Techies Are the New Puritans

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115896/tech-and-homelessness-essential-conservatism-silicon-valley

by mathattack • 13 years ago

91 147 13 years ago

aaronem24• 13 years ago

In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society.

The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contribute nothing to society, in such fashion as to provide an incentive to continue contributing nothing to society, is in any way a good idea.

toomuchtodo• 13 years ago

Conversely, just because you're poor doesn't mean you contribute nothing to society.

DerpDerpDerp4• 13 years ago

There's the problem of lock-out: how do you contribute usefully to society without some baseline to work from, and where your day-to-day activities are forced to be about the most basic level of survival?

fredgrott• 13 years ago

It could be argued that the whole increase of drug use in USA is due to lockout and other effects

aaronem24• 13 years ago

Well, just off the top of my head, something like a new WPA seems like it'd be a decent start, considering the infrastructure maintenance problems I keep hearing about. Is that "workfare"? I've heard "workfare" is bad, although again I'm not really sure why.

basseq• 13 years ago

"...where your day-to-day activities are forced to be about the most basic level of survival?"

Isn't the purpose of so-called "subsidization" to avoid this? (Not that it necessarily works in practice.)

benched• 13 years ago

Nobody contributes nothing to society. Even if nothing else, the wretched of the earth offer those better off an opportunity to practice not being fuckfaces. In many philosophical traditions, that's a pretty big deal.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

Philosophical traditions, is it? How about "By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread"? And, while I'm at it, "The poor will always be with you"?

nvader• 13 years ago

I tend to agree with you. I don't _disagree_ with the author, because I don't know what the author's point is. She decries the "puritan" worldview, but outside of pointing out that it is an old one, she does not really bother to say what is wrong with it.

betterunix• 13 years ago

"I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contribute nothing to society, in such fashion as to provide an incentive to continue contributing nothing to society, is in any way a good idea."

That is the price of having a social safety net. You are not just subsidizing people who contribute nothing. Some day you might be in need of some help despite all your productivity.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

That seems a rather selfish way of looking at the matter, to say nothing of how you carefully ignore the dependent clause beginning 'in such fashion...'

But, since you bring personalities into it: No one can eat pride, of course, and if I'm in a tight enough spot, I don't kid myself other than that I'll do what's needful to stay alive, and wait to earn back my self-respect until I can afford it again. But on the day I beg for succor, I hope I have the good fortune so to do from someone who respects me highly enough to let me work for what I need, instead of offering mere unearned largess by means of which to enhance his own opinion of himself at the cost of my humiliation.

pron• 13 years ago

She doesn't explain because because this model really is so obviously erroneous, but only after you accumulate enough experiences in life, or, if you want a shortcut, after you read enough books written by those who have experienced a thing or two. Some things can't be explained in a few sentences, because they are not mathematically true, but happen to be true in this particular world of ours. Sometimes, it's hard to explain how the world really works; you have to experience it in the flesh, and it takes a while.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

You do me the compliment, sir, of mistaking me for a child, and I thank you for it. But perhaps you will consider that not everyone's experience leads to the same conclusions you draw from your own.

smtddr2• 13 years ago

Isn't compassion for others and the desire to end others' suffering enough of a reason without any other incentive?

If in a hypothetical conversation, someone said to me "They contribute nothing; they should all just die & starve or just get out of the way." ... my response would be that it's us, the people with wealth(or at least not living paycheck2paycheck) who have the most power to change society and allow it to support them somehow. I don't really know how exactly, but the first experiment I'd vote for is basic-income and see how that pans out.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

I cannot end my brother's suffering. Only he can do that. The most I can do is offer help, if he'll have it. On that point: Regarding someone as worthless, that is, not only unable to contribute but unable to become able to contribute, strikes me as rather less compassionate than contemptuous. I concede I once thought as you do, but only until, through sheer good fortune, I learned what I could accomplish and, in so doing, earned my own respect -- and found in that the necessary prerequisite to earning the respect of others. Better, I think, to offer my brother the opportunity to do likewise, than simply to presume that he lacks even the hope of ever so doing.

parrotdoxical2• 13 years ago

Someone REALLY likes the sound of their own empty rhetoric. While that's all fine and dandy, you should probably be aware that you don't necessarily get a choice as to "subsidize" people who contribute nothing to society because it is possible for people to actually negate things from society, all the way down from petty thugs all the way up to crooked, lawyered-up execs and/or politicians. The difference is that the latter gets to pay their way out of their transgressions to society (often times at a rate that still makes it profitable to rob society) while the former get the societal brunt and blame for society's ills.

That's not to say that the former group are saints, but 1) they have systematic disadvantages that actually prevent any current legal implementations of a free market from providing for them and 2) once incarcerated, they actually end up costing society in a far more permanent way (up to $167k/yr in NYC).

