4 ms·

You sure it isn’t because they just grew up, like the hippies?

by shuckles 3y ago

BobbyJo 3y ago
By "grow up" do you mean "coalesce"? If so, that's exactly what I'm saying.
- shuckles 3y ago
  The hippies suited up without expensive housing as a forcing factor. We may agree on what happened, but I disagree with you about why.
davidw 3y ago
I'd love to be free to hack on interesting things. If I didn't have to spend so much on housing, I'd have more freedom. Of course, there are also tradeoffs in that, in the sense that I do not want to live in Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma just to have cheap housing...
- shuckles 3y ago
  It seems like there is a tendency to become occupied with obligations as you age, regardless of exactly how the discretionary time / money is eaten up.
  - davidw 3y ago
    Oh, absolutely, but housing eats up the biggest share of most peoples' paychecks. The higher those costs are, the fewer people can afford to just go do something adventurous, new and interesting. I mean, think about the staggering amounts of VC money in the bay area that pretty much flows straight to landlords.
    - shuckles 3y ago
      I am all for reducing rent seeking, including in this case literally. However, my point is that the hippies became squares in the same way the hackers became squares. It's not clear that housing costs are causal; they might just be incidental.
      - davidw 3y ago
        I think it's one of those things where you'd want to look at it statistically, or 'at the margin'. Many - most - people will grow up and settle down some. But high housing costs kind of force the issue even more, and leave less room for people to have some more freedom to explore.
        shuckles 3y ago
        If we are thinking about this as a dynamic system, then: many people who moved to the valley before 2010 got some sort of windfall, whether through home equity or participating in a notable period of wealth creation. Why didn’t that mint a bunch of hackers on the margin, if disposable income is so explanatory?

You sure it isn’t because they just grew up, like the hippies?

BobbyJo 3y ago

By "grow up" do you mean "coalesce"? If so, that's exactly what I'm saying.

shuckles 3y ago
The hippies suited up without expensive housing as a forcing factor. We may agree on what happened, but I disagree with you about why.

davidw 3y ago

I'd love to be free to hack on interesting things. If I didn't have to spend so much on housing, I'd have more freedom. Of course, there are also tradeoffs in that, in the sense that I do not want to live in Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma just to have cheap housing...

shuckles 3y ago
It seems like there is a tendency to become occupied with obligations as you age, regardless of exactly how the discretionary time / money is eaten up.
- davidw 3y ago
  Oh, absolutely, but housing eats up the biggest share of most peoples' paychecks. The higher those costs are, the fewer people can afford to just go do something adventurous, new and interesting. I mean, think about the staggering amounts of VC money in the bay area that pretty much flows straight to landlords.
  - shuckles 3y ago
    I am all for reducing rent seeking, including in this case literally. However, my point is that the hippies became squares in the same way the hackers became squares. It's not clear that housing costs are causal; they might just be incidental.
    - davidw 3y ago
      I think it's one of those things where you'd want to look at it statistically, or 'at the margin'. Many - most - people will grow up and settle down some. But high housing costs kind of force the issue even more, and leave less room for people to have some more freedom to explore.
      - shuckles 3y ago
        If we are thinking about this as a dynamic system, then: many people who moved to the valley before 2010 got some sort of windfall, whether through home equity or participating in a notable period of wealth creation. Why didn’t that mint a bunch of hackers on the margin, if disposable income is so explanatory?