
Homeless man releases app after learning to code - sethbannon
http://nypost.com/2013/12/11/homeless-man-learns-to-code-releases-app/
======
ritchiea
On one hand this is great, on the other, what does this guy do now? How does
this help him? I imagine this helps his self esteem, which is a good thing and
a meaningful non-tangible benefit. But it's not as though he can go get a job
now. And he still doesn't have a place to live. And I'm not saying the dev who
taught Leo to code is somehow in the wrong, I'm genuinely curious what the
next step could be for this gentleman.

~~~
moocowduckquack
This isn't actually as rare as is being made out, though good luck to him,
once he has an online folio of work sorted he should be able to freelance off
this. A lot of people have housing problems during their lives and there are a
fair few coders, so it is no surprise that the two sets overlap, especially
given the tendency to nomadism. It is amazing what you can do with a cheap
laptop and free wifi.

~~~
coldtea
> _This isn 't actually as rare as is being made out_

Well, of all the app developers (there are now 1 million apps for iOS alone,
so let's say all US developers are 100,000) how many are similar cases? 1? 2?
10?

1 such story in multiple thousands IS rate in my books.

~~~
moocowduckquack
3.5 million people in the US experience homelessness in any given year, I
think you would be suprised how many professionals have gone through a period
of homelessness. Most people who have gone through housing problems don't tend
to advertise the fact in work situations.

------
ctdonath
Excellent. Instead of just taking other people's money and giving it to
someone for no return, an individual actually chose charity, aided the willing
without government interference, and "taught a man to fish." Bravo!

~~~
coldtea
Or, you know, you could come to the exact inverse conclusion:

An sad isolated example where a man helps another man (arbitrarily him, and to
the neglect of others in the same condition), instead of our society having
standard procedures and programs to help everybody in the same situation.

~~~
FellowTraveler
Just because society is supposed to do something, does not mean that
government is supposed to do that thing.

Likely the problem you are so quick to put government in charge of, wouldn't
be a problem in the first place if we had a free economy.

~~~
coldtea
> _Just because society is supposed to do something, does not mean that
> government is supposed to do that thing._

Why not? Government is the set of people we, society, put in place to do some
work for us in an organized fashion.

So if there's something society at large has to do and that is not about
individual action, then the government better see to it pronto. That's what
people pay taxes for -- so we can have things like roads, bridges, clean
water, schools, armies and action to aid the more unfortunate.

> _Likely the problem you are so quick to put government in charge of, wouldn
> 't be a problem in the first place if we had a free economy._

Yes, but also if we had free ponies. I don't deal in "what if" scenarios
alluding to some perfect state of being that nobody has seen. This is the kind
of economy we have, it might get more or less free, but nobody has seen a
"free economy" anywhere, and I don't see such a thing coming in any
conceivable time frame.

~~~
FellowTraveler
I think you misunderstand what government actually is. Government is the
collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

I have a right to use force in self-defense.

Therefore I have the right to hire a bodyguard to use force in my defense. (In
fact it is the same right - delegated.)

Therefore we have the right to elect a sheriff to use force in our defense.

...But I do NOT have the right to beat and rob people.

Therefore, neither do I have any right to hire a bodyguard to beat and rob
people.

Therefore, neither does our sheriff have any right to beat and rob people --
even if we voted for him to do so! Because you cannot delegate powers you
never had.

Therefore the question isn't whether society should provide social welfare for
the needy. Rather, the question is whether we have a moral right to use
VIOLENCE to FORCE people to provide social welfare for the needy. (We don't.)

The only time we have a right to use violence is in defense against murderers
and thieves. Once we start trying to use it to solve social problems, we end
up making those problems worse, not better.

The reason you see poverty in various nations is because they do not have
economic freedom and secure property rights. The nations with the worst
poverty are the ones with the worst protections of rights. The nations with
the lowest poverty are the nations with the best protections of rights. And
note: those are also the nations who donate the most money to charity.

Government can never fix poverty by using violence to forcefully redistribute
wealth. All that will do is cause worse poverty.

The best a government can do is strongly protect rights and economic freedoms
-- then you will have a rich nation, which will not have poverty problems in
the first place, and which will easily be able to cover the rest through
private charity.

Unfortunately we do not see any governments today that respect rights and
freedoms in this way, although some are better than others. But proposed
solutions based on "social welfare" will only make those problems worse, not
better.

You say that you do not deal in "what if" scenarios -- you say that there is
no "perfect state." I agree with this. But behaving more and more like North
Korea is not some magical solution either. It just makes things worse.

------
zacinbusiness
Wow! I've got no excuse!

------
bigd
Good for him. Now, why should we give a shit? since when should we care about
who does what? sorry but for what I remember, this must be the third attempt
to go viral with this crap. TLDR: another carpooling app.

~~~
uptown
Who asked you to 'give a shit'? Who even asked you to weigh in on this? TLDR:
Nobody.

~~~
Dylan16807
Everyone upvoting it on the discussion site news.ycombinator.com

~~~
Hydraulix989
I think the intended intent behind an upvote on these news aggregation sites
is that the actor oneself "gives a shit" about the article -- rather than
"wants others to 'give a shit'" about the article. Of course, in practice,
it's the latter, especially for one's own submissions.

------
johngrefe
This is why I don't lurk HN much anymore. Great story, terrible discussion.