So, even if you disregarded how totally wrongheaded your argument on a sociopolitical level, it also shows a pretty flimsy lack of substance on a quantitative level. You WILL pay for poverty one way or another. You can't magically incentivize it out of existence with a free market, so don't whine about it by thinking about it as subsidization. Think of it more as insurance, at the very least.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

Empty rhetoric, indeed! You seem to have attended little, and understood less, of what I've written today. Perhaps you'll unhook the stimulus-response apparatus that sits in front of your language parser, and actually read my comments, or at least a few of the shorter ones? Should you decide to do so, I'll be glad to engage you in discussion.

sbov• 13 years ago

Note that sometimes society doesn't let them contribute in ways you're probably thinking of.

I have a friend who recently got a job at a company that works to deport immigrants who have committed some sort of crime. On the face of things they try to give them hope, but they mostly give false hope, don't provide the information they need, and make holding a job impossible.

Once a month they will visit home "sometime next week" - and the person must be at home, which means an indeterminate amount of time off - maybe a week, maybe two. They ask them to come into their offices at 9am and don't see them until 6pm, if at all - maybe they ask them to come back tomorrow.

He's in the process of finding a new job, as the job is misadvertised as helping immigrants. Especially as an immigrant himself, he hates working there.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

No doubt, too, this is far from the only such travesty. For those responsible, I prescribe public flogging -- lest this statement be mistaken for some sort of metaphor, as is regrettably common in these parts, let me say that by "public flogging" I mean that they be taken in tumbrils to the handiest public square, there to be tied to a post and administered ten lashes apiece at the least; for repeat offenders, the gallows should serve.

Barbaric, you say? Do you then contend that the actions, which render such punishment meet, are any less barbaric? Which is worse, then? -- to lay open a man's back in answer to his crimes, and stretch his neck should he prove obdurate? Or to leave him grind his fellow men into the dust by trickery and deceit, and grow fat on the proceeds of their suffering? Or shall we handle him with kid gloves? -- as others here have rightly noted, a rich man rarely fears prison, and imprisonment itself carries great cost -- but let him once see his fellow criminal hauled down from the post with his back in bloody tatters, and you give him mightily to consider how best to save himself from a similar fate!

mratzloff4• 13 years ago

Techies like to think of themselves as different from the very wealthy, but many of our attitudes are very similar and most techies aspire to join their ranks.

There's a persistent belief in common with the wealthy that we have earned, solely through our hard work and perseverance, our position in society. Never mind the advantages we had along the way.

lbrandy• 13 years ago

Your comment is good and worth reading, but your opening line is unfortunate especially in light of what happened in the 15 minutes following. Just remove that line. I won't tell anyone.

mratzloff4• 13 years ago

Thanks. The thread got a lot more up votes after my comment. ;-)

larrys2• 13 years ago

With respect to the line that was removed, if anyone is curious, it had said something like "I suspect this is why it didn't get many upvotes". Or similar iirc.

But to my actual point.

Upvotes or downvotes on HN vary from the time of day to the way the headline is written (which will attract different groups of "techies" or whatever) and possibly the age group of the people who decide to take notice. Not to mention that there are non techies who read HN and so forth.

I don't think you can make a statement, as is often done, trying to characterize a typical HN reader or poster. Because nobody is taking a poll of the entire group only the group at a snapshot in time and only then based on something that attracted that particular group to make comments and/or vote.

n72• 13 years ago

What does "techies" mean? Greg Gopman's Angel List profile says: " Business Development, Communications, Community Management, Networking, Sales and Marketing, Working Really Hard." This isn't a techie. He happens to be working in the tech industry because that's where the money is at the moment, but I wouldn't call him a techie. (I'd call him a douche, but that's a whole other topic.) I think we need to start divorcing the thought that SV these days is primarily a techie place and that the people who work at SV companies are techies. Many of them are like this guy. Moreover, many of the programmers are programmers, but (and this may be being elitist) can we call them techies? If someone learns a bit of JS or ruby to throw together proof-of-concept copy-cat site, can we really call them a techie?

busterarm7• 13 years ago

I see so many comments on HN, especially as of late, basically to the effect of "the poor deserve to be poor" and usually with a "they could work hard like I do" tacked on. It's been leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. I've been both rich and poor and never forget where I've been in life.

A lot of people forget how much support they've had to get where they are. When you really take a good hard look at why many poor people are in the situations they're in, you see a total absence of a support network around them.

Working hard to get somewhere without any support around me is the single most frustrating thing I've had to deal with. It's easy to fail and often I have.

I have cousins with trust funds and millions of dollars to back up the pursuit of their dreams. I'm not really envious, but I know that I would be much further along towards my goals if I didn't have to work my ass off to get to somewhere in life where I can even afford to take a risk. Then it can take years to recover from failure.

Phrases I never expected to become part of my vocabulary like "class struggle" are starting to. I grew up in a poor, but conservative family!

At least not all of us think in the way you described, but a significant number sure do.

jjoonathan2• 13 years ago

Exactly! I come from a middle-class background. Not trust-fund level, but enough to shield me from the catch-22s of poverty. It disturbs me, when I reflect back on my life, just how many "steps to success" would have been complicated had my family been lower on the economic totem pole. It disturbs me even more how many of my peers (disproportionately many of which share the same background) don't acknowledge this fact with respect to their own lives. It's easy to be a libertarian when the market is treating you well.

