4 ms·

The most frustrating part about the conversation is that politics takes away the fundamental fact that what is happening in the city is not normal and there is

The most frustrating part about the conversation is that politics takes away the fundamental fact that what is happening in the city is not normal and there is no one else to blame for it other than the city officials, not the pandemic, not the wfh tech workers, just the city.

johndhi 4y ago
Why? I'm happy to blame the city official partially, but isn't it significant that SF, more than other big cities, was dependent on tech tenants who have largely gone remote?
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Not really, most were in SV.
koolba 4y ago
> … no one else to blame for it other than the city officials, not the pandemic, not the wfh tech workers, just the city. People elect the government they deserve.
- fortissimohn 4y ago
  That assumes no corruption. Hard to partake in the democratic process when kickbacks and bought votes exist.
- antognini 4y ago
  As H.L. Mencken put it, "Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and that they deserve to get it, good and hard."
- gautamdivgi 4y ago
  That's not entirely true. You may not live in SF but only work in SF. In this situation you have no say in SF government because your voting rights are based on where you stay and not where you work. Maybe there needs to be a way to better distribute your vote? If you're in a place for about 1/2 your waking hours of the week, maybe you should get a say in the government of that place? Edit: This is a situation with most metro areas. Definitely with Chicago where there is a large contingent of folks who commute from the suburbs.
- smolder 4y ago
  People generally only elect what they find to be the least detestable of the faux-representatives that their party strategists and financial backers put forth. It's possible for harmful but popular policy to go forward with no one but your average constituent to blame, but when every option is a different set of false promises and failures to execute, and "the discourse" is driven mostly by dollar-driven propagandists, it's hard to place the blame for disfunctional government on voters generally.
- smolder 4y ago
  People generally only elect what they find to be the least detestable of the faux-representatives that their party strategists and financial backers put forth. It's possible for harmful but popular policy to go forward with no one but your average constituent to blame, but when every option is a different set of false promises and failures to execute, and "the discourse" is driven mostly by dollar-driven propagandists, it's hard to place the blame for dysfunctional government on voters generally.
  - smolder 4y ago
    Sorry for the double post... Can't delete the dupe now, unfortunately.
exabrial 4y ago
Pretty sure there's only one political party and political philosophy there.
- clairity 4y ago
  it's a mistake to believe that any major political party adheres to a principled political philosophy, but it's true that single-party politics is ripe for corruption, which is CA (especially SF and LA) in a nutshell. it's much easier for money to talk when only one party is listening. this is the same dynamic that antitrust in commerce is meant to prevent. politicians spend something like 80% of their time now soliciting donations, even in single-party areas, which is very telling of their priorities (rhetoric be damned).
atlgator 4y ago
You can’t separate the two. CA has made drugs and misdemeanor crimes effectively un-policeable. Billions of dollars in taxpayer funds have been given to nonprofits to improve homeless conditions but they’ve only gotten worse while the nonprofit operators grow rich. People exploit loopholes in the safety nets to get money for drugs. These are all unintended consequences of poorly conceived policy making.
- wittenbunk 4y ago
  Your comment is suggesting that increased policing reduces homelessness and that welfare dollars are being spent on drugs. Neither insinuation is supported by evidence.
  - atlgator 4y ago
    No. My comments are about drugs, misdemeanor crimes (e.g., theft), and homelessness. All run rampant in SF. I only attributed the first two to policing. Homelessness by itself is not a crime. I guess you feel otherwise for you to interpret it that way. As for the welfare system, people are using EBT to buy bottled water, dumping the bottles out in the parking lot, then turning the empty bottles back in for cash through the recycling program. They use the money for drugs or alcohol. That’s one example.
    - wittenbunk 4y ago
      People are not doing that. Real life is not the fox news segment you are describing. Either cite evidence for outlandish claims or they will be dismissed.
      - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
        Theres literally videos of people dping this in droves. You cant just stuff your fingers in your ears and scream and claim you arent hearing anything.
      - colpabar 4y ago
bryans 4y ago
