6 ms·

Every Bay Area House Party

94 points by Ariarule 4y ago

layer8 4y ago
There was a missed opportunity to connect the pilot whale theory to quantum suicide.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
honkdaddy 4y ago
Funny writing from Scott, as usual, but my main takeaway from this was that I'm glad to live in New York, and not the Bay Area. The events I go to here are attended by people from all different industries and walks of life. Putting too many tech-adjacent people in a room together has never made for great parties, in my experience.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  This is SF and Berkeley tech-adjacent circles, definitely not Bay Area as a whole.
  - scotuswroteus 4y ago
    I agree, though I think you're missing most of downtown and west oakland, jack london square, plus the oakland hills, most of marin, almost all of the peninsula, albany and el cerrito, san jose, and maybe now even santa cruz. It's difficult to downplay that when you go to almost any house party in those places, it's literally what this guy wrote. Like down to the overconfident assertions that one person already knew about the other person's super niche point about some obscure faux-spiritual tech concept. “Of course it can, that’s the whole point of Buddhism." I'd bet someone said that exact, absolutely terrible phrase within a ten block radius of Haight & Ashbury within the last 18 months, for sure. And they name drop some partnership they have with a new startup thing with someone on its board who once worked for the esalin institute as its like vp of sales and mindfulness. Still, I do think there's just as much diversity on the far periphery of the Bay as there is in say the outer borroughs of NYC. You don't get this in Vallejo.
    - reducesuffering 4y ago
      > when you go to almost any house party in those places, it's literally what this guy wrote No, not even those places. This is a classic example of a social bubble. There's definitely a higher concentration in those places, but the majority of house parties, even in the Bay Area, are just a lot of drunk shenanigans, beer pong, weed, and not high brow intellectual talk. HN / ACX types are high-education, tech-adjacent, and likely raised outside the area. Their social networks are quite different from the rest of the 8m people here, especially the rest of Alameda county and San Jose, where most of the house parties happen. Even if all parties on the Peninsula were this type, they'd probably account for 2% of Bay Area house parties, those places have been so expensive for so long they're mostly amenable to workaholic and Netflix types. Source: am Bay Area raised and have a foot in both worlds.
thundergolfer 4y ago
In a comment the author says: > Yes, but the fun part is that out of 100 of these people, one will end up a billionaire, and another will end up setting the cultural agenda for the next decade The billionaire bit I get. Plenty of billionaires have come out of the Bay Area and will continue to come out of there. But what does he mean by “setting the cultural agenda”? Who from the Bay Area can claim to have done this, and if nobody yet, why does the author think it will start happening?
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  So many... Jerry Garcia Dave Chappell (he says he built his comedic style here) Ansel Adams Francis Coppola Robert Frost Santana Jack London Tupac Tom Hanks Clint Eastwood This is the list I found quickly googling: https://www.quora.com/Who-are-some-of-the-most-famous-celebrities-from-the-San-Francisco-Bay-Area https://www.quora.com/Who-are-some-of-the-most-famous-celebr...
  - SantiagoElf 4y ago
    Metallica :)
  - refurb 4y ago
    "the cultural agenda" seems to overstate things a bit? Maybe "pop culture agenda?" Or "Hollywood agenda"?
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      Jack Frost and Jerry Garcia are by no means pop, or Hollywood. The bay area has impacted our collective culture in deep, meaningful ways for generations. Not in pop, or Hollywood ways, but in deep, meaningful "a path diverges in the woods" ways.
      - refurb 4y ago
        Most young people today don't even know who Jerry Garcia is. Sometimes when you're really close to something you overestimate how important it is.
fargle 4y ago
Holy shit! I think I was at that exact one. I stayed too late and the buddhist chick puked in my shoe.
slavik81 4y ago
> have you heard of the Temple of Artemis? One of the Seven Wonders of the World. Burned down not by a Christian or a Muslim, but by a random Greek guy who wanted his name to be remembered by history The Temple of Artemis was destroyed and rebuilt a few times. Herostratus burned the second temple in 356 BC and it was rebuilt in 323 BC. The list of ancient wonders dates from the time of the third temple.
blueboo 4y ago
Funny how brief visits form such firm, nuance-free opinions. I have strong opinions on French folks but my year in Spain showed a universe of humanity. This condescending caricature will ring true for many who don’t live there and few who do — like most travelogues written for snark over insight.
nullc 4y ago
I wish Scott devoted his writing time entirely to fiction, it's predictably enjoyable.
SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
I found it amusing that the fictional app “Partyr” he lampooned seemed like an actual service I would pay for. Throwing parties is stressful and hard.
- bjord 4y ago
  no need—I'll be one of your independent standby guests
- h-w 4y ago
  I used to make a few hundred bucks a month on good months participating in a real app called SURKUS. Went to a lot of weird places, including a Halloween party put on by a VR consortium. It sent me to someone’s actual house party at least once, but usually was a movie, or an event in the park, or music event and almost every week they’d have me order something off Amazon to review. They would pay via PayPal the value of the Amazon product plus $5-$20 for my time.
helpfulclippy 4y ago
I read this and felt like it was a party with a caricature parodying most of my interests, especially the part about steppe nomads. I don’t even live in the bay. Man, I need to step back from tech. Guess I should go become a zen monk or lay on the beach or something…
evocatus 4y ago
> “No, you don’t understand. This is just the first step. Once we make it super-big, we’ll introduce other things into the algorithm. Charities. Political causes. We’ll have millions of people competing to praise UNICEF in order to get that next million-dollar ViraCoin drop. If you think about it, all problems are caused by lack of awareness. We’re an at-scale solution to awareness. Solve that, and you solve poverty, inequality, racism…” Poetry.
zozbot234 4y ago
This is peak HN.
Distozion 4y ago
I feel there's a comment on venture capital somewhere in this post.. :)
h2odragon 4y ago
No bonfire, no injuries, no conceptions? No sacrifice? Lame! Truly the Bay area is full of the seeming of life with no substance.
gsibble 4y ago
I feel called out.

