California is only about a hundred and fifty years old. It was like Siberia, but with an awesome climate. Gold was discovered and a hundreds of thousands of 4

California is only about a hundred and fifty years old. It was like Siberia, but with an awesome climate. Gold was discovered and a hundreds of thousands of 49ers flooded the state and San Francisco became a major port city overnight. For the next hundred and fifty years, right up until about 2001, the city has served as the "drain" for the rest of the country. San Francisco is and always has been an open-air lunatic asylum (e.g. His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I.) The Tenderloin is bedlam, a little slice of hell raised to the surface of the Earth and allowed to fester in broad daylight. In short, nothing happened to make SF this way, it's always been this way. The idea that SF is some left-wing exemplar is just as foolish as the idea that is was a good place to start start-ups. It's all hype. SF is kinda nasty. (Go check out what was going down here a few decades ago. But be warned, it's pretty fucked up. It's a story that culminates in the events at Jonestown. If you don't already know what that is, then you probably should not look it up.)