7 ms·

I've been following a guy on Tiktok who talks a lot about this and is very active in fighting NIMBYism through California. I can't remember his name but IIRC he

by cletus 4y ago

I've been following a guy on Tiktok who talks a lot about this and is very active in fighting NIMBYism through California. I can't remember his name but IIRC he's a Google employee. It's crazy the amount of NIMBYism out there. I've seen clips of straight-faced people at council meetings arguing against this because it would ruin the "character" of Atherton. For those that don't know, Atherton is a billionaire enclave in Palo Alto. It just reminded me how much I hate the Bay Area. It's full of what I like to call PINOs (borrowing from RINO; Progressives in Name Only). Fun fact: the newly anointed YC president Garry Tan automatically blocks anyone on Twitter who follows anyone who advocates for housing reform or even likes any tweets from such [1]. I'm hopeful about this. What California really needs however is to revert Prop 13. But yes, San Francisco is going to be a tough nut to crack, particularly with limited enforcement mechanisms in state legislation. Hopefully that too can change. Relying on private enforcement is no solution. [1]: https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/why-did-garry-tan-the-new-ceo-of-y-combinator-block-you-on-twitter/article_3fdd1c1c-28b1-11ed-afa8-b3ba9ebc92cb.html https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/why-did-garry-tan-the-new-ce...

