Stuck: Why the rent and mortgage-burdened don’t always move to cheaper pastures(strongtowns.org)
strongtowns.org
Stuck: Why the rent and mortgage-burdened don’t always move to cheaper pastures
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/24/stuck-why-rent-and-mortgage-burdened-americans-dont-always-move-to-cheaper-pastures
96 comments
On the other, I see a lot of potential for reducing our current problems by providing more support for developing portable, flexible income via the internet.
The problem is any online business involves competing with everyone on the Internet. Maybe the skills of fluent-in-American-English or leadership or persuasion or math or programming allow a few to make a decent income selling that unique thing. But any skill that can be mastered is going to have a flood of people learning it from all around world, reducing it's price online.
The problem is any online business involves competing with everyone on the Internet. Maybe the skills of fluent-in-American-English or leadership or persuasion or math or programming allow a few to make a decent income selling that unique thing. But any skill that can be mastered is going to have a flood of people learning it from all around world, reducing it's price online.
In 10-20 years, sure. So for those 10-20 years we should encourage it.
I think that's already the reality today. Many comments here on HN talk about how hard it's to find any decent paying gigs on sites like Upwork due to global competition.
Because they are looking at the wrong places. Business that knows about UpWork already knows how to handle race to the bottom. 99% of businesses in the US do not.
Being a contract programmer is dating. Are you a super star with great skills and great personality? Fantastic, you can do equivalent of $550/h and still work 30-40 hour weeks ( translation: you are super hot, super fit and rich - you get to play with anyone you want ). Are you just OK? Well, start taking $30/h jobs that give you same 30-40 hours but live in a place where you can buy a house for $40k.
Being a contract programmer is dating. Are you a super star with great skills and great personality? Fantastic, you can do equivalent of $550/h and still work 30-40 hour weeks ( translation: you are super hot, super fit and rich - you get to play with anyone you want ). Are you just OK? Well, start taking $30/h jobs that give you same 30-40 hours but live in a place where you can buy a house for $40k.
That requires you to have two valuable and difficult to learn skillset instead of just one. You have to be a good programmer and a good salesperson too. That is a tough bar to clear.
"Everyone should develop an online income" is like the galaxy brain version of teaching truck drivers how to code. The n-gate blurb writes itself.
That's not remotely what I said. My main point is I wish folks with a lot of income and other privileges would stop saying things like "There's plenty of affordable housing! All you have to do is move to Detroit!"
If you want to take the position that people can just move someplace cheaper, the way to do that without being a jerk is to help facilitate that in some way instead of turning a blind eye to the reality that expensive places have jobs, cheap places tend to lack them and the housing crisis is very much real. It isn't a made up complaint.
If you want to take the position that people can just move someplace cheaper, the way to do that without being a jerk is to help facilitate that in some way instead of turning a blind eye to the reality that expensive places have jobs, cheap places tend to lack them and the housing crisis is very much real. It isn't a made up complaint.
Great point. Use taxes to make it expensive for companies to offer jobs where housing is expensive, and perform proper urban planning where land and housing is cheap to fix our previous mistakes (car centric, low density, non-mixed use).
It's quite simple, really. The main reason they don't move to cheaper pastuers is: Jobs. The cheapest place in the US won't help much if you don't have any source of income.
We really need to start encouraging companies to put jobs in places where people can live. Or build places people can live near jobs. One or the other, or Both.
We really need to start encouraging companies to put jobs in places where people can live. Or build places people can live near jobs. One or the other, or Both.
Companies won't put jobs in places where they can't find good candidates. It's a circular problem.
There are many factors and therefore many aspects to a solution, but I think one certainty is that education is required. Investments in public education and job re-training could go a long way to making those low-cost places more attractive to employers.
Another thing to keep in mind is that people who have choice will often pay more to live in places that have benefits other than available jobs. People want a safe place with a good social scene and stuff to do. Just ask Connecticut. Employers there are struggling to find candidates because everyone wants to leave the boring state. Conservatives love to blame the state's high taxes, but the high-value employees are so often moving to places like NYC and Boston where the taxes and living costs make CT look downright cheap.
There are many factors and therefore many aspects to a solution, but I think one certainty is that education is required. Investments in public education and job re-training could go a long way to making those low-cost places more attractive to employers.
Another thing to keep in mind is that people who have choice will often pay more to live in places that have benefits other than available jobs. People want a safe place with a good social scene and stuff to do. Just ask Connecticut. Employers there are struggling to find candidates because everyone wants to leave the boring state. Conservatives love to blame the state's high taxes, but the high-value employees are so often moving to places like NYC and Boston where the taxes and living costs make CT look downright cheap.
One problem is easy to solve - not wanting to move because your house is under water.
It's called "strategic default" walk away from the house, stop throwing good money after bad and three years after your foreclosure you can buy another house.
I did it when my house was $60K under water and I was "prequalified with a contingency" to start the process of getting a house built a month before I was officially qualified to get an FHA loan. The day I was qualified, the lender submitted my loan application.
I had no moral qualms about it. It was strictly a financial decision.
It's called "strategic default" walk away from the house, stop throwing good money after bad and three years after your foreclosure you can buy another house.
I did it when my house was $60K under water and I was "prequalified with a contingency" to start the process of getting a house built a month before I was officially qualified to get an FHA loan. The day I was qualified, the lender submitted my loan application.
I had no moral qualms about it. It was strictly a financial decision.
That's definitely an option if your house is in a non-recourse state (which is barely a third of them from what I can tell). If your house in one of the other 33 states and you walk away from an underwater mortgage, the lender can make you pay whatever is left-over on the mortgage after they get the proceeds from the foreclosure sale.
That is a tough pill to swallow, because not only do you lose your house, you have to keep paying a big chunk of your mortgage with nothing to show for it, and because a foreclosure auction is not the most favorable way of selling a house, you might end up even worse off than if you did a short sale.
That is a tough pill to swallow, because not only do you lose your house, you have to keep paying a big chunk of your mortgage with nothing to show for it, and because a foreclosure auction is not the most favorable way of selling a house, you might end up even worse off than if you did a short sale.
I’m curious about the moral qualms bit. I suppose I was raised differently (and in NZ/Australia, too) by my parents, but I read an article recently that was on HN about a man who lost maybe $110,000 servicing an underwater mortgage that was due to the GFC. Where do those “morals” stem from?
Some people think it's a moral responsibility to pay back a debt to the bank. The banks had no qualms about taking taxpayers money and paying people millions in bonuses.
The mortgage was a simple contract. If I didn't pay the mortgage they had the right to take the house. They exercised their right.
The mortgage was a simple contract. If I didn't pay the mortgage they had the right to take the house. They exercised their right.
Exactly. The banks can and will screw you over, and they caused the damned issues in the first place! Morals have no place here, I think.
For me it’s jobs. I move to a cheaper place for a while, and it was great, until I couldn’t find a job in my industry. Then it was really bad.
I'm surprised nobody is considering a family unit consisting of three equal (adult) partners rather than the standard two-adult nuclear family. Two workers and one homemaker could cover all the bills and allow for the care of the home and children.
Given the financial circumstances many Americans are living in, I can't imagine nobody's thought of it.
Given the financial circumstances many Americans are living in, I can't imagine nobody's thought of it.
It's the room mate problem. That arrangement is usually 2 adults & grandma, which creates an entire new bunch of problems.
The other alternative is to have someone live rent free in exchange for doing the household chores, also known as a live in maid. That is like living with a room mate as a couple, not the most fun.
You used to be able to live on one income in america with just a high school education and buying a house in your early 20s. Not so much anymore.