It saddens me that the concept of "class struggle" was sullied by its connection with a certain well-known failed attempt to solve the problem. Just because our rivals failed doesn't mean we have succeeded!

thenerdfiles4• 13 years ago

    Do you think technology is going to take over the world?

How do questions like this factor into this class warfare?

thenerdfiles4• 13 years ago

We already get the gist here. It has become imperative that we consciously strive to add "humanism" to our practices: human-centric this, human-readable that... Many of us have to be reminded to be nice — and there's a positive trend between circumstantial ethics and hours spent in front of the computer.

Non-technologists fear that technologists have lost their humanity, and thus incur an air of arrogance. That's the point here.

Most of them do not want (1) welfare from the tech hierarchy, and some of them do not want to participate in this arbitrary hierarchy (2) because of their aesthetic views on technology overall or (3) because of their lack of education regarding the subject.

potatolicious3• 13 years ago

"Non-technologists fear that technologists have lost their humanity, and thus incur an air of arrogance."

From the general views commonly espoused on this forum and elsewhere, this seems like a legitimate fear. I do not believe it's fair to color these people as luddites or uninformed.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

Hey, while I'm throwing out nostrums that had earned their gray hairs long before any of us was a lustful sparkle in his daddy's eye, how about "Beggars can't be choosers"?

gaius3• 13 years ago

Conservatism? Reagan? Utter nonsense. Around the time of Reagan, the Soviet Empire was still shipping people like that to the gulags. North Korea still does, so Pyongyang can be pristine. It's "progressives", not right-wingers, who are the problem here.

notahacker• 13 years ago

Do you believe the Silicon Valley professionals the article criticises for expressing their disgust with the homeless are more likely to be big advocates of "self reliance" and "small government", or Marxist totalitarians?

gaius3• 13 years ago

I think they would accurately be described as Champagne Socialists or if you prefer Limousine Liberals. Almost literally with their private luxury Google buses.

Crito10• 13 years ago

I suppose the elephant in the room is whether or not 'techies' are repulsed by the homeless because accusations like "...[they] spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy..." have a basis in reality.

I don't live in SF, so I can only go off what I hear (from the accused 'techies', so I'm only getting one side of the propaganda here..), but what I have heard is that 1) the homeless really seem to love SF, preferring it to perhaps any other city, and 2) there is at least a segment of the homeless population that engages in extremely anti-social behavior (specifically I have heard stories of BART escalators regularly being shut down because the homeless shit on them).

(For background: most of my experience with the homeless comes from my interactions with them while working at a soup kitchen in a small city in Pennsylvania (those interactions were universally pleasant), and my interactions with them in Philadelphia (where an aversion to the homeless and an aversion to being mugged have a very close relationship...))

cynicalkane2• 13 years ago

Add "verbal and sexual harassment of women in the street" to that list.

Crito10• 13 years ago

Yes, some of these incidents even get national coverage (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/naked-subway-man-vi...).

I can't speak to whether these sort of incidents get an exaggerated or unfair amount of coverage, or if these really are common problems. Of course either way, these sort of incidents/articles surely shape public perception; I don't think we can make this as simple as "Techies are nouveau riche who like to kick 'em when they're down".

aaronem24• 13 years ago

Facts, Citizen? How reductionist of you.

As to your first point, I gather San Francisco very rarely has weather so inhospitable as to render living outdoors dangerous or even particularly unpleasant. As to your second, I forget who characterized man as "where the falling angel meets the rising ape", but it's an apt enough metaphor, and we fail to encourage the former at peril of encouraging the latter.

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

If weather was the main factor, we would expect the homeless to flock to San Diego -- or even any of the southern states -- and not San Francisco. So there's clearly something about SF other than the weather that attract a large number of homeless people.

mratzloff4• 13 years ago

I live in Seattle, not San Francisco. This is not my experience whatsoever in Seattle. Perhaps this is the experience in San Francisco, however.

In that case, to what do you ascribe that behavior?

And

What is the appropriate response to it?

Crito10• 13 years ago

I also currently live in Seattle. My experience with the homeless in Seattle is characterized best as a lack of experience with the homeless in Seattle. They seem to rarely bother people, I have never been harassed by them.

If there really is a stark difference in behavior, I don't know what to ascribe that to.

elwell2• 13 years ago

seattle doesn't have good homeless weather.

moocowduckquack5• 13 years ago

accusations like "...[they] spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy..." have a basis in reality.

Sounds like a stereotype of students as much as of the homeless.

mcantelon• 13 years ago

I'm from Vancouver where there's plenty of homeless. The Tenderloin's similar to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (in which I worked for years), but one thing that I noticed that seemed more common in the Tenderloin was human faeces on sidewalks.

yapcguy2• 13 years ago

Search the SF Chronicle archives.

