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Comment by BadassFractal | Hacker News Reader

Let's set aside cost of living in the Bay for a second. Here's a completely taboo subject. At what point do we hold people accountable for their reproductive choices? You want to have 2, 4, 6 children in the most expensive slice of land in the US?

Great, but please bear in mind that choice comes with real financial consequences to your lifestyle and you should not expect the state to bail you out of it.

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A professional worker should be able to support a reasonable sized family without living in a slum or being a millionaire.

I'm not sure what "holding people accountable" means to you. What it means to the Valley is that these companies have basically colonized the region and created an environment where you need to be single or dink. They like that because it means it's easier to make you work more without a family.

In my case, it means my services aren't available to those companies at any price. No big deal individually, but there are many people like me.

There are many places in the US where you can live, it doesn't have to be Silicon Valley.

Nobody owes you a house and a comfortable lifestyle with a large family in the Bay Area without you providing enough value to the market to live in the most expensive place in the country.

There are many other states in the US where you could live, and many other places even in CA that you could move to. If you want to live comfortably right in the eye of the storm, that's your personal choice and the market won't bend over backwards for you.

The Bay Area is the most expensive place in the US for no real reason except for regulation.

It's kinda like everyone cheering for Uber and Lyft because medallion rules in SF prevented ever having enough cabs.

There's no real reason and that's the problem.

Also maybe they had those kids in the 1990s when things were a bit more affordable ? The Bay Area wasn't always the most expensive place in the US

> The Bay Area is the most expensive place in the US for no real reason except for regulation.

Isn't it more about supply and demand? There are many people here making big salaries at the tech companies, so there is not a shortage of people who can pony up $1-1.5M for a 1200 sq. ft. house. If the demand wasn't there, the prices would come down to meet it.

Exactly. Singles and DINKs moving in, chasing the gold rush, willing to pay whatever it takes to be part of the action. The market adjusts itself accordingly. Nothing new here.

I have mixed feelings about this. People say that state shouldn't have to pay for your kids, but the state can send your kids to war. If the state sends your kids to war and they get killed who reimburses the parent for $100K they invested in the kid?

it looks like the default death benefit for the US Army serviceman or woman is $100K. http://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/Home/Benefit_Library/Feder...

There were additional sums added for those who died in the Iraq War, with a range from 250K to 800K that varied depending upon the rank and dependent family members. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/apr/05/news/war-benefits5

There's much more than just the one-time death benefit. On top of that SGLI (servicemember group life insurance) has a maximum payout of $400,000 and surviving spouses get ongoing payments and other benefits as long as they remain unmarried.

Can the state currently send your kids to war? By this, I mean forcefully via a draft. I was under the impression that it's a no for now and for the foreseeable future.

Yes, they can. Every male between 18 and 25 is still required to register for the draft. The database is sitting there ready to go. The president just has to declare an emergency and convince congress to approve activation of the selective service system.

In practice, will they? Probably not. But weirder things have happened.

That's true, my comment was probably short-sighted. I received federal loans, so my name is in that database. Like you said, crazier things have happened.

Absolutely, under the right procedures. Just recently, women became required to register for selective service too, so everyone gets an equal shot now.

Every male has to register for the selective service (the draft) at 18 in the US allowing the government to draft you. If you got a student loan from the government in the US, you registered. You can't get federal loans without it.

Just because they can do it at any time doesn't mean they ever will. We have a large and expensive professional army and people reacted badly to the draft in 1960s I can only imagine what today's kids would do if they were drafted. It would be political suicide to enact a draft.

So technically yes the state can forcefully draft any male between 18-28 to go fight in a war. But practically no, it will never happen again.

>who reimburses the parent for $100K they invested in the kid?

The state pays death benefits.

Plus SGLI is around half a million dollars, last I knew. Plus ongoing payments to surviving spouses, I don't know about parents though. There's a small premium for SGLI though, around ~$300/year I think

Yes, all the smartest, most capable people should stop having kids. Considering intelligence is something like 85% hereditary, that will work out excellently!

The smartest and most capable people will not be making 100k in the Bay area with a family of 4.

In your mind, what would the smartest and most capable people be doing?

There is no reliable evidence of people in the Bay Area being smarter or more capable on average than other major metropolitan areas. The average Bay Area resident may be slightly more educated but that doesn't necessarily prove anything about their level of heritable intelligence.

What would you consider reliable evidence? I'd say the Bay Area GDP and tax base alone would point that way.

Reliable evidence would be a large scale, double blind clinical study establishing statistically significant correlations between particular genes and high scores on multiple standardized intelligence tests, followed by a finding that those genes are significantly more common in the Bay Area than in other regions. Without something like that you can't legitimately make any claims about heritable intelligence. There are many alternative hypotheses which could potentially explain the GDP per capita differential.

Sure, you're correct. But you'll have to excuse me if I don't wait decades for data like this to build a worldview.

It would be a shame if you build a worldview based on narrow geographic prejudice not backed by any hard evidence. I think we can do better.

> There is no reliable evidence of people in the Bay Area being smarter or more capable on average than other major metropolitan areas.

There may not be conclusive evidence, but there is fairly suggestive evidence given known correlates of intelligence.

> The average Bay Area resident may be slightly more educated but that doesn't necessarily prove anything about their level of heritable intelligence.

It doesn't necessarily prove that, but both access to and success in higher education is gated by selective filters for, among other factors, intelligence, so a region with higher average level of education would, itself, suggest (though not necessarily prove) higher average intelligence.

Of course people should be responsible for their choices. However that doesn't mean we can't be more accommodating to people making 100k or less. You think Starbucks will stick around if they have to pay their employees 100k or make them commute a couple hours?

The bay needs more housing to meet the needs of all the companies that need employees here.

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