The other alternative is to have someone live rent free in exchange for doing the household chores, also known as a live in maid. That is like living with a room mate as a couple, not the most fun.
You used to be able to live on one income in america with just a high school education and buying a house in your early 20s. Not so much anymore.
When women started having careers that lasted a lifetime, costs increased. Initially those dual income families had lots of money and could buy fancier things, but then prices (specifically housing) increased to meet what could afford to be spent.
And now we're in a state where you have to have two parents working, and outsource upbringing the kids.
And now we're in a state where you have to have two parents working, and outsource upbringing the kids.
I'm not talking about a platonic relationship. I'm talking about a family with 3 equal intimate partners. It's clearly not for everyone, but there is a massive financial advantage for those who could live like that.
You're surprised people don't want to become bigamists so that they can save money on rent?
I'd be surprised if people don't want to [insert anything here] so that they can save money on rent.
For every crazy thought that has ever passed through my head, there's a headline about someone from Florida doing that exact thing, except taking it to another level.
For every crazy thought that has ever passed through my head, there's a headline about someone from Florida doing that exact thing, except taking it to another level.
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Relationships are already hard enough to maintain with two people.
I'm not saying people should rush to do this even if they aren't comfortable with it. I'm saying that whoever is comfortable with it will have a huge financial advantage over a struggling two adult family.
This reminds me of the 'line marriage' from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress
Have wondered if there is an economically and romantically viable successor to modern marriage.
I can tell you as a participant in a two person marriage that I'm not sure it would work for me, but can imagine the benefits.
Have wondered if there is an economically and romantically viable successor to modern marriage.
I can tell you as a participant in a two person marriage that I'm not sure it would work for me, but can imagine the benefits.
So polygamy? People have thought about it. It's uncommon because it involves deeply involved and complex relationships with 2 people, when many people can barely handle that with one (see: the divorce rates around the world).
> see: the divorce rates around the world
That could just as well be evidence for formal marriage not being easily sustainable.
A formal marriage comes with its own pros and cons compared to other relationship types, as such I don't think you can use divorce numbers as evidence for intimate relationships being difficult in general.
The rise in divorce rates and the decrease in marriages could just as well be interpreted as formal marriage being perceived as too difficult of a relationship type to sustain, so people are increasingly opting for alternative types instead.
That could just as well be evidence for formal marriage not being easily sustainable.
A formal marriage comes with its own pros and cons compared to other relationship types, as such I don't think you can use divorce numbers as evidence for intimate relationships being difficult in general.
The rise in divorce rates and the decrease in marriages could just as well be interpreted as formal marriage being perceived as too difficult of a relationship type to sustain, so people are increasingly opting for alternative types instead.
I think as evidence to the idea that sustaining a romantic relationship is difficult, divorce rates provide some backing.
They're not the Alpha and Omega on the matter, but it clearly shows that A- The people were attempting to create and sustain a long term romantic relationship and B- They were unable to do so for some reasons.
It could be a correlation and not causation thing as well though. I think it's difficult to provide anything truly concrete showing that intimate relationships are difficult to maintain using statistics. Much like the original article, there's just far too many moving parts (cultural expectations, communication skills differences, personal traumas, trust building, etc) that play into the equation.
They're not the Alpha and Omega on the matter, but it clearly shows that A- The people were attempting to create and sustain a long term romantic relationship and B- They were unable to do so for some reasons.
It could be a correlation and not causation thing as well though. I think it's difficult to provide anything truly concrete showing that intimate relationships are difficult to maintain using statistics. Much like the original article, there's just far too many moving parts (cultural expectations, communication skills differences, personal traumas, trust building, etc) that play into the equation.
I can't see how adding an additional person would solve the big stressors on failed marriages -- money, child-rearing, different values/desires. If anything those issues would be worse. Maybe it would reduce infidelity, or trouble accepting the same.
Imho you add an additional problem by formalizing the relationship through marriage.
With that comes a ton of expectations and pressure, internally inside the relationship, and externally from society.
These are not present to the same degree with less formal relationships because the stakes are generally considered not as high because there's no formal divorce to go through if it shouldn't work out.
Thus married couples might be more likely to suffer from "performance anxiety" in their relationship compared to less formal relationships.
Different values/desires will always be an issue, but if two people can agree on those, why shouldn't three people be able to? The only reason some are so opposed to this idea is due to old religious stigma enforcing the idea that we have to be monogamous no matter what.
With that comes a ton of expectations and pressure, internally inside the relationship, and externally from society.
These are not present to the same degree with less formal relationships because the stakes are generally considered not as high because there's no formal divorce to go through if it shouldn't work out.
Thus married couples might be more likely to suffer from "performance anxiety" in their relationship compared to less formal relationships.
Different values/desires will always be an issue, but if two people can agree on those, why shouldn't three people be able to? The only reason some are so opposed to this idea is due to old religious stigma enforcing the idea that we have to be monogamous no matter what.
By the time you're making decisions like buying a house or having children you cannot treat the relationship that informally anyway.
As for the last question: because the more people you add the more mutually incompatible desires are in the picture.
If there's nothing but religious stigma at work, why aren't the Mormons still polygamists? (there are exceptions but I think we can round them off for the purposes of this discussion)
As for the last question: because the more people you add the more mutually incompatible desires are in the picture.
If there's nothing but religious stigma at work, why aren't the Mormons still polygamists? (there are exceptions but I think we can round them off for the purposes of this discussion)
> By the time you're making decisions like buying a house or having children you cannot treat the relationship that informally anyway.
You can still treat it less formally than if it'd be an actual formalized relationship.
A lot of this boils down to societal expectations and norms which are not set in stone, but rather constantly evolving. The nuclear family, with their own house and dog, used to be ideal but at this point, it's a pretty outdated ideal that doesn't work with current economics, thus alternatives might be more viable.
I'm also not convinced that adding more people to a relationship inevitably will make it more difficult no matter what. People are way too individual for that to universally hold true and there's plenty of historical and modern examples of non-monogamous relationships as counter-examples.
> If there's nothing but religious stigma at work, why aren't the Mormons still polygamists? (there are exceptions but I think we can round them off for the purposes of this discussion
Because afaik there are still US states with laws banning polygamy? These are societal norms in large parts formed based on religious dogma, they ain't some "natural law" that can't be broken or changed, just like the nuclear family ain't necessarily the ultimate smallest societal unit.
You can still treat it less formally than if it'd be an actual formalized relationship.
A lot of this boils down to societal expectations and norms which are not set in stone, but rather constantly evolving. The nuclear family, with their own house and dog, used to be ideal but at this point, it's a pretty outdated ideal that doesn't work with current economics, thus alternatives might be more viable.
I'm also not convinced that adding more people to a relationship inevitably will make it more difficult no matter what. People are way too individual for that to universally hold true and there's plenty of historical and modern examples of non-monogamous relationships as counter-examples.
> If there's nothing but religious stigma at work, why aren't the Mormons still polygamists? (there are exceptions but I think we can round them off for the purposes of this discussion
Because afaik there are still US states with laws banning polygamy? These are societal norms in large parts formed based on religious dogma, they ain't some "natural law" that can't be broken or changed, just like the nuclear family ain't necessarily the ultimate smallest societal unit.
> You can still treat it less formally than if it'd be an actual formalized relationship.
You can, but it is not wise.
You can, but it is not wise.
>If there's nothing but religious stigma at work, why aren't the Mormons still polygamists?
The Federal government gave them hell about it, going so far as to seize any assets of the LDS church. Utah wouldn't have been granted statehood if they hadn't condemned it.
The Federal government gave them hell about it, going so far as to seize any assets of the LDS church. Utah wouldn't have been granted statehood if they hadn't condemned it.
