocial society. As an American that's never stepped foot in California, this sounds surprisingly familiar, albeit with the unique addition of free food and free beer at work.

Why do people commute 45+ minutes each way to work... To live in a Suburb where the dont interaxt with any neighbors. a place with no public transport, no major retailers, and no place for "malcontents" to flock within 10 miles that's not private property. Even my small city has no "public space" or public transportation after business hours. We have lots of small parks designed to deter "being homeless" there. Every…

In my case: good schools for my kids. I looked at several options nearer to the downtown area, and in every case, the schools were rated at the middle or near the bottom of the rankings. The schools where I ended up are near the top.

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

#192

Post by greghinch »

zacharycohn wrote: post #144
ardit33 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old are you? I used to have the same existential feelings as well when I moved in SF, but over time you just get used to it and don't care anymore. It is part of the maturation process and realize that the world is not a fair place, and no not everybody is equal and will live equally. One thing you realize is that a lot of the people on the streets have major mental conditions (usually schizophrenia, and major dr…

"It is part of the maturation process and realize that the world is not a fair place, and no not everybody is equal and will live equally." I think the point of the article is that that's fucked up, and not how the world should be. And what I suspect the author realized is that it isn't the way he or she wants to be.

> I think the point of the article is that that's fucked up, and not how the world should be.

That's the maturation process though: understanding that the world has been that way for all time. Look at nature, around you, some animals within any given group always do better than others. It's fine to be bothered by it, and want to do something to change it, but it's naive to think that a) you are the first person to notice and b) you can fix it completely.

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

#193

Post by ricardobeat »

jarrett wrote: post #179

This article leaves out an important point: Most, if not all, programmers I know do care about these issues, but we can't solve them. We would if we could, but it's not what our profession is good at. The title of the article, "come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep," speaks to this. We programmers have the tools to solve many interesting and important problems, but certainly not all. D…

It's not about charity. There are plenty of businesses to be built that help improve education, income inequality and social services, or steer politics to do the same.

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

#194

Post by nisa »

downandout wrote: post #111
nisa wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See you on the other side of this discussion if you loose your wealth and your job for whatever reasons. You'll enjoy beeing jugded by your own words. Empathy and social justice are crucial for any society that wants to be respected. You are proposing barbary. Social Darwinism.

I am dealing with reality.

We all have to deal with reality.

The question is how we want to shape our societies and reality. Is it acceptable to have few lucky ones with huge incomes that are far beyond the necassary amount for living a fullfilled live and have the rest die on the streets?

Or would it be more beneficial for the society at large if all have the possibility to live free from existential dangers such as homelessness, disease and hunger.

Robots, computers and automatisation are great tools. At the moment the profit that these tools generate is not shared among all people. It's time to socialise the profits that are gained through automatisation in order to be able to live in peaceful societies.

If you discard huge parts of the population as worthless you'll have to invest even more in your security. You will have slums, riots, terrorism and violence and walled gardens.

That is not the reality I want to live in.

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

#195

Post by pionar »

ims wrote: post #163
ownagefool wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Scottish and while I've not quite experienced it myself, I'm happy living in Europe where m taxes are spent on health care as opposed to bombs. It's not so much shocking as it is just really sad. :(

And the rest of the Western world, like it or not, is able to spend less on defense precisely because -- thanks to some unique events in the 20th century -- the US is effectively providing a defense subsidy for all of its allies. I'm not advocating, just saying. Perhaps European countries would have to spend more if the US did not concern itself with the rest of the world? Food for thought.

This. Also, if you live anywhere and think your taxes don't go to defense spending, you're delusional.

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

#196

Post by arrrg »

VMG wrote: post #131
arrrg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a basic income guarantee everyone would get money, and the same amount. There is no need to divine who needs it because everyone does. No matter the income.

True, my argument was against welfare, I misread your original comment. Basic income still has the problem that people get my money who do not deserve it in my opinion.