shuckles 4y ago
The claim about Garry is untrue. He, for example, has donated to Sonja's legal fund.
- IntelMiner 4y ago
  Saying it's untrue is a step. Surely it would be easy to prove/disprove?
  - shuckles 4y ago
    Yeah it is easy to disprove: read the third paragraph of the article.
    - lazyasciiart 4y ago
      This? > On Monday and Tuesday, Twitter users posted dozens of screenshots showing Garry Tan, the new CEO of powerful startup accelerator Y Combinator, had blocked their accounts, with many expressing surprise and confusion.
      - shuckles 4y ago
        No the article linked in this topic.
- cletus 4y ago
  Some more detail [1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    That thread gives me the overall impression that it is true and he denies it.
edouard-harris 4y ago
> Fun fact: the newly anointed YC president Garry Tan automatically blocks anyone on Twitter who follows anyone who advocates for housing reform or even likes any tweets from such [1]. While the article you cited talks about Garry blocking people on Twitter, it doesn't mention anything about housing reform.
SilasX 4y ago
> It's full of what I like to call PINOs (borrowing from RINO; Progressives in Name Only). I call them PINO NOIRs: Progressive In Name Only, NIMBY-Only In Reality.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  It's weird to frame wealthy people who divide their time between mocking the locals claims to be trying to maintain the livability of their neighborhoods and talking about how disgusting the homeless are as the litmus test for being progressive.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    It only sounds weird when you intentionally frame it euphemistically like that. The people we are mocking are the selfish people who put their own desire to reduce subjective eyesores ahead of the need to address the country's housing crisis.
    - MrMan 4y ago
      There is no housing crisis in the country overall.
      - hackerlight 4y ago
        https://imgur.com/a/yQa1JUj https://imgur.com/a/yQa1JUj
  - throwayyy479087 4y ago
    Livability being defined as a total lack of anyone making under $300k a year. Most livable places I’ve lived have been diverse walkable neighborhoods , which NIMBYs call a nightmare. I think a bunch of strip malls and Targets are a nightmare.
    - jfim 4y ago
      > Most livable places I’ve lived have been diverse walkable neighborhoods , which NIMBYs call a nightmare. I think a bunch of strip malls and Targets are a nightmare. It's funny, because the former is also the most accessible kind of neighborhood for people of all ages and abilities. It doesn't matter if little Johnny or grandma can't drive, they can just walk to the grocery store to run errands or the coffee shop to get some coffee; they're fully independent.
jollybean 4y ago
The anti-NIMBY antagonizing is much more bizarre. If citizens moved into a community because it was 'spacious and quiet' then it's 100% their right to keep it that way, and utterly bizarre that outsider should think they have the right to force some kind of change. If community ABC does not want to be NY or Hong Kong that's entirely their perogative. And FYI there's no evidence that 'density' decreases prices. The most 'dense' places in the US are the most expensive. Americans do not have an inherent right to live in some place. There's plenty of land in the US meaning, Americans effectively have the right to choice, and to have some affordable abode, but that exists aplenty. Now - when places like Atherton stop secondary projects, such as the electrification of Caltrain - now that's something else entirely - the community overall needs better transport, so Atherton needs to accommodate. The 'solution' is probably to have much better/deeper/faster integration between transport services, how in holy cow is there not a 'very fast train' that goes around the bay, out to Sac, down to Morgan Hill, and up to Santa Rosa? With great connectors? Frankly same with LA. All of North and South Cal should be quickly navigable. That would make it more amenable to development.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Stopping people from developing land to the legally defined limit that they have lawfully purchased is NOT the right of any community. It is in fact a taking and a perversion of the rule of law. Furthermore no one is arguing that density drives down prices. You’re arguing against a straw man here. People are pointing out correctly, and in line with all housing economists, that constraining supply raises prices.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    False on both counts. First, it's 100% the right of communities to establish - and change - zoning laws. Those can change after a property is acquired. More importantly - this issue is not about people having zoning changed from under their noses, rather, it's about developers interested in creating different kinds of accommodation then those that have previously existed under existing rules. They knew what they were getting into when they bought the land. This is not 'zoning rug pull' kind of activity. Second - this push is mostly about issues affordability. Cali legislation was driven by it. "Governor Newsom Signs Legislation to Increase Affordable Housing Supply and Strengthen Accountability, Highlights Comprehensive Strategy to Tackle Housing Crisis" [1] What you are calling a 'straw man' is literally 'the man'. [1] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/28/governor-newsom-signs-legislation-to-increase-affordable-housing-supply-and-strengthen-accountability-highlights-comprehensive-strategy-to-tackle-housing-crisis/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/28/governor-newsom-signs-legi...
zbowling 4y ago