In a nutshell, the city doesn't have enough money to install public toilets which are deemed appropriate for use by the homeless etc. Not sure what the exact requirements were, but that's the nub of it.

Of course, the city is giving payroll tax breaks to Twitter and other tech companies because they threatened to leave the city (to Australia at one point!) if they didn't get it.

There's a link there somewhere...

Anyway, end result is that Twitter employees are going to have to cycle in shit, walk in shit, and stand on BART escalator shit. Karma is beautiful.

ch00• 13 years ago

What baffles me is that these accusations and the subsequent discussions of "[they]" all treat homelessness as a homogenous problem. If we, as self-proclaimed as hackers and problem-solvers or whatever, want to discuss problems and solutions we have to understand what we're talking about first.

Sure some subset of the homeless population spits, urinates, taunts, sells drugs and gets rowdy, but so do a lot of rowdy bar hoppers on Polk St every Saturday night.

Homelessness is a complex subject with many causes and effects -- I don't claim to understand it; in fact, I'd like to learn more, but episodes like this don't seem to engender that kind of discussion, unfortunately.

dmpatierno• 13 years ago

I do live in SF and can confirm that we have a serious poop problem.

mathattack4• 13 years ago

I remember it being a big problem in public parks too. (Perhaps more dogs than people)

jarrett3• 13 years ago

First, we need to distinguish between homelessness and poverty on the one hand, and crime on the other. The two may overlap for some individuals (just as wealth and crime overlap for some), but they're by no means synonymous.

The legitimate complaints about the homeless in SF seem to always revolve around criminal acts: Assault and vandalism, mostly. (The less legitimate complaints are usually a variant on "I shouldn't have to look at poor people.")

Not all homeless people commit these sorts of crimes. Those who do are just disproportionately visible. This provides fodder for the false narrative that the homeless are criminals who are undeserving of compassion and responsible for their own criminality.

So how can we discuss this issue without wrongly demonizing a whole demographic? Here's how. If you live in SF and you're bothered by street crime, complain about street crime. Advocate for community policing that a) keeps a lid on assault, vandalism, and other such crimes, and b) treats the public (including the homeless) as valued customers.

It's fine to say that street crime in downtown SF bothers you. That's a completely understandable sentiment. I think most everyone feels the same way about the neighborhoods they inhabit. What's not fine is heaping overbroad blame on an already marginalized group.

wdewind• 13 years ago

Even the ones who do commit assault and vandalism are deserving of compassion, perhaps even more so.

Crito10• 13 years ago

I agree that whatever the situation, remembering that not all of the broader group are responsible for all of the publicly visible actions. It may be the homeless, bar hoppers, or students that are causing elevated crime in some area, but it is important to remember that not every homeless person, Friday night drinker, or student is a public menace by association.

Still, if we want to know why the general public is displeased with college students in some hypothetical town, we should ask ourselves if there really is a problem with bored college students lobbing beer bottles through windows for fun. The hypothesis "The general public is frustrated with the local college kids because a highly visible minority of them wreck up the place" should probably be examined before we jump on board with less... direct.. hypotheses.

cynicalkane2• 13 years ago

I guarantee you that San Francisco does not adequately prosecute people who poop on the street or shout dirty comments at passers-by. And I guarantee you that complaining about the homeless problem does not mean a lack of compassion for an "already marginalized group". And SF is so politically correct that prosecuting members of this "already marginalized group" is a political challenge (although California has no problem throwing large numbers of black guys in jail without adequate due process). Nor do SF police consider street pooping a high priority. You do not get a homeless problem with effective policing and effective social services.

I really don't know what you're trying to get at with your comment. It seems to consist mostly of straw-man arguments and a lack of interest in confronting a real problem.

kenrikm• 13 years ago

If you've been to the Tenderloin area recently, then yeah you would know "...[they] spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy..." is completely accurate. I recently observed a two days in a row a shop owner who had to wash the sidewalk outside his shop to clear off the human feces.

There is a homeless problem in SF, with as much money as the city spends on programs to help them I'm not sure why it's so much worse then other big cities, but it is.

xxchan• 13 years ago

".. with as much money as the city spends on programs to help them.." - that's pretty much the answer right there.

prodigal_erik2• 13 years ago

Mostly they're discreet about pissing in recessed entryways, but somebody tried to spit on me at a bus stop completely unprovoked, and there's more than one guy on Market around 3rd or 4th who would wander around and yell incoherently at pretty much any pedestrian within twenty feet. Some nights there was almost a Mad Max vibe to downtown.

They didn't merely stop the Muni/BART escalators. Those huge machines were clogged with so much shit that they failed. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-down...

7Figures2Commas2• 13 years ago

That's not the elephant in the room.

The elephant in the room is the fact that tech companies and startups have been setting up shop in the very parts of the city where homelessness, crime and the behavior described have long been problems.

That doesn't mean that these issues shouldn't be addressed, but I cannot for the life of me understand why "techies" have been flocking to areas of San Francisco where the average person would likely not feel safe the minute the sun goes down.

