4 ms·
Homeless hacker chiming in. Throw away acct for pseudo anonymity. I been homeless in LA for 2 years now. Previously, I worked as a developer for 15 years. The c
by accelerateruina 8y ago
Homeless hacker chiming in. Throw away acct for pseudo anonymity. I been
homeless in LA for 2 years now. Previously, I worked as a developer for 15
years. The closest I ever got to touching "success" was that one time standing
before the porcelain King in the Men's Room right next to Bezos at Amazon. It's
rather surreal to see where I am now and think that I once pissed into the same
hole in the ground as the Richest Man on Earth. c'est la vie.
This whole article is just Liberal hand wringing bullshit. Every reply in this
thread is just more Liberal Do-Gooder handing wringing bullshit. Not a single
one of you here understand what it's really like to be ejected from the Economy
and forced to live as a leper underneath Metropolis among the Morlocks in Tent
City, and not a single one of you have a realistic idea to "solve" the problem
of homelessness in society. But you'll think you know it all, and that if only
your dumb idea XYZ was adopted, it would be the silver bullet to solve a
pathologically non-linear societal system of thousands and millions of
discontinuous variables.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
on his not understanding it." ― Upton Sinclair
"Homelessness" isn't a "problem" that can be solved and wrapped up with a pretty
red bow because you all are Sinclair's man in the street. You all are the
problem. The phenomenon of homelessness is not an effect--it's a consequence. It
is not a disease in itself, it is the symptom of a much greater syndrome. How
can you begin to solve a "problem" when you haven't even identified the root
of the problem?
Look around you. What's happening isn't rocket brain surgery. This shit is just
Malcolm X's proverbial "chickens coming home to roost." America is sick. It's
dying. Your society is decaying. Your cities are slums, your economy is fake,
fewer and fewer fat cat asshole thieves scheme to take bigger and bigger slices
of the diminishing pie for themselves, all the while inviting in every
illiterate 3rd World "Shitholer" peasant illegal immigrant to take the resources
of your Native Born neighbor. Your Govt is literally being run by elderly senile
cartoon characters who are too busy squabbling over WWF wrestling plot minutia
while the real power--the Deep State and the Military Industrial Complex
continues business as usual and is radar phased locked onto expanding more and
more Wars fighting for Israel and for Tyrants of Oil Fiefdoms, damn the
consequences, and damn the American boys dying for it. Your Financial Industry
of empty suits only care about kicking the can and off-shoring and out
sourcing every last warm body that can be replaced by a Drone in order to
shave operating costs to earn their myopic bonus for inflating their revenue
by .0001% and priming the pump of their stock price through even more
corporate buy backs. Your economy was blown the fuck up 10 years ago, and the
Federal Reserve inflated the money supply by printing tens of trillions of
fiat to soak up housing and all property to prop up already outrageous
astronomical prices.
Why am I and 500,000 Americans homeless while 500,000 houses sit empty across
America? Oh yeah, that's right, those houses are "investment vehicles" which
must be protected because muh Free Markets, and because God forbid any policies
resembling a Nationalized Socialism take root in America and blow away the
illusion that a self-coherent Capitalism even exists. Meanwhile, We The People
are depreciating assets and "not economically viable."
Here's why. If you hate Trump, just wait until you see the next cartoon
character we meme into the Presidency. You may be baffled "why is the Alt-Right
smarter than us and why do they keep winning against all fake odds?" The answer
has been staring you in the face the whole time. Next time, there's going to be
a guy running for President and he's going to hit all of notes and promise the
right things to fix everything and punish everyone who deserves it, and his name
will be something like "Adolf" and me and 70 million voters are going to elect
him and then maybe you'll sit down and seriously challenge your whole reality
and everything you thought you knew and ask yourself "how did we end up here?"
It might make you feel better to just ignore what I'm saying by discounting it
as "oh that guy is mentally ill, that's why he's homeless to begin with, just
ignore the crazy man and keep being apathetic and don't try to do anything and
leave it for the Govt to Do Something About It."
But don't feel bad for me. I feel bad for you. Because I have enjoyed a head
start prepping for the coming systemic collapse that is going to rip America
apart to its foundations and shovel dirt over the grave of our little 242 year
long "Grand Experiement." I know how Extended Involuntary Urban Camping, I know
how to live off canned food and the bare minimum of resources, I know how to
steal water and electricity and whatever else I need, I know how to live little
better than an animal with no consciousness about "next week" or "next month",
because I live in the day-to-day. I have learned it's survival of the fittest.
You have not. One day soon you'll wake up and your Soylent fridge will be
empty, your Googley Bus won't be there, your Googleplex will be empty and picked
apart by tweakers for scrap metal and everything you thought was a permanent
fixture of Civilization will be gone. I'll be fine. I didn't need the majority
of that shit anyways. Your mind will be blown when you see how little you truly
Need to get by just to survive.
As for my future, I don't waste my time with such a luxury. Chop wood, carry
water--that's Zen. I hate the entire Computing Industry by the way. Yes, you
too. Why would I want to get back into the Hamster Wheel? Why would I want to
rejoing being part of the problem again? Programming Blinken Light bullshit for
bullshitters does not interest me in the slightest anymore. This industry has
changed since I remember it in the Dotcom era. I no longer recognize it. The
only "fun" I find these days in programming is in leveling up in Reverse
Engineering to break as much software as I can and attack it as broadly and as
devestating as possible with the explicit goal of dumping 0days to put as many
of you out of business as I can and try real hard to roll Computing Inc as far
back into the pre-Internet Dark Ages of the 1960's and 1970's as I can.
- ryanwaggoner 8y agoNot going to lie, this was genuinely thought-provoking. I'm curious about a few things though: 1. The second part of your comment makes it sound like you're homeless by choice, but the beginning makes it sound like you've just fallen on some very rough times. I'd like to hear more about your story and how you came to be where you are. 2. The middle part of your comment about Trump and what comes next really does concern me. I think we're at a crossroads right now, but I'm a lot less convinced than you that we're going to go down the wrong road. If I look back at points in America's history like the Civil War, Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam, etc, this doesn't seem like we're at our most dysfunctional. We managed to pass through those eras without societal collapse. Doesn't mean we will this time, but what makes you so sure we won't? 3. The final couple paragraphs of your comment remind me of what I've read of stoicism. I commend you for realizing how little of our modern creature comforts are truly necessary, and being willing to honestly weigh them against their costs, both to you and to broader society. But you seem convinced that those who currently live a more "normal" existence will be paralyzed and helpless in the event of societal collapse. Why can't they adapt if you have?