> If you mean 'liberal young open-source company' then say that! Because that absolutely isn't what 'Silicon Valley' means.
I didn't say that. I am a different person asking a different question. I recognize that it's a bit silly to call Red Hat a "Silicon Valley company" because they are not in Silicon Valley. Just like Microsoft isn't a Silicon Valley company.
My original question was in regards to this exact quote of yours:
> The Carolinas seem as far as you can get from Silicon Valley, culturally
And my question was:
> Why do you think that?
So far you have offered that "The Carolinas" are politically Republican and California is politically Democratic. However, (a) North Carolina's governor is a Democrat and (b) your original comparison was between Silicon Valley (a small geographic area) and "The Carolinas" (a much larger geographic area) — which does not seem like a fair or meaningful comparison.
Basically, due to the uniform nature of American culture and cities I think you'd be hard-pressed to identify many meaningful cultural differences between e.g. Raleigh, North Carolina and Mountain View, California. So I'm wondering if you have any unique insight to offer there or if you're actually just talking flippantly about something you don't actually know anything about, which is fine too.
> you paid Apple or whoever to make your phone so are you responsible for their conditions?
Yes, absolutely, to some degree — do you think I'm not? Even if you don't think so, do you think Apple isn't to some degree responsible for the working conditions of nearly a million employees within the company that it knowingly contracts out to to produce about 200 million iPhones a year?
Follow up question: Which American political party do you think would be more likely to condone the above practice, Democrats or Republicans?
Basically I'm trying to figure out why you think there's a big cultural difference between Silicon Valley (50 square miles) and "The Carolinas" (85,839 square miles) and why that's meaningful to the wider discussion. Your original comment perplexed me as someone who is familiar with both regions. I agree that they are dissimilar but I definitely don't think they are "as far as you can get ... culturally." Happy to get back to that original subject if you are.
I was referring specifically to the "culturally" part. The geographic difference between Silicon Valley and North Carolina is indisputable, but I'm curious about your take on the culture. I see a lot of similarities between Republicans and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, e.g. anti-regulation stances, anti-labor stances, etc.
For those skipping straight to the comments, they basically think it's 1 or more geostationary satellites that happen to be in the path of the observed star, Ross 128.
I remember learning Roman numerals in 1st or 2nd grade and finding them to be a lot easier for basic arithmetic.
I mean, all of the examples we used in school to learn basic arithmetic had things like "(picture of 4 apples) + (picture of 2 apples) = (picture of 6 apples)". Roman numerals are kind of a pictograph in a way.
I think if this story were about migrant workers I would feel differently about it because it would be an entirely different story—it would be about people not being paid much and forced to live in a truck versus a story about somebody being paid a lot and living an alternative lifestyle.
I'm perhaps looking at this differently because I am into the financial independence movement[1], and I also quite like tiny houses. I like the idea of saving as much as you can so you don't have to work for the rest of your life, and I also like the idea of reducing your ecological and physical footprint.
So that's how I'm seeing this story. This guy seems like a "mustachian" more than he seems like a guy forced to live in his car. I don't know how much he gets paid, but I'm certain he could afford an apartment—ridiculously expensive though it may be.
I absolutely agree with you that the housing situation in the Bay area is bonkers, though.
>Certain companies have succeeded despite a sceptical specialized audience. Why is that? The first and most obvious reason is because there is simply not enough diversity in the audience for the wisdom of the crowd theory to hold true.
Right, this almost seems like common sense. I see the Hacker News community as mostly entrepreneurially minded devs who are very invested in the Silicon Valley startup ideal. Obviously there's nothing wrong with that, and there are a lot of really smart people here. But geniuses in a particular field are often inept in others. Hacker News readers don't represent the average consumer, for instance, so I wouldn't put too much stock in their opinions about a primarily average-consumer-facing product like Airbnb. I would, however, put a lot of stock in their opinion about my new dev-facing app like Heroku.
I didn't say that. I am a different person asking a different question. I recognize that it's a bit silly to call Red Hat a "Silicon Valley company" because they are not in Silicon Valley. Just like Microsoft isn't a Silicon Valley company.
My original question was in regards to this exact quote of yours:
> The Carolinas seem as far as you can get from Silicon Valley, culturally
And my question was:
> Why do you think that?
So far you have offered that "The Carolinas" are politically Republican and California is politically Democratic. However, (a) North Carolina's governor is a Democrat and (b) your original comparison was between Silicon Valley (a small geographic area) and "The Carolinas" (a much larger geographic area) — which does not seem like a fair or meaningful comparison.
Basically, due to the uniform nature of American culture and cities I think you'd be hard-pressed to identify many meaningful cultural differences between e.g. Raleigh, North Carolina and Mountain View, California. So I'm wondering if you have any unique insight to offer there or if you're actually just talking flippantly about something you don't actually know anything about, which is fine too.