That guy on TikTok would be me. :) https://www.tiktok.com/@yesinmybackyard?_t=8VYTBUUrDcB&_r=1 https://www.tiktok.com/@yesinmybackyard?_t=8VYTBUUrDcB&_r=1 That’s not true about Garry Tan though.
- MrDunham 4y ago
  > That guy on TikTok would be me. :) This is something I adore about hacker news. Person a: “I saw a person doing something super interesting the other day” Person b: “Hi! That was me.” Happened to me just a week ago (I was person a)
- cletus 4y ago
  Hi! I love your content. On the subject of Garry though, there's a lot of credible evidence to the contrary (eg [1][2]). [1]: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23blockedbygarrytan&src=hashtag_click https://twitter.com/search?q=%23blockedbygarrytan&src=hashta... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125
- carabiner 4y ago
  He's got some kind of autoblocking going on. Apparently I'm blocked even though I didn't even know who he was until a week ago, and I barely use Twitter (110 followers). I do follow some people involved in SF housing reform.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  I love you
- _sgianelli 4y ago
  I kept seeing you on tiktok and you kept reminding me of someone I met years ago and after a while it dawned on me that we met at a hackathon something like 11 years ago. Small world! Love your content.
  - zbowling 4y ago
    Haha yeah! I did a 160 hackathons over several years and then quit entirely about 9 years ago. About when google acquired my company. Was hard doing hackathons while at google.
Ninjak8051 4y ago
> Atherton is a billionaire enclave in Palo Alto 100% factually incorrect. In addition to NOT being part of the City of Palo Alto, The Town of Atherton shares no land border with Palo Alto and is not even in the same COUNTY as Palo Alto. Maybe it's a good idea to learn about other cities, towns and people before you try to dictate land use policies from afar.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  >> Atherton is a billionaire enclave in Palo Alto > 100% factually incorrect. In addition to NOT being part of the City of Palo Alto, The Town of Atherton shares no land border with Palo Alto and is not even in the same COUNTY as Palo Alto. So what? There are parts of New York in several different states. What's relevant about the county boundary?
  - rwalle 4y ago
    Eh, maybe it's incorrect and should be fixed? You have a problem with people pointing out misinformation?
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      I'm saying that my parent comment calls this misinformation without actually providing any support for that claim.
- AnotherGoodName 4y ago
  It's a minor technical point. Try saying 'just a correction but it's in the neighboring San Mateo'.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
snickerbockers 4y ago
Living in Silicon Valley for eight years is what killed my faith in liberals. Seeing all these self-proclaimed "progressives" turn into selfish assholes whenever they're the ones who might be theoretically effected in some indirect way by a basic act of human decency made me realize that all the liberal values that CA's politicians preach about to the rest of the country really are just self-aggrandizement. It hasn't changed my own views about liberalism, but it has made me completely apathetic to all these stupid political power struggles. (also see all the sanctuary cities that are complaining about how unfair it is that texas has started giving migrants free bus rides to their cities).
- cletus 4y ago
  > Living in Silicon Valley for eight years is what killed my faith in liberals So there are several issues here. We, as tech people, when scaled up to be a significant demographic are in totality a pretty boring lot. There are an awful lot of tech people who view their stock options as a (defining) personality trait. As for the label "liberal", it's not one I prefer because it's so often misunderstood and misused. For example, most conservatives and "liberals" can all be described as liberals in some sense. Also, "liberals" often mean "neoliberals". "Progressive" or "leftist" tends to be cleaner teminology (IME) but there are relatively few of these in the US. It's why I say PINO (Progressive in Name Only) when referring to Bay Area "progressives" because in reality they're largely just neoliberals with a trendy veneer of social progressiveness over neoliberal values. You might find such people self-describe as "socially liberal, fiscally conservative". This is a contradiction in terms. The slavish devotion to markets by neoliberalism is incompatible with social issues because capitalism here is a tool for exploitation and oppression. Case in point: the very NIMBYism we're talking about. A free market purist will typically argue the free market is deciding on home values and that's most efficient when there's really no such thing as a free market. Zoning laws determine what you can build on land, the minimum lot size, etc. It's how most of the US bans anything other than single-family homes. So NIMBYism constrains supply and increases property prices. Great for existing landowners (to some degree). Not so great for everyone else. Most notably the homelessness crisis which is a direct result of housing unaffordability and crime being a natural consequence of poverty. > also see all the sanctuary cities that are complaining about how unfair it is that texas Certain states (cough Texas cough) very much are in the business of "solving" their homelessness issues by simply shipping their problems to blue states and letting them pay for it. That's not really solving anything.
masonic 4y ago
>Atherton is a billionaire enclave in Palo Alto Atherton is a distinct town that is neither in nor even adjacent to Palo Alto. It's not even in the same county.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by cletus 4y ago

