Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 355 posts

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#281

Post by [deleted] »

biztos wrote: post #215
coldtea wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be upper middle class. (Not to mention in the US even coal miners would describe themselves as "middle class" these days, nobody is "working class" anymore).

Not where I come from (rural Northern California). We were pretty much lower middle class (sometimes lower-lower) , had friends who were better off and friends who were much worse off, and nobody really talked about money openly. In my family I always figured it was WASP reticence, but now that you mention it I think it was something broader. Maybe: people with money don't need to talk about it, people without money…

[deleted]

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#282

Post by rsp1984 »

dizzystar wrote: post #163
ambicapter wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a real example, we often get articles on Hacker News that discusses the best way to hire, best way to land a job, best way to self-learn, and so on. It took me years to realize that these articles were all shaded in a heavy fog of bullshit, and it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog. If I was a…

Nearly every bit of advice you read on interviews and how to get a job never happens in the real world. You can imagine how scary it is to read all the super tough questions, going to the whiteboard, having to discuss passion projects, needing a solid github profile, knowing algorithms, data structures, strange math, and on and on. You start interviewing and you see that none of the above happens 99% of the time. You…

You start interviewing and you see that none of the above happens 99% of the time. You wasted 2 years learning a bunch of stuff when you really should have been interviewing six months after writing your first line of code.

I agree with this. I have interviewed a good amount of engineers, both as a SWE at Google as well as founder of my own company. From that experience I can tell that the only thing that asking mostly hard interview questions does is reducing your candidate pool to 0.

Even with mostly moderately hard questions your candidate pool at the end of the funnel is probably going to be around 5% to 10% as compared to the start of the funnel. Plus after a certain level of question difficulty as an employer you're probably optimizing for the wrong skillset.

Perhaps for super competitive positions, e.g. for algorithmic trading at reputable Wall Street hedge funds, there's a place for killer interview questions but it's definitely not the bread and butter.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#283

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #246
lucozade wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the time thing is particularly true but you're absolutely spot on with it being a value of money thing. And you're spot on with your characterisation as to how it works.

I’ll never forget how odd and uncomfortable it felt the first time I went out to lunch with co-workers (at my first “real” job) and this “split the check” thing happened. I always thought it just seemed so much fairer for everyone to figure out what they ate and pay for that. Kind of a culture shock.

[deleted]

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#284

Post by Helmet »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #276
Helmet wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust. It's also very easy and PC to venerate the poor out of some misguided sense of pity or moral absolutism. One could look at poor communities, and, as you said "turn away from such a lifestyle i…

>edit: This site is slowly turning into Reddit - contrarian opinions need not apply. Instead of down-votes, why not rebut what I said? It's not like the matter is settled, and the last couple times the populous tried to "abolish" social classes, mass terror followed. Now now relax. You're in a thread about class and you're saying that class distinctions are good because they glue our society together. You don't think…

> Now now relax.

We can have a sensible discussion without condescension.

> You're in a thread about class and you're saying that class distinctions are good......You don't think those people who have experienced the bottom are going to have a reaction to that?

I've "experienced bottom" and I don't really find what I said to be inflammatory or offensive, if we're willing to be honest with ourselves, it's rather quite self-evident.

>You make it sound so easy! But it's not, growing up in a poor community frequently means growing up in poor schools with poor opportunities, no mentors and rare role models.

I'm familiar with how "easy" or not it is - I've lived it. If you graduate high school and don't have a kid before you are married, you're pretty much guaranteed to enter the middle-class.

> Would you say the same thing about racial distinctions? If not, why?

What exactly do you mean? Do I think that racially homogeneous societies exhibit more social order? I don't know, that to me sounds like a question for a social scientist or sociologist. I don't find it to be analogous to what we're talking about here though, as one cannot change their race, but many are socially mobile.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#285

Post by randyrand »

staunch wrote: post #3

> In the UK, class consciousness is woven into the national identity. In America, however, people often like to pretend that a class system doesn’t really exist. But, of course, it does. This is the most insidious part. The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is. The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can…

Bernie basically ran on class warfare. It's not exactly a secret.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#286

Post by gbacon »

emodendroket wrote: post #266
gbacon wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are different kinds of tired — physically exhausted, brain-fried, and emotionally spent — but I’m not making any sort of comparison between them.

Yeah, but the guy who always stays after at work, how much of his time is work and how much of it is browsing Reddit?