As an example: I once went to an event at a venture-backed startup that chose to locate itself in an unsightly part of town in what was previously an auto body shop. It was literally right next door to an adult entertainment shop. Who in their right mind does this and doesn't expect to encounter unseemly behavior?

Crito10• 13 years ago

Eh, In Philly I used to do my grocery shopping at a Trader Joes, located directly underneath an upscale apartment building, and directly across the street from two porno theaters and a salvation army.

I don't think that it is fair to frame the situation as a problem of people not respecting some sort of informal 'urban decay quarantines'. That seems uncomfortably close to victim blaming to me (yes, the situation is not that simple as clearly the more impoverished are victims, but the well-off are nevertheless also victimized by criminal portion of the impoverished population. This is a difficult topic to discuss without appearing to lack compassion or be tone deaf)

aaronem24• 13 years ago

I cannot for the life of me understand why "techies" have been flocking to areas of San Francisco where the average person would likely not feel safe the minute the sun goes down

Because the rent's cheap there! -- in a city where office space averages $500 per square foot per month [1], renting an ex-body-shop next to a porn store's going to be a lot easier on the ol' shoestring, don't you think?

[1] http://www.loopnet.com/San-Francisco_California_Market-Trend...

lolwutf• 13 years ago

It's natural to be repulsed by another person who will "...spit, urinate, taunt you, sell drugs, get rowdy..." in front of you in public.

But the key here is understanding the root cause and showing compassion towards the misguided.

...not constructing an us vs. them mentality, like Greg.

mathattack4• 13 years ago

For better or worse, mental illness and/or long term substance abuse are behind many of these problems.

borgopants• 13 years ago

As a software engineer, this problem has been prevalent in my mind lately. My main question is this: how can we, as members of the technology industry, use our skills to help solve the homelessness problem?

I've seen a lot of people suggesting that learning to code is a solution, which feels like a very disconnected kind of response. If you're trying to stay warm and survive from day to day, buying a computer is surely the lowest priority. Another solution is raising awareness via the web. In the social media era though, this has the negative of making people feel like they've done something by sharing a link or upvoting a story without actually making an actual difference, so I don't feel like this, by itself, is a great solution.

The disparity between people in the technology industry and the homeless is so huge, and noticeable, in areas like San Francisco that I feel it is our responsibility to give back and try and make a difference somehow. What are some ways that this could be achieved?

EliRivers3• 13 years ago

Hassle your political representatives, educate the public as to why so many of them are in effect turkeys voting for Christmas, go digging and expose the ways the small citizen is relentlessly screwed over by the rich and powerful (and then publicise it, in a way Joe Shmoe can get on board with), volunteer with local homeless charities, turn up at regional council meetings and loudly ask them again and again and again what they're doing to help these people rather than just move then on, interrupt when you hear people being dismissive or stating glibly "they should just learn to code".

SDGT• 13 years ago

If a homeless individual can approach me in an honest, respectful manner, I'd be more inclined to help.

This has not yet been the case. I prefer to reward civility with civility.

moocowduckquack5• 13 years ago

I bet it has but you had no idea they were homeless.

Crazy antisocial people often become homeless and are the visible side of it, but the vast majority of homeless people are not antisocial or crazy.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

The Golden Rule? My goodness, Citizen, how positively regressionist of you!

DerpDerpDerp4• 13 years ago

How, exactly, would you want them to approach you?

tehwalrus2• 13 years ago

You can start by following homeless people on social media, for example twitter's @HomelessDating[1], to better understand their side of the problem (I'm not calling you ignorant; we are all always learning...)

[1] hmm, since I last checked this account has become less active. https://twitter.com/homelessdating

johnpowell2• 13 years ago

Buy groceries at Safeway. Drop them off at a soup kitchen or a battered woman's shelter. I donate my old cell phones and any I come across to the local battered woman's shelter shelter. They might not work but they can still call 911 and this is a tremendous help.

potatolicious3• 13 years ago

Go volunteer, that's step one.

There are likely many, many ways we can leverage our abilities and talents to contribute to a solution, but many are non-obvious until you're on the inside and start ascertaining the size, scope, and nature of the problems.

Go find local shelters, soup kitchens, and other humanitarian services. Take the most rank and file (but front-facing) opportunity you can get. Work. Talk to people - the hopelessly homeless, the temporarily homeless, the people who work with them. Learn about these problems up close instead of speculating from the comfort of an armchair like most of the world.

Don't expect to be welcomed with open arms. Expect some measure of hostility. The homeless are all too familiar with being paraded around like animals in a zoo. Many of the people you will be volunteering with are presumptuous people with savior complexes, who will be patronizing to the people they're trying to help. Many people you work with will initially assume you're one of them also.

You're not going to write a world-changing piece of code having never written code before. You're definitely not going to turn homelessness upside down with no inside experience.

droopyEyelids• 13 years ago

What if a part of it isn't really a problem? What if certain people will never be motivated enough to comply with all the requirements imposed on us by society, and will always prefer to make trouble and get drunk and sleep outside?

