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Plenty of tech workers left everything behind and moved thousands of km across borders and oceans to work in SF in precarious visa situations and make a decent living. If they lose their jobs they don't get to go to OKC, they're deported back to India or China in 10 days.

It's harder to empathize with US citizens who've managed to squander their enormous advantages and have to suffer the relatively mild indignity of moving to a different US city.

"Squander"... many US citizens see the actions of Silicon Valley and the entire tech VC culture as grossly immoral and unethical. Maybe you have yet to realize that all your actions in the US will only make rich families richer and hurt and damage the lives of those beneath you, but many Americans decide to do work that helps individuals directly as opposed to help investors become even richer.

It's fun to think poor Americans are lazy, but when you realize that helping people in America is one of the lowest paid(often volunteer) positions, how warped the reality of the US dollar is.

To many "dignity" as you described it, is not working like a slave to enrich the evil that is destroying our country. And if you are moving here to contribute to that you are not much more than a paid mercenary.

EDIT: Look, I get it that you are possibly coming from a fucked situation wherever you might come from. And I can't blame you for it. But realize that few people in the US actually will benefit from it, and it will actually make their lives worse. It's what you have to do, but it really isn't something that many Americans would think is good. We already learned about imperialism in High School and prefer not to repeat it.

Money is obviously an imperfect proxy for how much someone contributes to society but it's the only fair way to ration housing or any other limited resource. "My parents lived in this city and I grew up here" does not and should not trump "I moved here to work and be productive".

Are you seriously arguing that "to work and be productive" overrides the rights of native inhabitants of a region?

It's better for society as a whole to distribute limited resources based on some kind of merit rather than "I was here first".

Loyalty is merit. Would you rather a civilization that simply discarded you when you have lost utility?

This is poor long term planning that undermines the nation for short term intrest. Unless you have pledged your allegiance, your contributions and loyalty is short term.

So obviously we are going to prioratize someone who has our back. If you have the education it is likely because you come from a privileged family. There is also strong corrupting ingrained into the system. Unless my last red envelope was given to me in error.

There are men and women in your country of greater merit who are not given the opportunity. If we were truely acting on merit they would be hear, and not you.

They would have been given the scholarship and the resources in childhood to succeed. I have met way too many entitled princelings lacking any of the virtues of a gentleman.

What rights are you talking about that "native inhabitants of a region" possess exactly?

They deserve the loyalty of their representatives. Policy should be made in thier best intrest.

What're you talking about here? How is software development going to 'contribute to the evil that is destroying our country'? Snapchat and Instagram are stupid apps, sure, but they're far from destroying america. And a lot of new technology which is built: smartphones, medical devices, robotics, all those things are going to save lives and be a tremendous boost to the economy.

Not saying you are wrong, but you have to consider this - people who left everything behind to come to the US to work in tech field (even with all the visa problems etc) are typically more educated, have marketable skills than the people pointed out by your parent comment. While their lives aren't easy - it is better compared to those working for minimum wage (or slightly above minimum wage). If the engineers are sent back to India/China, their chances of getting a job is higher (because of their marketable skills) than people with no valuable skills moving from one US city to another.

Also "mild indignity of moving to a different US city" - how would you feel if you lived in a city for 40 years, and suddenly find yourself priced out of your home?

This is a more complex problem.

> If the engineers are sent back to India/China, their chances of getting a job is higher (because of their marketable skills) than people with no valuable skills moving from one US city to another.

Maybe so but the engineers there make less than the baristas in the US. Hell, an engineer in Canada makes less than a bartender in SF.

I grew up in Toronto and lived there for 17 years but the tech jobs are so bad I can't really afford to stay. Not without living with my parents or spending 65% of my net income on rent and transportation. I don't feel entitled to stay, nobody owes me anything. I can either move or figure out a way to earn more money.

A VISA is a privilege not a right. That is apples and oranges.

> You've been living in Oakland for the last 10 years. You work at a local place making $15/hr. You have built up a lot of friends and enjoy your life. Suddenly the tech boom hits. A year later your landlord decides to sell the house. You go out and try to find a new place but its twice what your last place was and over half your income.