No need for polyamory... in many parts of the world extended families live together for the exact benefits you mention. (For example, grandparents can watch the kids while the parents are working.)
I think a number of our problems in America could be resolved if we had less social atomization.
I think a number of our problems in America could be resolved if we had less social atomization.
You're surprised polyamory isn't more widely accepted by a nation that until only very recently defined marriage as strictly between a man and a woman? And even when that changed, still only between two individuals?
Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress had a few different concepts for non-traditional marriages.
The protagonist's arrangement was a "line marriage", wherein the family partnership would marry in younger people at regular intervals to maintain approximate male-female parity and to keep property continuity as the older partners died off. At one point in the book, it was considered a big deal when an adult child of an older couple in the line marriage married back into it as a spouse.
There was also a "group marriage" which sounded a bit like everyone in your high school graduating class marrying each other, or like a cross between a marriage and a tontine.
In case of divorce, the remaining spouses would keep all the real property and the separating spouse would be paid off with cash. But divorce required unanimous approval, either of all the other spouses or all the spouses of the opposite sex, depending on how the thing was originally set up.
The protagonist's arrangement was a "line marriage", wherein the family partnership would marry in younger people at regular intervals to maintain approximate male-female parity and to keep property continuity as the older partners died off. At one point in the book, it was considered a big deal when an adult child of an older couple in the line marriage married back into it as a spouse.
There was also a "group marriage" which sounded a bit like everyone in your high school graduating class marrying each other, or like a cross between a marriage and a tontine.
In case of divorce, the remaining spouses would keep all the real property and the separating spouse would be paid off with cash. But divorce required unanimous approval, either of all the other spouses or all the spouses of the opposite sex, depending on how the thing was originally set up.
Things were more affordable 50 years ago when there was a single parent working, then the precedent shifted to two parents and the cost of living adjusted accordingly. I don't see any reason that that wouldn't happen again in this case - to keep up you'd need to steadily increase the number of workers until you're an ant colony.
When I was in a poly triad the numbers worked pretty well. No kids made it even more affordable; we were free to have one person do part-time stuff in the field they wanted to be in rather than the one they ended up in.
Right, and then the same thing would happen when households went from one income earner to two, households have more money to spend on housing, so housing prices go up.
Right back in the same place you were.
Right back in the same place you were.
Are you suggesting 3-person “marriage”? Polygamy? That is evil! Only the devil marries multiple people! /s
Ill ask my GF if I can look for a 2nd (working) lady to cover some financial issues
Ill ask my GF if I can look for a 2nd (working) lady to cover some financial issues
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If we don't hear back from you in 2 days, we'll send help!
Yes, but obviously not legally married as that is not currently possible.
In which case the obvious solution is to incorporate the family and write the articles and by-laws like a pre-nup.
Some use of the civil marriage system might also be required to realize a subset of the benefits enjoyed by traditional marriage partners.
Some use of the civil marriage system might also be required to realize a subset of the benefits enjoyed by traditional marriage partners.
intriguing, as others have pointed out, a variation of that is extended families living together or nearby.
many cultures have this built into their housing, e.g., chinese siheyuan or roman domus. these courtyard houses can accommodate such arrangements without literally living with each other. you can even stack them and share the courtyard among multiple families (one on each side of the courtyard), for denser neighborhoods.
many cultures have this built into their housing, e.g., chinese siheyuan or roman domus. these courtyard houses can accommodate such arrangements without literally living with each other. you can even stack them and share the courtyard among multiple families (one on each side of the courtyard), for denser neighborhoods.
Because moving takes money, and moving doesn't mean you'll be able to find a job when you get there.
What happened to finding a job prior to moving? How many people in this country just pack up all their personal belongings into a horse drawn carriage, and trek across the Oregon trail for a better life?
Not every career path allows for doing that. If you're not working a white collar job already, odds are you're not going to have the time to go out to the new area to interview, let alone be able to afford to get yourself out there.
I would guess most people aren't working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are plenty of online resources for finding jobs. My father worked in a steel mill for 20+ years, managed to go back to school as a much older adult, and get a job in an entirely new field(medical tech).
No, but if you're working two jobs, your time for doing that is extremely limited. Double so if you have a family. Your dad probably was not working more than 8 hours a day. A lot of people that the article is talking about are those that have to work much more than that.
My father worked double shifts most of my childhood, on rotation shifts no less. Dude worked his ass off, and still had time to build our house, advance his career, and was always around for baseball practice. No excuses.
>But talk to just one individual who’s gotten stuck (or even chosen to stay) in an expensive home they couldn’t afford, and all that Econ 101 vocabulary starts to fall short. Or at least, you’ll find fairly quickly that no one’s housing decisions are governed neatly by the laws of supply and demand in the housing market alone. And that's because all of us — as consumers and as human beings — are part of infinite markets with infinite feedback loops, not all of which are easily predictable.
I struggle to understand why people who argue for rationality, i.e., people who I know are very very smart and extremely rational, turn around and expect rationality from populations.
I've talked to highly intelligent bankers who are surprised when a market turns volatile/irrational, doctors who can't comprehend why their patients make irrational/poor health decisions, teachers who have difficulty accepting the disconnected nature of students whose very future depends on them doing well in a given class. Politicians who have this expectation that people will not break the law, or pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or whatever other things that require rigid rationality.
Maybe it's a problem with empathy? Of "putting yourself in someone else's shoes?" Maybe it's not even possible for extremely intelligent, relatively rational people, to adopt the mindset of people who (by choice, culture, or means well outside their control) live more emotional, instinctual lives. Even more insidious is when these exact people fail to recognize the irrationality present in themselves, inherent to the fact that they're human.
When I studied Anthropology, I'd even come across professors that didn't necessarily believe that human culture is irrational / arbitrary. There may be traits that continue to exist because natural selection promoted them (a religion that resisted the eating of pork and promoted evangalising happens to survive through dark ages because nobody is getting stomach parasites and because it replicates), but there's nothing inherently rational about that.
TLDR my big word-salad rant -> I strongly believe, and have horded anthropological evidence to support this belief, that humans at scale are completely irrational, and to expect otherwise is foolish and irrational. One should plan for irrationality.
Obviously moving away when rent is too high is the "right" choice, the "rational" choice, but being human is just too messy for something as simple as that. Like the article says, there are just so many reasons that get all tripped up, some rational, some not, all just as powerful an influence on a human "decision tree" (again, too logical a structure to describe human choice-making).
I made such a dumb long post because I want to be challenged on this. If you take the time to reply with why you disagree with me I will be very grateful.
I struggle to understand why people who argue for rationality, i.e., people who I know are very very smart and extremely rational, turn around and expect rationality from populations.
I've talked to highly intelligent bankers who are surprised when a market turns volatile/irrational, doctors who can't comprehend why their patients make irrational/poor health decisions, teachers who have difficulty accepting the disconnected nature of students whose very future depends on them doing well in a given class. Politicians who have this expectation that people will not break the law, or pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or whatever other things that require rigid rationality.
Maybe it's a problem with empathy? Of "putting yourself in someone else's shoes?" Maybe it's not even possible for extremely intelligent, relatively rational people, to adopt the mindset of people who (by choice, culture, or means well outside their control) live more emotional, instinctual lives. Even more insidious is when these exact people fail to recognize the irrationality present in themselves, inherent to the fact that they're human.
When I studied Anthropology, I'd even come across professors that didn't necessarily believe that human culture is irrational / arbitrary. There may be traits that continue to exist because natural selection promoted them (a religion that resisted the eating of pork and promoted evangalising happens to survive through dark ages because nobody is getting stomach parasites and because it replicates), but there's nothing inherently rational about that.