94 points by Ariarule 4y ago

layer8 4y ago

There was a missed opportunity to connect the pilot whale theory to quantum suicide.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

honkdaddy 4y ago

Funny writing from Scott, as usual, but my main takeaway from this was that I'm glad to live in New York, and not the Bay Area. The events I go to here are attended by people from all different industries and walks of life. Putting too many tech-adjacent people in a room together has never made for great parties, in my experience.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
reducesuffering 4y ago
This is SF and Berkeley tech-adjacent circles, definitely not Bay Area as a whole.
- scotuswroteus 4y ago
  I agree, though I think you're missing most of downtown and west oakland, jack london square, plus the oakland hills, most of marin, almost all of the peninsula, albany and el cerrito, san jose, and maybe now even santa cruz. It's difficult to downplay that when you go to almost any house party in those places, it's literally what this guy wrote. Like down to the overconfident assertions that one person already knew about the other person's super niche point about some obscure faux-spiritual tech concept. “Of course it can, that’s the whole point of Buddhism." I'd bet someone said that exact, absolutely terrible phrase within a ten block radius of Haight & Ashbury within the last 18 months, for sure. And they name drop some partnership they have with a new startup thing with someone on its board who once worked for the esalin institute as its like vp of sales and mindfulness. Still, I do think there's just as much diversity on the far periphery of the Bay as there is in say the outer borroughs of NYC. You don't get this in Vallejo.
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    > when you go to almost any house party in those places, it's literally what this guy wrote No, not even those places. This is a classic example of a social bubble. There's definitely a higher concentration in those places, but the majority of house parties, even in the Bay Area, are just a lot of drunk shenanigans, beer pong, weed, and not high brow intellectual talk. HN / ACX types are high-education, tech-adjacent, and likely raised outside the area. Their social networks are quite different from the rest of the 8m people here, especially the rest of Alameda county and San Jose, where most of the house parties happen. Even if all parties on the Peninsula were this type, they'd probably account for 2% of Bay Area house parties, those places have been so expensive for so long they're mostly amenable to workaholic and Netflix types. Source: am Bay Area raised and have a foot in both worlds.

