5 ms·

There's always eminent domain, aka Theft By Government. "Screw you all, we gave you a chance to play ball and you didn't. So now we have to do things the hard

There's always eminent domain, aka Theft By Government. "Screw you all, we gave you a chance to play ball and you didn't. So now we have to do things the hard way." Or, more reasonably, just stay the fuck away from silicon valley if you're looking at starting a business or working for a tech company. Things will even out eventually. Or not, but the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. I don't get what's so great about the area, anyways. Every time I've been it's just seemed like an insanely expensive shithole...but I guess I'm not the one splashing billions of dollars around.

nopinsight 9y ago
If you are an entrepreneur in a certain field, such as deep learning, and need to stay at the bleeding edge by having people with extensive experience to bump ideas off and hire as employees or partner with, it is one of the best, if not the best, areas in the world. For example, the number of AI meetups in Silicon Valley proper is many times that of East Bay, which is a hub in its own right. If you work in a right position for one of the tech giants in the area, the compensation you get will leave you with more savings than working in a much cheaper place with smaller salary. Correct me if I'm wrong. I wish to have other options as well.
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  Sure. What's the percentage of startups in SV working on such bleeding edge technology, as opposed to e-commerce, social media, or on demand delivery?
  - nopinsight 9y ago
    I concur. I guess those are tied to investors who live in the area and do not wish to fund startups they need to travel too far to oversee? I read that a prominent SV investor values his time at $200,000 an hour. If that's true then I guess it makes sense for some investors.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  One of the more prominent companies in AI is in London Other companies and schools that train experts are in Canada, closer to the East Coast Bay Area seems to not be so much about people with exceedingly talent, more about people who will overwork themselves for less pay
- arthur_pryor 9y ago
  >> I don't get what's so great about the area, anyways. Every time I've been it's just seemed like an insanely expensive shithole...but I guess I'm not the one splashing billions of dollars around. > If you are an entrepreneur in a certain field... more prosaic: sure, it's changed some, but it's still pretty hard to beat culturally for certain sorts of people. if you like both art and technology, especially if you want access to both internationally recognized things and little-known indie things, the only other places in the US that feel like they really compete with SF are LA and NY. i don't have a job at a tech giant, but i do have what i think is a very interesting software development job, that'd be harder (but not impossible) to find in other places. realistically, because i'm cheap/frugal and interested in saving money, rent control is the only reason i can still afford to live here. but i also really take advantage of the city that i live in: in the past couple months, i've seen p-funk, actress, flying lotus, a local industrial-ish electronic duo, a handful of local noise acts, JLin, hauschka, a screening of "sun ra's space is the place", pharaoh sanders, philip glass & kronos quartet, curren$y, and a bunch i'm forgetting since i'm just listing stuff off-hand. that's an especially good few weeks in an especially good year, but even in slower times, i'm usually going to at least one show i'm really excited about every two weeks to one month. i can also eat delicious food for cheap either from taquerias or by going to the grocery store, or if i have the disposable cash, i can choose from a wide variety of higher-end options across a range of prices. i get to meet people from all over the world. i went to college here, and because of all the above, a number of my good friends from school stuck around, and so i have a very solid social network here. i volunteer at a great community radio station, where i met my girlfriend. so, for a lot of people, even transplants, wanting to stay isn't so crazy. if my GF and i both happened to get evicted, i'm not sure what we'd do. that seems unlikely, but it does always feel like a bit of a worry. i don't quite understand the resistance of the natives to the influx of new people, esp since this has literally always been kind of a gold rush town. but hey, i moved around a bunch as a kid, and i like meeting people from different places. when i told a cabdriver that i'd lived in SF for 11 years, he joked that i wasn't a native, but that i could say i was a local. so as a local, i'd say i'm very strongly YIMBY. fucking build. build housing. build better/faster/more regional transit. e.g., make it fast and easy to get from the SJ suburbs to SF and vice versa, whether it's rush hour or post-last-call. some old stuff will have to come down, some neighborhoods will change character. so it goes. better than steadily pricing out all but the most affluent and pushing them to the far edges (or entirely out of) the region.
