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After living in LA for a few years, it certainly does feel exactly the way you describe within the city. But those juxtapositions are literal blocks apart from

After living in LA for a few years, it certainly does feel exactly the way you describe within the city. But those juxtapositions are literal blocks apart from each other. The Google campus is next door to a shanty town in Venice, and their security sic the police on them for any minor infractions (or just made up ones). Very similar situation with the redevelopment downtown. It really does give you a bleak portrait of the tolerance for inhumanity within the context liberal Capitalism. California is ostensibly as “wacky leftist” as the US gets and it’s a bleak, cruel place in many regards.

maxaf 7y ago
American liberals are always yelling for more “humanity”, but they keep quiet about the requirement that humanity must come at someone else’s expense. Yes, we need cheaper housing - but not here. Yes, guvment must build better jails - but not here. Yes, please run more buses - but not down my street. Yes, we must accept more refugees - but put them somewhere far away, certainly not anywhere near my child’s route to school. Liberalism and NIMBYism are joined at the hip. Liberalism is loud and ostentatious, while NIMBYism is prosecuted quietly via the court system, lobbying, and political donations. There’s a certain poetic beauty to how both seem to coexist in the same group of people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fallingfrog 7y ago
  Humanity must come at someone else’s expense? Just meditate on that thought for a minute. Think about it carefully. In your mind, on whose backs do you suppose that wealth was built?
  - maxaf 7y ago
    Yes, that's what the liberals are saying. They're yelling for more humanity, but they want it to come at someone else's expense. This isn't my principle; it's the liberals'. I'm not the one who should be meditating on anything, as I'm also not the one preventing affordable housing from being built.
    - fallingfrog 7y ago
      Wrong answer. The wealth of those you want to protect from taxes is and has always been built on the backs of the poor who you want to deprive of public services. They built your homes, they tend your gardens, they raise your children, they guard you while you sleep. Yet you whine and complain when they want buses that run on time and a place to sleep.
      - maxaf 7y ago
        Who am I protecting from taxes again?
      - roenxi 7y ago
        There is a two-step process here for your builders, gardeners, nannys, security guards, etc. First the things they want must be produced, then they have to secure access to those things. There is no question that tax-and-redistribute can make step 2 happen. However, the problem is that the plan for step 1 is usually some variant of 'Massive taxes aren't going to change what gets produced. What's gonna happen, people gonna stop working on important things?'. That plan often doesn't work because it turns out massive taxes change what gets produced, often much for the worse. You can get morally outraged if it makes you feel better, but your comment inspires no hope in me that you've thought your solution through. There is substantial evidence that, economically speaking, going for a big pie unevenly shared is a much better solution than going for a small but evenly sliced pie.
        NCWV 7y ago
        They won't stop working on important things. What is their alternative? Sell everything they own and move to Canada? Just sit around and drink beer all day?
      - maxerickson 7y ago
        Trade workers in the US aren't poor.
    - acollins1331 7y ago
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  I’m not sure where you get those ideas? Where I live in NYC, they recently shut down a major street to cars so buses could run more easily — and the furthest left want to expand that. The left leaning people I know want to close jails, not build better ones elsewhere. We opposed an Amazon campus in our backyard specifically because it would drive up rents — and the furthest left want rent control. Liberals are obviously not a monolith of only ethically consistent people, but I definitely don’t see the pervasive NIMBYism.
  - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
    The Left in New York City are largely socialists by now, who had enough of a long-standing working-class tradition to avoid allying with liberal NIMBYs. He's honestly pretty spot on about liberals, as the spot on the spectrum in between conservatives and social democrats.
    - jakelazaroff 7y ago