thundergolfer 4y ago

In a comment the author says: > Yes, but the fun part is that out of 100 of these people, one will end up a billionaire, and another will end up setting the cultural agenda for the next decade The billionaire bit I get. Plenty of billionaires have come out of the Bay Area and will continue to come out of there. But what does he mean by “setting the cultural agenda”? Who from the Bay Area can claim to have done this, and if nobody yet, why does the author think it will start happening?

iancmceachern 4y ago
So many... Jerry Garcia Dave Chappell (he says he built his comedic style here) Ansel Adams Francis Coppola Robert Frost Santana Jack London Tupac Tom Hanks Clint Eastwood This is the list I found quickly googling: https://www.quora.com/Who-are-some-of-the-most-famous-celebrities-from-the-San-Francisco-Bay-Area https://www.quora.com/Who-are-some-of-the-most-famous-celebr...
- SantiagoElf 4y ago
  Metallica :)
- refurb 4y ago
  "the cultural agenda" seems to overstate things a bit? Maybe "pop culture agenda?" Or "Hollywood agenda"?
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    Jack Frost and Jerry Garcia are by no means pop, or Hollywood. The bay area has impacted our collective culture in deep, meaningful ways for generations. Not in pop, or Hollywood ways, but in deep, meaningful "a path diverges in the woods" ways.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Most young people today don't even know who Jerry Garcia is. Sometimes when you're really close to something you overestimate how important it is.

fargle 4y ago

Holy shit! I think I was at that exact one. I stayed too late and the buddhist chick puked in my shoe.

slavik81 4y ago

> have you heard of the Temple of Artemis? One of the Seven Wonders of the World. Burned down not by a Christian or a Muslim, but by a random Greek guy who wanted his name to be remembered by history The Temple of Artemis was destroyed and rebuilt a few times. Herostratus burned the second temple in 356 BC and it was rebuilt in 323 BC. The list of ancient wonders dates from the time of the third temple.

blueboo 4y ago

Funny how brief visits form such firm, nuance-free opinions. I have strong opinions on French folks but my year in Spain showed a universe of humanity. This condescending caricature will ring true for many who don’t live there and few who do — like most travelogues written for snark over insight.

nullc 4y ago

I wish Scott devoted his writing time entirely to fiction, it's predictably enjoyable.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago

I found it amusing that the fictional app “Partyr” he lampooned seemed like an actual service I would pay for. Throwing parties is stressful and hard.

bjord 4y ago
no need—I'll be one of your independent standby guests
h-w 4y ago
I used to make a few hundred bucks a month on good months participating in a real app called SURKUS. Went to a lot of weird places, including a Halloween party put on by a VR consortium. It sent me to someone’s actual house party at least once, but usually was a movie, or an event in the park, or music event and almost every week they’d have me order something off Amazon to review. They would pay via PayPal the value of the Amazon product plus $5-$20 for my time.

helpfulclippy 4y ago

I read this and felt like it was a party with a caricature parodying most of my interests, especially the part about steppe nomads. I don’t even live in the bay. Man, I need to step back from tech. Guess I should go become a zen monk or lay on the beach or something…

evocatus 4y ago

> “No, you don’t understand. This is just the first step. Once we make it super-big, we’ll introduce other things into the algorithm. Charities. Political causes. We’ll have millions of people competing to praise UNICEF in order to get that next million-dollar ViraCoin drop. If you think about it, all problems are caused by lack of awareness. We’re an at-scale solution to awareness. Solve that, and you solve poverty, inequality, racism…” Poetry.

zozbot234 4y ago

This is peak HN.

Distozion 4y ago

I feel there's a comment on venture capital somewhere in this post.. :)

h2odragon 4y ago

No bonfire, no injuries, no conceptions? No sacrifice? Lame! Truly the Bay area is full of the seeming of life with no substance.

gsibble 4y ago

I feel called out.