Except for the fact that what is happening in San Francisco is completely normal. All violent crime stats in SF are still trending downward. The only increase in crime is non-violent theft, and the current rates are just a return to pre-pandemic levels, which makes sense given that there were far fewer opportunities for people to interact during the pandemic. And all of these crime rates are relatively the same or even better than the rest of the country. What you're experiencing is confirmation bias. You read about one crime, then started noticing all of the stories about crime, formed a theory based on this hyper focusing, and now you believe it's worse than ever despite the stats clearly showing otherwise. https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/fixing-san-francisco-problems/crime https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/fixing-san-francis... https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rate-and-property-crime-rate https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rat...
- darth_avocado 4y ago
  What I am experiencing is data being misused. I've lived in the Bay Area for more than a decade and yeah, it's not as violent as the 90s, but compared to a decade ago, violence is increasing. If you are a resident, you very well know that a huge portion of crimes, violent or not, are not being reported because of the end result. Property crime is through the roof. My car has been broken into 3 times in the last year or so. Before that, I've only had my car broken into once in a decade before. I've had to call the police 3-4 times (apart from the car break ins) in the last 2 years for individuals in crisis, sometimes threatening violence. I never had to do it in the decade before. In fact, the first time I had to do it, I wasn't sure if I call 911 and had to look up the non emergency line. Yes, all of this is anecdotal or "personal experience", but talking to everyone I know around me, all of their "personal experiences" have only gotten worse recently. Which makes me believe that at this point, the data paints as accurate picture as anecdotes these days.
  - bryans 4y ago
    You're claiming that hard data from numerous sources doesn't matter because it doesn't match up with your personal experience, and then doubled down on your claim that violent crime is increasing, despite every source imaginable disagreeing with you. We apparently live in different universes. https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Francisco-crime-Chesa-Boudin-London-Breed-16751930.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Francisco-crime-Che... https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime-rate-statistics https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime...
Der_Einzige 4y ago
All west coast hippie liberal cities are experiencing it, so it is indeed normal. Same shit in SF, Portland, Seattle, and even Vancouver CA! It's a PNW problem. We are simply too libertarian and hate cops too much. Everyone else in this thread thinks it's something else. It's not. People here fucking hate cops and will turn society to anarchy to be rid of them.
- dawnerd 4y ago
  Cops don't solve mental illness.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    They aren’t meant to solve mental illness, they’re meant to keep the non-mentally ill and everyone else safe. “Solv[ing]” mental illness, such as it can be, is not relevant to the immediate question of safety.
    - dawnerd 4y ago
      So then, all of the people suffering from mental illness and drug abuse should just be rounded up and arrested? That seems to be the solution a lot of people on HN are proposing. You know what the real problem is? Not caring for these people and getting the help they need. Arrest isn't going to change a thing. They'll get out of jail and go right back to it. Unfortunately a certain segment of the population would rather put money into a police force than anything else. End of the day, no one really seems to care what happens to the _people_ having trouble, just that they're not visible. Your own statement implies mentally ill people are a danger to everyone. That's just sickening.
      - remarkEon 4y ago
        My statement implies that the police exist to triage safety problems. I did not say anything about rounding people up and arresting them. Your response is par for the course in how this debate goes. Someone points out that, gee gosh golly, things feel unsafe for law abiding normal people just going about their lives. They request that laws on the books are actually enforced - not more complicated than that. And you jump in and say that we're advocating for a "sickening" solution to this problem. Call me a Nazi if you want, I suppose. The real problem is that you don't have any solutions other than "do the same thing but more louder". And, yes, mentally ill people are in fact a danger - to themselves and quite often to others. Completely bizarre that there's ostensibly smart people who don't get that. >They'll get out of jail and go right back to it. Many of these people should not be allowed out of jail. You are imagining that everyone in that situation is a benign hippie that is just down on their luck. >End of the day, no one really seems to care what happens to the _people_ having trouble, just that they're not visible. This is a totally dystopian way to frame this. People like me, who have a problem with these policies, are pointing out that the infatuation with homelessness some progressives have is making things worse.