TLDR my big word-salad rant -> I strongly believe, and have horded anthropological evidence to support this belief, that humans at scale are completely irrational, and to expect otherwise is foolish and irrational. One should plan for irrationality.
Obviously moving away when rent is too high is the "right" choice, the "rational" choice, but being human is just too messy for something as simple as that. Like the article says, there are just so many reasons that get all tripped up, some rational, some not, all just as powerful an influence on a human "decision tree" (again, too logical a structure to describe human choice-making).
I made such a dumb long post because I want to be challenged on this. If you take the time to reply with why you disagree with me I will be very grateful.
I struggle to understand why people who argue for rationality, i.e., people who I know are very very smart and extremely rational, turn around and expect rationality from populations.
Oh, it's just another example of irrationality now isn't it?
I mean, rationality as system certainly is something a fair number of people can master as a series of arguments that they can have down-pat and are able to recite at a moments notice. Actually applying these to subset of a person's behaviors is a harder trick, mastered by a smaller number of people. Applying the implications of irrational behavior of the population at large to one's own world is an even harder trick.
The thing is that "rationality" isn't actually a coherent overall guide to anyone's behavior.
Specifically, if everyone was "homo-economicus", the neoclassical concept of the risk-neutral actor, society itself would collapse in fairly short order.
I'd recommend Herbert Gintis, Game Theory Evolving, for more background on this.
Oh, it's just another example of irrationality now isn't it?
I mean, rationality as system certainly is something a fair number of people can master as a series of arguments that they can have down-pat and are able to recite at a moments notice. Actually applying these to subset of a person's behaviors is a harder trick, mastered by a smaller number of people. Applying the implications of irrational behavior of the population at large to one's own world is an even harder trick.
The thing is that "rationality" isn't actually a coherent overall guide to anyone's behavior.
Specifically, if everyone was "homo-economicus", the neoclassical concept of the risk-neutral actor, society itself would collapse in fairly short order.
I'd recommend Herbert Gintis, Game Theory Evolving, for more background on this.
Maybe it's just that your personal definition of "rational" is too narrow for it to fit collectives?
For instance, you seem to conflate "right" and "rational" here: «the "right" choice, the "rational" choice».
If "rational" means to you the maximal beneficial choice (the "right" choice), then of course any group that gets stuck in a local maximum seems irrational in that light.
You may also be conflating "rational" with "normal/not strange/unexpected". Such as here: « believe that human culture is irrational / arbitrary »
But if "rational" is simply supposed to mean "has thought behind it", as it generally gets defined in science, such as your Anthropology example, then that example does show rationality (people noticed that eating pork resulted in unhealthy diseases, so they thought to stop eating pork and went to pass the word around). Whether or not the means were strange (evangelization, for instance) is orthogonal to whether or not thought was put into it. Whether or not the outcome was the maximal option (say, early invention of germ theory rather than pork abstinence), is orthogonal to whether or not thought was put into it (and even orthogonal to whether or not the outcome was simply a local maximum).
For instance, you seem to conflate "right" and "rational" here: «the "right" choice, the "rational" choice».
If "rational" means to you the maximal beneficial choice (the "right" choice), then of course any group that gets stuck in a local maximum seems irrational in that light.
You may also be conflating "rational" with "normal/not strange/unexpected". Such as here: « believe that human culture is irrational / arbitrary »
But if "rational" is simply supposed to mean "has thought behind it", as it generally gets defined in science, such as your Anthropology example, then that example does show rationality (people noticed that eating pork resulted in unhealthy diseases, so they thought to stop eating pork and went to pass the word around). Whether or not the means were strange (evangelization, for instance) is orthogonal to whether or not thought was put into it. Whether or not the outcome was the maximal option (say, early invention of germ theory rather than pork abstinence), is orthogonal to whether or not thought was put into it (and even orthogonal to whether or not the outcome was simply a local maximum).
It's definitely an empathy problem.
I wouldn't be surprised by an empathy-intelligence correlation but I don't think it's relevant here anyway; You don't have to be intellectually driven if you're not emotionally driven.
I think this highlights the concerns from "unemotional" types:
>One should plan for irrationality.
When we say that, what are we inviting them to do exactly? I think we're asking them to be more forgiving and less judgmental when people act irresponsibly.
People who aren't emotionally driven don't see the intrinsic value in that. We're asking them to do something they'd rather not do, and the typical unemotional person would decline the request.
I wouldn't be surprised by an empathy-intelligence correlation but I don't think it's relevant here anyway; You don't have to be intellectually driven if you're not emotionally driven.
I think this highlights the concerns from "unemotional" types:
>One should plan for irrationality.
When we say that, what are we inviting them to do exactly? I think we're asking them to be more forgiving and less judgmental when people act irresponsibly.
People who aren't emotionally driven don't see the intrinsic value in that. We're asking them to do something they'd rather not do, and the typical unemotional person would decline the request.
> a religion that resisted the eating of pork and promoted evangalising happens to survive through dark ages because nobody is getting stomach parasites and because it replicates
Totally unrelated, but which religion is that?
Not Judaism since they don't evangelize, and not Christianity because they do eat pork, not Islam because they didn't exist during the dark ages.
Totally unrelated, but which religion is that?
Not Judaism since they don't evangelize, and not Christianity because they do eat pork, not Islam because they didn't exist during the dark ages.
A non existent one I cherry picked aspects of other religions from on purpose ;) just for the sake of discussion.
I think this basically comes down to the same reason it's so hard to forecast the weather: there's way too many data points to consider to do anything other than make a well educated guess.
"Irrationality" comes down to the ability to accurately decide that we have considered all relative data points and determine what is the best decision, and then prove that this decision hasn't been made.
Consider game theory, the best example of "look how illogical all these humans are lol!" Every game is created with a very specific set of rules, most of which are very clean and specific. The pirate game doesn't consider how many children a pirate has to feed. The prisoner's dilemma doesn't account for social factors that might cause the prisoner in question to feel the system is already intentionally rigged to harm them no matter what their choice. All the "proof" of how illogical humans are in their choices has to be extrapolated away from all the life that humans have to live.
TL;DR- I agree. People are "irrational" in the sense that nobody is ever really able to consider all the factors contributing to a real human's decision tree, but we all love to tell someone else that they're doing it wrong and we know better. Look at all this proof I have that you're being irrational (read: stupid) and you should be doing it better.
"Irrationality" comes down to the ability to accurately decide that we have considered all relative data points and determine what is the best decision, and then prove that this decision hasn't been made.
Consider game theory, the best example of "look how illogical all these humans are lol!" Every game is created with a very specific set of rules, most of which are very clean and specific. The pirate game doesn't consider how many children a pirate has to feed. The prisoner's dilemma doesn't account for social factors that might cause the prisoner in question to feel the system is already intentionally rigged to harm them no matter what their choice. All the "proof" of how illogical humans are in their choices has to be extrapolated away from all the life that humans have to live.
TL;DR- I agree. People are "irrational" in the sense that nobody is ever really able to consider all the factors contributing to a real human's decision tree, but we all love to tell someone else that they're doing it wrong and we know better. Look at all this proof I have that you're being irrational (read: stupid) and you should be doing it better.
>>Maybe it's not even possible for extremely intelligent, relatively rational people, to adopt the mindset of people who (by choice, culture, or means well outside their control) live more emotional, instinctual lives.
Articles detailing the utterly ridiculous behavior or trends of SV make the rounds here on HN regularly so I can't agree that even the smartest individuals on this planet can claim total rationality.
