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Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
- null_ptr 13y agoGotta love “TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here” I find it hard to sympathize with a bunch of lazy thugs who do nothing to improve their situation. Engineering and white collar jobs in general have always paid well. Industries who are in demand even more so, and for just reason. Did similar protests happen in Detroit 50 years ago during the auto boom? Did unskilled rubes that do nothing all day put up banners saying "Auto boys not welcome"? This is absurd. Take control of your own damn life. Educate yourself and learn relevant skills. The resources are out there and more accessible than ever. Spend a few good hours in your public library every day for a year and walk out of there a changed person with valuable skills to offer.
- yarou 13y agoThese kids never worked a day in their life, though. Their parents provided them with all the tools to succeed, but they still managed to fuck it up. They have no desire to improve themselves, they simply want to continue to leech off of whatever person will tolerate them the longest. Sickening.
- null_ptr 13y agoExactly. They want a free lunch off the hard work of others. Otherwise they would have been on their way to work this morning, not vandalizing a bus.
- gohrt 13y agoPlease don't marginalized the un/underemployed. There is unemployment in the US, and not everyone can or should be an entrepeneur. (Heck, plenty of us wealthy tech workers would not succeed as entrepeneurs). The noblesse oblige is to demonstrate leadership by creating opportunities for honest workers. Edit for clarity: null_ptr implied that the alternative to this behavior is "going to work". Other possibilities are "try to find work", or "be stuck because there is no work avaialable".
- null_ptr 13y agoNo sympathy for thugs and vandals. People who smash bus windows Friday morning have no place in civilized society. This has nothing to do with their employment situation. Why don't they go to the public library and learn some relevant skills? Learning opportunities that actually lead to well paid jobs are more accessible than ever. If you have the time to smash a bus window you have the time to learn skills that will uplift your spirit and place in this world.
- yarou 13y agoThe guy (or gal) above you is not marginalizing unemployment. They are trivializing the new leisure class as talked about by Thorstein Veblen. Except instead of conspicuous consumption, they are engaging in poverty tourism. Don't be fooled by these folks, they have well funded trust funds and have never worked a day in their life. Rather than buying a new car to inspire their neighbor's envy, they are trying to build credibility around their "worldliness". However, they are doing very little to actively improve the situation of those people actually struggling and disenfranchised.
- baddox 13y agoDo you think that protesting a Google bus is a better usage of time for the unemployed than, say, improving one's marketable skills are applying for jobs?
- vacri 13y agoAs we all know, all jobs begin at 8 and end at 5, there are no other wage-earning options available.
- vdaniuk 13y agoThat is the most unsubstantiated claim I've seen in a comment in this thread. Pure hate and vitriol. Sickening. And mind you I don't support these protests and the general animosity towards the techies.
- r00fus 13y agoNice broad sweeping generalizations. Do you have proof all these protestors are trust-fund babies? Otherwise, your comment is out of line. Provide light, not heat.
- bluedino 13y ago>> Did unskilled rubes that do nothing all day put up banners saying "Auto boys not welcome"? 'Auto boys' are/were unskilled rubes. Whites weren't holding up signs saying 'blacks not welcome'. They just left. It was 50 years ago, after all. edit: They were, up to a point.
- bcoates 13y agohttp://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-out-sundown-town.html http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-out-sundown-town... The racial distribution of the US is neither an accident or the result of voluntary actions by individuals.
- greenyoda 13y ago"'Auto boys' are/were unskilled rubes." You need a lot more skill to work in an auto plant than you need for serving up fast food. 50 years ago, auto production wasn't nearly as automated as it is today, so the guys on the assembly lines needed to know how to do welding and other skilled trades. Robots do a lot more of that stuff today.
- heurist 13y agoSome more information on what happened in Detroit during the great migration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Race_Riot_(1943) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Race_Riot_(1943) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot
- unclebucknasty 13y agoI wouldn't defend these guys in particular, but I will say that things were vastly different in Detroit (and the U.S. in general) 50 years ago. Those unskilled people could much more easily become skilled to the point that they landed solidly in the middle class. In general, there was much more opportunity to pull one's self up by the bootstraps, more even income distribution, and true mechanisms that allowed a rising tide to lift all boats.
- unclebucknasty 13y agoAlways love the downvotes without debate.
- negamax 13y agoMy thoughts on this are, techies are generally nice and intelligent people. Last thing they will do is to harm someone or get to a physical fight. Unionised autoworkers wouldn't be a soft target. I really hope that this is a one off incident and not beginning of some demonifying of tech sector. Incidences like this could be shocking to some people and may change their perception about poor and helpless. In this thread itself, there are so many comments with words like leeches and useless thrown in.
