Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by run4yourlives » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

roguecoder wrote: post #221

run4yourlives wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I like the idea of a Basic Income, and have actually come to support it heartily, (if you don't, take a look at some of the economists who have, and why they do) you are being naive to think that "self-inflicted cases" are somehow anything other than a vast majority. Almost all homeless have mental illness and/or substance abuse issues. That's why they are unable to act on one of the endless options that exist…

41% of the population will experience a diagnosable mental illness, and 26% have one in any given year. Clearly there is more to the issue than just blaming mental illness or there would be far more homeless people than there are right now. Discovering what support structures work and making those more easily accessible seems like a great place for a disruptive start up, except that health care is so incredibly messe…

I did not say that the mentally ill become homeless, I said that many/most of the homeless are fighting mental illness (or substance abuse, or both.)

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

#262

Post by shpxnvz » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:08 PM UTC

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…

Because Obamacare is funded by progressive taxation, as are most programs in the U.S., and the benefits of Obamacare are not equally distributed - an example of the very inequality Hayek was admonishing against in the first quote I posted.

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

#263

Post by michaelochurch » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:09 PM UTC

hkmurakami wrote: post #103

downandout wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI whomever is downvoting this - you can downvote it all you want. It doesn't make it any less true. I'll take the hit on my karma points on the off chance it makes someone think, even for a second, about not perpetrating the selfish act of cruelty that is bringing a child into an impoverished existence.

Coincidentally, many of the twenty and thirty somethings in Japan who didn't manage to score a stable, well paying corporate job (due to the economic downturns of the 90s and 2008-current period) -- which is at times said to be upwards of 30% of the male population in said age group [1] -- have been expressing their despair at their financial situation and grim economic outlook for their country and collapsing social…

The U.S. has the same problem. Now that people have lost faith in the "middle class society" and we realize that 99% of us are poors at the mercy of bosses and health insurance, the IQ 120+ set is deferring childcare until they "make it", the odds of which are very low and most people won't because even at 140+ most people get screwed. So smart people are self-selecting out of the gene pool, not with that intention but by deferral. It's a nasty boiled-frog problem. One day we will wake up and the world will be terminally stupid.

Now that the individual's economic future is so uncertain, and it's that way for everyone, people who don't think about the future are breeding at a much faster rate than people who do, and it's terrifying.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why healthcare (which has long-term effects on peoples' intelligence levels, since a lot of that's not genetic) isn't a no-brainer, but also education. Free higher education is the absolute best eugenic program ever devised-- if your kids are smart, society will invest limitless resources in making them succeed-- because it hurts absolutely no one; it's pure carrot. Instead of getting soaked on tuition, parents whose kids get into top schools should get paid.

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

#264

Post by run4yourlives » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:10 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #162

Places with good weather have huge visible homeless populations. (I have traveled all over the United States, and have been to all fifty states. AFTER EDIT: I have been in, and have lived in, gritty "skid row" neighborhoods of large United States cities, and have lived in Los Angeles.) Places with lousy weather, like the place where I grew up and now live, certainly have people who are "homeless" in the sense of not…

One massive difference is healthcare.

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

#265

Post by downandout » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:12 PM UTC

nisa wrote: post #233

dusklight wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is he being barbaric by proposing that prospective parents should reconsider having children if they don't think their children will be able to have a happy life?

I've saw the post in the context of homelessness that is discussed in the article. I also don't share his woldview maybe I understood it in a wrong way but "The world simply doesn't need many of the people born into it." came across as justification for letting these people living miserable lives and deny them basic rights, like shelter and health care. The problem with such thinking is that it's often not up to us t…

For the record, I was not justifying the miserable lives of many people. To the extent that society has the will and the means to provide basic "rights" as you describe, I have no objection to participating in that. But society's means and will to provide these things also seem to be running very thin. That leads to miserable lives for children that did not ask to be here in the first place.

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

#266

Post by michaelochurch » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:12 PM UTC

oblique63 wrote: post #78

downandout wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the homeless in SF actually want to be on the streets. That is perhaps the most ignorant sentence I have ever read on HN. Most homeless people don't have a choice. If they do have a choice, the fact that they choose to live on the streets likely speaks to the horrific situation they would face at their home. I can assure you that no one wants to be homeless.