Spending $20,000 on a chicken coop when I see folks on BackyardChickens building beautiful chicken coops for $250 and labor?!?
And your theory about "smart people" being super aliens compared to "normies" seems to me like more of that weird sort of thinking emanating out of places with smart people in bubbles.
the tldr? Smart people get as high on their own supply of wacky theories and "irrational" emotional connections as "normal" people.
edit In fact, my personal idea of a true alien genius is Isaac Newton who of course was obsessed with alchemy and esoteric religious practices. Very smart but crazy as a sh-thouse rat.
Articles detailing the utterly ridiculous behavior or trends of SV make the rounds here on HN regularly so I can't agree that even the smartest individuals on this planet can claim total rationality.
Spending $20,000 on a chicken coop when I see folks on BackyardChickens building beautiful chicken coops for $250 and labor?!?
And your theory about "smart people" being super aliens compared to "normies" seems to me like more of that weird sort of thinking emanating out of places with smart people in bubbles.
the tldr? Smart people get as high on their own supply of wacky theories and "irrational" emotional connections as "normal" people.
edit In fact, my personal idea of a true alien genius is Isaac Newton who of course was obsessed with alchemy and esoteric religious practices. Very smart but crazy as a sh-thouse rat.
This is tangental but, incidentally, the hygienic laws of the Jewish people encompass far more than just not eating pork, and most of the wisdom in obeying those laws for health reasons far surpasses any knowledge at the time.
Some modern physicians wrote a book about this called 'None of these diseases'
https://www.amazon.com/None-These-Diseases-S-McMillen/dp/080...
To me the rational conclusion given the information above is that those laws really did come from a source of knowledge higher than the totality of human knowledge at the time.
Some modern physicians wrote a book about this called 'None of these diseases'
https://www.amazon.com/None-These-Diseases-S-McMillen/dp/080...
To me the rational conclusion given the information above is that those laws really did come from a source of knowledge higher than the totality of human knowledge at the time.
>To me the rational conclusion given the information above is that those laws really did come from a source of knowledge higher than the totality of human knowledge at the time.
Can you clarify what you believe the source is?
Can you clarify what you believe the source is?
G-d. Or possibly aliens.
You say that these laws "surpass any knowledge at the time", but aren't they in fact evidence of such knowledge?
Yes, this is definitely the more rational conclusion. Even if no one knew about germ theory or parasites there were likely observations made that certain foods/preparations resulted in certain outcomes and then codified this information in the laws. It seems that the grandparent comment is starting from the premise that god exists and looking for evidence to support the conclusion they already hold.
I'm not sure you understand the specificity of the mosaic hygienic laws to which I'm referring, but a bit of research into the knowledge of the time coupled with a close look at the high level of detail given in the law shows that no, human origin is not the more rational conclusion. There's a LOT more going on than 'dont eat certain foods'
>It seems that the grandparent comment is starting from the premise that god exists and looking for evidence to support the conclusion they already hold.
it seems that you are assuming anything affirming God must be irrational and therefore state that I must be approaching this irrationally.
I encourage anyone who finds the concept interesting to check out this book:
https://www.amazon.com/None-These-Diseases-McMillen-MD/dp/05...
>It seems that the grandparent comment is starting from the premise that god exists and looking for evidence to support the conclusion they already hold.
it seems that you are assuming anything affirming God must be irrational and therefore state that I must be approaching this irrationally.
I encourage anyone who finds the concept interesting to check out this book:
https://www.amazon.com/None-These-Diseases-McMillen-MD/dp/05...
[deleted]
> Maybe it's not even possible for extremely intelligent, relatively rational people, to adopt the mindset of people who (by choice, culture, or means well outside their control) live more emotional, instinctual lives.
It sounds very condescending to describe people with a different cost function to optimize than yours as irrational and instinctual.
The whole point of the article is that, for some people, not moving away when the rent is high is rational, in spite of the obvious drawbacks (and that's assuming it's feasible - which, for many, it is not).
>I made such a dumb long post because I want to be challenged on this. If you take the time to reply with why you disagree with me I will be very grateful.
OK, first step:
do you realize that "irrational reason" is, literally, an oxymoron?[1][2]
There is no such thing as irrational reason, by the very definition of the words.
There are, however, reasons that you do not understand. Maybe, as you said, it's a problem with empathy.
Not to say that there is no irrational behavior - people do irrational things. It's just that when we are talking about system patterns - like people not moving out of places they can barely afford - often, there are good reasons why it makes sense for them.
When you see something that looks irrational, it's important to assume ignorance on your part. Otherwise, you won't find out the rationale!
Case in point: you might think that it's irrational for poor people - especially, say, pimps in a poor neighborhood - to buy a lot of gold jewellery instead of investing in something worthwhile.
But then you find out that in their life, it is a very worthwhile investment[3]
TL;DR: never assume something is without reason; assume there is one - and you'll often find it.
[1]https://www.etymonline.com/word/irrational
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron
[3]https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2szqe9/til_p...
It sounds very condescending to describe people with a different cost function to optimize than yours as irrational and instinctual.
The whole point of the article is that, for some people, not moving away when the rent is high is rational, in spite of the obvious drawbacks (and that's assuming it's feasible - which, for many, it is not).
>I made such a dumb long post because I want to be challenged on this. If you take the time to reply with why you disagree with me I will be very grateful.
OK, first step:
do you realize that "irrational reason" is, literally, an oxymoron?[1][2]
There is no such thing as irrational reason, by the very definition of the words.
There are, however, reasons that you do not understand. Maybe, as you said, it's a problem with empathy.
Not to say that there is no irrational behavior - people do irrational things. It's just that when we are talking about system patterns - like people not moving out of places they can barely afford - often, there are good reasons why it makes sense for them.
When you see something that looks irrational, it's important to assume ignorance on your part. Otherwise, you won't find out the rationale!
Case in point: you might think that it's irrational for poor people - especially, say, pimps in a poor neighborhood - to buy a lot of gold jewellery instead of investing in something worthwhile.
But then you find out that in their life, it is a very worthwhile investment[3]
TL;DR: never assume something is without reason; assume there is one - and you'll often find it.
[1]https://www.etymonline.com/word/irrational
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron
[3]https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2szqe9/til_p...
"I struggle to understand why people who argue for rationality, i.e., people who I know are very very smart and extremely rational, turn around and expect rationality from populations."
Nassim Taleb writes on this a lot, and I've seen some similar thoughts from Steve Keen [1]. We expect to be able to take individual behaviors and basically linearly combine them into population behaviors, because it's easy to think that way, and it's easy to model in both computers and our heads. When that turns out not to work, we tend to...
... just...
... sorta ignore that, and keep pretending we can linearly combine these things.
"I strongly believe, and have horded anthropological evidence to support this belief, that humans at scale are completely irrational, and to expect otherwise is foolish and irrational."
Per your comment about anthropology, I think people in general are actually often surprisingly rational. In fact, humans will often act quite rationally if you seriously and carefully look at what they are doing when the people using the aforementioned linear models confidently proclaim the irrationality of the humans involved, because the local humans are more capable of understanding the nuances of the non-linear landscapes they are in that the models don't even acknowledge the existence of, and the local humans are constrained in their behaviors by the need to survive and reproduce whereas linear models will tend only to look at groups ("well, in this plan, this one person died literally 15 times but the group overall is doing great numerically, so that's rational behavior" - really easy to write that sort of crap in to a linear model and hide it in the aggregation).
