Comment by scottLobster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scottLobster | Hacker News Reader

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The author makes a typical assumption: that people actually want things to be better. Quite often people make their situation worse despite being made aware of the consequences. On some level, even if they can't/won't articulate it, that's what they want.

As I've gotten older (currently in my early 30s), my experience has been that most people are resentful and jealous under the surface, and they want to take out that resentment and jealousy on the world in some manner. Particularly in hard-hit and neglected areas of the country where 99% of the motivated and capable people who might have been inclined to help your optimistic vision moved out long ago.

That doesn't mean there's nothing to be done or that every neglected suburb/small town is irredeemable, but I'd be careful not to apply social optimism too generally. No amount of optimism or energy will allow you to grow crops in a salted field, you can only directly help those who want to be helped. Spend your energy where it's most productive.

That said the author is correct in that leading by example, not being a dick about it, and fixing peoples' problems is about the only tool available with any hope of earning the respect of those who disagree with you. So if you have the time, money, skill and energy it's worth at least a few tries before declaring an area beyond repair. :)

(Original author here)

Fight vs. flight. How do you decide? I'm just a bit older than you (36 currently) and haven't figured it out yet.

Like, if I think the politics somewhere are a dumpster fire, or to use your analogy, growing crops in a salted field, how do I pick the battles I'll fight, vs. the ones where it's best to let go?

Offhand, I tend to think it's worth fighting for when the thing is very important to you personally, it's something only you can do (whether by dint of identity, skills, whatever), or the benefits are large. Probably not worth it when you don't have the patience (might take ten years but you only want to put in 5), the other side is too entrenched, or the upside isn't worth it. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

> when the thing is very important to you

Your preferences will change over time. When I was younger, I had an intense desire to provide some grand public good. Now I regret those wasted years, and all I want to do is take pleasant walks around my neighborhood with my dog, and maybe play soccer in the park.

Most of us, almost tautologically, are similar to each other. Ask some older people what their preferences are and you'll have a reasonable idea of what you'll be like at their age. Sure, there will be generational differences, but the shift in yourself will be comparable to the shift that other people went through.

I shouldn't say I regret those "wasted" years. I regret them only to the extent I regret not having won the lottery, which is to say almost not at all. However, I want to caution against committing to a decision that might limit your options in the future. In particular, the choice of where to live has a dramatic effect on your career, your friends, and your family.

In your blog post, you mention that you are doing all this in Homewood, IL which, while declining a bit from the time when you grew up, is still a pretty nice place. With a commuter train connection to one of the largest business districts in the US, there are still tons of ambitious and motivated people around you. Your local high school is shared with the much wealthier city next to you, etc.

I don't think the person writing the comment was imagining this kind of city. Good luck reversing the decline of the South Suburbs. It will take a lot of work. The largest problem, in my opinion, are the oppressive property taxes (municipal consolidation is probably the only solution). Do you really think that someone can live comfortably down there for $20-30k per year? Or are you talking in terms of founders that have plenty of capital and only need $20-30k in living costs? I really don't think it's that cheap...

Much bigger conversation I'm happy to have off-thread (email me). I agree with everything you've said.

I own an apartment building and the rent on a 1BR close to downtown is $875/month. Mind you, this is 2 blocks from a commuter rail station in a reasonable building that includes water and parking, in a city with a great park district, good schools, and plenty to do.

I didn't say you're living high on the hog--you're getting by. The household median income in Homewood is 57k. It's no Palo Alto, just a relatively modest town with reasonable local government and people who seem to care a lot. I like this.

Illinois is clearly on a fiscal crash course. I have no doubt about that and now that the fair tax was defeated at the ballot box, it's going to accelerate the insolvency. The state needs to get its pension obligations in line with its funding levels. Obviously that's going to take a decade. But I'm pretty convinced that this state's strengths (Chicago, great universities, lots of competent local governments) could make it bounce back. Especially seeing the direction a lot of other states like California are going, or San Francisco, a city that can't seem to balance its $13 billion annual budget after it increase 50% in the last 5-10 years. Any idiot can run Palo Alto, where the median household income is $140k. It takes a lot more to make a city with about 60% less income function.

Yeah it's hard to develop a general criteria. There are also situations where you may be making a lot of invisible progress, and what appears to be a hopeless situation for years hits a breakthrough and suddenly huge progress is made overnight because people were actually listening to some degree. So trying to map everything out ahead of time can be a fool's errand when you have no objective measures of progress.

If the goal is to avoid sunk cost fallacies, I'd say the answer is same as anywhere, budgeting. Develop some general, convenient (very important they're convenient, otherwise you won't track them) metrics, so that way you have at least a general idea of how much time, money, sleep, even vague things like energy level, stress and opportunity costs can be tracked to some degree. That way you have some quantifiable measure of how many resources you're sinking into a project and if it's worth it (ie I was abnormally stressed out directly due to this effort for 137 days last year, is it worth another 137 days of abnormal stress? Or from an opportunity cost perspective I could have spent those 50 hours playing with my kids, would that have been a better investment?)

Also set some hard budget ceilings and very stiff criteria (like at least an 80% chance of meaningful progress, whatever that means specifically for the situation) for going over them. That way you don't feel trapped by the ceiling, but it still holds you accountable.

Of course it's all on the individual to maintain the metrics and stick to the budget, but I'd argue if you don't have the discipline to do even that you might want to question your ability to execute any plans for more complex community development :)

You do realize your argument is just as easily applied to every disadvantaged/disenfranchised population, right? "You just can't help those people..."

I'd rephrase as "you just can't help SOME people".

There are disadvantaged/disenfranchised communities that are that way primarily due to circumstances beyond their control (ie local large employer closed/left town) and would/will pick themselves up given the opportunity and perhaps the right leadership.

There are also plenty of disadvantaged/disenfranchised communities that are so pathological and broken every person in town could win the lottery and the community would still be in abject poverty a year later.

If you're going to try your hand at community development you have to determine which mixture of those camps your community is. It's difficult to discern, but too often the question of "what are the social/cultural issues preventing the community from moving forward, and how might those be addressed?" gets dismissed because the people who get into community development have a messiah complex and can't imagine how these poor victims they're saving might have contributed to their own circumstances. When talking about communities of color the question is often dismissed as racist. The result is superficial, overly-idealistic solutions that almost always fail.

"A man's got to know his limitations."

There's a big difference between "You just can't help those people" and "I can't help those people."

I accept that to a certain extent, but it's a slippy slope to 'why should I pay taxes to try to help those people'

It can be. But that can also be confused with "you're sucking up a great deal of tax money, but what you're doing isn't actually helping".

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