This isn't true for every bum or homeless person you see, of course. But it is true for some of them. And then, the problem becomes yours (or mine).. I want everyone to have to make the same sacrifices and play by the same rules I do. I had to spend my youth studying, I had to impress someone with the power to give me a job, and work to keep them happy, etc.

I believe thats the fundamental conflict we face and why homelessness will never be solved.

Segmentation2• 13 years ago

I would like say guaranteed income law (similar to basic income of Alaska) would solve homelessness, but only in cities and towns that are affordable to rent and live in. Even with a guaranteed income the homeless of San Francisco would not be able to afford rent.

busterarm7• 13 years ago

The solution is to provide a strong network of support for people who are on the fringes of being homeless. Make sure people can access this while maintaining their dignity. Remove as many hardships/obstacles from their lives as possible. Find a way to allow them to take risks and fail without losing everything.

Move the political will in a direction that strives to provide affordable places to live, reduce commute times, access to child care, etc. This seems to be totally the opposite of the voting will in SF these days. Everyone is concerned with their real estate value and preventing adequate property development and criminalizing peoples' innovative (and dignified) solutions to community problems (I'm talking about people living in RVs/campers).

mathattack4• 13 years ago

My sense is the issue has a lot to do with mental health and/or substance abuse. When people have severe issues, it no longer becomes an issue of laziness. The heartbreaking thing is in many cases efforts to help out makes things worse.

67726e2• 13 years ago

Is the relation really all that surprising to people? We programmers tend to be a fairly self-reliant bunch. Ever told someone "RTFM"? Many of us are self-motivated, and probably self-taught to at least a certain degree. You think "It's just so easy, anyone can do it if they put in the work" and as a result you see unsuccessful, downtrodden people and think they just didn't want to put in their 10.000 hours like the rest of us.

EliRivers3• 13 years ago

We programmers tend to be a fairly self-reliant bunch.

For a very special meaning of "self-reliant". The majority of programmers I know could not produce their own food, make their own clothes, build their own shelter, treat their own illnesses. These are the fundamentals of life; how "self-reliant" can someone claim to be without being able to do these (I can't do these either, but I'm not claiming self-reliance)?

We can play into an illusion of "self-reliance" only because these foundations and so much more have been made so pervasive and efficient.

67726e2• 13 years ago

Of course I'm speaking in terms of our work. I'm not claiming I could kill a cow and render it nor knit a scarf nor do much more than basic first-aid. My point is that there is a certain culture of being self-reliant, which is perfectly demonstrated by the phrase RTFM. We're saying the knowledge is out there, I've figured it out, why can't you?

The truth is, we are all just standing on the shoulders of giants. One cannot truly claim to be purely a product of one's own hard-work and effort, because others helped you get there, but the idea that you can figure out anything be reading the manual, the source, by rubber-ducking, and so on relates very well to the Puritanical notion that one's place in life is earned through hard-work and thus just.

ars_technician5• 13 years ago

That's not what self-relaince is. Nobody is self-reliant by that definition because even people trained for wilderness survival will die from some mundane thing without modern medicine.

Self-reliance is when you can contribute enough to society on your own to get the things required to live in return without hand-outs.

etanazir2• 13 years ago

Self reliant is an Ouroboros; a serpent eating its tail.

johnpowell2• 13 years ago

How much did your parents make? Did they buy you your first computer? Did they pay for you to go to college?

ars_technician5• 13 years ago

I'm tired of this same old implication. My parents made ~25k. They did not buy my first computer, and they did not pay for me to go to college. Is that what you are looking for?

roin• 13 years ago

This article paints SV with too broad a brush, but this is a big problem. There is a tendency here to oversimplify really complex problems. That's a good thing when you need to take a leap of faith and start a company to tackle those problems, but a bad thing when you lack empathy for less fortunate people around you.

Guess what, most of these people have struggles that we can't begin to understand. A lot are dealing with mental health issues that are more debilitating than anything you or I will ever have to deal with. I live on Market St., and I'm as guilty as anyone of becoming numb to the homeless living there. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking that anyone can grab a Rails tutorial and become a six-figure engineer within a few years just because we've seen it done.

negamax• 13 years ago

I totally see a build up to 'Occupy Silicon Valley' around the next bust. Unlike bankers, techies would gladly join and even encourage the movement if it has any merit.

k_kelly• 13 years ago

Cities that don't care for their homeless tend not to have a homeless problem.

SF actually has relatively great care for homeless people compared to the majority of the US. Therefore a lot more homeless end up there.

The homeless problem is striking because it's almost entirely artificial. If SF didn't care for it's homeless, and didn't rent control areas to allow affordable housing it would probably be like midtown manhattan. That's boring to a lot of residents and unfortunate for the homeless, but where's the tax money coming from to allow the status quo to continue?

No one seems to be debating the value of social programs, but what's the advantage of the tenderloin? It's been a decaying mess for generations when it could be a profitable, vibrant part of the city which would be beneficial for wealthy and poor alike.