But two things mitigate that in this case. First, in general, humans are just unspeakably awful, unbelievably atrocious, almost impossible to overestimate how bad they are at explaining their actions in rational terms. This is where you get the cynical, possibly to the point of misanthropic, view of the world that everyone is just some sort of raving psychopathic lunatic with as much connection to the real world as a bad surrealist movie. The problem is, that model fails to describe reality; if people were actually that disconnected, society would not be as bad as it is now, it would be worse, to the point of non-existent. There would be no technological society as we know it. So people are not as irrational as all that. One of the major keys to understanding human behavior, and I am 100% serious and using no sarcasm here, is to assign a very low priority to people's stated motivations or reasons. (Simultaneously, there is little to no evolutionary need for people's beliefs about their own reasons to be accurate and we've actively evolved deception, including deception about our stated motivations and goals. So we end up successfully deceiving everyone, even ourselves.)
And second, specific in this case, I think humans have a significant activation energy to do things like "move", for both rational and perhaps irrational reasons, so you see a lot of stickiness as to where people live as a result. I think people also have a hard time visualizing what it would be really like to pick up and completely change their life, which makes it difficult for the "change everything" option to be analyzed properly. Our rationality is much more optimized for the second, minute, day, week, and maybe month time scale. When it comes to making decisions that will be bad for us today but probably be very good for us in five years, we're not terribly well equipped for that. And one can observe that with a simple time-value-of-money calculation there is even a sense in which that is not entirely irrational. You can get stuck in traps where the locally rational thing to do at any given time leads to a long-term suboptimal outcome, and even from a purely rational point of view it can be difficult to escape such traps.
[1]: https://smile.amazon.com/Debunking-Economics-Revised-Expande... - if you want this in intimate mathematical detail this is a good one
Nassim Taleb writes on this a lot, and I've seen some similar thoughts from Steve Keen [1]. We expect to be able to take individual behaviors and basically linearly combine them into population behaviors, because it's easy to think that way, and it's easy to model in both computers and our heads. When that turns out not to work, we tend to...
... just...
... sorta ignore that, and keep pretending we can linearly combine these things.
"I strongly believe, and have horded anthropological evidence to support this belief, that humans at scale are completely irrational, and to expect otherwise is foolish and irrational."
Per your comment about anthropology, I think people in general are actually often surprisingly rational. In fact, humans will often act quite rationally if you seriously and carefully look at what they are doing when the people using the aforementioned linear models confidently proclaim the irrationality of the humans involved, because the local humans are more capable of understanding the nuances of the non-linear landscapes they are in that the models don't even acknowledge the existence of, and the local humans are constrained in their behaviors by the need to survive and reproduce whereas linear models will tend only to look at groups ("well, in this plan, this one person died literally 15 times but the group overall is doing great numerically, so that's rational behavior" - really easy to write that sort of crap in to a linear model and hide it in the aggregation).
But two things mitigate that in this case. First, in general, humans are just unspeakably awful, unbelievably atrocious, almost impossible to overestimate how bad they are at explaining their actions in rational terms. This is where you get the cynical, possibly to the point of misanthropic, view of the world that everyone is just some sort of raving psychopathic lunatic with as much connection to the real world as a bad surrealist movie. The problem is, that model fails to describe reality; if people were actually that disconnected, society would not be as bad as it is now, it would be worse, to the point of non-existent. There would be no technological society as we know it. So people are not as irrational as all that. One of the major keys to understanding human behavior, and I am 100% serious and using no sarcasm here, is to assign a very low priority to people's stated motivations or reasons. (Simultaneously, there is little to no evolutionary need for people's beliefs about their own reasons to be accurate and we've actively evolved deception, including deception about our stated motivations and goals. So we end up successfully deceiving everyone, even ourselves.)
And second, specific in this case, I think humans have a significant activation energy to do things like "move", for both rational and perhaps irrational reasons, so you see a lot of stickiness as to where people live as a result. I think people also have a hard time visualizing what it would be really like to pick up and completely change their life, which makes it difficult for the "change everything" option to be analyzed properly. Our rationality is much more optimized for the second, minute, day, week, and maybe month time scale. When it comes to making decisions that will be bad for us today but probably be very good for us in five years, we're not terribly well equipped for that. And one can observe that with a simple time-value-of-money calculation there is even a sense in which that is not entirely irrational. You can get stuck in traps where the locally rational thing to do at any given time leads to a long-term suboptimal outcome, and even from a purely rational point of view it can be difficult to escape such traps.
[1]: https://smile.amazon.com/Debunking-Economics-Revised-Expande... - if you want this in intimate mathematical detail this is a good one
Convenient non-ref link: https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Economics-Revised-Expanded-...
I don't think that's a referrer link, since I'm not in the referral program. It was just search junk.
smile.amazon.com itself is a general charity program, but you have to set it up for your account. I have a plugin that autoredirects me there, since Amazon won't do it for you. I'm going to leave that; probably some people don't know about it.
smile.amazon.com itself is a general charity program, but you have to set it up for your account. I have a plugin that autoredirects me there, since Amazon won't do it for you. I'm going to leave that; probably some people don't know about it.
> Maybe it's a problem with empathy? Of "putting yourself in someone else's shoes?" Maybe it's not even possible for extremely intelligent, relatively rational people, to adopt the mindset of people who (by choice, culture, or means well outside their control) live more emotional, instinctual lives.
How do people predict other people? The natural way is to imagine yourself being in their situation. For example, if you know that if you hit your head you will be in pain, it is easy to predict that when another person hits their head, they will be in pain. If you know that you would be scared of something, it is easy to predict that other people would be scared of the same thing.
The problem with this natural heuristic is that it only works when the other people are sufficiently similar to you in the relevant aspect. When they differ, the strategy stops working. For example, being hugged makes one person feel happy, but another person hates it; this makes it difficult for them to predict each other's reactions.
I believe this is what causes big problems to many highly intelligent people. They naturally (when they do not think explicitly about what they are doing) assume that other people are just as highly intelligent. They assume other people would see the "obvious" connections, and would avoid doing "obviously" stupid things; when in fact the "obvious" thing may actually require IQ 150 to notice. So they constantly predict people wrong.
Of course, there is also another way of predicting people, by looking from outside. Instead of imagining yourself in their situation, you just use your knowledge about how people in given situation behave. It may be your experience, or prejudice, or something you read in a book; the important thing is that you are NOT imagining yourself, but rather trying to construct the answer in a way that feels impersonal.
This other method has a few disadvantages. First, it takes more attention and time, so you may forget to do it, or you may do it too slowly. Second, because it is more complicated, you will probably learn it at later age (so it is specifically difficult to use for highly intelligent kids). Third, there is a cultural taboo against using it; it will be called manipulative. (There are some good reasons for this taboo in general, but sometimes it just hurts some innocent people.) Fourth, to use this method, you need to have the data.
This was one of the most important lessons in my life that took me too long to learn. Mostly because the society was always explicitly and implicitly telling me to do the opposite: to use the natural strategy, and avoid explicit modeling. This may work for an average person, for whom the natural strategy mostly provides good results. In my case, when I treated people the way I wanted to be treated, it mostly pissed them off. (For example, if I am wrong about something, I prefer when other people tell me about it. Coincidentally, telling other people that they are wrong, especially when they actually are wrong, is a very effective way to make enemies.) In contrast, using even very simplistic and very cynical models provided much better results. (Tell people what they want to hear, which mostly means that they are the best and perfect, and they will classify you as a wise and good person.) I feel bad about using this method, but it works, and it makes the other people happy. There are also a few people with whom the natural method works for me; but they are very rare.
How do people predict other people? The natural way is to imagine yourself being in their situation. For example, if you know that if you hit your head you will be in pain, it is easy to predict that when another person hits their head, they will be in pain. If you know that you would be scared of something, it is easy to predict that other people would be scared of the same thing.
