Hacker News Reader

Comment by wavesounds | Hacker News Reader

The way "techies" are being talked about and treated right now is straight up Xenophobia and it's fucked up.

We can't just be "nerds" that are easy targets to be scapegoated and picked on. If someone tries to blame you for the low supply of housing (instead of restrictive building codes) or for "changing the culture" of the city in a way that they don't like (who died and made them the arbiter of good taste). Call them out on it, its bullshit.

Technology has improved a lot of peoples lives and supplied this state a ton of money in tax revenue and for every one technology job 4-5 other jobs are created [1]. The companies in the bay area are the envy of the world, don't let peoples jealousy bring you down.

1. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tech-hiring-creates-other...

View on HN

You are replacing one scapegoat - techies - with another - restrictive building codes. You're complaining about people adopting one-sided, myopic viewpoints whilst putting forward one of your own - that the tech industry is great, and wonderful, and has no downsides whatsoever.

You talk about how tech gets vilified, but at the same time label people who object to tech as "jealous". I think we would get a lot further if people would acknowledge things like the housing situation in San Francisco are not the fault of either techies or building codes, but the result of a complex melting pot.

For the record, I work in tech, and I live in SF. I would like to think I'm able to see that tech has brought many benefits to SF, but at the same time has indirectly contributed to various pressures that any financially successful city will eventually encounter. London and New York both have equally crappy housing situations - different causes, different symptoms. I do, however, see how people living in SF could come to the conclusion that tech is causing these issues.

I think rather than simply turning their argument around ("you're jealous") it would be better to engage in rational discourse about how best to solve these problems in a way that leaves everyone better off. Sadly, people on both sides seem to be entrenched to the point where this is very difficult.

Both sides spout bullshit. Fascinating how human interactions work at scale.

Restrictive building codes are not a scapegoat. They are a public policy decision which directly explains why the price of housing is so high.

Building codes contribute to the problem. So does tech. Building codes are a scapegoat in the sense that SF would still have housing problems even without the building codes.

I work in tech. I'm a nerd. I love Star Trek, StarCraft, and *.gif.

I also love democracy, taxes, and public infrastructure.

Unfortunately for some of us there are a few very pushy leaders in the tech industry who don't like democracy, taxes, or public infrastructure and those asshats are making the rest of us look bad.

Oh no, we all get lumped in together and judged based on our appearance, I guess it feels sort of weird when it finally happens to us, right?

If you don't like it, what are you going to do about it? Resort to deciding that a bunch of perfectly good, hard working people are jealous because you have no other way to empathize with them?

The entitlement is palpable in this city.

I don't think that people in general have a problem with "techies" or "nerds". They do, however, have a problem with people who are generally referred to as "hipsters" today.

It is understandable why the dislike is there. Hipsters do tend to exhibit an attitude, behavior, fashion sense and materialism that can easily been seen as socially obnoxious.

Residents of long-established neighborhoods, especially those made of working-class individuals and families, will not be pleased when their neighborhoods are invaded by hipsters. The resulting changes to the community can be quite rapid and painful for those already there, both economically and socially. It's not about jealousy, but instead about unwanted disruption of established communities.

To some extent, the traditional "techie"/"nerd" community has been similarly co-opted by hipsters. This is especially true with Apple's resurgence over the past decade, when it comes to social media, and in SV in particular.

There was never this much strife when the tech industry was made up mostly of "techies"/"nerds", who in general behave in a way that is more socially friendly to established communities. Now that the balance has shifted toward hipsters being more and more prevalent within the industry, it's perfectly understandable why there's more hatred toward the industry as a whole. Their way of life invokes a very negative reaction out of basically everybody else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com