Seriously. Comments like that are the reason I try to frequent HN less often. I grew up in the mission in SF, but that was when it was still a 'ghetto' that nobody wanted to set foot in (I still have a lot of friends that are paranoid about it), and as you might assume from that, my family wasn't ever that financially well off either. So seeing things like this just makes me cringe at how disconnected and insensitive…

An upvote is not enough. Thank you for posting this.

Yes, there are a few people who prefer to be homeless. They're very rare. The idea that they're "most" is laughable.

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

#267

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:17 PM UTC

dominostars wrote: post #202

onemorepassword wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no Europe. I can only speak for my country, the Netherlands, and there is no such thing as people not having the personal funds to buy or rent housing. That's why we have minimum wages, social security, rent subsidies and regulated rent. The homeless here are people mostly people with mental health issues that reject or don't respond to treatment. It's by far not a perfect utopian system, but to have people…

> The homeless here are people mostly people with mental health issues that reject or don't respond to treatment. I would speculate that this is true for San Francisco, especially in the downtown (tenderloin) area.

[deleted]

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

#268

Post by LekkoscPiwa » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:18 PM UTC

pyoung wrote: post #260

dominostars wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The homeless here are people mostly people with mental health issues that reject or don't respond to treatment. I would speculate that this is true for San Francisco, especially in the downtown (tenderloin) area.

The lack of universal health care probably exacerbates the homelessness situation in the U.S. With that said, what you see in San Francisco is largely a product of the combination of homeless friendly policies and tolerable weather. Many of the 'homeless' you see during the day don't actually sleep on the street (although a decent number do) and actually reside in SRO's, subsidized housing, and shelters (One complain…

European nations would not be able to afford universal healthcare and all the welfare if they had to pay for their security. US bases in Europe are great financial aid.

I never hear discussions about Iran or Russia being a possible threat in Europe. I do in the US. Which is funny because it really is much bigger problem for Europeans to have guys like Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at their door steps. Never happens. The US bases and military spending is taken for granted. They prefer to talk about universal healthcare and help for the poor instead. As security is non-issue with the US soldiers deployed to this continent.

The thing that really gets on my nerves is that some politicians even want the US bases to be moved out from Europe. They simply don't understand the world in which they are living. Talking distances Syria is closer to Greece than Greece to Germany. Nobody thinks about it that way though.

The US pays the military bills for the whole of Europe and this amounts to money that can and is spent on social services.

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

#269

Post by michaelochurch » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:20 PM UTC

misc_closet wrote: post #87

VMG wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same goes for the OP (or the inverse statement)

You need a citation to prove that homeless people don't want to be homeless? Silicon Valley has peaked. Idealistic, social-conscience-having nerds take note: This is what happens when you let neoliberalism, Randroidism, and corporate psychopathy infect your tech community. Technology is supposed to be used to create a Star Trek future. Not to spy on everyone as we make their jobs obsolete, drive up their rental costs…

Silicon Valley has peaked.
Idealistic, social-conscience-having nerds take note:
This is what happens when you let neoliberalism, Randroidism, and corporate psychopathy infect your tech community.

Technology is supposed to be used to create a Star Trek future. Not to spy on everyone as we make their jobs obsolete, drive up their rental costs, and put them on the street. Then demonstrate zero compassion for the victims that Silicon Valley has created.

You, sir, win the Indignation for May 14, 2013: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtCiP8B2xpc#t=7s

We really need to push these corporate/private-equity assholes out of our industry. We had a good thing for a while, but they came in and stole it. We have to take it back from those pieces of shit.

Having worked both in finance and in VC-funded "tech" I can only say that the people in finance are a lot better and much more ethical. It seems that technology management (at least in the VC-funded space, where the investors agree that only "their kind" is actually fit to manage) is an Argentina for people who get flushed out of banking because they're too unethical even for Wall Street.

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

#270

Post by michaelochurch » Tue, May 14, 2013, 9:24 PM UTC

George Carlin said it the best:

The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep 'em showing up at those jobs.