- sjg007 9y ago
  I think Toronto, Paris, NYC and London have equivalent talent.
rbanffy 9y ago
> There's always eminent domain, aka Theft By Government. People often forget we create laws and give people rights (property, patents, right of way on roads, attendance to public schools, free speech) because these rights serve society as a whole. Patents create the incentive to make public your discoveries. Property allows you to invest on beneficial use of land - agriculture, preservation - with the assurance you'll be able to continue it. When the rights society gave you no longer benefit society as a whole and, as in this case, start to harm it, then it's time to discuss them.
- logicchains 9y ago
  >People often forget we create laws and give people rights (property, patents, right of way on roads, attendance to public schools, free speech) because these rights serve society as a whole. Some people believe rights are actually inherent, not "given" by anyone. Indeed the US constitution uses the phrase "We hold these rights to be self-evident", and you'll find the justification is not utilitarian (not based on appeal to some ideal outcome).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    >Indeed the US constitution uses the phrase "We hold these rights to be self-evident", As a matter of fact, the Declaration of Independence uses the phrasing, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." The Constitution does not use any similar language, the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document, and there's nothing equal about San Francisco land ownership.
madengr 9y ago
Visited San Jose recently, for the first time. Yep, it’s a shit hole.
yardie 9y ago
Eminent domain is not theft. You are compensated at market value for your loss. The market value is not whatever you decide to hold up billion dollar government works. Eminent domain is government theft in the same way the hot coffee lawsuit was legalized grift.
- wernercd 9y ago
  That ignores honest situations where ED IS theft and Hot Coffee IS grift. Random examples: http://mentalfloss.com/article/63514/7-maddening-examples-eminent-domain http://mentalfloss.com/article/63514/7-maddening-examples-em... There are examples of good uses of ED... but to say "ED isn't theft" ignores plenty of examples of corruption or incompetence.
  - addicted 9y ago
    Actually, to say Eminent Domain = Theft misleads because it implies all uses of it are theft which even you agree is not the case. If we did, however, use that logic, then one could say Startup = Scam, because Theranos.
    - jjawssd 9y ago
      > If we did, however, use that logic, then one could say Startup = Scam, because Theranos. And there are many more examples even though it is obvious that startups are generally not scams.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  The only eminent domain case that I'm familiar with was not compensated at anywhere near fair market value. Yes, a check was cut, but at a small fraction of what it would take to make the seller a "willing seller".
  - yardie 9y ago
    The most recent eminent domain case I'm familiar with was the school board wanted to build a new elementary school. They managed to get 90% of the lot except 1 owner. Everyone else was fairly compensated except he wanted 10x market rate because why not. This guy assumed taxpayers had unlimited amounts of money to pay his price. And this is when cases of eminent domain are usually invoked. The road you travel to work on, the school you went to, the park you play in if you ask enough questions you'll find out someone was an unwilling seller when it came to building it.
pchristensen 9y ago
Eminent domain isn't even required, just giving owners freedom to build what they choose. Nothing has to change for the NIMBYs except the surrounding land that they do not own and the public services that they share with all other residents.

