> This is an insult [...] Just fucking wow [...] If you think you're entitled
It doesn't look like you've been in this kind of flamewar on HN before, or at least not recently, so I'm going to assume that something in the parent comment provoked a strong reaction in you based on experience that the rest of us don't know about. This happens all the time of course. On HN, we all need to remain respectful and give the other the benefit of the doubt, even if their comment was clueless. Your comment would have been fine with just the third and fourth paragraphs.
We have almost no information about each other—just a few dots—but since we're wired to relate to other humans, we always connect the dots to get a picture. Lacking information, we fill the picture in with past experiences of our own, often painful ones, especially when we've seen one or two of those dots before. (Just one is enough, two feels like absolute proof.) In reality we're mostly making these pictures ourselves and then seeing them in the other. Everyone does this everywhere, but it's acute in internet comments because we have so little information about whoever we're speaking with.
On HN, we need to watch for those reactions in ourselves and consciously hold them so they don't blast out at others. The reason is not so much to spare others' feelings, but to protect the commons. When people start blasting and blasting back, they destroy things like gardens and cities, and HN is like those.
You made good points in this thread. But those go up in flames like everything else in a flamewar. That prevents good points from being expressed and received—the kind of exchange that leads to more complex behavior, which makes discussion interesting. Everything on HN boils down to trying to be more interesting where possible.
Not sure you read these responses, but thanks, appreciate your thoughtful response.
Definitely wish I had said what I said differently - you're right - it was an emotional response. I was in the middle of a busy day and didn't have to time to gather my thoughts better so it was all stream of consciousness.
That said, all my follow up responses were a lot more measured, and I even acknowledged that I shouldn't have used the language I used in that post.
I should know better than to call tech workers entitled on a site like HN and that's probably the best reminder for me out all of this - know your audience.
Regardless, apologies that you had to spend time cleaning this up.
No worries. I do see that (and appreciate it) about your responses downthread . If you don't mind, I'll leave the long explanation at the top for others who don't.
Lots of people on HN feel that tech workers are entitled. Some of them are tech workers, some not. Some are even entitled tech workers. It's complicated! So I don't think this is a question of the specific audience so much as human nature. Both sides of this happen to all of us all the time.
What if you are married with children? Not sure about you, but I would definitely not feel comfortable having roommates in my 1.5BR. With me + wife + 5yo son + 2yo daughter, how would the logistics even work? -- where would the roommates sleep? In the kitchen? In the kids' bedroom? In our bedroom with my wife and me?
That is admittedly a tougher situation - my comment was geared towards someone making 100k as this post's theme has been "technical workers".
Your situation is definitely tough and would probably mean having to live way out of the bay area and commute to work.
I mainly reacted to OP saying it wasn't possible. How can you say that when people commute from Vallejo into the city everyday wasting 3 hours a day so that they can provide for their family?
It's hard, but to complain that it isn't possible is especially unnerving since if you are a tech worker you're probably in the class of people for whom it's the most reachable.
Let me give you a different perspective on this -- yes, it is possible. Heck, even living on 10k is possible -- you could put up a tent and live in that. You could live in a camp ground. One could even forage for wild berries for sustenance. Almost anything is possible if one is to split hairs...
Except it isn't what most tech workers expected. The vast majority of tech workers I know have sacrificed a lot and work very hard. Many paid top dollar to go to top schools. They spent their entire 20s working nights and weekends to learn as much as they could. I spent college studying red black trees instead of going to frat parties. I still spend parts of my weekend just keeping up with technology. So me and my friends find it difficult to swallow that despite all this, we struggle to have even a sliver of what our parents enjoyed almost as an American right. Yes, it is better than what people have in Africa or Detroit, but it isnt what many people expected. Yes, it is better than what baristas get, but it isnt what people expected.
As for me, I've lived in NYC most of my life and there are few building restrictions. So while it is expensive, it isnt as absurd as the bay area. I also yearn to build things, but spent much of my career trying to squeeze more $ out of trading algos...mostly because it supported a better lifestyle.