shuckles 4y ago

The claim about Garry is untrue. He, for example, has donated to Sonja's legal fund.

IntelMiner 4y ago
Saying it's untrue is a step. Surely it would be easy to prove/disprove?
- shuckles 4y ago
  Yeah it is easy to disprove: read the third paragraph of the article.
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    This? > On Monday and Tuesday, Twitter users posted dozens of screenshots showing Garry Tan, the new CEO of powerful startup accelerator Y Combinator, had blocked their accounts, with many expressing surprise and confusion.
    - shuckles 4y ago
      No the article linked in this topic.
cletus 4y ago
Some more detail [1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  That thread gives me the overall impression that it is true and he denies it.

edouard-harris 4y ago

> Fun fact: the newly anointed YC president Garry Tan automatically blocks anyone on Twitter who follows anyone who advocates for housing reform or even likes any tweets from such [1]. While the article you cited talks about Garry blocking people on Twitter, it doesn't mention anything about housing reform.

SilasX 4y ago

> It's full of what I like to call PINOs (borrowing from RINO; Progressives in Name Only). I call them PINO NOIRs: Progressive In Name Only, NIMBY-Only In Reality.

pessimizer 4y ago
It's weird to frame wealthy people who divide their time between mocking the locals claims to be trying to maintain the livability of their neighborhoods and talking about how disgusting the homeless are as the litmus test for being progressive.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  It only sounds weird when you intentionally frame it euphemistically like that. The people we are mocking are the selfish people who put their own desire to reduce subjective eyesores ahead of the need to address the country's housing crisis.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    There is no housing crisis in the country overall.
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      https://imgur.com/a/yQa1JUj https://imgur.com/a/yQa1JUj
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  Livability being defined as a total lack of anyone making under $300k a year. Most livable places I’ve lived have been diverse walkable neighborhoods , which NIMBYs call a nightmare. I think a bunch of strip malls and Targets are a nightmare.
  - jfim 4y ago
    > Most livable places I’ve lived have been diverse walkable neighborhoods , which NIMBYs call a nightmare. I think a bunch of strip malls and Targets are a nightmare. It's funny, because the former is also the most accessible kind of neighborhood for people of all ages and abilities. It doesn't matter if little Johnny or grandma can't drive, they can just walk to the grocery store to run errands or the coffee shop to get some coffee; they're fully independent.

jollybean 4y ago

The anti-NIMBY antagonizing is much more bizarre. If citizens moved into a community because it was 'spacious and quiet' then it's 100% their right to keep it that way, and utterly bizarre that outsider should think they have the right to force some kind of change. If community ABC does not want to be NY or Hong Kong that's entirely their perogative. And FYI there's no evidence that 'density' decreases prices. The most 'dense' places in the US are the most expensive. Americans do not have an inherent right to live in some place. There's plenty of land in the US meaning, Americans effectively have the right to choice, and to have some affordable abode, but that exists aplenty. Now - when places like Atherton stop secondary projects, such as the electrification of Caltrain - now that's something else entirely - the community overall needs better transport, so Atherton needs to accommodate. The 'solution' is probably to have much better/deeper/faster integration between transport services, how in holy cow is there not a 'very fast train' that goes around the bay, out to Sac, down to Morgan Hill, and up to Santa Rosa? With great connectors? Frankly same with LA. All of North and South Cal should be quickly navigable. That would make it more amenable to development.

ch4s3 4y ago
Stopping people from developing land to the legally defined limit that they have lawfully purchased is NOT the right of any community. It is in fact a taking and a perversion of the rule of law. Furthermore no one is arguing that density drives down prices. You’re arguing against a straw man here. People are pointing out correctly, and in line with all housing economists, that constraining supply raises prices.
- jollybean 4y ago
  False on both counts. First, it's 100% the right of communities to establish - and change - zoning laws. Those can change after a property is acquired. More importantly - this issue is not about people having zoning changed from under their noses, rather, it's about developers interested in creating different kinds of accommodation then those that have previously existed under existing rules. They knew what they were getting into when they bought the land. This is not 'zoning rug pull' kind of activity. Second - this push is mostly about issues affordability. Cali legislation was driven by it. "Governor Newsom Signs Legislation to Increase Affordable Housing Supply and Strengthen Accountability, Highlights Comprehensive Strategy to Tackle Housing Crisis" [1] What you are calling a 'straw man' is literally 'the man'. [1] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/28/governor-newsom-signs-legislation-to-increase-affordable-housing-supply-and-strengthen-accountability-highlights-comprehensive-strategy-to-tackle-housing-crisis/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/28/governor-newsom-signs-legi...

zbowling 4y ago

That guy on TikTok would be me. :) https://www.tiktok.com/@yesinmybackyard?_t=8VYTBUUrDcB&_r=1 https://www.tiktok.com/@yesinmybackyard?_t=8VYTBUUrDcB&_r=1 That’s not true about Garry Tan though.

