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Comment by rufus_foreman | Hacker News Reader

>> The missing piece here is social connections. Family and friends

Silicon Valley is not populated by people who are there for family and friends. Silicon Valley is populated by people who left their family and friends to go participate in a gold rush.

Silicon Valley is populated by people from other continents who came to participate in the gold rush, family and friends be damned.

I really don't understand the antipathy towards the fact that you can live on $432 a month in America. I just really don't. With some tradeoffs, you can live on $432 a month in America, and this fact makes some Hacker News commentators very very angry.

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So I think some of us have done it out of having no other choice and found it lacking.

From the time I had to live a year going to paycheck advance every month because of an unexpected auto repair bill (leaving that cheap typically requires a used beat up car).

Or the time I woke up with an excruciating pain in my side and went to ER which resulted in bills that lead to years of payments.

People do this experiment every day in the USA and the experience is pretty bad.

EDIT I’ll grant this is all a fine trade off for some people. But having lived it, I can definitely say no thank you.

People working in Silicon Valley can afford to take a plane to visit friends or family as often as they want.

The article describe a life of low spending/low revenue, so suddenly buying a plane ticket becomes a huge expense.

There is no antipathy against the $432 a month life, just comments that people have valid reasons not to choose this life.

I am not angry. I am barely cementator here even. But I find this article radicoulous. For example author mentioned raising family at the beginning. And then mentions no car. How are you suppose to transport kids to school/preschool? 'You can take the bus' - yeah, drive with the bus to one place (kindergarten), then the second (school), then the third (job). In the winter, rain, storm or heat. Yes that is doable but would be very annoying and time consuming. No mention to hearing kids complaining that they want to eat/drink/poop at the bus or bus stop.

And if you and you spouse have jobs and kids you probably need two cars, and school is another cost so I would say 400$ is pure fantasy unless you want to live insolitude, fishing in forest.

Normal people need near school/preschool/highschool/job/store etc. And this is why you have cities. It is cheaper for society to concentrate population around those buildings.

What you described is what my parents have done with me. They took me to the kindergarden, on foot. But then again, I live in Europe and it is dense enough here, the kindergarden was about 3-5 km away. You can definitely take the bus, which many people do around here.

The article is about the US and in most places they can't do that.

Especially not in a rural area. (We are raising our daughter without a car but we live in the downtown of a big city...)

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