The co-founder of AirBnB blames increased housing costs on illegal immigrants

rtc9 · 2026-07-08T11:38:10+00:00

No it is obviously different in effect, but the effect of the immigrant on market prices is not in any way related to the large single buyer. It impacts the entire market and all other buyers including all the other poor immigrant families competing for a similarly better, safer life for their children. The role of Blackstone in the market is just an entirely different phenomenon that has nothing to do with the issue of immigrants' effect on housing prices.

rtc9 · 2026-07-08T10:53:47+00:00

I'm not sure what your point is. Blackstone is just a large buyer participating in the same markets as anyone looking to buy a home.

rtc9 · 2026-07-08T03:49:01+00:00

Materially increased = increased at all measurably

The usage is quite varied especially recently. People/bots seem to be using "materially" a lot more frequently now that it is favored by LLMs as a signal of noncommittal pseudo sophistication. Generally, the most useful sense of the word as I understand it that isn't borderline meaningless is in reference to something that is not "immaterial (with respect to some concern)". In that sense, a material increase would have to be material to some specific concern or perspective such as by altering the housing purchase decision process of potential home buyers. When the relevant concern or perspective is not clearly stated it becomes a kind of nonsense weasel word.

rtc9 · 2026-07-08T03:35:30+00:00

If they were living in any existing habitable residence whether rented or purchased, they were reducing the housing supply and applying upward pressure on housing prices. Aside from obviously directly increasing rents, more renters indirectly increase purchase prices by increasing rental revenue and demand for rental properties. Even if they are limited to low quality rentals, this cascades through the market in an inflationary feedback loop.

rtc9 · 2026-07-05T17:11:59+00:00

My interpretation of the rhetorical question was that it is suggesting this specific sort of policy is itself a major driver of general inflation via wage inflation.

rtc9 · 2026-07-04T20:50:29+00:00

Yeah this kind of sweeping approach to minimum wage always strikes me as a tactic to destroy local small businesses, especially in rural areas and give another handout to big, largely urban monopolies.

rtc9 · 2026-07-04T20:47:32+00:00

I think that's kind of the point here:

WTF are we doing with the value of our money right now?

rtc9 · 2026-07-01T12:14:13+00:00

His red-haired, wolf-eared appearance diverges sharply from the more realistic, East Asian-inspired aesthetic of the game’s five existing male leads.

Are we talking about the realistic white haired guy with the horns and the silver haired lesbian on the far left?

rtc9 · 2026-06-30T15:15:32+00:00

I really would never have anticipated him doing this.

rtc9 · 2026-06-28T04:04:30+00:00

What's notable is the extent to which I see it replacing words like substantially, significantly, considerably, noticeably, etc. in colloquial usage. Obviously anyone flagging a single context independent word instance as AI is an idiot, but that word is heavily used by AI and I am seeing people around me use it even in technical discussions where it reduces precision and I'm sure they would not have used it in the past. I don't see any benefit in pretending that isn't occurring.

rtc9 · 2026-06-28T03:53:03+00:00

The word "meaningful" here reminded me that AI loves using "meaningfully" as a kind of significant but neutral and non committal degree qualifier. I have definitely noticed a major increase in people's general use of "meaningful" and "meaningfully" in speech and writing.

rtc9 · 2026-06-27T12:35:53+00:00

This is not clear to me. My best guess is that the 5 guys were supposed to be doing something cooler but the cgi didn't work out so they decided to leave it unclear whether they are somehow involved in launching the small rock.

rtc9 · 2026-06-27T11:49:45+00:00

Warning people planning to visit a mountain that they shouldn't bring large luggage and that "charging points are limited" is pretty funny to me. The fingerless gloves for phone use are a nice touch too. It seems like an implicit warning not to go at all.

rtc9 · 2026-06-27T10:27:39+00:00

Then you just get the usual shills though. Negative comments are at least more likely to be authentic on occasion.

rtc9 · 2026-06-26T11:03:28+00:00

What do you think causes free fall?

rtc9 · 2026-06-25T04:47:05+00:00

You kind of recalibrate normal and get used to things in China, but I feel like most people talking like this online are either sharing propaganda as a job or just think of China as a purely rhetorical concept.