      Maybe so, but I don’t read the original comment as a critique of centrist Democrats in particular. (I also don’t think centrist Democrats are alone in the gap between their professed values and their actual ones.)
  - maxaf 7y ago
    I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Here the same people who yell for affordable housing also go to court to block construction of new towers. The same people who complain about buses stuck in traffic on W 86th St also prevent the introduction of universal metered parking and congestion pricing. But my original comment was mainly addressing the NIMBYism in California. Look at SF: it's a low-rise city of sky-high demand and prices. Who's preventing new construction? The same local NIMBYs who enjoy rising property values due to severely restricted supply of land that can be built on.
    - jakelazaroff 7y ago
      I until very recently lived downtown, where congestion pricing would actually take effect, and the people most in support were again the furthest left. SF does seem to be more NIMBYish, but I’m not sure why you think it’s a microcosm of liberalism.
- jtmcmc 7y ago
  "Liberalism" is the "hipsters" of modern leftist politics...
- dmode 7y ago
  I think you are conflating entirely two different concepts. NIMBYism is a unique California value and closely related to California history rather than a true left ideology. In fact, leftist policies are for more denser urban development, public transit etc as you can see in European countries
rayiner 7y ago
> It really does give you a bleak portrait of the tolerance for inhumanity within the context liberal Capitalism. California is ostensibly as “wacky leftist” as the US gets and it’s a bleak, cruel place in many regards. Maybe that means that “leftism” isn’t actually the thing that makes for more tolerance for humanity? Leftist policies haven’t prevented California from having the highest poverty rate in the country, the highest income inequality in the country, sprawling homeless encampments, etc. Many places in the US are considerably less “leftist” but also considerably less bleak. Homelessness rates, for example, are much lower in West Virginia and Mississippi than in California: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/us/homelessness-california-population-states-comparison.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/us/homelessness-californi....
- acollins1331 7y ago
  As a person from West Virginia this is because you can rent a garbage trailer for like $200 a month there. There's also no jobs or hope, but plenty of meth. Yay!
- habnds 7y ago
  I'm consistently confused by what people mean when they say "leftist".
  - rayiner 7y ago
    There are a wide range of “leftist” policies, but they generally include things like higher taxes to support more social services, strong support for labor unions, higher minimum wages, higher government regulation of various aspects of the economy, various social policies including deemphasizing traditional families and religious institutions, etc. California may not be “socialist” like Sanders wants (and frankly, no country in the OECD is “socialist” anymore the way Sanders wants), but it’s certainly more leftist than the rest of the US. It’s got the highest taxes, among the highest social spending, much more government regulation of the economy, higher percentage of union workers than the US average, the highest minimum wage, etc. If should be doing a lot better than other US states.
philwelch 7y ago
I would take away the opposite conclusion. Left-wing government isn’t the solution in California any more than it is in developing countries and failed states; it is the problem.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ncmncm 7y ago
  Public utility districts have been very successful in places they have been permitted to operate, including in the state capital, Sacramento. Of course PGE spends millions every year lobbying against them.
kolmogorov 7y ago
It’s the same in Brazil. We are basically converging to become Rio de Janeiro minus the natural beauty. Well and the shantytowns in rio have better views.
ariwilson 7y ago
Can you describe the basis for your "Google sic the police on the homeless" comment? There was a shitty local magazine article about this but my personal experience does not match this perception at all.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  I’m friends with housing activists in LA who work on these issues. There was a similar thing with Google Maps cars conveniently showing up right after violent camp dispersals in my old neighborhood. Here’s an article about it from back in 2015: https://pando.com/2015/06/22/we-got-geeks/ https://pando.com/2015/06/22/we-got-geeks/

