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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

#2
I think one aspect of this is that San Francisco is somewhat of a safe-haven for the homeless and transient. While they do provide some context for the economic disparity between the poor and the rich, most of my homeless/transient buddies prefer living homeless/transient lifestyles in San Francisco to living homeless/transient lifestyles anywhere else.

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

#3
How is leaving SF any different? You're doing the same thing but at a greater step of remove. Instead of the homeless people being down the block, they're safely away from you in a distant country.

As for your local area, I suppose either there are no homeless or poor people, or you are just constantly thinking about them, unlike those hard-hearted Californians. Come on.

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

#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.

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

#5

I think one aspect of this is that San Francisco is somewhat of a safe-haven for the homeless and transient. While they do provide some context for the economic disparity between the poor and the rich, most of my homeless/transient buddies prefer living homeless/transient lifestyles in San Francisco to living homeless/transient lifestyles anywhere else.

Yeah, OP acknolwedged that, right?

> Thing is, those in poorer situations flock here, because they can get healthcare, support, and help, but other times it just feels like a passive aggressive fuck-you-got-mine. if you don’t tip, it isn’t so much a snub, it’s saying “i don’t think you deserve healthcare”. Alternatively for those with healthcare provided, it locks them into their job.

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

#6
As a person with severe social anxiety, I felt truly anonymous in my visit to San Francisco last summer. I was not worried or threatened like my wife. I knew all things come and go in SF. The inherent risks of SF seemed easier to evaluate due to the larger population. To me, it was bliss. The divide between rich and poor was no different than anywhere I have visited in the USA. A visit to Mississippi can open eyes to the evil dividing lines of human behaviors.

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

#7
> Stepping over the homeless, weaving between the street corner schizophrenics

Imagine having a chronic disease simultaneously with an absolutely intolerable fear of doctors, hospitals, institutions and the social safety net. That's a hard problem.

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

#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 on their way to work as well.

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

#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 heroin in baby formula so it's really more-ish).

There's this odd commingling of the concepts of socialism and liberalism in the general populace's minds, for some reason. The two could not be more antithetical.

As to the rest of it - the US is neither capitalist nor liberal. It's corporatist, with a distinct socialist bent, but not where people usually point the finger. "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. Protectionist policies to keep the banks, agribusinesses and other without-legislation-to-protect them unprofitable enterprises ARE socialist, as they centralise control of industrial and economic output into government, and allow businesses that would not survive in a true free market to prosper.

Rant over.

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