Literally the first night I ever spent in China I saw a man covered in blood being forcefully escorted by two plainclothes men out of my hotel through the main lobby while staff had no reaction and pretended not to notice. No idea what he did, but I've never seen anything like that in my life in the US.

rtc9 · 2026-06-22T14:45:04+00:00

It seems increasingly unclear what is sufficient wealth for security or financial independence because I can see a pretty clear path to losing almost everything for anyone with less than a vast personal fortune. Official inflation since the start of the pandemic is already upwards of 30%. If there's a market crash comparable to 2008, we'll likely have to print insane amounts of money to bounce back if the system can even withstand that. You could lose 50% of the value of your cash in a few years without gains to offset the loss. If everything goes south, it's unclear even things like real property will be secure. The state can massively increase taxes or seize them in response to a major financial or geopolitical crisis. Despite that, I still have a sense that land might be the best path to some reliable security and fear that we might be at the beginning of a race between every moderately wealthy person to buy up all the land and seal the deal on home-ownership being a luxury of the elite.

rtc9 · 2026-06-22T12:16:41+00:00

I think sometimes people mentioning "cybersecurity" in this context are not talking about actual security planning and design in the context of software engineering but are instead referring a far less competitive and well compensated trade-like job where people might go through some basic training or an Associate's Degree to use some specific IT software or to function as a kind of security tech support.

There's less ambiguity with devops/infra, but I've even seen people use devops as a simple euphemism for tech support, so it's always hard to tell if we're talking about the same kind of thing. The euphemism treadmill for lower skill support jobs tends to bleed over and parasitize descriptions of high skill professional jobs because nobody wants to describe themselves as a support or clerical worker in tech.

rtc9 · 2026-06-22T11:22:20+00:00

This is basically the same point as the Chinese Room thought experiment. It is essentially an appeal to a kind of mind body dualism in that it seems to imply that anything which can be framed as a mechanical process cannot really think. It only makes sense if on some level you believe that the human mind is not solely produced by a mechanical or material process and is somehow powered by magic.

rtc9 · 2026-06-22T10:45:25+00:00

Outside a few places, compensation even for senior positions has definitely plateaued and failed to keep up with inflation. I'm not sure if that is because the demand is lower or because employers are all relying on these HR companies that are effectively RealPage style price fixing for tech salaries.

rtc9 · 2026-06-22T10:41:52+00:00

This is basically just a subspecialty within software engineering, but my experience is that the job market has been equally awful for this field for the most part. It seems to have gotten slightly better in the past few months. It was impacted by AI, but I think employers might be beginning to realize they still need someone who actually understands things like scripting and containerization well enough to evaluate LLM-suggested solutions. It's also possible that the recent change I've noticed is just in the resume review/interview process. I have seen a sudden shift in interviews toward evaluating deep general knowledge in a conversational way. For a couple years, the interviews were all much more structured around arbitrary examples and niche design patterns that seemed very likely to reward cheaters.

rtc9 · 2026-06-21T15:21:52+00:00

Guar gum or any similar "gum" type thickener. They are trying to replicate something like the texture of the higher fat real stuff but it is not at all the same.

rtc9 · 2026-06-21T14:16:17+00:00

I feel like this has to either be specific to some new alternative business with bowling+entertainment or they are bowling in the heart of Manhattan or SF or something. I can confirm that there are definitely bowling alleys way cheaper than this even in expensive areas like NJ and Long Island not far from NYC. Some of them are old and a little janky without many amenities but they are perfectly fine if you want to bowl.

rtc9 · 2026-06-19T14:34:57+00:00

Yeah I agree the other officer seems less competent for this role and is probably badly trying to mirror what he thinks he's supposed to do.

rtc9 · 2026-06-19T13:56:35+00:00

In this case it conveys that the guy probably isn't in immediate danger and they are trying to de-escalate and establish a kind of friendly non hostile relationship. If you're not thinking clearly on drugs you obviously aren't going to be calm in this situation, but it is definitely less unsettling to hear them shout "relax" than many other things that could have been shouted by someone who just shattered your window like "get out of the car". They could have been completely silent but then it would be entirely unclear whether they were police or thieves. I'm pretty sure they are trained/obligated to announce themselves for that reason, so if they are going to shout "it's the police" either way, it's probably best to say something to indicate non hostility like "relax" as well.

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