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Does anyone else feels like we're really getting towards the cyberpunk universe ? with corporations that completely own the life of their employees by providing
by bsaul 12y ago
Does anyone else feels like we're really getting towards the cyberpunk universe ?
with corporations that completely own the life of their employees by providing them with everything, and a violent lawless and miserable outside world.
And as always, it all started with the best intentions.
- blazespin 12y agoTech folks tend to live in their heads. Houses, etc, is just boring distractions.
- viewer5 12y agoI'm sure some people are like that, but you can hardly say that most techy folks do that.
- falcolas 12y agoAs a techie who just recently completed purchasing a house, I disagree. It's a reminder that there's more to life than what's in my head, and it's something I can call my own (well, mine and the banks).
- yummyfajitas 12y agoThis. Currently all my stuff fits into two backpacks (a big backpacker one and a small one for the laptop). The only thing I miss from my old stationary lifestyle is a regular gym, sparring partners and a coach. The only thing I don't understand about living in the googleplex is sex. Logistics is everything - I remember once dealing with a month of involuntary celibacy due to a bad living situation. NOT an experience I want to repeat. I guess these folks just have much better game than I do.
- ahh 12y agoMore likely: much worse game and they don't bother trying to succeed. Dating while working at Google sucks.
- dubfan 12y agoA whole month without sex? How awful!
- vidarh 12y agoMost people go through much longer periods of celibacy than that on a regular basis when outside of long term relationships. For most people, the singles life is relatively sex-less. Presumably living on campus isn't a choice that most people make in the first place when they are in long term relationships and/or have regular options of companionship.
- yummyfajitas 12y agoJust curious, what is "longer periods"? Is celibacy for a year really a plausible outcome for most people in SF? And is it so likely that it makes living in a car worthwhile? I'm honestly curious. Year-long celibacy is not super uncommon in India, but Indian culture is explicitly set up to make sure women don't have sex until their parents get them married off. I'm really shocked to hear that SF is that bad.
- dubfan 12y agoI live in a similar large west coast city and I've gone 11 years.
- ahh 12y agoWhy are you surprised to hear this? You're hardly the first person I'd expect to not realize the social stigma most men in the tech industry face trying to date; combine that with the supply/demand in the Bay and you should expect that most men will struggle to date at all (really, anywhere on the west coast except maybe LA.)
- yummyfajitas 12y agoI've been to the bay area twice in my life. Most of my dating has been in either NYC or (recently) Pune, India. I'm aware the dating situation out west is unsatisfying, I just thought the issue was just that one might need to go out every night instead of only fridays and maybe compromise a bit on quality. The fact is SF has women and no parental supervision. How could it possibly be this bad? I'm honestly asking because I'm curious about the mechanics of it.
- vonmoltke 12y agoSerious question I have always wanted to ask someone like you: How many changes of clothes do you own? I don't have an extensive wardrobe, but I couldn't fit the clothes I wear in an average week into a bag of that size, let alone everything else I use regularly.
- yummyfajitas 12y agoI have 4 pants, maybe 4-5 pairs of shorts, 6 button down shirts, and 15 t-shirts. On my most recent flight from India, I even managed to fit a suit in. Let me emphasize that the larger backpack is not carry-on luggage. It's a $200 fancy pack, something like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00388W5KO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00388W5KO&linkCode=as2&tag=christuc-20&linkId=QA3JS7HS22L5SEUZ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00388W5KO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...
- Padding 12y agoI'm curious too. What's the "turnover" with those clothes - i.e. how often do you buy new ones and throw out the old ones? Ever gotten any weird looks for running around in mostly the same outfits? What do you do when you need a suit? What do you do about your data? Do you carry any additional HDDs in those backpacks? Don't you keep any spare hardware around for when things break to be able to replace them quickly? What about legal documents (birth certificate, graduation certificates, tax declarations, etc.)? Do you store them somewhere safely, or keep them on you? Also, do you have any allergies? One thing I allways seem to have too little of when travelling is napkins/tissues. What do you do for more mundane things like scissors and paper and priting stuff?
- yummyfajitas 12y agoTurnover is high. During my previous 6 months in India, I lost 2 pants, and pair #3 is dying. (My semi-girlfriend is telling me to replace it while I'm in NY.) The backpack contains only a laptop, phone and tablet. I don't have massive amounts of data - I don't photograph every meal as some people do. When my stuff breaks, I pay a lot of money to fix/replace it. Legal documents are stored with my parents in the US, except of course the passport. I have no allergies and need no medication. The only tool I own is a leatherman multitool - I rarely need it, and it's good enough when I do. I don't use paper.
- JabavuAdams 12y agoApparently a co-worker of mine was quite the fan of handicapped washrooms in the office. But still. Ew.
- vonmoltke 12y agoSoftware folks, maybe. I have a spare bedroom turned into an overstuffed electronics lab, and I use my garage as a small shop. Many electrical and mechanical engineers are like me.
- JabavuAdams 12y agoYeah, this is a big deal, depending on your hobbies.
- JabavuAdams 12y agoTrue, but environment matters. It affects your thoughts and ability to design. I'd be really sad if the 60' trees across the street were cut down. Also, sitting in a lovely garden thinking about how to solve a tech problem is nice. That said, our home furnishings just kind of peter out for the reasons that you mentioned.
- krschultz 12y agoKeep in mind that factory / company mine towns used to be a thing. The cyberpunk dystopia you are alluding to is extrapolating company town lifestyle into the future.
- minikites 12y agoAll we need is the return of company scrip, which low-margin retailers are trying their damnedest to bring back.