What we are talking about are the basic necessities to a life in dignity. A roof over your head and enough to eat and clothe yourself, as well as enough to at least participate in society in some way (e.g. enough money to afford some sort of information gathering thingie, be it a newspaper subscription, TV or phone). The bare minimum.

I happen to believe that no one has the right to deny that anyone. It’s a basic human right. Every human deserves a life in dignity and there is no way to lose that. (And, I know, implementing that world wide right now is practically impossible. That, just like, e.g. any sort of restrictions of freedom of movement, labor, capital and goods, is a travesty but for the near future I’m hopeless about anything changing in that regard. It’s sad and unacceptable.)

Within that understanding of the world (and also the understanding that we won’t have work for everyone as time goes on) something like a guaranteed basic income seems at least like something worth trying out to me. (Many of the current welfare schemes seems broken to me, too focused on tight paranoid control and stigmatizing people.)

But then again, I’m European. (Also, not the person you were originally responding to.)

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

#197

Post by pessimizer »

caseydurfee wrote: post #155
shpxnvz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Obamacare" is not socialist, it's liberal, as a core concept of liberalism is that the state should fund things that people cannot or will not fund for themselves, like roads and healthcare. "More doubtfully compatible with the liberal conception of equality is another measure which also gained wide support in liberal circles, namely the use of progressive taxation as a means to effect a redistribution of income in…

Why are you conflating Obamacare with progressive taxation? Incredibly misleading. Hayek was clearly fine with social insurance programs. "Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s hel…

It's probably because he forgot what he was arguing about and defaulted to attacking transfer payments. Isn't that what they (the Hayek quoters)all do - when all else fails, go after 'handouts' because it can always be framed as a moral issue?

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

#198

Post by onemorepassword »

With the exception of a very small sub group of people with serious mental issues, it's not a hard problem.

Most of it has been solved already. It's just a matter of having the will to do it. That will is absent.

Most developers in SF laugh at the amount of money their European counterparts get paid after taxes. The don't consider not having to step over homeless people a "benefit". That attitude is your problem right there.

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

#199

Post by ricardobeat »

jf22 wrote: post #66
troebr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm French living in Jersey. I have been to San Francisco, even though it's blatant when you walk here, everywhere in the US I have that feeling that the poor are really forgotten. And they live in third-world country conditions. In France, the average rich is not as rich, and it's probably a lot harder to become successful and wealthy than here; but the poor are not left behind as much. It feels more like a society…

"third-world country conditions" No. Even a porta potty cleaned infrequently is more sanitary than the conditions in the third world. There won't be a cholera outbreak. Food is available and nobody is going to starve to death. Heck, a simple clean water fountain in some third world countries can improve the lives of an entire village. Even in the most horrible cities in america there are dozens of sources of free wat…

    The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries 
    that remained non-aligned with either NATO, or the Communist Bloc.
That's more than half of the world, while what you're describing applies mostly to sub-saharan Africa.

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

#200

Post by jarrett »

ricardobeat wrote: post #193
jarrett wrote: post #179

This article leaves out an important point: Most, if not all, programmers I know do care about these issues, but we can't solve them. We would if we could, but it's not what our profession is good at. The title of the article, "come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep," speaks to this. We programmers have the tools to solve many interesting and important problems, but certainly not all. D…

It's not about charity. There are plenty of businesses to be built that help improve education, income inequality and social services, or steer politics to do the same.

I don't mean to be harsh, but that sounds a little hand-wavy. Could you elaborate on what types of businesses you have in mind?

I don't think education and income inequality are the real issue here. For the long-term homeless, it's not that they lack job skills. Nor is it that the poor make too little (which they do). Rather, most of these people are disabled, and that is the root cause of their homelessness. In fact, a lot of them do have good educations and once held well-paying jobs. But then something happened: A traumatic head injury, the onset of serious mental illness, an addiction.

Also, note that I explicitly rejected charity as the primary solution to the problem. So yeah, I agree with you that it's not about charity. What I'm suggesting is that governments provide even a minimal safety net. (In some places they do. I don't know what the situation is in SF.)

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