Zoom and the American Family | Hacker News Reader

Zoom and the American Family

boyle.substack.com

41 pointscjbest18 comments

As someone working from home before and during COVID ... I don't want this fantasy of my kids being at home when I need to work.

The mishmash of priorities and need to focus on work is just horrible. I love my kids, I like my job... but they don't mix well enough to do a great job at both.

Even with a live in family member... how many people have the space for that? Even just space enough to have the kids far enough away to focus (my son is currently attending school remotely at a desk less than 6' from me)?

Much of this seems like a dream for people with substantial means and jobs that are highly interruption tolerant.

If you move away from coastal areas... It's pretty easy to have enough space for this to work.

Have you seen how cheap houses are in Houston, TX or Bentonville, Arkansas?

I live in the Midwest.

Have you seen what the job markets are line in those areas and what they pay relative to coastal areas?

I think you generally have to read the entire article, and perhaps see the world from the perspective of a person of a different identity who has a different sort of job than most of us on HN do, to appreciate what the author is saying.

I think you also have to be fortunate in terms of your situation. There will be some families for whom this new reality is a trap. For instance, families whose elder members need assistance in terms of daily skilled care.

A lot of those family members went to some form of senior housing or assisted living pre-Pandemic. But the reality of how some states handled recovering COVID-19 patients was that spread rates were high in those settings, and a lot of families with the space and the means took their elders out of those facilities.

No matter how fortunate a family may be in terms of space and financial resources, a great deal of pressure ends up on the younger or middle-aged adults, as they are caring for both children and parents in quite a few situations.

I think though that perspective is super limited on whose family this could save.

A very interesting question. The technology makes previously impossible arrangements possible.

There will be repercussions, changes in work and family habits, but how far reaching they will be is unsettled.

This, as of now temporary arrangement, does give workers options. There can be more even sharing of parental responsibilities, more options for work and more options for education for those who have kids.

For those with kids there is the possibility of more traditional oversight (fewer kids coming home to an empty dwelling) maybe greater parental oversight of curriculums.

So we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out.

I don’t think families will have four kids again, but some who struggled wit one may have two instead.

>Can Zoom Save the American Family?

No, I don't think so.

Can anything save the American family (or America itself, after this last week) seems like a better question.

Took down Nazi Germany, but last week is a great example of something that we can't handle? Really?

That's taking a lot of liberty with established history.

If the US was not involved what do you think would have happened? Would you like to amend it so it says "Was the most instrumental country in the Allied victories against the Axis and Nazis?"

My point remains.

Also, the US has had many prior examples of overcoming internal struggles like civil war, civil rights movement, Vietnam. A small group of hillbillies and anarchists storming the capital is not something to be concerned with as the OP suggested.

You can say exactly the same thing about Russia. If the Russians were not involved, what do you think would have happened?

The US definitely played a major part but it is not as if they won the war by their lonesome and it is also a well established fact that they joined way late and only after Japan pretty much forced them to.

So let's not go rewrite history here.

The US was the most instrumental country in defeating the Axis. Doesn't matter when they joined.

I'm not rewriting history. In fact, I suggested a correction to be more accurate/inclusive based on you clearly having an issue with my original statement. Everyone knows the US was not the only country that defeated the Nazis. I never tried to say they were. I'm not going to list every country involved when we're discussing a current event in the context of US affairs ONLY.

My point still remains in my comment. If you look at the history of the US and what is has accomplished, the recent Capitol issue is not a real problem for the US or the average American family.

You have no problem with the parent's post but a problem with my comment saying the US took down the Nazis and the Axis? A bunch of countries took down the Nazis. So what?

I wouldn't get all sensitive if someone from Russia was talking about them taking down the Nazis as an example of them overcoming something VASTLY more concerning than their current affairs.

> A small group of hillbillies and anarchists storming the capital is not something to be concerned with as the OP suggested.

This opinion stands in stark contrast to the unified message coming from most journalists and left-leaning politicians - according to them, this was(!) a coup, a indisputable attempt to overthrow our most sacred institution.

Never mind of course the fact that the USA itself is the grand daddy of regime changers - I guess it isn't so sacred when the regime being changed is the democratically elected government of a foreign nation, and the one doing the regime change is us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

The USA is 330M people. What the journalists and politicians report has nothing to do with whether it is a real concern or not.

There have always been anarchists and these types of people that don't like the current administration. We've had Presidents shot. We have crazy cults. We have unstable people with agendas. Hell, we had a nasty civil war before.

It's not a real concern to the nation's republic despite what some wish.

It seems you aren't a fan of the US. What's your stance on Nazi Germany? Imperial Japanese puppet regimes? And even if a dictator only screws over their own citizens - should they get to do as they please because it's their country?

I don't agree with every regime change. And personally I'd rather let most countries deal with their own affairs. But sometimes it's necessary.

The recent events are a non-issue to our republic. I know that will displease some that would love the US to completely unravel. But it's not going to happen.

> The USA is 330M people. What the journalists and politicians report has nothing to do with whether it is a real concern or not.

I actually agree with this, if interpreted strictly literally. However, what journalists and politicians report modifies people's perception of reality, and the manner in which the masses perceive reality very much is a real concern, because it affects their decision making and behavior, which in turn affects politicians decision making (see: the Patriot Act).

> It's not a real concern to the nation's republic despite what some wish.

In the dimensionally complex reality we live in, how do you come to perceive yourself as being able to know what is and is not a "real concern to the nation's republic"? From my vantage point, this is a bit like the One Master Cult to which almost all humans belong, and is the very most dangerous of all cults.

> It seems you aren't a fan of the US. What's your stance on Nazi Germany? Imperial Japanese puppet regimes? And even if a dictator only screws over their own citizens - should they get to do as they please because it's their country?

I am not a fan of the increasingly popular relativistic-only, "false dichotomy" style of thinking. In an absolute sense, the United States has (significant, addressable) flaws, or it does not. These flaws will manifest in physical reality in a manner that causes harm to humanity, or they will not. Each individual and overall humanity can understand and properly conceptualize this complexity, or they cannot. This is but a small description of the nature of reality. Humanity may have little interest in reality as it is, but I suspect that sentiment does not flow both ways.

> The recent events are a non-issue to our republic. I know that will displease some that would love the US to completely unravel. But it's not going to happen.

You do not know what is going to happen, you only perceive that you know. Once again, a characteristic common to the One Master Cult. Evidence of perceived omniscience can be found everywhere, and its prevalence seems to be increasing with the increasing complexity of our world.

It is unknown what lies in our future. Yes, really.

That modern people seem to have great difficulty realizing that they cannot see the future with 20/20 vision may contribute to our potential inability to manoeuver our society back to something more sane.

And if you think that all that's bad in the world is due to the presidency of Donald Trump, you may not have been listening very carefully to the complaints of people during the BLM movement, or been following the utter destruction in countries like Syria that result from our under-reported foreign policy adventures.

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