16 ms·

Its a real bummer with SF, but the problems are totally self inflicted. If the politics were of a different breed I could see it being one of the best cities to

Its a real bummer with SF, but the problems are totally self inflicted. If the politics were of a different breed I could see it being one of the best cities to live in the US, let alone the world. Having worked there for close to a decade the stuff I have seen was really depressing. I visited my cousin who works at Ouster nearby for lunch one day and was wondering what all these white casings were littering the ground, he said they were from junkie's needles. While on our walk a man was screaming inside a car with all the windows smashed in, and there were huge piles of shit due to junkies "unloading" on the sidewalk. I went to the local walgreens in SF and was trying to buy a tube of toothpaste, apparently the theft is so bad I had to have a person who works there open the case, and while I was waiting in line to buy it a homeless person ran out with merchandise. There are thousands and thousands of similar stories from others but until residents in SF start voting different I see things getting even worse than they are now. I know that may be hard to believe but we have been experiencing a boom economy, once that changes and things go south expect crime to surge to levels unimaginable.

nathanvanfleet 3y ago
"Ugh it's the woke"
augment001 3y ago
[dead]
themitigating 3y ago
How do you know the politics of the city are the cause of the crime?
- infamouscow 3y ago
  Confusing politics and policy is a tell-tale sign of political ideology failing at the most basic and fundamental level.
  - themitigating 3y ago
    Politics and policies are intertwined
artsytrashcan 3y ago
I will fill in the vagueness of your "vote different" statement with specifics of my own: progressive, redistributive policies that radically reduce inequality and that gives a controlling portion of the influence that currently sits with capital owners to the general public. Tax rich people, use the money to steamroll their NIMBYism, and build dense housing and public infrastructure that supports a healthy and sustainable economy, in opposition to the status quo which incentivizes people to steal and behave antisocially because there is no hope of "making it." This does indeed involve kicking much of the moderate Democratic establishment out.
- alex_sf 3y ago
  "What if we took money from the people that have provably used it to create more value and instead gave it to drug addicts who shit on the sidewalk? I know SF already spends 100k/yr per homeless resident, but we really need to push that up." This whole line of thought is absurd, you're in a bubble.
  - speakfreely 3y ago
    "The patient is not improving. Let's keep doubling the chemo until we see improvement."
  - artsytrashcan 3y ago
    "Value."
    - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      I’m sure all those ads have made my life better, somehow.
      - alex_sf 3y ago
        You are literally reading and posting on an ad for Y Combinator. Everything that you use every day that you don't pay for is a direct result of ads. Yes, they definitely have made your life better.
eertami 3y ago
[flagged]
- pauldenton 3y ago
  San Fransisco Democrats aren't left wing enough for you? What about Venezuela?
  - oefnak 3y ago
    What about Scandinavian politics? Or even German or Dutch politics?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - wk_end 3y ago
      Can you be specific? What is it about Scandinavian or German or Dutch politics do you think would avoid the situation in SF? I ask because left-to-right isn't really a one-dimensional scale. California has legalized recreational weed, for instance, and that's not a thing in Germany or Scandinavia (or even the Netherlands, technically). Those countries have much nicer prison conditions, but there's also no way anyone there - from the voters to the police to the government - would tolerate the sort of crime that the justice system in SF tolerates. In general, I suspect on many axes San Francisco/California politics are to the left of European social democracies, while being to the right on others. It'd be helpful to understand what specific ways it needs to move left to solve these problems, and why you believe that'd help. Of course you might just say "SF should be at or to the left of the Scandanavia on all axes", but I don't think that's a very substantive critique. (I'll add, with the caveat that I suspect these are apples-to-oranges comparisons: some quick Googling suggests that the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg - which spends more than anywhere else in Berlin - puts around 2.5EUR per resident per year towards homeless programs, whereas apparently SF spends more like $600 per person per year. I don't know what the apple-to-apple numbers are and couldn't find them at a glance, but I do have a hunch that spending in SF vastly outstripes that of anywhere in the EU, another way SF would be further to the left.)
Convolutional 3y ago
> until residents in SF start voting different The author here confesses his disconnect with the majority of people in San Francisco. This assessment is correct - the author and his views are disconnected from those of the majority of working people in San Francisco. The magnitude of the wealth disparity in San Francisco is almost hard to comprehend. Many in this thread have advocated militarizing the city, and cleaning it out of poor people so that it can be some kind of elite utopia for tech bros and VCs. The people of San Francisco do not share this view. That they do not share this view is not in my opinion (although it is) - but in the opinion of the parent poster. As those from more equitable European cities have said in this thread - Europeans don't have these kinds of problems where they live.
- NeutralCrane 3y ago
  European nations can be even more inequitable than the US without the same issues. The Netherlands have even more wealth disparity, and is much safer without these kinds of problems. I have no doubt wealth inequality can exacerbate the issue, but I don’t think it’s the cause. It’s ultimately one of culture, and American culture is violent and borderline sociopathic, certainly more so than that of many of the European and Asian nations people point to as examples to emulate. Those countries also don’t have issues prosecuting people who commit crime for fear of being prejudicial.
  - Convolutional 3y ago
    > Those countries also don’t have issues prosecuting people who commit crime for fear of being prejudicial. The US already has one and a half million people incarcerated, which does not count all those on probation or parole. It has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, although I think Rwanda has more, no large or industrialized country has a higher incarceration rate. Not sure increasing the incarceration rate even more is the solution.
    - biggoodwolf 3y ago
      Then you could say it has the highest % of criminals in society as compared to the rest of the world.
dang 3y ago
I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35454781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35454781 and moved it to the top level (just for technical reasons - the first page of the thread is currently too comment-heavy).

