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I don’t live there, but as a general rule, people overestimate the probability of “collapse“. Things can be declining for a long time without the dramatic accel

by orzig 4y ago

I don’t live there, but as a general rule, people overestimate the probability of “collapse“. Things can be declining for a long time without the dramatic acceleration that merits that term.

MichaelZuo 4y ago
I've found that anything written to compete for clicks tries to over-exaggerate in a thousand major and minor ways to grab attention.
ppeetteerr 4y ago
Agreed. Just look at Twitter. It's running with a skeleton crew but that's only because a system of that size does not collapse in a day. It takes years for the cracks to show and grow.
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  I think the specific situation with Twitter is that it takes a lot more people to create and update a system of this size than it does to merely maintain it. They simply no longer have the capacity to make a large new product at this point, but even a skeleton staff is enough to keep the existing product running.
  - ppeetteerr 4y ago
    That's why the cracks are small at first. Patches, new API connections to customers, and ambition will still cause some change, albeit small as you point out. Entropy in a living system always increases.
  - revelio 4y ago
    Twitter was created originally by a much smaller team than even the one that Musk still has today.
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
      Twitter (the product) has changed a lot since then too. It's much more complicated and does many more things. What it was like at the beginning isn't particularly relevant anymore.
- corbulo 4y ago
  Just accept you were fooled...
- cubefox 4y ago
  Well, this is off-topic now. Twitter had hundreds of developers, Mastodon has ... four. Recently they had just one. It seems Twitter was simply overstaffed.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > Twitter had hundreds of developers, Mastodon has ... four. Recently they had just one. This can't be posted enough. Twitter currently employs 100x more developers than Mastodon. It's comically incoherent to claim that people should move from Twitter to Mastodon because Twitter obviously can't be run by half or a third of the developers that it used to have, because scale or something.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> people overestimate the probability of “collapse“ Collapse, in this article’s context, means insolvency. That doesn’t mean San Francisco disappears. But public transit may halt for a while, and the city may have control and assets forcibly removed from itself. In reality, San Francisco is solidly investment grade [1][2]. It can borrow its way out of this hole. [1] https://www.fitchratings.com/entity/san-francisco-city-county-ca-3682#rating-actions https://www.fitchratings.com/entity/san-francisco-city-count... [2] https://sf.gov/reports/march-2023/city-credit-ratings https://sf.gov/reports/march-2023/city-credit-ratings
- raverbashing 4y ago
  "Investment grade" this things usually follow cartoon physics, they are fine and dandy until they look and see they're floating mid-air

by orzig 4y ago

I don’t live there, but as a general rule, people overestimate the probability of “collapse“. Things can be declining for a long time without the dramatic acceleration that merits that term.

MichaelZuo 4y ago

I've found that anything written to compete for clicks tries to over-exaggerate in a thousand major and minor ways to grab attention.

ppeetteerr 4y ago

Agreed. Just look at Twitter. It's running with a skeleton crew but that's only because a system of that size does not collapse in a day. It takes years for the cracks to show and grow.

CydeWeys 4y ago
I think the specific situation with Twitter is that it takes a lot more people to create and update a system of this size than it does to merely maintain it. They simply no longer have the capacity to make a large new product at this point, but even a skeleton staff is enough to keep the existing product running.
- ppeetteerr 4y ago
  That's why the cracks are small at first. Patches, new API connections to customers, and ambition will still cause some change, albeit small as you point out. Entropy in a living system always increases.
- revelio 4y ago
  Twitter was created originally by a much smaller team than even the one that Musk still has today.
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    Twitter (the product) has changed a lot since then too. It's much more complicated and does many more things. What it was like at the beginning isn't particularly relevant anymore.
corbulo 4y ago
Just accept you were fooled...
cubefox 4y ago
Well, this is off-topic now. Twitter had hundreds of developers, Mastodon has ... four. Recently they had just one. It seems Twitter was simply overstaffed.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > Twitter had hundreds of developers, Mastodon has ... four. Recently they had just one. This can't be posted enough. Twitter currently employs 100x more developers than Mastodon. It's comically incoherent to claim that people should move from Twitter to Mastodon because Twitter obviously can't be run by half or a third of the developers that it used to have, because scale or something.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> people overestimate the probability of “collapse“ Collapse, in this article’s context, means insolvency. That doesn’t mean San Francisco disappears. But public transit may halt for a while, and the city may have control and assets forcibly removed from itself. In reality, San Francisco is solidly investment grade [1][2]. It can borrow its way out of this hole. [1] https://www.fitchratings.com/entity/san-francisco-city-county-ca-3682#rating-actions https://www.fitchratings.com/entity/san-francisco-city-count... [2] https://sf.gov/reports/march-2023/city-credit-ratings https://sf.gov/reports/march-2023/city-credit-ratings

raverbashing 4y ago
"Investment grade" this things usually follow cartoon physics, they are fine and dandy until they look and see they're floating mid-air