4 ms·

Haha. Wow. I guess I'm glad someone said this. The way you see the problem is really common and I think too many other people who feel the way you do are cunnin

Haha. Wow. I guess I'm glad someone said this. The way you see the problem is really common and I think too many other people who feel the way you do are cunning enough to keep quiet or massage their thoughts into something more palatable. To be clear, I think this opinion demonstrates such a completely bullshit, narrow, entitled, and ethnocentric view of the world it blows my mind. It's a helpful reminder of why I don't live up there.

libria 13y ago
> I think this opinion demonstrates such a completely bullshit, narrow, entitled, and ethnocentric view of the world it blows my mind. Well you can safely unblow your mind. He used a stereotype broadly applied to a group, but lazy people do indeed make up some portion of the "have nots". Sibling comments show measured, thought-massaged responses that correct the GP. Let's not combat bad generalizations with hyperbole.
- visakanv 13y ago
  I've always been deeply curious about laziness. What makes a lazy person lazy? Is it predisposition? Is it environment? What are your thoughts?
  - famousactress 13y ago
    Ironically (given the context it was brought up in), my answer would be privilege.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    This really is the million-dollar question isn't it? It unfolds in all kinds of interesting directions and has big implications - why are some countries more productive than others? Why are some cultures more technologically advanced? There's a good book on this: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Well worth a read. There are no easy answers here, though being mindful of history is important in arguing this topic - predisposition and environment have historically been used by social darwinists to assert superiority over other cultures and races (see: "tropical climates breed laziness" and "blacks are predisposed to lesser intelligence but greater physical ability"). They're not verboten, but it pays to tread carefully if you want to argue in that direction.
    - famousactress 13y ago
      Guns, Germs, and Steel is a super compelling read. It addresses productivity in the large (not in the small), but not laziness I think. I'm not sure how relevant it is to exploring individuals in a population as it is to looking at productivity of larger populations throughout history. Spoiler: GG&S ends up arguing that the answer to why some countries are more productive than others is historical geographical circumstance, particularly because of access to large grains and domesticate-able animals which propelled some early cultures into agriculture and the rest is history.
      - potatolicious 13y ago
        Indeed, GG&S is very much focused on the macroscopic outcomes, but I do believe they two topics are interrelated, at least traditionally where they're discussed. The question of why Africa was largely technologically undeveloped was of some importance to Europeans during the slave trade. The predispositional argument was made to justify the practice of slavery, and post-slavery to justify continued discrimination. Similarly, if you go to East Asia today (see: Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong) you will still see today continued mistreatment of Southeast Asian migrant workers under the guise of predispositional and environment inferiority ("tropical climates breed simple minds" and such nonsense), justified by macro-scale outcomes ("look at all the tropical countries, all of them are a mess, clearly non-tropical climates breed harder workers"). These attitudes are depressingly common. The macro-scale differences in countries is often used as justification for odd micro-scale beliefs.
  - y1426i 13y ago
    Nothing wrong with being lazy. It is the root of all innovation, I think ;-)
- jljljl 13y ago
  Lazy people make up "some portion" of the haves as well, which is why attempting to attribute "laziness" as a defining attribute of a socioeconomic group is "bullshit, narrow, entitled".
- famousactress 13y ago
  Having been in both camps for significant periods of my life I suspect lazy people make up a very similar (if not larger) portion of "haves". I don't think the GP deserves a measured response. I think the comment deserves outrage, but I get your point. I certainly get hyperbolic.
islon 13y ago
Indeed you are right. To say the truth I knew what to expect when I clicked the comments link: the “I studied hard therefore I deserve more” meritocratic bullshit we are used to. The worst lies are the ones we create ourselves as a excuse to feel better.
mc32 13y ago
I think Paul is referring to the hyperbolae in the title and its implications. He offered a similarly outrageous alternative title and or implications. You're responding as if that was what the poster actually felt was the cause. Unrelated to this, I wonder if people are outraged at the people who move to ND to pursue the oil boom over there. There relatively medium skilled and unskilled workers can earn more per year than SV 'tech' workers. Are people also showing the same contempt and or jealousy (or whatever it is) for those workers who decided they would partake in the energy industry boom in North Dakota? Or are tech workers a special kind of evil manifestation of things gone wrong? If so, what exempts the ND blue collar workers from this outrage at people's earning power? [Added] In both cases I pretty much see supply and demand at work. If suddenly everyone sought a CS degree (and then saw a devaluation in the degree, kind of like EE degrees in the 80s/90s), then salaries would slump. Same for the energy boom workers.
- famousactress 13y ago
  Ah. If as you suggest he was offering hyperbole from the other pole as a thought exercise and not expressing his preferred translation, then that was lost on me and I apologize. That said, I still think the comment fails. "haves and have nots" is only arguably hyperbolic because it's cliche, but ignoring cliche connotations it's just plain dryly accurate because the discussion is effectively about a resource: Money. paul_f's proposed hyperbole makes a jump from "has money" to "has a work ethic", which is what I find wildly invalid and offensive. Even ignoring opportunity and circumstance for a moment (which I put aside so that I can avoid getting into a Randian snowball fight), it still ignores the existence of two people with equal opportunity and circumstance, but unequal tendency/desire to optimize for income.
- jljljl 13y ago
  >> I think Paul is referring to the hyperbolae in the title and its implications. If that is so, then it doesn't come across that way. I'm not sure what the perception is towards the ND oil boom workers, but to get a sense of how the protesters perceive the tech community, take a look at the Fake Google employee that was at the protests: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/fake-google-employee-mocks-protesters.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/fake-google-emp... It's a caricature for sure, but it sounds a lot like the comment at the top of Hacker News right now.