maxaf 7y ago

American liberals are always yelling for more “humanity”, but they keep quiet about the requirement that humanity must come at someone else’s expense. Yes, we need cheaper housing - but not here. Yes, guvment must build better jails - but not here. Yes, please run more buses - but not down my street. Yes, we must accept more refugees - but put them somewhere far away, certainly not anywhere near my child’s route to school. Liberalism and NIMBYism are joined at the hip. Liberalism is loud and ostentatious, while NIMBYism is prosecuted quietly via the court system, lobbying, and political donations. There’s a certain poetic beauty to how both seem to coexist in the same group of people.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
fallingfrog 7y ago
Humanity must come at someone else’s expense? Just meditate on that thought for a minute. Think about it carefully. In your mind, on whose backs do you suppose that wealth was built?
- maxaf 7y ago
  Yes, that's what the liberals are saying. They're yelling for more humanity, but they want it to come at someone else's expense. This isn't my principle; it's the liberals'. I'm not the one who should be meditating on anything, as I'm also not the one preventing affordable housing from being built.
  - fallingfrog 7y ago
    Wrong answer. The wealth of those you want to protect from taxes is and has always been built on the backs of the poor who you want to deprive of public services. They built your homes, they tend your gardens, they raise your children, they guard you while you sleep. Yet you whine and complain when they want buses that run on time and a place to sleep.
    - maxaf 7y ago
      Who am I protecting from taxes again?
    - roenxi 7y ago
      There is a two-step process here for your builders, gardeners, nannys, security guards, etc. First the things they want must be produced, then they have to secure access to those things. There is no question that tax-and-redistribute can make step 2 happen. However, the problem is that the plan for step 1 is usually some variant of 'Massive taxes aren't going to change what gets produced. What's gonna happen, people gonna stop working on important things?'. That plan often doesn't work because it turns out massive taxes change what gets produced, often much for the worse. You can get morally outraged if it makes you feel better, but your comment inspires no hope in me that you've thought your solution through. There is substantial evidence that, economically speaking, going for a big pie unevenly shared is a much better solution than going for a small but evenly sliced pie.
      - NCWV 7y ago
        They won't stop working on important things. What is their alternative? Sell everything they own and move to Canada? Just sit around and drink beer all day?
    - maxerickson 7y ago
      Trade workers in the US aren't poor.
  - acollins1331 7y ago
jakelazaroff 7y ago
I’m not sure where you get those ideas? Where I live in NYC, they recently shut down a major street to cars so buses could run more easily — and the furthest left want to expand that. The left leaning people I know want to close jails, not build better ones elsewhere. We opposed an Amazon campus in our backyard specifically because it would drive up rents — and the furthest left want rent control. Liberals are obviously not a monolith of only ethically consistent people, but I definitely don’t see the pervasive NIMBYism.
- eli_gottlieb 7y ago
  The Left in New York City are largely socialists by now, who had enough of a long-standing working-class tradition to avoid allying with liberal NIMBYs. He's honestly pretty spot on about liberals, as the spot on the spectrum in between conservatives and social democrats.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    Maybe so, but I don’t read the original comment as a critique of centrist Democrats in particular. (I also don’t think centrist Democrats are alone in the gap between their professed values and their actual ones.)
- maxaf 7y ago
  I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Here the same people who yell for affordable housing also go to court to block construction of new towers. The same people who complain about buses stuck in traffic on W 86th St also prevent the introduction of universal metered parking and congestion pricing. But my original comment was mainly addressing the NIMBYism in California. Look at SF: it's a low-rise city of sky-high demand and prices. Who's preventing new construction? The same local NIMBYs who enjoy rising property values due to severely restricted supply of land that can be built on.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    I until very recently lived downtown, where congestion pricing would actually take effect, and the people most in support were again the furthest left. SF does seem to be more NIMBYish, but I’m not sure why you think it’s a microcosm of liberalism.
jtmcmc 7y ago
"Liberalism" is the "hipsters" of modern leftist politics...
dmode 7y ago
I think you are conflating entirely two different concepts. NIMBYism is a unique California value and closely related to California history rather than a true left ideology. In fact, leftist policies are for more denser urban development, public transit etc as you can see in European countries

rayiner 7y ago

> It really does give you a bleak portrait of the tolerance for inhumanity within the context liberal Capitalism. California is ostensibly as “wacky leftist” as the US gets and it’s a bleak, cruel place in many regards. Maybe that means that “leftism” isn’t actually the thing that makes for more tolerance for humanity? Leftist policies haven’t prevented California from having the highest poverty rate in the country, the highest income inequality in the country, sprawling homeless encampments, etc. Many places in the US are considerably less “leftist” but also considerably less bleak. Homelessness rates, for example, are much lower in West Virginia and Mississippi than in California: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/us/homelessness-california-population-states-comparison.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/us/homelessness-californi....

acollins1331 7y ago
As a person from West Virginia this is because you can rent a garbage trailer for like $200 a month there. There's also no jobs or hope, but plenty of meth. Yay!
habnds 7y ago
I'm consistently confused by what people mean when they say "leftist".
- rayiner 7y ago
  There are a wide range of “leftist” policies, but they generally include things like higher taxes to support more social services, strong support for labor unions, higher minimum wages, higher government regulation of various aspects of the economy, various social policies including deemphasizing traditional families and religious institutions, etc. California may not be “socialist” like Sanders wants (and frankly, no country in the OECD is “socialist” anymore the way Sanders wants), but it’s certainly more leftist than the rest of the US. It’s got the highest taxes, among the highest social spending, much more government regulation of the economy, higher percentage of union workers than the US average, the highest minimum wage, etc. If should be doing a lot better than other US states.

philwelch 7y ago

I would take away the opposite conclusion. Left-wing government isn’t the solution in California any more than it is in developing countries and failed states; it is the problem.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ncmncm 7y ago
Public utility districts have been very successful in places they have been permitted to operate, including in the state capital, Sacramento. Of course PGE spends millions every year lobbying against them.

kolmogorov 7y ago

It’s the same in Brazil. We are basically converging to become Rio de Janeiro minus the natural beauty. Well and the shantytowns in rio have better views.

ariwilson 7y ago

Can you describe the basis for your "Google sic the police on the homeless" comment? There was a shitty local magazine article about this but my personal experience does not match this perception at all.

claudeganon 7y ago
I’m friends with housing activists in LA who work on these issues. There was a similar thing with Google Maps cars conveniently showing up right after violent camp dispersals in my old neighborhood. Here’s an article about it from back in 2015: https://pando.com/2015/06/22/we-got-geeks/ https://pando.com/2015/06/22/we-got-geeks/