Obviously low interest rates, tax policies, and poor land usage is to blame for a lot in the bay area. But whatever the reasons, step back and consider a world where people with Top-5 university degrees in computer science and illustrious careers are told to keep random strangers as roommates with their 2yo and 5yo children...
It's harder than we expected, but not impossible. To say you can barely get by with your 120k salary when there are people getting by on 40k is offensive.
Believe me, I know what it's like to be banging your head against the desk at 1AM on a Friday night while your friends are out partying. But I also know what it's like to see a family work hard to provide for their kids in some of the poorest neighborhoods in California.
They too work hard and it's a disservice to them who try their best to make it work to say that it's impossible on a 100k salary.
We should raise the bar for everyone - but that bar starts with them, not with tech workers. This is why you get protests for Google buses, sometimes the points people are making here come across as tone deaf.
This is one thing I can't stand about the Bay Area. Roommates are for college kids. It is not normal to be 30 years old, making over 100k, and living with roommates. But everyone I know lives like this, including myself.
A SF barista makes 18k/yr. Can they make it on that? Sure. But when a third of your salary is on food - based on your quote - it's not going to be comfortable and saving is a stretch to say the least. Especially with student loans and such.
> This is an insult to the thousands of people who make it in the bay area on barista wages.
No this is the reality of living in the Bay Area. People who are living on barista wages are getting screwed by it. It's an insult to them that this is the reality today.
> Just fucking wow.
Alright calm down, you're on HN not reddit. You can express your viewpoint without being dramatic and vulgar.
> You can save in the bay area, live with roommates and pay <2k rent.
A tech worker shouldn't have to be loading up on roommates to get sub 2k rent (which is still crazy high compared to the rest of the country) but in the Bay area they have to. Why? It's insane that's how it is.
> At a salary of 100k you should be able to save 1500-2k per month comfortably.
Again looks great on paper, but you bet California tax is going to eat most of your paycheck in one go. Not to mention that many are having to carry student debt, personal debt, or have other financial obligations.
> and save for a downpayment if buying a home is your goal.
Let's be absolutely clear on this: there is currently little to no path to home ownership in the bay area for the majority living there. This isn't drama, this isn't made up, this is fact.
> If you think you're entitled to owning a big house, 2 cars, with money left over for dining out everyday and to pad your savings for a 5M retirement fund, you're going to have a bad time.
If you think that those living in the Bay Area still subscribe to this "dream", you're completely disconnected from SF.
> you're going to have a bad time.
Again, not reddit. You can express serious viewpoints here without memes and jokes.
You're right, and I took a 1~2 week leave from HN because of it myself.
I did get lost a bit getting over worked about the situation. It's a topic that hits close to home for me as SF was a great place to live for me for a better part of a decade, but myself and other friends had to leave as the rising costs squeezed us out.
Mostly came in here to say: well said sir, on both comments.
> - Someone who is completely disconnected from reality
I totally agree that on this one, but have found that this group can come in quite a few more shapes and sizes than your original comment suggests. Not everyone is as out-to-lunch as your parent: I know a healthy number of people down here who are just fundamentally optimistic about things, and will tend to think positively at all times (and probably right up until the moment that the guillotine falls).
I have one friend who just put down roots with a house and recently had a child. He insists that the price tag on his place (well over $1M+) is perfectly reasonable, even though it's right at the fringes of the city and would be considered a worn-out hovel by the standards of almost any other North American city. The house's previous owners bought in a few decades ago and paid ~$50k for it.
In a few years he'll be putting his child through the city's public schooling system, which is broadly considered to be a nightmare by any standard, but he insists that SF's schools are great at the municipality is doing an excellent job. He harbors no resentment for major failings in public policy like Prop 13, despite the fact that he's probably paying on the order of 10-20x as much property tax as the vast majority of all his neighbors.
Despite a myriad of failings on the part of policy planners in everything from traffic to cleanliness to crime, he has a way of not seeing any of it. I envy him because it's a bit of a survival adaptation: he's happier on average than anyone in the area who thinks about any of this stuff regularly.
Suggesting getting a roommate would just be not that big of a deal to him because you're still in the city and still having the fun, even if there maybe should be a greater existential concern about workers making six figures being put in this situation.
