Hacker News: codinghorror

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 01:23:36 +0000

The largest chunk of federal "cash transfers" is not welfare; it is retirement and disability spending. The rural population is significantly older than the urban population.

Bear in mind that rural poverty rates (~17%) remain persistently higher than urban poverty rates (~12%).

And in a high-wage urban area (e.g., Seattle), a $20,000 Social Security check is a tiny fraction of the local per capita income. In a rural area, that same $20k check represents a much larger slice of the total economic pie. This makes the reliance on government cash appear massive -- ~29% rural and ~17% urban -- even if the absolute dollar difference is more modest.

Also, metro areas receive MASSIVE amounts of federal contracting money (defense, science, universities, federal employees), whereas rural areas get virtually none.

Mostly this is caused by the "graying" of rural America and the persistent lack of high-wage employment in rural areas.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 01:05:27 +0000

I'd like to add that I feel quite strongly "Universal" and "Basic" are hugely probematic words. You end up with massive digressions immediately.. case in point.. look at this AMA for proof:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1onb5y8/can_guarantee...

How much of that MASSIVE SET OF DIGRESSIONS (which Neil handled like a gentleman, because he's a truly nice person) could have been avoided by not using "universal" (like, every atom in the universe? every person in the world? every mammal in this country) and "basic" (what is basic, even?) ..

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:56:48 +0000

The EIC connection is covered in the history pages, which are fascinating in my opinion: https://rgmii.org/history-of-gmi/

As for a "does this person actually live in this area" criteria, I have a hard time seeing that single thing alone as "bureaucracy" -- it's quite common.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:52:32 +0000

with GMI the conditions are very simple math: what percent of the poverty line are you within?

I agree that adding a lot of conditions is part of the problem, but "help those who most need it first" seems like a very logical primary (and perhaps only) condition.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:50:56 +0000

Yes, within 8 months we went from "how do we make systemic change" to actually doing it. This is proof. And the GMI topics are on that dedicated site, not Coding Horror.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:43:19 +0000

"Why rural Americans? The same amount of cash will go a lot further and likely be more effective in rural areas of other countries."

Again, the data goes into an open global repository that DOES help the entire world. We will all learn from it. When our house is currently on fire, I think we should deal with that first.

It's also "yes, and". Gates Foundation (among others) is working on other areas of the world and has vastly more money.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:40:57 +0000

What's bad about this idea? I'd like to know.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:40:18 +0000

I strongly recommend you check out the book "$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America". People -- in this country, not in the third world -- are regularly selling their blood so they can afford to eat. https://www.google.com/search?q=%242+a+day%3A+living+on+almo...

What difference does it make if the government is "capable" when it's not happening in practice?

A lot of areas in this country resemble the third world more than the rest of America. Don't take it from me. Try the book reference I provided and its citations.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:37:52 +0000

it's "yes, and". Help those people who are selling their blood to buy happy meals first. I am not exaggerating. I wish I was. Check out the book "$2.00 a day: Living On Almost Nothing in America" for so much evidence. Disclaimer: I know the author now. Because I have to. It's related to the work we're doing. https://www.google.com/search?q=%242+a+day%3A+living+on+almo...

Beyond that, maybe SF really is too expensive a place to live in.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:34:40 +0000

100% do things locally. If there is a food bank in your area, support it heavily. That's the absolute base of the hierarchy of needs. For example, in that blog post, expand the immediate donations. Note $100k to Alameda Food Bank, where my partner Betsy regularly volunteers.

New comment by codinghorror in "Launching the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative"

codinghorror — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:33:33 +0000

well, none of the study data actually supports these claims, for one thing. Take a look. https://rgmii.org/gmi-study-analysis/

New comment by codinghorror in "Let's Talk About the American Dream"

codinghorror — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 22:10:14 +0000

"The whole reason he's a public figure is from his blog posts that include a bunch of deliberately placed attitude and bombast of the sort that turns a lot of people away but is selected for anyway because it gets just as many (or more) followers, and attention is only additive."

This is not a defensible statement *based on my writing*. Give it a shot, if you think you can pull it off. I'd like to see some real citations here rather than broad, unsupported generalizations.

Now try *that same statement against DHH's writing* -- what you said is exactly correct.

New comment by codinghorror in "Let's Talk About the American Dream"

codinghorror — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 08:53:56 +0000

I suggest you look at closely at DHH for an example of what you're really talking about.

New comment by codinghorror in "Interview with Jeff Atwood, Co-Founder of Stack Overflow"

codinghorror — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 04:29:36 +0000

Thank you! We did it together. More news will be coming soon ;)

New comment by codinghorror in "Celebrating a Decade of Discourse"

codinghorror — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 02:11:35 +0000

Thank you for the kind words! A project should never be about me, personally, anyhow -- it's always joint decisions between the team and the communities actually using the software. Please email me at jatwood@codinghorror.com if you'd like to review a draft of an upcoming blog post I'm planning to make that relates to Discourse, but is far wider in scope.

New comment by codinghorror in "Aardvark'd: The Fog Creek documentary, 18 years later"

codinghorror — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 01:12:26 +0000

"hired" is a bit of a stretch! Joel had some design input, and the original "let's replace this terrible thing with something better" idea for sure, and Expert-sex-change was the mimeograph, but it was me, Jarrod Dixon and Geoff Dalgas and then Kevin Dente in the earliest days.

New comment by codinghorror in "Aardvark'd: The Fog Creek documentary, 18 years later"

codinghorror — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 00:24:20 +0000

I dunno, I'm with Joel on this one. Not a Java fan.

New comment by codinghorror in "Aardvark'd: The Fog Creek documentary, 18 years later"

codinghorror — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 00:19:30 +0000

Hi Ben! We'll always have London..

New comment by codinghorror in "Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community"

codinghorror — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 01:17:17 +0000

It's not though; all topics are permanent and searchable. So it's the best of both worlds. Have you ever tried searching chatrooms and 100+ channels? Excruciating.

New comment by codinghorror in "Use forums rather than Slack/Discord to support developer community"

codinghorror — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 01:15:46 +0000

Well, in Discourse press the pound key to jump to any date or specific post. Press ? to see the full set of keyboard shortcuts.