The problem with this natural heuristic is that it only works when the other people are sufficiently similar to you in the relevant aspect. When they differ, the strategy stops working. For example, being hugged makes one person feel happy, but another person hates it; this makes it difficult for them to predict each other's reactions.
I believe this is what causes big problems to many highly intelligent people. They naturally (when they do not think explicitly about what they are doing) assume that other people are just as highly intelligent. They assume other people would see the "obvious" connections, and would avoid doing "obviously" stupid things; when in fact the "obvious" thing may actually require IQ 150 to notice. So they constantly predict people wrong.
Of course, there is also another way of predicting people, by looking from outside. Instead of imagining yourself in their situation, you just use your knowledge about how people in given situation behave. It may be your experience, or prejudice, or something you read in a book; the important thing is that you are NOT imagining yourself, but rather trying to construct the answer in a way that feels impersonal.
This other method has a few disadvantages. First, it takes more attention and time, so you may forget to do it, or you may do it too slowly. Second, because it is more complicated, you will probably learn it at later age (so it is specifically difficult to use for highly intelligent kids). Third, there is a cultural taboo against using it; it will be called manipulative. (There are some good reasons for this taboo in general, but sometimes it just hurts some innocent people.) Fourth, to use this method, you need to have the data.
This was one of the most important lessons in my life that took me too long to learn. Mostly because the society was always explicitly and implicitly telling me to do the opposite: to use the natural strategy, and avoid explicit modeling. This may work for an average person, for whom the natural strategy mostly provides good results. In my case, when I treated people the way I wanted to be treated, it mostly pissed them off. (For example, if I am wrong about something, I prefer when other people tell me about it. Coincidentally, telling other people that they are wrong, especially when they actually are wrong, is a very effective way to make enemies.) In contrast, using even very simplistic and very cynical models provided much better results. (Tell people what they want to hear, which mostly means that they are the best and perfect, and they will classify you as a wise and good person.) I feel bad about using this method, but it works, and it makes the other people happy. There are also a few people with whom the natural method works for me; but they are very rare.
Much of it is about what is trendy, what is the cultural mecca of the moment. Unfortunately the overcrowded west coast continues to dominate the trendseekers mindset, which is why you have ridiculous housing prices all over, a severe homeless crisis, terrible traffic, and rampant overcrowding.
Make the midwest, south, and NE "cool" and trendy, and all the trendseekers who endlessly trucked out to the west coast will suddenly discover how "amazing" and "cool" - and ridiculously affordable - Columbus Ohio, Shreveport LA, Rochester NY, or Madison WI are. The price of a downpayment in any west coast state will buy the entire home - cash - in those locations, and in many cases you'll have money left over.
Make the midwest, south, and NE "cool" and trendy, and all the trendseekers who endlessly trucked out to the west coast will suddenly discover how "amazing" and "cool" - and ridiculously affordable - Columbus Ohio, Shreveport LA, Rochester NY, or Madison WI are. The price of a downpayment in any west coast state will buy the entire home - cash - in those locations, and in many cases you'll have money left over.
It's much more complicated than that. Weather is a huge factor. Network effects are not so trivial or easily displaced. Walkability and public transit are major factors that contribute to those network effects and establish a city's culture -- which is a very difficult thing to reproduce. Not to mention politics. It's easy to say "just move to Shreveport!" But many, many people would feel very uncomfortable moving to these locations due to their religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or whatever. And maybe the city itself is much more liberal than its surroundings. However, there are still genuine political concerns that many individuals would have for policy decisions made at a state-level that would directly affect their well-being.
The major argument people from the midwest or the south give in favor of their locations is lower house prices. Many of the "trendseekers" have no interest suburban tract homes. I think the people advancing this argument should understand that a home is, for many, just one factor amongst many in determining where to live, and in many cases is not the strongest. Shreveport, LA is not "uncool" because of some accident of trendiness. It's uncool because it's uncool. There are no strong networks there, no extensive public transportation systems, no walkability, no political protections for marginalized groups -- etc., etc. It's a lot more than just trendiness.
I say this as someone who has never lived on either coast. Just keep in mind that much of America seems unappealing or unfriendly to people who are not from here for legitimate reasons.
The major argument people from the midwest or the south give in favor of their locations is lower house prices. Many of the "trendseekers" have no interest suburban tract homes. I think the people advancing this argument should understand that a home is, for many, just one factor amongst many in determining where to live, and in many cases is not the strongest. Shreveport, LA is not "uncool" because of some accident of trendiness. It's uncool because it's uncool. There are no strong networks there, no extensive public transportation systems, no walkability, no political protections for marginalized groups -- etc., etc. It's a lot more than just trendiness.
I say this as someone who has never lived on either coast. Just keep in mind that much of America seems unappealing or unfriendly to people who are not from here for legitimate reasons.
Plus, I mean, the elephant in the room is jobs. I'd probably be pretty happy in Upstate New York, but the options for work are far fewer than they are near major, booming cities.
Yes, absolutely. And those network effects I mentioned above significantly contribute to high-skill job markets in many cases.
Just how many jobs do you need? It only takes one good one that pays the appropriate amount, right?
No. I do not want to live somewhere where I cannot find another job if I am fired or decide I want to quit the one I have.
Maybe if it were a union job. As long as it's a right-to-work job, there needs to be a backup plan.
Besides that, the lack of available alternatives will almost surely depress your wages.
I read the article, and the comments here. I am struggling quite a bit in articulating what is going on in my head. I will try, with hopefully some modicum of success.
Let's start with how you ended your comment:
>Just keep in mind that much of America seems unappealing or unfriendly to people who are not from here for legitimate reasons.
It is ironic you say that because I was thinking about something very similar while reading the piece, but with the opposite sentiment. As hard as it may be to believe, the US is fairly homogenous. The language is the same, and the accents don't vary a lot, when you compare with a number of countries out there. The values are so similar that the differences really stand out, and we spend all our time focusing on the differences. Within the US, I have lived in the big city, in a rural area, in a very liberal area and a very conservative area, and the differences in values have impacted my life very minimally (as in I have not had to actively adjust anything in my lifestyle to fit in).
From an outsider's perspective, the US is very uniform given it's size and population.
Now look at it from a perspective of a foreigner who moves to the US - regardless of whether it was via the university system, H-1B, visa lottery, etc. Many of the issues you, other commenters, and the article mention, are simply dwarfed by all the other differences they have to put up with.
And yet, by and large, immigrants are more successful in the US than the local populace. The issues they face are more. Many of them do not have cash and struggle a lot initially.
I do not think the problem lies in network effects, politics, weather, etc (although I will grant sexual orientation/gender identity probably is a big factor). The problem seems to be in attitudes and expectations. I'm guessing immigrants have the mentality of "we'll have problems, and we will seek solutions" (honestly don't know - never asked them). Whereas much of the article and sentiment I see here is "We'll have problems, let's not even try". Or "I don't want to move. It just won't be the same there" (well of course!)
Forget immigrants. Look at the history of the US. People 50 years ago moved as well, with no better certainty than today's climate. Yes, the culture of the new city will be somewhat different. Yes it may not be as walkable. Yes you'll have to develop a new support network. None of this is new.
People do not realize they may get something positive out of the new culture. I remember when I was in a small university town in the Midwest, my colleague was from California and he was really depressed about it (not the university, but the town). He would talk about how boring it was, etc. It was trivial for me to list a rather large number of interesting/fun things that were available to him that he had not even tried (most within his interests). The notion that he had a boring life was purely internal.
>Weather is a huge factor.