nathanvanfleet 3y ago

"Ugh it's the woke"

augment001 3y ago

[dead]

themitigating 3y ago

How do you know the politics of the city are the cause of the crime?

infamouscow 3y ago
Confusing politics and policy is a tell-tale sign of political ideology failing at the most basic and fundamental level.
- themitigating 3y ago
  Politics and policies are intertwined

artsytrashcan 3y ago

I will fill in the vagueness of your "vote different" statement with specifics of my own: progressive, redistributive policies that radically reduce inequality and that gives a controlling portion of the influence that currently sits with capital owners to the general public. Tax rich people, use the money to steamroll their NIMBYism, and build dense housing and public infrastructure that supports a healthy and sustainable economy, in opposition to the status quo which incentivizes people to steal and behave antisocially because there is no hope of "making it." This does indeed involve kicking much of the moderate Democratic establishment out.

alex_sf 3y ago
"What if we took money from the people that have provably used it to create more value and instead gave it to drug addicts who shit on the sidewalk? I know SF already spends 100k/yr per homeless resident, but we really need to push that up." This whole line of thought is absurd, you're in a bubble.
- speakfreely 3y ago
  "The patient is not improving. Let's keep doubling the chemo until we see improvement."
- artsytrashcan 3y ago
  "Value."
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    I’m sure all those ads have made my life better, somehow.
    - alex_sf 3y ago
      You are literally reading and posting on an ad for Y Combinator. Everything that you use every day that you don't pay for is a direct result of ads. Yes, they definitely have made your life better.

eertami 3y ago

[flagged]

pauldenton 3y ago
San Fransisco Democrats aren't left wing enough for you? What about Venezuela?
- oefnak 3y ago
  What about Scandinavian politics? Or even German or Dutch politics?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - wk_end 3y ago
    Can you be specific? What is it about Scandinavian or German or Dutch politics do you think would avoid the situation in SF? I ask because left-to-right isn't really a one-dimensional scale. California has legalized recreational weed, for instance, and that's not a thing in Germany or Scandinavia (or even the Netherlands, technically). Those countries have much nicer prison conditions, but there's also no way anyone there - from the voters to the police to the government - would tolerate the sort of crime that the justice system in SF tolerates. In general, I suspect on many axes San Francisco/California politics are to the left of European social democracies, while being to the right on others. It'd be helpful to understand what specific ways it needs to move left to solve these problems, and why you believe that'd help. Of course you might just say "SF should be at or to the left of the Scandanavia on all axes", but I don't think that's a very substantive critique. (I'll add, with the caveat that I suspect these are apples-to-oranges comparisons: some quick Googling suggests that the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg - which spends more than anywhere else in Berlin - puts around 2.5EUR per resident per year towards homeless programs, whereas apparently SF spends more like $600 per person per year. I don't know what the apple-to-apple numbers are and couldn't find them at a glance, but I do have a hunch that spending in SF vastly outstripes that of anywhere in the EU, another way SF would be further to the left.)

Convolutional 3y ago

> until residents in SF start voting different The author here confesses his disconnect with the majority of people in San Francisco. This assessment is correct - the author and his views are disconnected from those of the majority of working people in San Francisco. The magnitude of the wealth disparity in San Francisco is almost hard to comprehend. Many in this thread have advocated militarizing the city, and cleaning it out of poor people so that it can be some kind of elite utopia for tech bros and VCs. The people of San Francisco do not share this view. That they do not share this view is not in my opinion (although it is) - but in the opinion of the parent poster. As those from more equitable European cities have said in this thread - Europeans don't have these kinds of problems where they live.

NeutralCrane 3y ago
European nations can be even more inequitable than the US without the same issues. The Netherlands have even more wealth disparity, and is much safer without these kinds of problems. I have no doubt wealth inequality can exacerbate the issue, but I don’t think it’s the cause. It’s ultimately one of culture, and American culture is violent and borderline sociopathic, certainly more so than that of many of the European and Asian nations people point to as examples to emulate. Those countries also don’t have issues prosecuting people who commit crime for fear of being prejudicial.
- Convolutional 3y ago
  > Those countries also don’t have issues prosecuting people who commit crime for fear of being prejudicial. The US already has one and a half million people incarcerated, which does not count all those on probation or parole. It has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, although I think Rwanda has more, no large or industrialized country has a higher incarceration rate. Not sure increasing the incarceration rate even more is the solution.
  - biggoodwolf 3y ago
    Then you could say it has the highest % of criminals in society as compared to the rest of the world.

dang 3y ago

I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35454781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35454781 and moved it to the top level (just for technical reasons - the first page of the thread is currently too comment-heavy).