> You know that if the tech boom didn't show up none of that would have happened.

The tech boom has obviously not hurt the real estate market in the Bay Area, but it's a common misconception that the tech boom is the primary driver.

There is a substantial amount of money coming into the Bay Area real estate market from overseas and a significant amount (perhaps most) of the domestic home buyers are not newly-minted tech millionaires.

The truth of the matter is that a lot of the well-paid tech workers cannot afford to buy in the Bay Area. This has impacted the rental market more than it has the home market, but the rental trend is one seen nationally.

The really important part of my quote you missed was

> But that doesn't matter because the market is so competitive the new landlord wouldn't rent to you anyway.

As I noted, the rental trend is one seen nationally. In the wake of the Great Recession, which destroyed the finances and credit scores of millions of Americans, many folks have found themselves unable to obtain a mortgage. Even for those who are able to obtain financing to buy a home, in many metropolitan areas, rebounding home prices have pushed many out of the market. Furthermore, in many areas it is exceedingly difficult to find and close on a purchase as a non-cash buyer.

Around the country, millions of would-be home buyers have become renters and there is not enough apartment supply. Rents are rising nationally and lots of people are struggling to cope, including in cities where there is no tech boom to blame. In short, the dearth of affordable rentals is not the result of the tech industry. It's the result of a broader supply and demand imbalance.

Yes, that is absolutely true and valid. Indeed the rental push is national and a great point. That said, to compare the rental increase in Oakland, or the Bay in general, is a far stretch from the national average. And the reason for that is obvious to most who have lived in both situations.

You seem to be assuming that the Bay Area has experienced the greatest increase in rents. Looking at the actual numbers is more useful.

Recently, Seattle has experienced the greatest percentage increase in rents[1]. San Francisco and San Jose were up there, but the recent percentage increases in the Bay Area have, for instance, been on par with the increases seen in 2012-2013 in cities like Houston, Miami, San Diego and Boston[2].

It's a tough market out there for lots of people and while it's convenient to think that the Bay Area is always special because of the tech industry, this simply isn't the case.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230488710...

[2] http://realestate.msn.com/massive-rent-increases-to-continue

Considering that I currently live in Seattle, have lived in SF and Oakland recently, grew up around Boston and work with a group out of Miami, I probably have pretty good idea of how warped it is in the Bay Area. Nice charts tho.

So your personal perceptions trump hard numbers from businesses that get paid to track real estate data? Cool beans.

http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/

soooo many charts

The disruption that people experience due to sudden price changes certainly has a negative affect on them, but this is simply the reality of demand for these resources.

It would be nice if the government or private industry could insure people against this kind of disruption, but I don't see it happening soon.

In the meantime, people are constantly affected by all sorts of circumstances out of their control.

Unless you don't believe in the free market at all, I don't see how the case of renters is any different.

So you don't think that people will become less motivated to work if they know that at any time the rug can be pulled out beneath them?

I don't follow your logic.

The more you work, the more you get paid and the less affected you will be by this sort of thing, so I would assume this sort of risk motivated people to work harder.

That circumstance is contextual. If (E)ffort includes [ social skills, network, seed resources, correct strategy, training, health (physical + mental), support structure, opportunity] then hardwork +1

It is a conditional system of reward. The equation is not equal for everyone.

Edit* Just found and article on the subject randomly

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/08/07/335285098/rich-kid-po...

Wow, just wow.

You challenged my point not by saying that "pulling the rug from under people" was unethical, but that it would remove people's motivation.

When I directly answer why it wouldn't, you act as if I was supposed to be explaining addressing the ethics, and that my answer betrays me as callous and uncaring.

But you didn't make the argument that society should avoid "pulling the rug from under people" for its own sake, regardless of its affect on motivation to work. So I didn't address that point.

I did, however, explain precisely the ethics of my viewpoint in my original post, you just chose not to address this, and took the easy way out by focusing on a technical issue (the effect on people's motivation to work) and then pretending I had failed to address a moral issue that you raised.