I mean, of all the things. You're willing to risk not having a roof over your head because you want nice weather? Do you not see how this sounds to others?
This really sounds a lot like "I found a place that is heaven, and I do not want to leave". And a lot of "Moving is hard. Someone should make it easier for me before I move."
Sorry - really do not aim to be judgmental.
Let's start with how you ended your comment:
>Just keep in mind that much of America seems unappealing or unfriendly to people who are not from here for legitimate reasons.
It is ironic you say that because I was thinking about something very similar while reading the piece, but with the opposite sentiment. As hard as it may be to believe, the US is fairly homogenous. The language is the same, and the accents don't vary a lot, when you compare with a number of countries out there. The values are so similar that the differences really stand out, and we spend all our time focusing on the differences. Within the US, I have lived in the big city, in a rural area, in a very liberal area and a very conservative area, and the differences in values have impacted my life very minimally (as in I have not had to actively adjust anything in my lifestyle to fit in).
From an outsider's perspective, the US is very uniform given it's size and population.
Now look at it from a perspective of a foreigner who moves to the US - regardless of whether it was via the university system, H-1B, visa lottery, etc. Many of the issues you, other commenters, and the article mention, are simply dwarfed by all the other differences they have to put up with.
And yet, by and large, immigrants are more successful in the US than the local populace. The issues they face are more. Many of them do not have cash and struggle a lot initially.
I do not think the problem lies in network effects, politics, weather, etc (although I will grant sexual orientation/gender identity probably is a big factor). The problem seems to be in attitudes and expectations. I'm guessing immigrants have the mentality of "we'll have problems, and we will seek solutions" (honestly don't know - never asked them). Whereas much of the article and sentiment I see here is "We'll have problems, let's not even try". Or "I don't want to move. It just won't be the same there" (well of course!)
Forget immigrants. Look at the history of the US. People 50 years ago moved as well, with no better certainty than today's climate. Yes, the culture of the new city will be somewhat different. Yes it may not be as walkable. Yes you'll have to develop a new support network. None of this is new.
People do not realize they may get something positive out of the new culture. I remember when I was in a small university town in the Midwest, my colleague was from California and he was really depressed about it (not the university, but the town). He would talk about how boring it was, etc. It was trivial for me to list a rather large number of interesting/fun things that were available to him that he had not even tried (most within his interests). The notion that he had a boring life was purely internal.
>Weather is a huge factor.
I mean, of all the things. You're willing to risk not having a roof over your head because you want nice weather? Do you not see how this sounds to others?
This really sounds a lot like "I found a place that is heaven, and I do not want to leave". And a lot of "Moving is hard. Someone should make it easier for me before I move."
Sorry - really do not aim to be judgmental.
CA is the most desirable geography in the USA. The homelessness problem isn't because CA is trendy. CA has been the destination for the USA's disenfranchised and opportunity-seekers for decades because it's the best place to start a new life and not die over the winter. That might be ending now that CA is "full".
The OP might have meant less "disenfranchised" and more "people with money, jobs, and the means to move." I, for example, wasn't exactly disenfranchised when I moved to SF (poor, broke, sure, but with enough credit to get a loan and float on credit cards until I got a job).
For me, I chose SF because I was confident I could learn to program and then get a job here, and having an in to cheap housing for Chinese immigrants I knew I could do it without completely bankrupting myself. Opportunities like that don't necessarily exist in Madison, WI, as local culture makes the place a bit more traditional and resistant to, say, bootcamp-educated programmers.
For me, I chose SF because I was confident I could learn to program and then get a job here, and having an in to cheap housing for Chinese immigrants I knew I could do it without completely bankrupting myself. Opportunities like that don't necessarily exist in Madison, WI, as local culture makes the place a bit more traditional and resistant to, say, bootcamp-educated programmers.
Is northern California that much worse in the winters? Or the less popular areas of California? Because whenever we hear about homelessness being a booming problem it's usually to do with SF or perhaps L.A.
SF is in Northern California, so I don't understand the question.
If you mean to ask why the homeless don't go to Nowheresville, CA, it's probably because there are no social services available for them there.
If you mean to ask why the homeless don't go to Nowheresville, CA, it's probably because there are no social services available for them there.
I'd say SF is more mid-California, compared to what's north of Sacramento. North of Sacramento is pretty rural, full of people wanting to implement the State of Jefferson. But you're right, there isn't much in the way of social services in northern California, due to the population. The only real population centers are Chico and Redding. I haven't spent any time in Chico, but Redding has quite a few homeless, and there isn't much in the way of social services. The City of Redding doesn't have money to burn like SF apparently does, so the homeless pretty much have to fend for themselves. I get the feeling that a lot of Redding's homeless population is on their way somewhere; Redding is kind of a midway stop along I-5 or to the coast.
I'm on the East Coast, but Wikipedia describes San Francisco as "the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California."
Yeah, and it's understandable why they would say that. Realistically the only places people care about in California are Los Angeles and San Francisco (and to some extent Sacramento and San Diego), and compared to LA, SF is definitely north. Culturally and politically, though, north of Sacramento is quite different from SF. I mean, you see lots of signs supporting the formation of Jefferson State (and seceding from CA). I've had California natives talk about how SF wasn't really northern CA. And geographically, it actually is kind of mid (on the northern end of mid, but still).
Northern California winters aren't harsh, but still don't compare with Southern California's.
If tons of high paying jobs suddenly open up in the Midwest it will not continue to be ridiculously affordable. Good jobs are trendy and will never go out of style.
People don't move places because they're trendy. They move places and stay there because that's where the jobs are.
And because they're safe, and because they feel a sense of community with the people they've met there, and because they're able to indulge their hobbies and because they have family that live there and told them it's great, and because...
The reasoning is vast and wild. Job markets are one factor, but there's a huge pile of reasons that factor in. Sometimes that includes being trendy.
The reasoning is vast and wild. Job markets are one factor, but there's a huge pile of reasons that factor in. Sometimes that includes being trendy.
Sure, that's why you move from one place with a decent job market to another with a decent job market.
But people an aggregate move towards places that offer economic opportunity and away from those that don't -- hence the waves of migration from rural to urban areas and away from dying cities like Detroit.
The only people (not quite that absolute, but close enough) who move from a place with plentiful opportunity to one without opportunity are those who a) have no choice (or feel they have no choice) -- be it due to being priced out or having to take care of an aging parent; or b) aren't subject to such economic pressures (work remotely or are financially independent).
But people an aggregate move towards places that offer economic opportunity and away from those that don't -- hence the waves of migration from rural to urban areas and away from dying cities like Detroit.
The only people (not quite that absolute, but close enough) who move from a place with plentiful opportunity to one without opportunity are those who a) have no choice (or feel they have no choice) -- be it due to being priced out or having to take care of an aging parent; or b) aren't subject to such economic pressures (work remotely or are financially independent).
Looking at Boston or NYC suggests the problem isn't that the Northeast isn't cool enough.
I moved someplace cheaper to get off the street. I did that in part by developing an online income under very challenging circumstances. I was able to make the move shortly after paying off my student loan.
On the one hand, we need more affordable housing. On the other, I see a lot of potential for reducing our current problems by providing more support for developing portable, flexible income via the internet.
What I did is not easy to arrange. It took me several years and I am certainly not in the lap of luxury yet.
I do get frustrated when people act like there is no housing crisis, there is plenty of cheap housing. Yeah, sure but it mostly isn't near employment centers. If you don't have an income, you can't afford housing, no matter how cheap it is.
The way to promote that idea without being a butt about it is to provide support for people to develop an online income instead of acting like they are just stupid or lazy that their life isn't working.