- GFischer 12y agoMany countries have various types of vouchers (meal vouchers, purchase vouchers, etc..). I get paid 20% of my salary in Meal Vouchers (I hate them) by Edenred, and an extra 2% in a voucher that can only be spent on certain stores. Meal vouchers are commonly accepted because they have a 17% tax break, but retailers get 10% less than the face value (they're more expensive for them than credit cards). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_voucher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal_voucher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenred http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenred
- bsaul 12y agoI don't think you can compare the two situation. Life as a miner was awfull, owners gave their employees just enough so that they could eat and have a roof. Here the contrast is much bigger. Typical cyberpunk corporate workers have a dream life, but ows total loyalty to its company to keep it.
- Shivetya 12y agonah, most housing problems can be traced to regulation, usually of the sort that if you dig deep enough is, we don't want their type here. Hide it behind protecting the environment, quality of life, or whatnot.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- watwut 12y agoSomeone disagreed.
- UnoriginalGuy 12y agoYou mean China? That isn't totally fair, but a lot of Chinese workers live in small shared rooms provided by their employer, they then send money "home" to their villages. I wouldn't call China lawless, but it is is a bit miserable, particularly if you get fired from a job.
- arrrg 12y agoOr Europe (probably also the US?) during the industrial revolution. Worker housing really is nothing new. I can see the architectural remnants all around me. (The small town I grew up in was connected to the railway in 1863 and got a huge train repair complex. The red brick buildings that provided housing to the workers right next to where that complex used to be are still there today, now just ordinary apartments.)
- UrMomReadsHN 12y agoYup. My grandparents lived in an apartment owned by the mill my grandma worked at her entire working life. When the mill closed down in the mid-80s the buildings were sold off one by one. They bought the building they were living in, the one my great grandma was living in, and a few others for a great price.
- marquis 12y agoIndentured slavery has a long history. The cyberpunk take on it just subverts the concept, where it becomes control of the mind instead of the body.
- jrockway 12y agoYou contend that gainful employment is indentured slavery? I don't think the slaves you're talking about were getting paid $200,000 a year.
- marquis 12y agoI'm referencing the "cyberpunk universe" mentioned, not reality. I agree with you: there is nothing about cyberpunk nor mind-control going on in SF.
- benihana 12y ago>Does anyone else feels like we're really getting towards the cyberpunk universe No. The current top voted comment in this thread is a guy who's telling everyone how to live out of a van. Hint: it's so safe outside the corporate safe zones that he can park his car in a parking lot and sleep there without worrying about being hassled by anyone.
- gnufied 12y agoI agree we are not there but, I think there is a real chance of this happening. Wasn't there a thread sometime back about a company, which asked all its employees to live together in a shared community accommodation? The fact is - as cost of living goes up and commute becomes harder in big cities, Companies will adapt. I see primarily three ways: a. Embrace the status quo and employees commute via trains/cars whatever. b. Companies allow people to work from home. c. Companies realize that, it is much more cost efficient if employees lived closer to their offices. Some projects can't be easily worked from home, so what will a company with billions of dollars in cash will do? I don't think companies owe anything to people in general - other than maximize profits for their shareholders, so it is quite viable that they provide housing to their employees.
- benihana 12y ago>Does anyone else feels like we're really getting towards the cyberpunk universe No. The current top voted comment in this thread is a guy who's telling everyone how to live out of a van. Hint: it's so safe outside the corporate safe zones that he can park his car in a parking lot and sleep there without worrying about being hassled by anyone.
- wyager 12y ago>corporations that completely own the life of their employees Surely you don't mean Google?
- k__ 12y agoYeah, I have that fear too. But more with the recent "sharing" movement. People talk about sharing and stopping to own stuff you don't need. Which is probably a good idea, if one person owns a car and 10 use it when they need it. But it stops when companies are in play. When they end up owning everything, we're all in trouble.
- gnufied 12y agoReminds me of a book I read sometime back, where Employees lived on campuses, ate bio designed meat, produced bio engineered pets, products that enhanced artificial sense of well being while a biological catastrophe engulfed the outside world (mostly because of bio engineered products that these companies produced). I can't see to recall the name of the book though. Soon enough we will be getting there though.
- GFischer 12y agoSounds like the plot of Oryx and Crake (I did not like the book, but it was an interesting plot): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46756.Oryx_and_Crake https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46756.Oryx_and_Crake
- lotsofcows 12y ago... must not down vote ... all opinions are equally valid ... even when they're wrong ...
- GFischer 12y agoThanks for not downvoting :) . I did not get if you liked the book a lot, or else if you found the plot awful :) .
- lotsofcows 12y agoI liked the book. A person who is so hurt by mankind's treatment of our world, that he attempts to destroy mankind while engineering a replacement (with more overt built in dependancies on the rest of the natural world) to repair the damage done but is ultimately foiled by mankind/nature's resilience. All narrated by the kind of ennui suffering character that makes up a large proportion of the first world. Written with the depth, biblical parallels, cyberpunk elements, etc that Atwood does so well. What's not to like?
- eli_gottlieb 12y agoRead that one for a sci-fi class in college. I think the teacher had intended to discuss it as describing technology run amok; I took it as capitalism run amok. I'd be curious to know which one Atwood actually meant.
- goatforce5 12y agoCadbury (the chocolate people) built a rather nice sounding village for their workers when they moved out of the centre of a city so they could expand their factory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournville http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournville Cadbury was rather late to the game. UK companies were building villages for their workers all the way back to the late 1700s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_village http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_village
- UrMomReadsHN 12y agoYou know that actually happened in the past? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip
- shubb 12y agoSome companies still provide (everything) for employees who are highly mobile. An obvious example would be container ship crew. But I am also aware of defence companies that take on apprentices at 18, ship them across the country, and provide a room and free cafeteria meals. The company feel that, kids that age are still kids, and need looking after while they transition to independence in the same way as kids that go to university instead (dorms).