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Well, I think I officially feel ashamed to be an American now...America needs to fix both the medical system and affordable housing. It doesn't really deserve t

Well, I think I officially feel ashamed to be an American now...America needs to fix both the medical system and affordable housing. It doesn't really deserve to be seen as a civilized, first world nation as things stand currently. California in particular is worse of in many of these regards. The imbalance of political power in California, skewed to the urban population centers, to the affluent, and to the left has resulted in policies that disadvantage the less educated, lower income, and rural populace. If you go out into the countryside, you can find an anger which can only be explained by people who have been beleaguered on a fundamental level, that of culture and livelihood. On top of that, there are definite non-governmental socio-cultural systems which further work against them. (It is much easier to see these things when you are outside them or have been cast out of them. Let's just say that I've had the misfortune of a broader point of view.) What I see happening in California is a cultural and political ascendancy of the left, which has become drunk on power which it is abusing. The political right aren't saints, but no faction of human beings are saints and the corruption of power is universal. While we nerds spend our attention on esoteric fripperies like IPAs and keyboards, our society is starting to resemble France when someone said, "after me, the deluge." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n-xhFLkgiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n-xhFLkgiE http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/05/california-schools-earn-c-in-national-ranking/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/05/california-schools-ear...

Mz 9y ago
There are things I like about California and I lived there for a total of around 12 years. I recently left and I am shocked at how much nicer people are where I currently live. I don't know what California needs to do to get its head out of its butt. These are clearly systemic problems. I am incredibly concerned about the trend of tech giants who are, for example, pro Basic Income while they live in the San Francisco Bay Area and can't treat their own employees decently and can't solve problems locally. I am baffled as to why anyone takes their social theories at all seriously. They are, to some degree, the architects of the dire situation in the SFBA, but they think they can cure the country of its social woes by throwing money at the problem. This sounds to me like virtue signalling, not like they have any clue what they are talking about. It sounds like trying to deflect the justified anger of the masses with Good Intentions while continuing to be part of the problem. On the one hand, some of them make the news for how much they want to give to charity or whatever. On the other, some of the same names make the news for how badly they treat their own employees. Sometimes people point this out, but, more often, people debate the so called merits of their proposed solutions without going "Hey, isn't this the same guy who just did [shitty thing du jour] to their own employees?" I am pretty fed up. I have started fussing at the president via tweet. I am waiting for the FBI to show up at my door. Because silencing (or turning a deaf ear to) the people being crapped on in this country instead if taking their problems seriously seems to be par for the course for the rich, including our real estate mogul president. I wish someone would make me look like a fool by proving such assertions wrong. Sadly, I think that is increasingly unlikely.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  > I wish someone would make me look like a fool by proving such assertions wrong. Sadly, I think that is increasingly unlikely. I’m sorry to say no such reprieve is on the way. The situation is as dire as you make it out to be. Silicon Valley, tech culture as a whole, can either be the new master or the savior, it just hasn’t collectively made up its mind yet.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    Silicon Valley, tech culture as a whole, can either be the new master or the savior, it just hasn’t collectively made up its mind yet. Oh it's made up it's mind. It's just a question of what kind of master it's going to be while it also makes up its mind about what kind of savior it will claim to be while it's at it.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Unfortunately, I agree with you; its time we start finding ways to cut Silicon Valley off at the knees [1]. [1] I'm aware of the irony of the forum I'm posting that statement in.
righttochoose 9y ago
If only the right would stop trying to roll back or take away women's rights the left might start seeing some serious challenges in California but until that happens we're going to be stuck with the likes of Feinstein.
oceanghost 9y ago
At some level, liberal group-think is trying to apply solutions for high-density city living to rural and suburban Californians. It's a weird sort of militant cultural hegemony that doesn't tolerate even nuanced agreement. The powers that be are actively making life in CA worse, day by day, not realizing the rural and suburban populations support cities by producing the things they need to live. If you speak privately to most folks who live in LA or SF they'll tell you they HATE the frustrations, but at the same time they're trying to force all Californian's to live like them. To quote "my dinner with Andre" “ANDRÉ: . . . And when I was at Findhorn I met this extraordinary English tree expert who had devoted himself to saving trees, and he’d just got back from Washington lobbying to save the Redwoods. And he was eighty-four years old, and he always travels with a backpack because he never knows where he’s going to be tomorrow. And when I met him at Findhorn he said to me, “Where are you from?” And I said, “New York.” And he said, “Ah, New York, yes, that’s a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?” And I said, “Oh, yes.” And he said, “Why do you think they don’t leave?” And I gave him different banal theories. And he said, “Oh, I don’t think it’s that way at all.” He said, “I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing that they’ve built—they’ve built their own prison—and so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners. And as a result they no longer have—having been lobotomized—the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made or even to see it as a prison.” And then he went into his pocket, and he took out a seed for a tree, and he said, “This is a pine tree.” And he put it in my hand. And he said, “Escape before it’s too late.” ― Wallace Shawn, My Dinner With André