nopinsight 9y ago

If you are an entrepreneur in a certain field, such as deep learning, and need to stay at the bleeding edge by having people with extensive experience to bump ideas off and hire as employees or partner with, it is one of the best, if not the best, areas in the world. For example, the number of AI meetups in Silicon Valley proper is many times that of East Bay, which is a hub in its own right. If you work in a right position for one of the tech giants in the area, the compensation you get will leave you with more savings than working in a much cheaper place with smaller salary. Correct me if I'm wrong. I wish to have other options as well.

Apocryphon 9y ago
Sure. What's the percentage of startups in SV working on such bleeding edge technology, as opposed to e-commerce, social media, or on demand delivery?
- nopinsight 9y ago
  I concur. I guess those are tied to investors who live in the area and do not wish to fund startups they need to travel too far to oversee? I read that a prominent SV investor values his time at $200,000 an hour. If that's true then I guess it makes sense for some investors.
raverbashing 9y ago
One of the more prominent companies in AI is in London Other companies and schools that train experts are in Canada, closer to the East Coast Bay Area seems to not be so much about people with exceedingly talent, more about people who will overwork themselves for less pay
arthur_pryor 9y ago
>> I don't get what's so great about the area, anyways. Every time I've been it's just seemed like an insanely expensive shithole...but I guess I'm not the one splashing billions of dollars around. > If you are an entrepreneur in a certain field... more prosaic: sure, it's changed some, but it's still pretty hard to beat culturally for certain sorts of people. if you like both art and technology, especially if you want access to both internationally recognized things and little-known indie things, the only other places in the US that feel like they really compete with SF are LA and NY. i don't have a job at a tech giant, but i do have what i think is a very interesting software development job, that'd be harder (but not impossible) to find in other places. realistically, because i'm cheap/frugal and interested in saving money, rent control is the only reason i can still afford to live here. but i also really take advantage of the city that i live in: in the past couple months, i've seen p-funk, actress, flying lotus, a local industrial-ish electronic duo, a handful of local noise acts, JLin, hauschka, a screening of "sun ra's space is the place", pharaoh sanders, philip glass & kronos quartet, curren$y, and a bunch i'm forgetting since i'm just listing stuff off-hand. that's an especially good few weeks in an especially good year, but even in slower times, i'm usually going to at least one show i'm really excited about every two weeks to one month. i can also eat delicious food for cheap either from taquerias or by going to the grocery store, or if i have the disposable cash, i can choose from a wide variety of higher-end options across a range of prices. i get to meet people from all over the world. i went to college here, and because of all the above, a number of my good friends from school stuck around, and so i have a very solid social network here. i volunteer at a great community radio station, where i met my girlfriend. so, for a lot of people, even transplants, wanting to stay isn't so crazy. if my GF and i both happened to get evicted, i'm not sure what we'd do. that seems unlikely, but it does always feel like a bit of a worry. i don't quite understand the resistance of the natives to the influx of new people, esp since this has literally always been kind of a gold rush town. but hey, i moved around a bunch as a kid, and i like meeting people from different places. when i told a cabdriver that i'd lived in SF for 11 years, he joked that i wasn't a native, but that i could say i was a local. so as a local, i'd say i'm very strongly YIMBY. fucking build. build housing. build better/faster/more regional transit. e.g., make it fast and easy to get from the SJ suburbs to SF and vice versa, whether it's rush hour or post-last-call. some old stuff will have to come down, some neighborhoods will change character. so it goes. better than steadily pricing out all but the most affluent and pushing them to the far edges (or entirely out of) the region.
sjg007 9y ago
I think Toronto, Paris, NYC and London have equivalent talent.

rbanffy 9y ago

> There's always eminent domain, aka Theft By Government. People often forget we create laws and give people rights (property, patents, right of way on roads, attendance to public schools, free speech) because these rights serve society as a whole. Patents create the incentive to make public your discoveries. Property allows you to invest on beneficial use of land - agriculture, preservation - with the assurance you'll be able to continue it. When the rights society gave you no longer benefit society as a whole and, as in this case, start to harm it, then it's time to discuss them.

logicchains 9y ago
>People often forget we create laws and give people rights (property, patents, right of way on roads, attendance to public schools, free speech) because these rights serve society as a whole. Some people believe rights are actually inherent, not "given" by anyone. Indeed the US constitution uses the phrase "We hold these rights to be self-evident", and you'll find the justification is not utilitarian (not based on appeal to some ideal outcome).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  >Indeed the US constitution uses the phrase "We hold these rights to be self-evident", As a matter of fact, the Declaration of Independence uses the phrasing, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." The Constitution does not use any similar language, the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document, and there's nothing equal about San Francisco land ownership.

madengr 9y ago

Visited San Jose recently, for the first time. Yep, it’s a shit hole.

yardie 9y ago

Eminent domain is not theft. You are compensated at market value for your loss. The market value is not whatever you decide to hold up billion dollar government works. Eminent domain is government theft in the same way the hot coffee lawsuit was legalized grift.

wernercd 9y ago
That ignores honest situations where ED IS theft and Hot Coffee IS grift. Random examples: http://mentalfloss.com/article/63514/7-maddening-examples-eminent-domain http://mentalfloss.com/article/63514/7-maddening-examples-em... There are examples of good uses of ED... but to say "ED isn't theft" ignores plenty of examples of corruption or incompetence.
- addicted 9y ago
  Actually, to say Eminent Domain = Theft misleads because it implies all uses of it are theft which even you agree is not the case. If we did, however, use that logic, then one could say Startup = Scam, because Theranos.
  - jjawssd 9y ago
    > If we did, however, use that logic, then one could say Startup = Scam, because Theranos. And there are many more examples even though it is obvious that startups are generally not scams.
sokoloff 9y ago
The only eminent domain case that I'm familiar with was not compensated at anywhere near fair market value. Yes, a check was cut, but at a small fraction of what it would take to make the seller a "willing seller".
- yardie 9y ago
  The most recent eminent domain case I'm familiar with was the school board wanted to build a new elementary school. They managed to get 90% of the lot except 1 owner. Everyone else was fairly compensated except he wanted 10x market rate because why not. This guy assumed taxpayers had unlimited amounts of money to pay his price. And this is when cases of eminent domain are usually invoked. The road you travel to work on, the school you went to, the park you play in if you ask enough questions you'll find out someone was an unwilling seller when it came to building it.

pchristensen 9y ago

Eminent domain isn't even required, just giving owners freedom to build what they choose. Nothing has to change for the NIMBYs except the surrounding land that they do not own and the public services that they share with all other residents.