johndhi 4y ago

Why? I'm happy to blame the city official partially, but isn't it significant that SF, more than other big cities, was dependent on tech tenants who have largely gone remote?

mixmastamyk 4y ago
Not really, most were in SV.

koolba 4y ago

> … no one else to blame for it other than the city officials, not the pandemic, not the wfh tech workers, just the city. People elect the government they deserve.

fortissimohn 4y ago
That assumes no corruption. Hard to partake in the democratic process when kickbacks and bought votes exist.
antognini 4y ago
As H.L. Mencken put it, "Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and that they deserve to get it, good and hard."
gautamdivgi 4y ago
That's not entirely true. You may not live in SF but only work in SF. In this situation you have no say in SF government because your voting rights are based on where you stay and not where you work. Maybe there needs to be a way to better distribute your vote? If you're in a place for about 1/2 your waking hours of the week, maybe you should get a say in the government of that place? Edit: This is a situation with most metro areas. Definitely with Chicago where there is a large contingent of folks who commute from the suburbs.
smolder 4y ago
People generally only elect what they find to be the least detestable of the faux-representatives that their party strategists and financial backers put forth. It's possible for harmful but popular policy to go forward with no one but your average constituent to blame, but when every option is a different set of false promises and failures to execute, and "the discourse" is driven mostly by dollar-driven propagandists, it's hard to place the blame for disfunctional government on voters generally.
smolder 4y ago
People generally only elect what they find to be the least detestable of the faux-representatives that their party strategists and financial backers put forth. It's possible for harmful but popular policy to go forward with no one but your average constituent to blame, but when every option is a different set of false promises and failures to execute, and "the discourse" is driven mostly by dollar-driven propagandists, it's hard to place the blame for dysfunctional government on voters generally.
- smolder 4y ago
  Sorry for the double post... Can't delete the dupe now, unfortunately.

exabrial 4y ago

Pretty sure there's only one political party and political philosophy there.

clairity 4y ago
it's a mistake to believe that any major political party adheres to a principled political philosophy, but it's true that single-party politics is ripe for corruption, which is CA (especially SF and LA) in a nutshell. it's much easier for money to talk when only one party is listening. this is the same dynamic that antitrust in commerce is meant to prevent. politicians spend something like 80% of their time now soliciting donations, even in single-party areas, which is very telling of their priorities (rhetoric be damned).

atlgator 4y ago

You can’t separate the two. CA has made drugs and misdemeanor crimes effectively un-policeable. Billions of dollars in taxpayer funds have been given to nonprofits to improve homeless conditions but they’ve only gotten worse while the nonprofit operators grow rich. People exploit loopholes in the safety nets to get money for drugs. These are all unintended consequences of poorly conceived policy making.

wittenbunk 4y ago
Your comment is suggesting that increased policing reduces homelessness and that welfare dollars are being spent on drugs. Neither insinuation is supported by evidence.
- atlgator 4y ago
  No. My comments are about drugs, misdemeanor crimes (e.g., theft), and homelessness. All run rampant in SF. I only attributed the first two to policing. Homelessness by itself is not a crime. I guess you feel otherwise for you to interpret it that way. As for the welfare system, people are using EBT to buy bottled water, dumping the bottles out in the parking lot, then turning the empty bottles back in for cash through the recycling program. They use the money for drugs or alcohol. That’s one example.
  - wittenbunk 4y ago
    People are not doing that. Real life is not the fox news segment you are describing. Either cite evidence for outlandish claims or they will be dismissed.
    - DontchaKnowit 4y ago
      Theres literally videos of people dping this in droves. You cant just stuff your fingers in your ears and scream and claim you arent hearing anything.
    - colpabar 4y ago

bryans 4y ago

Except for the fact that what is happening in San Francisco is completely normal. All violent crime stats in SF are still trending downward. The only increase in crime is non-violent theft, and the current rates are just a return to pre-pandemic levels, which makes sense given that there were far fewer opportunities for people to interact during the pandemic. And all of these crime rates are relatively the same or even better than the rest of the country. What you're experiencing is confirmation bias. You read about one crime, then started noticing all of the stories about crime, formed a theory based on this hyper focusing, and now you believe it's worse than ever despite the stats clearly showing otherwise. https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/fixing-san-francisco-problems/crime https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/fixing-san-francis... https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rate-and-property-crime-rate https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rat...

