CapstanRoller

>It is a drain on society.

This does not factor into any calculation about housing prices, unfortunately, and will likely never be factored in until there's a literal revolution (highly unlikely).

Just like pollution, the homeless are either ignored or bulldozed out of sight and out of mind.

>The tragedy of the commons is a real sonofabitch.

The "tragedy of the commons" is a propaganda tool used to justify privatization of the commons. The commons were reasonably well-managed until a small number of people decided to extract maximum profit from them (and damn the consequences).

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

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from off the goose

The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

But leaves the lords and ladies fine

Who take things that are yours and mine

The poor and wretched don't escape

If they conspire the law to break

This must be so but they endure

Those who conspire to make the law

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

And geese will still a common lack

Till they go and steal it back

Smaller houses would be very helpful for several generations of would-be homeowners. Most people do not want a McMansion as a "starter house" nor can they afford it, but that's typically what's available.

Nostalgia overload, especially with the UI

I hope they don't take all their writing ideas and atmosphere from the Bethesda games.

Fallout 1 and 2 have a very different vibe than the subsequent games by Bethesda (with the exception of New Vegas, which was made by the Obsidian Entertainment team)

>Is there anywhere that doesn't consider a house a depreciating asset?

The USA

House prices do go down! Take Japan as an example: houses are considered a depreciating asset, like cars. It makes total sense: wood rots, metal rusts, etc. The land value is another matter, though.

For many people, the primary goal isn't lower house prices overall, but a change in approach to how we approach housing (especially zoning) in order to make shelter affordable.

It's not that everyone wants McMansions for cheap, but rather they want to see things built that are reasonable in size and affordable for normal workers. This could be anything from large concrete block apartments (they can be made cozy and nice!) to tiny house villages.

There are many great ways to live which are literally illegal to build in the USA due to archaic and regressive zoning laws, minimum parking requirements, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfsCniN7Nsc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Flsg_mzG-M

Most people don't need larger houses, they just need some kind of house.

A tiny house and a small shed/garage would be a huge boon for many aspiring engineers.

The same reason you no longer see artist spaces or other hubs of creative activity: real estate prices.

Cheap commercial real estate is really hard to find. It's no longer viable to get a little warehouse on the edge of town and turn it into something cool.

>Personally it boggles my mind how this isn't the single issue among the relevant voting bloc.

It is the single biggest issue, and is discussed constantly, but there are no "fight the landlords" or "lower rents and build more housing" options on the ballot.

There's no one to vote for who could fix these issues, because the government is completely captured by those who benefit from high land values and rent extraction.

What sort of jobs do you look for in order to be able to do this work?

Unfortunately, knowing all this won't help you get a job when the market demands an army of React devs and little else.

Under our current system, knowledge that cannot be monetized is useless. Worse than useless, in fact, because time spent learning low-level concepts is time that could be spent learning marketable skills.

The industry is effectively paying us all to forget.

Sure, learning the USB stack and differential signaling is fun, but unless my job involves implementing custom USB devices from scratch then it's pointless trivia that won't pay the bills.

How can this correction take place?

Individual home owners and business interests have a vested interest in maintaining a very tight grip on the status quo with regard to zoning, which is the primary tool for driving housing reform.

They will continue to do everything in their power to prevent the construction of affordable housing, because it will destroy their current real estate investments.

The non-landed folks have zero leverage within the political system.

Some of us are first-generation immigrants to the US who already speak two languages. You're right, though: it's arrogant to expect another country to adapt to USAmericans. I wish this country took better care of its people.

No, none of us are okay. The "push harder" comments are either from workaholics or younger folks with more hope for the world.

I'm 37, never figured out an exit plan from a dead-end tech career (QA & test automation), and may be facing homelessness in the near future.

I'll take C&C barracks (a basic Quonset Hut) at this point, as long as I can own it and it's legally habitable. I don't care about aesthetics. In fact, something like that would be ideal as I could customize it completely.

Unfortunately those sorts of structures are banned by most municipalities.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_hut

I'm a dev (SDET) who is considering taking a job at a grocery store or warehouse just to have some cash flow.

Yes, it really is that bad. A couple of years ago my LinkedIn inbox was flooded with recruiters. Now it's a ghost town.

I'm considering pivoting into full-stack dev, but it's slow going. And even if that works, I'd be a junior developer. The situation is grim to say the least.

What part of the world would take English-speaking Americans?

People have been dying from wet-bulb heat events for years. It just hasn't been widely reported because those people tend to be the disabled, sick, and elderly.

Some portable A/C units do send hot air outside, and some don't. The two-hose models AFAIK are the latter type (although the un-insulated hoses are wildly inefficient)

https://youtu.be/_-mBeYC2KGc

/r/collapse (is it unpopular to mention here?) has been discussing wet bulb events for years.

They are occurring with increasing frequency and are very hard to survive without air conditioning or an underground shelter (e.g. cool cave).

But A/C uses large amounts of energy, which not only strains the power grid but also increases CO2 emissions, which causes more extreme wet bulb events...

Blockbuster Video is back!

WFH jobs are now only a tiny percentage of job listings. Remote work seems to be going away for the most part, unless you're in the upper echelon of devs at FAANG

WFH doesn't seem to be "taking hold" anywhere. As an actual jobseeker in the current marker, almost everyone now requires hybrid or fully onsite work.

Who is "we"? Why would the wealthy keep the poor alive? Just look at all the people dying in tents on the sidewalk in any major US city.

I made an error in my original comment. Please check out the reply.

I vaguely recall a climate scientist disappearing under odd circumstances but I can't recall where. Maybe this was a scientist and activist in Latin America.

We know that bicycle usage in places like the Netherlands doesn't result in frequent serious accidents like you describe. The safety culture is totally different, and injuries like that are low despite a much more casual approach to helmets. There are people on cargo bikes transporting goods and going shopping with their children.

This is an infrastructure problem, not a bicycle problem. The infrastructure problem exists because places like the USA prioritize cars.

Even the two bicycle collision you describe is quite rare outside of competitive sports. People casually bicycling to work aren't going at such speeds, don't go closely in opposite directions, and really have no reason to do so.

Bicycling is very safe when you remove car interaction from the equation.

Check out this YT channel for more info backed by data: https://youtube.com/c/notjustbikes

My apologies, I must have gotten things confused with the climate scientist who self-immolated in protest. Comment has been edited to reflect this.

Still, climate activists are routinely targeted: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63064471

I'm still vaguely recalling an article about a climate scientist disappearing under suspicious circumstances, but I cannot find it now.

I completely understand your point, and I agree with it. I just don't trust laissez-faire economics. We've got entrepreneurs trying to put SF techies into communal bunks.

If that's how they're willing to treat engineers, how will they treat the poor and disabled?

Then again, I also understand the historically bad examples of crime-filled government housing projects.

I don't know how to convince Americans to do things the more European way. As someone born in the USSR and raised in a "commieblock" I see how housing like this is far better than living on the street. Many of the big block style apartments all over western Europe are quite decent.

How much more pain before we have massive housing reform? Will we ever? I don't know. Neoliberalism is eating the country and we're in a deadlock. The pressure is continuing to build and build.

I am very concerned about a collapse scenario, because the USA is awash with guns and the far right keeps gaining ground.

1.5C is actually a pretty conservative estimate, and there are suggestions that we have breached well beyond that point already.

Many climate scientists sounding the alarm get attacked and silenced (and activists get killed!), so there's reason to believe that things are actually much worse than the media lets on.