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People are reading way too much into the Waymo incident. It was Chinese new year. There was a bunch of drunk people in the street. Somebody messed with the car

People are reading way too much into the Waymo incident. It was Chinese new year. There was a bunch of drunk people in the street. Somebody messed with the car, and then somebody else did, and so on. Until somebody threw a firework in there out of memetic one upmanship and it caught the thing on fire. You can see this in the videos. This was not ideological, it was just mob revelry gone awry.

cogman10 3y ago
Yup, similar things happen after major sporting events.
- m463 3y ago
  A lot of drinkers revolt against "big porcelain" and their control over the aesthetics of sinks and toilets.
angarg12 3y ago
This. Going from one act of vandalism to an escalating revolt against big tech sounds like quite a stretch.
armas 3y ago
I was there walking through a little over an hour before and didn't see anyone drinking. Police had shown up and tried stopping some of the fireworks in the middle of the intersection. I think it's important to consider why of all the cars passing through and parked on the street it was the Waymo car that got vandalized.
- nomel 3y ago
  > street it was the Waymo car that got vandalized. An obvious possibility is: no immediate risk and no mechanism for empathy. If you vandalize a person's car, that person might come at you, out of the crowd, possibly with a weapon. And, some people might even feel bad, knowing that they're ruining someone's day. It could have been fueled by Waymo hatred, but it also had the least risk.
mc32 3y ago
So much for caring about the environment… Like how many of those revealers espouse clean energy and EVs and so on and then go and uselessly and wastefully light a car on fire? It seems so counter message.
throwup238 3y ago
> You can see this in the videos. This was not ideological, it was just mob revelry gone awry. It's really obvious in the videos in my opinion. The kid smashing the windows with the skate board shortly before the car is lit on fire even has this ridiculous body language where he turns around after every strike waiting for encouragement from the crowd before doing it again. Vandalism in the age of Instagram influencers.
misiti3780 3y ago
The media sensationalizing a non-event ? you don't say!
fdr 3y ago
I think you're right. Back when there were tangible protests against technology workers moving in, there was more writing by the protest organizers themselves about it, as well as protest actions. Usually the ire was directed at shuttle busses that were at least a little anarchic in how they affected traffic, and a period of rapidly escalating rents after a long soft period after the great financial crisis. Contemporary with that era, a Muni bus was burned in the aftermath of the Giants winning the world series. https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Knuckleheads-run-amok-after-Giants-win-3990567.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Knuckleheads-run-amok-a.... This was not interpreted as a stand against Muni. Waymo cars are perhaps conveniently unoccupied and associated with an organization that can afford a loss. But I've seen very few 2012-like vibes about them (as a pedestrian and cyclist, and much more occasional customer, I basically like Waymo: its reaction speed to my presence is superhuman). They seem to keep their safety records open. I know about that recent unfortunate case involving a cyclist trying to ride tandem with a truck in an intersection, I suspect they'll be changing their programming. I'm also a big fan of the collision avoidance on my normal Subaru. It's little doubt to me that computers are already mostly better than people at least collision avoidance, where alertness is often the element in shortest supply.
choppaface 3y ago
Or are people under-reacting? Remember that Google / Waymo instigated California's first major self-driving collision many years ago, did so as a direct result of unsafe / greedy testing, and they have benefitted immensely from the lack of reporting / regulation surrounding that event: https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-involved-in-unreported-crashes/ https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-i...
makeitdouble 3y ago
You're missing the part where no one seriously wanted to stop it. As you point out these kind of excess happen all the time at festive events, someone drunkyard will kick a car, steal a street plate or deface a poster. But it stops there, as a random mischief. People piling up on the same thing isn't random or just a natural behavior, and nobody telling them to just move on goes along that line.
- scarmig 3y ago
  People burned up a Muni bus after the World Series, and no one stopped them. And it was certainly a collective thing, not a lone miscreant. Vehicles that are owned by large apersonal organizations seem like a common target in this type of thing.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    Yes. In some place people seem to have a real grudge against buses. France had that in spades in some suburbs, where bus is the most viable public transportation, yet bus drivers would get harrassed or straight beaten up. I think it comes down to the only "authority" figure they deal with on a daily basis, and it's so unfair to bus drivers who are usually the most duty driven and community conscious people on the block.
thrwaway202402 3y ago
[dead]
thrawy202402 3y ago
To be clear, if you look at the footage the mob was in fact not Chinese people from Chinatown. Just the usual human garbage vandals from all over the Bay Area. See for yourself : https://twitter.com/michael_vandi/status/1756550257851449372 https://twitter.com/michael_vandi/status/1756550257851449372 Just don’t want anyone to get the wrong sinophobic impression

cogman10 3y ago

Yup, similar things happen after major sporting events.

