4 ms·

It's pretty sad that the combination of the tax code, income based benefit eligibility, and a high local cost of living make something like "Divorce for the sak

It's pretty sad that the combination of the tax code, income based benefit eligibility, and a high local cost of living make something like "Divorce for the sake of the children" a real option. Christ, is this where we all are now? Just to work and eat, you have to get a divorce and try to finagle your way through the state systems? I don't even know if I know of a word for the feeling I get from this. Despair, resignation, disgust, extreme tiredness, a sense that I should be shocked by this but I am not anymore, a small pinch of Jurassic Park's 'clever-girl' moment.... I don't know what the solution is here, there are a lot of ideas, but good God people, this is really crazy now. I mean, I know that an armed rebellion/revolution is a thousand times more horrible, the deaths will be millions of times worse than Antietam, the Cultural Revolution, and the Khmer Rouge combined, but the system, the bureaucrats, they will not reform. People become accustomed to poverty and abuse, like they did with slaves whipped and raped in fields in the Antebellum, it becomes normal to just put on sunglasses in the rain to not look at the stunning injustices of a family shitting on the sidewalk, in dirty, wet, and stinking rags. Whatever, where is my gluten-free latte? And this is flippin' FB! These folk are not neo-slavers or people with dreams of a new nobility. These are us, hackers, lovers of freedom and justice and peace and order and linked-lists and a good Pad Thai. Christ, what is going on anymore!?

linkregister 9y ago
Income inequality is far greater in the Facebook/Google/Mozilla types of places. Rural areas have much less variability. When hackers grow older, and decide they don't want noise and 4-story apartments nearby, then yes, the peaceful do have an impact. They don't feel it because they donate to EFF and recycle and have a "Nuclear-Free Zone" sign at the entrance to their town. But the root of Bay Area inequality is housing, full stop. I took a ride share from the airport a couple of months ago. The driver lives better than I do. He lives in Sacramento and drives all weekend. He then comes back to his 4 bedroom house in a rural suburb. His children attend a decent school. There is low crime in his town. Other states have other problems, perhaps due to national policies. But the Bay Area's problems are almost all of it's own making. The worst off are the locals who can't move back to their Midwestern towns as the newcomers can. Their entire support structure is in the Bay Area. So their only option is to move to Antioch or Tracy to accept a 2 hour commute for a $15/hr job. You're right that there will be unrest, but it won't be in Alabama, nor will it be in Fresno. It'll be where the nice hackers live.
- sjg007 9y ago
  Well you can move just without your support system and build one. Plenty of people do that.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    Yes, middle-class families can do this. Lower-middle and the bottom 25 percentile of income cannot readily build a support network.
lovich 9y ago
Facebook, the one that's trying to track every single facet of data on every individual on the planet, with or without their permission? Facebook the place that outsources the jobs mentioned in the article out to contracting firms so they can pay the non hackers less? What makes you think that Facebook or any mega corp is a place that wants any of "freedom and justice and peace and order". They want money, that's it. If you work for them, you can have your own private desires but you are not helping them do anything but make money

linkregister 9y ago

Income inequality is far greater in the Facebook/Google/Mozilla types of places. Rural areas have much less variability. When hackers grow older, and decide they don't want noise and 4-story apartments nearby, then yes, the peaceful do have an impact. They don't feel it because they donate to EFF and recycle and have a "Nuclear-Free Zone" sign at the entrance to their town. But the root of Bay Area inequality is housing, full stop. I took a ride share from the airport a couple of months ago. The driver lives better than I do. He lives in Sacramento and drives all weekend. He then comes back to his 4 bedroom house in a rural suburb. His children attend a decent school. There is low crime in his town. Other states have other problems, perhaps due to national policies. But the Bay Area's problems are almost all of it's own making. The worst off are the locals who can't move back to their Midwestern towns as the newcomers can. Their entire support structure is in the Bay Area. So their only option is to move to Antioch or Tracy to accept a 2 hour commute for a $15/hr job. You're right that there will be unrest, but it won't be in Alabama, nor will it be in Fresno. It'll be where the nice hackers live.

sjg007 9y ago
Well you can move just without your support system and build one. Plenty of people do that.
- linkregister 9y ago
  Yes, middle-class families can do this. Lower-middle and the bottom 25 percentile of income cannot readily build a support network.

lovich 9y ago

Facebook, the one that's trying to track every single facet of data on every individual on the planet, with or without their permission? Facebook the place that outsources the jobs mentioned in the article out to contracting firms so they can pay the non hackers less? What makes you think that Facebook or any mega corp is a place that wants any of "freedom and justice and peace and order". They want money, that's it. If you work for them, you can have your own private desires but you are not helping them do anything but make money