Mz 9y ago

There are things I like about California and I lived there for a total of around 12 years. I recently left and I am shocked at how much nicer people are where I currently live. I don't know what California needs to do to get its head out of its butt. These are clearly systemic problems. I am incredibly concerned about the trend of tech giants who are, for example, pro Basic Income while they live in the San Francisco Bay Area and can't treat their own employees decently and can't solve problems locally. I am baffled as to why anyone takes their social theories at all seriously. They are, to some degree, the architects of the dire situation in the SFBA, but they think they can cure the country of its social woes by throwing money at the problem. This sounds to me like virtue signalling, not like they have any clue what they are talking about. It sounds like trying to deflect the justified anger of the masses with Good Intentions while continuing to be part of the problem. On the one hand, some of them make the news for how much they want to give to charity or whatever. On the other, some of the same names make the news for how badly they treat their own employees. Sometimes people point this out, but, more often, people debate the so called merits of their proposed solutions without going "Hey, isn't this the same guy who just did [shitty thing du jour] to their own employees?" I am pretty fed up. I have started fussing at the president via tweet. I am waiting for the FBI to show up at my door. Because silencing (or turning a deaf ear to) the people being crapped on in this country instead if taking their problems seriously seems to be par for the course for the rich, including our real estate mogul president. I wish someone would make me look like a fool by proving such assertions wrong. Sadly, I think that is increasingly unlikely.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
> I wish someone would make me look like a fool by proving such assertions wrong. Sadly, I think that is increasingly unlikely. I’m sorry to say no such reprieve is on the way. The situation is as dire as you make it out to be. Silicon Valley, tech culture as a whole, can either be the new master or the savior, it just hasn’t collectively made up its mind yet.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  Silicon Valley, tech culture as a whole, can either be the new master or the savior, it just hasn’t collectively made up its mind yet. Oh it's made up it's mind. It's just a question of what kind of master it's going to be while it also makes up its mind about what kind of savior it will claim to be while it's at it.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Unfortunately, I agree with you; its time we start finding ways to cut Silicon Valley off at the knees [1]. [1] I'm aware of the irony of the forum I'm posting that statement in.

righttochoose 9y ago

If only the right would stop trying to roll back or take away women's rights the left might start seeing some serious challenges in California but until that happens we're going to be stuck with the likes of Feinstein.

oceanghost 9y ago

At some level, liberal group-think is trying to apply solutions for high-density city living to rural and suburban Californians. It's a weird sort of militant cultural hegemony that doesn't tolerate even nuanced agreement. The powers that be are actively making life in CA worse, day by day, not realizing the rural and suburban populations support cities by producing the things they need to live. If you speak privately to most folks who live in LA or SF they'll tell you they HATE the frustrations, but at the same time they're trying to force all Californian's to live like them. To quote "my dinner with Andre" “ANDRÉ: . . . And when I was at Findhorn I met this extraordinary English tree expert who had devoted himself to saving trees, and he’d just got back from Washington lobbying to save the Redwoods. And he was eighty-four years old, and he always travels with a backpack because he never knows where he’s going to be tomorrow. And when I met him at Findhorn he said to me, “Where are you from?” And I said, “New York.” And he said, “Ah, New York, yes, that’s a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?” And I said, “Oh, yes.” And he said, “Why do you think they don’t leave?” And I gave him different banal theories. And he said, “Oh, I don’t think it’s that way at all.” He said, “I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing that they’ve built—they’ve built their own prison—and so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners. And as a result they no longer have—having been lobotomized—the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made or even to see it as a prison.” And then he went into his pocket, and he took out a seed for a tree, and he said, “This is a pine tree.” And he put it in my hand. And he said, “Escape before it’s too late.” ― Wallace Shawn, My Dinner With André