darth_avocado 4y ago
What I am experiencing is data being misused. I've lived in the Bay Area for more than a decade and yeah, it's not as violent as the 90s, but compared to a decade ago, violence is increasing. If you are a resident, you very well know that a huge portion of crimes, violent or not, are not being reported because of the end result. Property crime is through the roof. My car has been broken into 3 times in the last year or so. Before that, I've only had my car broken into once in a decade before. I've had to call the police 3-4 times (apart from the car break ins) in the last 2 years for individuals in crisis, sometimes threatening violence. I never had to do it in the decade before. In fact, the first time I had to do it, I wasn't sure if I call 911 and had to look up the non emergency line. Yes, all of this is anecdotal or "personal experience", but talking to everyone I know around me, all of their "personal experiences" have only gotten worse recently. Which makes me believe that at this point, the data paints as accurate picture as anecdotes these days.
- bryans 4y ago
  You're claiming that hard data from numerous sources doesn't matter because it doesn't match up with your personal experience, and then doubled down on your claim that violent crime is increasing, despite every source imaginable disagreeing with you. We apparently live in different universes. https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Francisco-crime-Chesa-Boudin-London-Breed-16751930.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Francisco-crime-Che... https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime-rate-statistics https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime...

Der_Einzige 4y ago

All west coast hippie liberal cities are experiencing it, so it is indeed normal. Same shit in SF, Portland, Seattle, and even Vancouver CA! It's a PNW problem. We are simply too libertarian and hate cops too much. Everyone else in this thread thinks it's something else. It's not. People here fucking hate cops and will turn society to anarchy to be rid of them.

dawnerd 4y ago
Cops don't solve mental illness.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  They aren’t meant to solve mental illness, they’re meant to keep the non-mentally ill and everyone else safe. “Solv[ing]” mental illness, such as it can be, is not relevant to the immediate question of safety.
  - dawnerd 4y ago
    So then, all of the people suffering from mental illness and drug abuse should just be rounded up and arrested? That seems to be the solution a lot of people on HN are proposing. You know what the real problem is? Not caring for these people and getting the help they need. Arrest isn't going to change a thing. They'll get out of jail and go right back to it. Unfortunately a certain segment of the population would rather put money into a police force than anything else. End of the day, no one really seems to care what happens to the _people_ having trouble, just that they're not visible. Your own statement implies mentally ill people are a danger to everyone. That's just sickening.
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      My statement implies that the police exist to triage safety problems. I did not say anything about rounding people up and arresting them. Your response is par for the course in how this debate goes. Someone points out that, gee gosh golly, things feel unsafe for law abiding normal people just going about their lives. They request that laws on the books are actually enforced - not more complicated than that. And you jump in and say that we're advocating for a "sickening" solution to this problem. Call me a Nazi if you want, I suppose. The real problem is that you don't have any solutions other than "do the same thing but more louder". And, yes, mentally ill people are in fact a danger - to themselves and quite often to others. Completely bizarre that there's ostensibly smart people who don't get that. >They'll get out of jail and go right back to it. Many of these people should not be allowed out of jail. You are imagining that everyone in that situation is a benign hippie that is just down on their luck. >End of the day, no one really seems to care what happens to the _people_ having trouble, just that they're not visible. This is a totally dystopian way to frame this. People like me, who have a problem with these policies, are pointing out that the infatuation with homelessness some progressives have is making things worse.