Fair question. Is that person slacking, projecting, coping, or percolating?

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#287

Post by rsync »

hsitz wrote: post #29
staunch wrote: post #3

> In the UK, class consciousness is woven into the national identity. In America, however, people often like to pretend that a class system doesn’t really exist. But, of course, it does. This is the most insidious part. The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is. The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can…

This reminds me of an entry from The Book of Life, on "Countries for Losers, and Countries for Winners": http://www.thebookoflife.org/countries-for-losers-countries-... I live in the U.S., but I think I'd prefer to live in one of the countries for losers.

"I live in the U.S., but I think I'd prefer to live in one of the countries for losers."

... from the article:

"Here is the list of the world’s top Loser Countries: (.nl, .de, .ch, .no, .dk)"

As someone who travels to these countries frequently (rsync.net has a Zurich location) I can certainly get on board with the desire to move to Switzerland. It is a nicer country than the US.

However, it is a ridiculous notion that the social success of these countries (and of Japan, which is conspicuously absent from that list) is due simply to some bad legislation here or there ... just a few technocratic choices made the wrong way.

In reality, the reason things are so nice in Switzerland and Norway and Japan are because they have extremely homogenous populations and cultural legacies.

It's easy to expand your circle of empathy to people whose names are also Lars Larson[1], just like yours is.

They didn't invent jazz, though ...

[1] Or Hiro Tanaka.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#288

Post by randyrand »

dragonwriter wrote: post #240
zeveb wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if there is intent to inflict pain, either as a means or an ends, it is abuse. That doesn't sound correct to me. If a little get (well below the age of reason) reaches for the pretty red glowing burner atop the stove, you slap away his hand because the small pain of getting his hand slapped will serve to make a second attempt less likely, and the small pain is far less severe and more transient than the great and l…

> . If a little get (well below the age of reason) reaches for the pretty red glowing burner atop the stove, you slap away his hand because the small pain of getting his hand slapped will serve to make a second attempt less likely No, you don't; if they are well below the age of reason, they are well below the age at which they will connect the hit with the reason for it. That's why you don't let kids that young arou…

You don't need reason in order to stop doing things that hurt you. Even simple animals learn to avoid painful things.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#289

Post by brazzledazzle »

zeveb wrote: post #229
dragonwriter wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intent is important, but if there is intent to inflict pain, either as a means or an ends, it is abuse. Now, it's true that there are further meaningful intent-based distinctions you can make within the broad category of abuse, but that's somewhat beside the point.

> if there is intent to inflict pain, either as a means or an ends, it is abuse. That doesn't sound correct to me. If a little get (well below the age of reason) reaches for the pretty red glowing burner atop the stove, you slap away his hand because the small pain of getting his hand slapped will serve to make a second attempt less likely, and the small pain is far less severe and more transient than the great and l…

While there are certainly abusers out there that relish it, (likely in most of the worst cases) I think you'll find that many who commit undeniable abuse don't do it for any sort of joy. They would describe their motivations as being good or an unfortunate necessity–sometimes even altruistic. Abuse is a complicated thing and many who mete it out were, or are, themselves victims of abuse.

Not trying to detract from your overall point, just thought it was worth noting.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#290

Post by malvosenior »

zeveb wrote: post #261
malvosenior wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've seen (and mentioned in another comment) is that the upper classes view "education" to mean private liberal arts school, not math/computers/science. I think those are viewed as too hard to pursue if you don't have to and populated by non-rich people. That's definitely a generalization and not always the case but I've seen it a lot. I notice a sort of cognitive dissonance with them though. It's undeniable tha…

> What I've seen (and mentioned in another comment) is that the upper classes view "education" to mean private liberal arts school, not math/computers/science. I think those are viewed as too hard to pursue if you don't have to and populated by non-rich people. I don't think that it's about the difficulty of math/computers/science; it's about the goal of the degree. A liberal arts degree is not a vocational credentia…

You’re correct about gaining an education that has nothing to do with employment as a signaling device. Your comment touches on my other point though. Regardless of employment options, “thinking” in the 21st century means STEM. Not knowing how to program is similar to not knowing how to read. I do think there’s a natural aptitude required to do STEM that has no relation to class. I think that’s why we see a lot of anti-tech commentary from institutions that have traditionally branded liberal arts as the only way to “think”.
Post reply on HN