CreRecombinase• 13 years ago

What part of midtown Manhattan is beneficial for the poor? Also, what makes you think NYC doesn't have a homeless problem? Unless of course your definition of "homeless problem" is: "homeless people are bothering me", and not "homeless people don't have a warm place to sleep".

moocowduckquack5• 13 years ago

Cities that don't care for their homeless tend not to have a homeless problem.

The same is not true of countries.

xargs• 13 years ago

If folks want to really understand the history, demographics, socioeconomic issues, and legality/zoning/civics of the Tenderloin, they should read this article: http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/arise-tender...

^ It's easily the most accurate, holistic, and honest piece on the Tenderloin I've ever come across.

tehwalrus2• 13 years ago

Comments like this are a bit snobbish[1], but they're hardly puritanical.

America doesn't need "new puritans", it is already full of religious extremists who think that their personal moral code must be implemented in law for everyone to follow. The Puritans founded pre-USA America, and they haven't gone anywhere.

[1] I'm not saying what they said wasn't wrong; it was. I'm just saying it isn't "puritanism".

masterleep• 13 years ago

Having to dodge shit and vomit in the alleys of San Francisco is disgusting. It is as simple as that.

One would think that with the enormous resources devoted to the poor, we could at least expect not to have to step on shit. But one would be wrong, due to the incredible inefficiency and corruption of our one party state.

danso• 13 years ago

Am I not seeing the "next page" link? The subhead for this article is:

Silicon Valley's ugly treatment of homeless people has a long history.

And the only "history" I see is:

Greg Gopman, who is the CEO of a startup that organizes hackathons, wrote this on his Facebook page

Let's pretend there were a dozen such ugly comments in the past year from people who happen to live in Silicon Valley. What does that say about tech being the new Puritans? Nothing, as far as I can tell.

Don't get me wrong, I think the quoted techie sounds quite disagreeable. And yes, I'm sure there are many more techies who think like him. But I don't see this as a "techie" problem. I see it as a above-average-income mindset that is more impacted by the amount of money and privilege you have rather than what industry you acquired such things in.

digitalzombie• 13 years ago

I'm sure they wouldn't feel the same way if the tech industry go to shit and they end up homeless.

Having a degree and/or a job in demand doesn't give them the right to look down upon the unfortunates. I believe there are a huge population of veteran homeless too. It's not like all them chose to be homeless.

They're just assholes that are sitting around bitching. They're not the ones that are going to try to solve the homeless problem they're the ones that try to hide the problem. They're worst, they have no solution to this problem and not willing to do anything.

I find it weird that they used religious allegory but their religious figures such as Jesus would have help those in need not whine about it.

aaronem24• 13 years ago

Christ fed the hungry. He did not petition the Pharisaical council to establish a steering committee to look toward the establishment of a working group to consider the possibility of soliciting public input from all interested stakeholders with the eventual goal of producing a synergistic plan for improving the condition of the urban disadvantaged.

prodigal_erik2• 13 years ago

Supposedly having magical powers, he was also not limited by inadequate opt-in contributions from a minority of society.

For all of history this has been a problem too big for charity to solve.

etanazir2• 13 years ago

What if everyone in your world is simply your own soul from a different point of view.

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

didn't someone on hn pose this exact analogy (to Puritans) a couple of days ago? sometimes I wonder if editors lurk on hn/reddit for headline ideas (the writers themselves need more turnaround time than 2 days I imagine)

pg• 13 years ago

This all based on a tiny amount of anecdotal evidence: one post and a reply by his friend. It's like a pyramid balanced on its apex.

The interesting thing about this article, to me, is what it shows about how much demand there is for this idea.

Segmentation2• 13 years ago

This all based on a tiny amount of anecdotal evidence: one post and a reply by his friend.

Maybe, but the reaction on Twitter and in this thread is proof that a lot of techies have this puritan attitude toward homeless. The blog was being sensational to expose this.

Spooky232• 13 years ago

Funny.

The Puritans are closer to the do-gooders than the general population. Puritans left Europe to form the perfect society, which they defined around their religious practice. They had all the answers and were building the city on the hill. The system worked, as long as you were an adherent.

The way you solve these problems is by acting at a higher level to address root causes. Advocating for someone's "right" to shit their pants and disrupt public spaces is ridiculous, but it's also easy to do -- offering pity is always easy to do. It's not as easy to get treatment for mental health issues or to fund drug programs or to address the more systemic issues that result in a screaming maniac running around in the street.

Techie or not, I have a right to use public spaces that should be preserved. My son should be able to work in a public library. My family should be able to walk down the street without fear.

fiter• 13 years ago

My family should be able to walk down the street without fear.

I think we need to be extremely cautious when we think things like this. I'm not sure everyone's fear is well-founded. It seems like we can't eliminate risk, so we need to have this reasonable debate about what we'll tolerate.

I don't believe in removing these people, but let's have anyone in the area behaving some fair rules. No physical assault sounds good. Sounds like maybe we agree? I just haven't had that physical assault problem, so to me it seems like I can walk down the street without fear.