libria 13y ago

> I think this opinion demonstrates such a completely bullshit, narrow, entitled, and ethnocentric view of the world it blows my mind. Well you can safely unblow your mind. He used a stereotype broadly applied to a group, but lazy people do indeed make up some portion of the "have nots". Sibling comments show measured, thought-massaged responses that correct the GP. Let's not combat bad generalizations with hyperbole.

visakanv 13y ago
I've always been deeply curious about laziness. What makes a lazy person lazy? Is it predisposition? Is it environment? What are your thoughts?
- famousactress 13y ago
  Ironically (given the context it was brought up in), my answer would be privilege.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  This really is the million-dollar question isn't it? It unfolds in all kinds of interesting directions and has big implications - why are some countries more productive than others? Why are some cultures more technologically advanced? There's a good book on this: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Well worth a read. There are no easy answers here, though being mindful of history is important in arguing this topic - predisposition and environment have historically been used by social darwinists to assert superiority over other cultures and races (see: "tropical climates breed laziness" and "blacks are predisposed to lesser intelligence but greater physical ability"). They're not verboten, but it pays to tread carefully if you want to argue in that direction.
  - famousactress 13y ago
    Guns, Germs, and Steel is a super compelling read. It addresses productivity in the large (not in the small), but not laziness I think. I'm not sure how relevant it is to exploring individuals in a population as it is to looking at productivity of larger populations throughout history. Spoiler: GG&S ends up arguing that the answer to why some countries are more productive than others is historical geographical circumstance, particularly because of access to large grains and domesticate-able animals which propelled some early cultures into agriculture and the rest is history.
    - potatolicious 13y ago
      Indeed, GG&S is very much focused on the macroscopic outcomes, but I do believe they two topics are interrelated, at least traditionally where they're discussed. The question of why Africa was largely technologically undeveloped was of some importance to Europeans during the slave trade. The predispositional argument was made to justify the practice of slavery, and post-slavery to justify continued discrimination. Similarly, if you go to East Asia today (see: Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong) you will still see today continued mistreatment of Southeast Asian migrant workers under the guise of predispositional and environment inferiority ("tropical climates breed simple minds" and such nonsense), justified by macro-scale outcomes ("look at all the tropical countries, all of them are a mess, clearly non-tropical climates breed harder workers"). These attitudes are depressingly common. The macro-scale differences in countries is often used as justification for odd micro-scale beliefs.
- y1426i 13y ago
  Nothing wrong with being lazy. It is the root of all innovation, I think ;-)
jljljl 13y ago
Lazy people make up "some portion" of the haves as well, which is why attempting to attribute "laziness" as a defining attribute of a socioeconomic group is "bullshit, narrow, entitled".
famousactress 13y ago
Having been in both camps for significant periods of my life I suspect lazy people make up a very similar (if not larger) portion of "haves". I don't think the GP deserves a measured response. I think the comment deserves outrage, but I get your point. I certainly get hyperbolic.

islon 13y ago

Indeed you are right. To say the truth I knew what to expect when I clicked the comments link: the “I studied hard therefore I deserve more” meritocratic bullshit we are used to. The worst lies are the ones we create ourselves as a excuse to feel better.

mc32 13y ago

I think Paul is referring to the hyperbolae in the title and its implications. He offered a similarly outrageous alternative title and or implications. You're responding as if that was what the poster actually felt was the cause. Unrelated to this, I wonder if people are outraged at the people who move to ND to pursue the oil boom over there. There relatively medium skilled and unskilled workers can earn more per year than SV 'tech' workers. Are people also showing the same contempt and or jealousy (or whatever it is) for those workers who decided they would partake in the energy industry boom in North Dakota? Or are tech workers a special kind of evil manifestation of things gone wrong? If so, what exempts the ND blue collar workers from this outrage at people's earning power? [Added] In both cases I pretty much see supply and demand at work. If suddenly everyone sought a CS degree (and then saw a devaluation in the degree, kind of like EE degrees in the 80s/90s), then salaries would slump. Same for the energy boom workers.

famousactress 13y ago
Ah. If as you suggest he was offering hyperbole from the other pole as a thought exercise and not expressing his preferred translation, then that was lost on me and I apologize. That said, I still think the comment fails. "haves and have nots" is only arguably hyperbolic because it's cliche, but ignoring cliche connotations it's just plain dryly accurate because the discussion is effectively about a resource: Money. paul_f's proposed hyperbole makes a jump from "has money" to "has a work ethic", which is what I find wildly invalid and offensive. Even ignoring opportunity and circumstance for a moment (which I put aside so that I can avoid getting into a Randian snowball fight), it still ignores the existence of two people with equal opportunity and circumstance, but unequal tendency/desire to optimize for income.
jljljl 13y ago
>> I think Paul is referring to the hyperbolae in the title and its implications. If that is so, then it doesn't come across that way. I'm not sure what the perception is towards the ND oil boom workers, but to get a sense of how the protesters perceive the tech community, take a look at the Fake Google employee that was at the protests: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/fake-google-employee-mocks-protesters.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/fake-google-emp... It's a caricature for sure, but it sounds a lot like the comment at the top of Hacker News right now.