MrDunham 4y ago
> That guy on TikTok would be me. :) This is something I adore about hacker news. Person a: “I saw a person doing something super interesting the other day” Person b: “Hi! That was me.” Happened to me just a week ago (I was person a)
cletus 4y ago
Hi! I love your content. On the subject of Garry though, there's a lot of credible evidence to the contrary (eg [1][2]). [1]: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23blockedbygarrytan&src=hashtag_click https://twitter.com/search?q=%23blockedbygarrytan&src=hashta... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125
carabiner 4y ago
He's got some kind of autoblocking going on. Apparently I'm blocked even though I didn't even know who he was until a week ago, and I barely use Twitter (110 followers). I do follow some people involved in SF housing reform.
throwayyy479087 4y ago
I love you
_sgianelli 4y ago
I kept seeing you on tiktok and you kept reminding me of someone I met years ago and after a while it dawned on me that we met at a hackathon something like 11 years ago. Small world! Love your content.
- zbowling 4y ago
  Haha yeah! I did a 160 hackathons over several years and then quit entirely about 9 years ago. About when google acquired my company. Was hard doing hackathons while at google.

Ninjak8051 4y ago

> Atherton is a billionaire enclave in Palo Alto 100% factually incorrect. In addition to NOT being part of the City of Palo Alto, The Town of Atherton shares no land border with Palo Alto and is not even in the same COUNTY as Palo Alto. Maybe it's a good idea to learn about other cities, towns and people before you try to dictate land use policies from afar.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
>> Atherton is a billionaire enclave in Palo Alto > 100% factually incorrect. In addition to NOT being part of the City of Palo Alto, The Town of Atherton shares no land border with Palo Alto and is not even in the same COUNTY as Palo Alto. So what? There are parts of New York in several different states. What's relevant about the county boundary?
- rwalle 4y ago
  Eh, maybe it's incorrect and should be fixed? You have a problem with people pointing out misinformation?
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    I'm saying that my parent comment calls this misinformation without actually providing any support for that claim.
AnotherGoodName 4y ago
It's a minor technical point. Try saying 'just a correction but it's in the neighboring San Mateo'.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

snickerbockers 4y ago

Living in Silicon Valley for eight years is what killed my faith in liberals. Seeing all these self-proclaimed "progressives" turn into selfish assholes whenever they're the ones who might be theoretically effected in some indirect way by a basic act of human decency made me realize that all the liberal values that CA's politicians preach about to the rest of the country really are just self-aggrandizement. It hasn't changed my own views about liberalism, but it has made me completely apathetic to all these stupid political power struggles. (also see all the sanctuary cities that are complaining about how unfair it is that texas has started giving migrants free bus rides to their cities).

cletus 4y ago
> Living in Silicon Valley for eight years is what killed my faith in liberals So there are several issues here. We, as tech people, when scaled up to be a significant demographic are in totality a pretty boring lot. There are an awful lot of tech people who view their stock options as a (defining) personality trait. As for the label "liberal", it's not one I prefer because it's so often misunderstood and misused. For example, most conservatives and "liberals" can all be described as liberals in some sense. Also, "liberals" often mean "neoliberals". "Progressive" or "leftist" tends to be cleaner teminology (IME) but there are relatively few of these in the US. It's why I say PINO (Progressive in Name Only) when referring to Bay Area "progressives" because in reality they're largely just neoliberals with a trendy veneer of social progressiveness over neoliberal values. You might find such people self-describe as "socially liberal, fiscally conservative". This is a contradiction in terms. The slavish devotion to markets by neoliberalism is incompatible with social issues because capitalism here is a tool for exploitation and oppression. Case in point: the very NIMBYism we're talking about. A free market purist will typically argue the free market is deciding on home values and that's most efficient when there's really no such thing as a free market. Zoning laws determine what you can build on land, the minimum lot size, etc. It's how most of the US bans anything other than single-family homes. So NIMBYism constrains supply and increases property prices. Great for existing landowners (to some degree). Not so great for everyone else. Most notably the homelessness crisis which is a direct result of housing unaffordability and crime being a natural consequence of poverty. > also see all the sanctuary cities that are complaining about how unfair it is that texas Certain states (cough Texas cough) very much are in the business of "solving" their homelessness issues by simply shipping their problems to blue states and letting them pay for it. That's not really solving anything.

masonic 4y ago

>Atherton is a billionaire enclave in Palo Alto Atherton is a distinct town that is neither in nor even adjacent to Palo Alto. It's not even in the same county.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]