Spooky232• 13 years ago

I agree -- I don't mean we need a complete police state. Homeless people have just as much right to be in a public space as anyone. But as an example, in my city a bunch of aggressive panhandlers will taunt and intimidate you between the entrance to a hospital near me and one of the parking areas.

When my sister worked at this hospital, it was very intimidating to have to run through a gauntlet of these people, it was really scary to be running a gauntlet of deranged drunks.

spikels• 13 years ago

Ideology can make you blind to problems obvious to those with an open mind. We clearly have a serious problems with homelessness in SF - just ask anyone from out of town. And despite the best intentions of many (and the self-interest of some) and the dedication of tons of resources the problem has only gotten worse. Blaming techies or conservatives is frankly ridiculous. Everyone should be ashamed.

rgrieselhuber• 13 years ago

This is a difficult conversation because any statement you make about the real problems facing workers in downtown can easily get you lumped into a category of people who hate the poor.

There is no question that disrespectful attitudes toward the poor and homeless in any city betrays a shocking lack of empathy about the struggles that they encounter.

The flip side is that there are real problems facing workers (tech and otherwise) in these neighborhoods and just labeling anyone who complains about them as some kind of bigot neither cures that person of any perceived bigotry, it also does not solve the core problems that people who live in those neighborhoods are facing: extreme poverty, mental illnesses, rising rent costs and more.

One of my co-workers is a woman and she is harassed daily as she walks into our office, to the point that we are moving offices as a result. The comments she endures are sickening and I've witnessed it myself. Interestingly, it happens much less when I walk down Market Street with her. But what I've noticed is that it's not the homeless who make those comments.

There are multiple groups all clustered together and it combines to create an unsettling experience for people who walk through the neighborhood. There are the homeless, who generally seem to keep to themselves and are preoccupied with staying warm, begging for food / money, etc.

Then there are the apparently mentally ill, who are likely also homeless, who can be found screaming in the street, disrobing and more. There are also obvious drug addicts - I watched a man lick a needle and inject it into an open sore on his leg in broad daylight. Then there are the loiterers, dealers and gamblers on the street. These dudes actually are the most abusive toward women. They are the ones who make inappropriate comments toward my co-worker and other women I see walking down the street. They yell at people, threaten them, and attack one another.

Combine all this with the smell of feces, urine and trash littered all over the street and you do genuinely wonder why it's so bad. I can't think of a single other city in America that I've visited that has this many problems.

Some of the core causes appear to be an impenetrable and growing wealth gap, lack of available services for those in need, lack of proactive police coverage (but please, no military-wannabe cops need apply) and ongoing gentrification. In the Tenderloin, I would almost characterize it as an active rebellion against gentrification, where long-time residents feel the need to intimidate the tech workers moving in to set up new offices, coffee shops, etc. Call it the Scooby Doo strategy.

It's a difficult situation because on the one hand I completely sympathize with those who are seeing their ability to afford living in older neighborhoods vanish before their eyes. On the other hand, tech workers are often portrayed as entitled tech hipster bros who just want a clean street to walk down on their way to the new Blue Bottle cafe.

The reality is that the actual "tech workers" who are trying to make a living also includes women, men and women with families and new immigrants to the US. Because of the money some of these folks earn, it's easy enough to demonize them when one jackass makes inappropriate comments on Facebook. But the same Valleywag bloggers who demonize the tech hipster bros also can't be seen actually doing anything to make a difference on their own and probably share the same thoughts as they walk toward a new cafe to work on their next piece, this one already forgotten.

mathattack4• 13 years ago

Fixing homelessness in SF is a very complicated problem. Some of it has to do with anti-gentrification. Other issues are zoning laws. In addition, there is a root cause of mental health and/or substance abuse.

Here's an article on it. http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-struggles-to-help-e...

memracom• 13 years ago

How on earth do these people know that the ones spitting, urinating and taunting are homeless? In some cultures spitting in public is acceptable so possibly some of these people are immigrants who haven't yet learned to fit in. Most will eventually get the message and stop spitting.

Urinating in public is a classic sign of people being drunk in public. Most of those people have the money to spend on drinks in bars so I doubt they are homeless.

As for taunting, that sounds like mental illness to me. And the same goes if someone is spitting at other people.

Now I will admit that it is a common side effect of mental illness to be homeless, but unless you actually know that someone is homeless for a fact, you are likely lumping multiple groups of people together and basically saying "This city needs to do something about all the people on the streets who are not like me".

Seems to me like better support for the mentally ill would go a long way to solve the problem, and for those who just want to sweep the problem away by moving the mentally ill somewhere else, that might be a good idea. Bringing people closer to nature in a country setting and giving them responsibility to care for farm animals, and gardens, are all known ways to heal mental illness. Sounds like these people need to put their money where there mouth is. Start an Indiegogo project to help mentally ill people in a country setting and donate your money to that rather than complaining.

Techies Are the New Puritans

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