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I'm not a SV resident, but I've visited several times, over decades, and this rings true... "Hop on BART after the conference and take a look at Oakland, or ta

I'm not a SV resident, but I've visited several times, over decades, and this rings true... "Hop on BART after the conference and take a look at Oakland, or take a stroll through downtown San Francisco and try to persuade yourself you're in the heart of a boom that has lasted for forty years. You'll see a residential theme park for tech workers, surrounded by areas of poverty and misery that have seen no benefit and ample harm from our presence. We pretend that by maximizing our convenience and productivity, we're hastening the day when we finally make life better for all those other people."

Avshalom 9y ago
It's basically trickle-down/voodoo economics. "the best way to end poverty is for me personally to be rich"
- wpietri 9y ago
  And historically there's a lot of evidence this can work. But not if gains are concentrated in the hands of the already rich. Which had been the case in America for decades.
  - ivanbakel 9y ago
    That seems a bit of a truism, though - if wealth gains go to the poor, naturally they will become wealthier. Trickle-down economics imagines exactly that if the wealthy get the pie, they'll dole it out.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  We could debate the point of trickle-down, but the rich are not creating the poor. Something else is. SF has spent 330 million dollars to tend to their 15k homeless people. 22k a year. I dont know about you but I dont see them living 22k a year lives. And I see syringes, severely sick and mentally ill people walking the streets everyday.
threatofrain 9y ago
I mean, I feel like tech people have this sense of moral exceptionalism and don't understand the value of moral consensus in a democracy, as opposed to moral obligation by noblesse oblige. Something isn't only right or wrong in a democracy. You have to also build consensus through boots on the ground, not by expecting everyone to have moral revelations by magic. So, is there consensus in America that inequity and poverty are issues that rise to the level of national discussion? I would say no. So how do you go about having an interesting and durable agenda of attacking American inequity and poverty in an extra-legal way when you don't have consensus in a democracy? By flexing tech money muscle? Do tech people, excluding elites, have that much money, that they can buy their way to morality without first doing consensus work?
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >I mean, I feel like tech people have this sense of moral exceptionalism Which is somewhat ironic considering the many parallels between that and how colonialism was justified.
- Kalium 9y ago
  Tech people in SV and the Bay live in a world where they experience consensus as a series of badly broken systems. The deep, durable pockets of poverty and misery? Built and maintained by democratic consensus. The needs-much-improvement public schools of SF and Oakland? Built and maintained by consensus. The state of BART? Built and maintained by consensus. People on average don't like poverty, misery, gentrification, unreliable public transit, and spiking rents. But on average, people around here do seem to like all the things that contribute to those. Prop 13, "neighborhood character" concerns halting housing construction, and bus stops every block are all popular. I can't claim to speak for everyone here. But personally? I see a lot of broken systems that I cannot fix. Where my attempts to help fix things for everyone are not only ineffectual, but actively unwelcome. In light of that, I do what I can. I make myself comfortable. If I cannot address the suffering of others, I can at least limit my own suffering. No lives are improved if I join in the suffering of others to indulge some bizarre impulse to self-flagellate. My own suffering is not a moral imperative.
  - deleted 9y ago
walshemj 9y ago
you could say the same or more for NYC or many other parts of the US

Avshalom 9y ago

It's basically trickle-down/voodoo economics. "the best way to end poverty is for me personally to be rich"

wpietri 9y ago
And historically there's a lot of evidence this can work. But not if gains are concentrated in the hands of the already rich. Which had been the case in America for decades.
- ivanbakel 9y ago
  That seems a bit of a truism, though - if wealth gains go to the poor, naturally they will become wealthier. Trickle-down economics imagines exactly that if the wealthy get the pie, they'll dole it out.
conanbatt 9y ago
We could debate the point of trickle-down, but the rich are not creating the poor. Something else is. SF has spent 330 million dollars to tend to their 15k homeless people. 22k a year. I dont know about you but I dont see them living 22k a year lives. And I see syringes, severely sick and mentally ill people walking the streets everyday.

threatofrain 9y ago

I mean, I feel like tech people have this sense of moral exceptionalism and don't understand the value of moral consensus in a democracy, as opposed to moral obligation by noblesse oblige. Something isn't only right or wrong in a democracy. You have to also build consensus through boots on the ground, not by expecting everyone to have moral revelations by magic. So, is there consensus in America that inequity and poverty are issues that rise to the level of national discussion? I would say no. So how do you go about having an interesting and durable agenda of attacking American inequity and poverty in an extra-legal way when you don't have consensus in a democracy? By flexing tech money muscle? Do tech people, excluding elites, have that much money, that they can buy their way to morality without first doing consensus work?

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
>I mean, I feel like tech people have this sense of moral exceptionalism Which is somewhat ironic considering the many parallels between that and how colonialism was justified.
Kalium 9y ago
Tech people in SV and the Bay live in a world where they experience consensus as a series of badly broken systems. The deep, durable pockets of poverty and misery? Built and maintained by democratic consensus. The needs-much-improvement public schools of SF and Oakland? Built and maintained by consensus. The state of BART? Built and maintained by consensus. People on average don't like poverty, misery, gentrification, unreliable public transit, and spiking rents. But on average, people around here do seem to like all the things that contribute to those. Prop 13, "neighborhood character" concerns halting housing construction, and bus stops every block are all popular. I can't claim to speak for everyone here. But personally? I see a lot of broken systems that I cannot fix. Where my attempts to help fix things for everyone are not only ineffectual, but actively unwelcome. In light of that, I do what I can. I make myself comfortable. If I cannot address the suffering of others, I can at least limit my own suffering. No lives are improved if I join in the suffering of others to indulge some bizarre impulse to self-flagellate. My own suffering is not a moral imperative.
- deleted 9y ago

walshemj 9y ago

you could say the same or more for NYC or many other parts of the US