
“Rich People Can’t Stop”: The Luxe Quarantine Lives of Silicon Valley’s Elite - harambae
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/08/luxe-quarantine-lives-of-silicon-valley-elite
======
OldHand2018
> One California government official told me that some public school teachers
> are being enticed away to teach a single child in more affluent areas, like
> Beverly Hills and Palo Alto—a scenario this person called “fucked up,” and
> one that’s proving to be a real problem for school systems.

Good for those teachers, and if it's causing problems for school systems maybe
they should treat their teachers better.

~~~
ergocoder
Yeah, exactly. I cannot believe they use this story as one of the anecdotes
about rich people being bad.

Teachers are not their slaves. They can choose work that is better.

~~~
hcknwscommenter
The point is, we all pay taxes. Education is a fundamental right. Schools are
already underfunded because of anti-tax fundamentalism that is rampant among
those who can most afford to pay taxes. Now, they simply buy our teachers out
from under those of us who can't afford to pay 25K per child.

~~~
DuskStar
> Schools are already underfunded

Do you have any way to show this? Do student outcomes actually vary with the
amount of funding the school gets? At the very least, the Kansas City
Experiment [0] says that dumping infinite money into a failing school district
doesn't materially impact outcomes.

0: [https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-
xpm-1995-06-22-950622...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-
xpm-1995-06-22-9506220051-story.html)

~~~
hcknwscommenter
I show this by the fact that apparently, according to the article, teachers
are being lured away from the public school to teach private pods in the
pandemic. Keep in mind, public schools in CA are entirely distance learning.
So, these teachers are taking on a health risk to take these private jobs.
Obviously they are not being paid enough by the public school to forgo the
health risk/higher pay.

~~~
DuskStar
That doesn't actually show anything about the impact on students, though. For
all we know, doubling online class sizes doesn't change outcomes. (Because
outcomes are already so poor, and might be basically comparable to doing
nothing, for instance)

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sudeepj
Was there an incident/outbreak in history which affected all (or the majority
population) and the rich were substantially affected?

Take WW1 or WW2 for example. The rich/aristocratic flew away from troubled
zones. In the times of famine or drought, I do not recall anyone from rich
class suffered.

Why covid should be different? It is the way it always have been. Instead of
thinking of rich and poor people, I have started to view them as "roles". I
bet that the people who are pointing fingers at rich today would behave the
same if they were to become rich. The behaviour largely remains same just the
actual people keep changing.

~~~
sudosysgen
This is a pretty empty argument. Instead of saying "you would do the same if
you were rich", how about we change the system that allows them to do so? Then
you can know that even if I become rich I won't do the same.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Responding to a disaster by leveraging your resources to protect your personal
interests is a pretty fundamental human impulse. I doubt any system could
prevent that.

~~~
sudosysgen
Sure there are. I'm not allowed to leverage my resources to get myself out of
conscription, why should a rich person be able to? As far as I know the state
exists, you can just throw them in jail as soon as they step in, just like
what would happen here.

As far as a billionaire holding parties during a pandemic that killed over a
hundred thousand people, you threaten them with jail time. It works, if you
don't have a corrupt state.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
But would you also support jailing the normal people holding parties during a
pandemic? Arresting people for social distancing violations is extraordinarily
unpopular as far as I know, and a non-corrupt state does need to enforce laws
equally.

~~~
sudosysgen
Of course. Equality under the law is important. You can start with 24h
detention not to be too harsh.

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patrick451
Moral outrage in the age of covid. "Egad, they were socializingi! With
testing! The Horror!"

Yawn.

------
dfee
> For those who don’t want to be in America (and let’s be frank, who really
> wants to be in America right now?)

Oh Vanity Fair, how vain is thee. Owned by Condé Nast which is in turn owned
by one of the 10-15 wealthiest families in America [0]. Excuse me while puke
in my mouth as you go on about classism.

[https://www.forbes.com/profile/newhouse/#3793bea16580](https://www.forbes.com/profile/newhouse/#3793bea16580)

~~~
rbg246
Isn't it good that a company owned by rich people can write about the morals
of other rich people? Albeit a vapid article.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
It's good, but... do you remember the "stay inside" articles that were coming
out in March and April? The ones that explained that responsible people need
to find some indoor hobbies, stay there, and only open the door when the
Instacart guy comes with food or the Amazon guy comes with craft supplies? I
get the same kind of feeling here. Sure, rich billionaires have a lifestyle
that largely insulates them from the effects of the pandemic - but so do
Vanity Fair reporters, so I don't know where they found this high horse to get
on about it.

~~~
refurb
Let's throw politicians in the mix there too. Lots of "you should do X", but
of course, they can't be held to the same standard because they have important
business running the country that requires an exception.

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mips_avatar
After reading the paragraph about efoils I just spent the next twenty minutes
on the efoil site. Now I really want one.
[https://liftfoils.com/efoil/](https://liftfoils.com/efoil/)

------
jeffbee
"Silicon Valley" has come to encompass the entire Pacific coast, I see. Travis
Kalanick is a guy who is from LA, went to UCLA, and lives in LA. I mean yeah
he got fired from Uber, but that company isn't in Silicon Valley, either.

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CarbyAu
Is anyone really surprised?

Aside: for me Amazon is now useless. Not living in America means I need to
filter by the sender being somewhere near me. Unless I am missing something,
Amazon doesn't let me filter such.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I'm curious, why do you need to filter by the sender being somewhere near you?
As far as I know international freight is still travelling uninterrupted.

~~~
CarbyAu
Internation freight may be travelling in some sense but the time differences
for me now are huge.

Motorbike parts used to be airfreight. I am now waiting 8-10 weeks as it comes
by sea.

I use eBay now because - as per sibling comment - it lets me filter by where
the sender is. For little bits and pieces - silicon tubing etc - I can often
find it in my own city. Otherwise I'd have to wait for it to come from America
or China...