m463 3y ago
A lot of drinkers revolt against "big porcelain" and their control over the aesthetics of sinks and toilets.

angarg12 3y ago

This. Going from one act of vandalism to an escalating revolt against big tech sounds like quite a stretch.

armas 3y ago

I was there walking through a little over an hour before and didn't see anyone drinking. Police had shown up and tried stopping some of the fireworks in the middle of the intersection. I think it's important to consider why of all the cars passing through and parked on the street it was the Waymo car that got vandalized.

nomel 3y ago
> street it was the Waymo car that got vandalized. An obvious possibility is: no immediate risk and no mechanism for empathy. If you vandalize a person's car, that person might come at you, out of the crowd, possibly with a weapon. And, some people might even feel bad, knowing that they're ruining someone's day. It could have been fueled by Waymo hatred, but it also had the least risk.

mc32 3y ago

So much for caring about the environment… Like how many of those revealers espouse clean energy and EVs and so on and then go and uselessly and wastefully light a car on fire? It seems so counter message.

throwup238 3y ago

> You can see this in the videos. This was not ideological, it was just mob revelry gone awry. It's really obvious in the videos in my opinion. The kid smashing the windows with the skate board shortly before the car is lit on fire even has this ridiculous body language where he turns around after every strike waiting for encouragement from the crowd before doing it again. Vandalism in the age of Instagram influencers.

misiti3780 3y ago

The media sensationalizing a non-event ? you don't say!

fdr 3y ago

I think you're right. Back when there were tangible protests against technology workers moving in, there was more writing by the protest organizers themselves about it, as well as protest actions. Usually the ire was directed at shuttle busses that were at least a little anarchic in how they affected traffic, and a period of rapidly escalating rents after a long soft period after the great financial crisis. Contemporary with that era, a Muni bus was burned in the aftermath of the Giants winning the world series. https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Knuckleheads-run-amok-after-Giants-win-3990567.php https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Knuckleheads-run-amok-a.... This was not interpreted as a stand against Muni. Waymo cars are perhaps conveniently unoccupied and associated with an organization that can afford a loss. But I've seen very few 2012-like vibes about them (as a pedestrian and cyclist, and much more occasional customer, I basically like Waymo: its reaction speed to my presence is superhuman). They seem to keep their safety records open. I know about that recent unfortunate case involving a cyclist trying to ride tandem with a truck in an intersection, I suspect they'll be changing their programming. I'm also a big fan of the collision avoidance on my normal Subaru. It's little doubt to me that computers are already mostly better than people at least collision avoidance, where alertness is often the element in shortest supply.

choppaface 3y ago

Or are people under-reacting? Remember that Google / Waymo instigated California's first major self-driving collision many years ago, did so as a direct result of unsafe / greedy testing, and they have benefitted immensely from the lack of reporting / regulation surrounding that event: https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-involved-in-unreported-crashes/ https://www.salon.com/2018/10/16/googles-self-driving-cars-i...

makeitdouble 3y ago

You're missing the part where no one seriously wanted to stop it. As you point out these kind of excess happen all the time at festive events, someone drunkyard will kick a car, steal a street plate or deface a poster. But it stops there, as a random mischief. People piling up on the same thing isn't random or just a natural behavior, and nobody telling them to just move on goes along that line.

scarmig 3y ago
People burned up a Muni bus after the World Series, and no one stopped them. And it was certainly a collective thing, not a lone miscreant. Vehicles that are owned by large apersonal organizations seem like a common target in this type of thing.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Yes. In some place people seem to have a real grudge against buses. France had that in spades in some suburbs, where bus is the most viable public transportation, yet bus drivers would get harrassed or straight beaten up. I think it comes down to the only "authority" figure they deal with on a daily basis, and it's so unfair to bus drivers who are usually the most duty driven and community conscious people on the block.

thrwaway202402 3y ago

[dead]

thrawy202402 3y ago

To be clear, if you look at the footage the mob was in fact not Chinese people from Chinatown. Just the usual human garbage vandals from all over the Bay Area. See for yourself : https://twitter.com/michael_vandi/status/1756550257851449372 https://twitter.com/michael_vandi/status/1756550257851449372 Just don’t want anyone to get the wrong sinophobic impression