- null_ptr 13y agoBeing a soft and easy target has to be part of it. It stands to reason that people who smash bus windows are the same people who used to beat up nerds at school when they were children. Some people set themselves up for a life of shit from the get go and never bother to change course.
- negamax 13y agoI fully agree with you. But I think grown up nerds are far more successful and powerful than their highschool bullies counterparts. I am more afraid of good people turning into vendetta seekers because of this (your comment kind of resonates to what I am foreseeing as plausible outcome).
- null_ptr 13y agoWhat I meant was that some people clearly never grow up past highschool. Instead of taking charge of their own lives, they choose to engage in childish games like bullying and name calling. They're still waiting for the teacher to bail them out and advance them to the next grade instead of leaving them behind until they put in the work necessary to pass the class. But there's no teacher waiting on you when you're in your 20s - the assumption is that you've grown up by now.
- SerpentJoe 13y agoI'm angry too, but that does not stand to reason.
- baddox 13y agoI would love to see Google hire some muscle to provide security for their buses. Just let the protesters choose what level of violence to bring to the table.
- ffrryuu 13y agoYou mean guns? Maybe give bullet proof vest to Google employees.
- Crito 13y agoBig imposing dudes with mace would probably be sufficient. These kids are spineless bullies from entitled backgrounds, not hardened criminals.
- baddox 13y agoI'm just mean security guards. I doubt they are allowed to carry guns.
- ffrryuu 13y agoI like it that my sarcasm was treated like a serious comment :) j/k, but seriously, you want good relations with the community. You can't win with security guards.
- baddox 13y agoAt some point you stop caring about relations with the part of the community that is physically blocking your buses.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sp332 13y agoThe bus remained where it was, the thought of driving to Mountain View with a broken window and flooded with cold air an unthinkable horror they could not endure. Or maybe because it was a crime scene?
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoDriving with a broken glass raining behind bus does not sound like a particularly safe thing to do.
- wil421 13y agoI wouldnt take a bus if it got attacked with a brick and had a shattered window.
- johnward 13y agoTIL: "cold air" is ~54f.
- sp332 13y agoAt 54F ambient, wind chill at 40 MPH drops to just above freezing.
- ry0ohki 13y agoIt's the back window busted out though? So there wouldn't be a 40mph wind chill I don't think
- Crito 13y agoThe turbulence off the back of the bus could probably cause some significant wind inside of the bus, but 40mph wind certainly seems unlikely. Of course relative comfort had little to do with why the bus did not continue on it's route unphased. Even city buses would stop for that sort of thing.
- sp332 13y agoAh I didn't think of that. There's a different issue though which is that the exhaust will be pulled into the bus.
- angersock 13y agoFirst against the wall, it would appear. All of us doing tech work should be paying very, very close attention to this sentiment. That said, why can't these folks find more constructive ways of trying to change the system and address their grievances?
- zrail 13y agoThe private buses are a very visible symbol of what's going on in their neighborhood. They're an obvious target.
- dragontamer 13y agoThey're an obvious soft-target. An easy target that they can attack without penalty. The "obvious target" would be to do this in the middle of the city, to raise better awareness of their anger and their message. As it is, this is simply an unknown attack on a bus. Even the spin-propaganda blog post is very unclear on what the problem is...
- vacri 13y agoAs it is, this is simply an unknown attack on a bus. And yet look at all this discussion here on a forum that caters to the demographic they're targetting.
- boumblesnopass 13y agoBecause then people might listen, things might change and then they'd have nothing else to talk about!
- jaibot 13y agoPain and fear do not tend to lead to rational approaches to complex problems. People's lives are getting worse, and they're not thinking through the problem fully - just lashing out at the most visible, proximate cause. It's the same pattern one sees in anti-immigration efforts - outsiders competing for a limited resource (jobs, housing) reduces the consumer surplus of the in-group. The traditional response to this throughout most of human history is along the lines of "attack the encroaching tribe", so we're actually doing better than the historical baseline. Of course, the much-better-response - "let's respond to an increase in demand with an increase in supply by lifting zoning restrictions and allowing for more housing" - isn't intuitive enough or emotionally evocative enough to get a crowd.
- jrockway 13y agoIt would be much better to have 100 more cars on the road during rush hour, right?
- etjossem 13y agoIt's faster to damage a single bus than slash 100 tires. The protesters don't care about the state of rush hour. They care about what the corporate buses represent: large tech corporations increasing the wealth gap and raising rent in SF/Oakland. It's a fact that each stalled bus will have a bottom-line impact on Google or one of its partners. That said, smashing windows is not an effective way to win allies. It just makes it a little bit easier to dismiss opponents of gentrification as supporters of vandalism. These "activists" are alienating the very public officials who would otherwise support measures that favor existing residents (e.g. rent control and stabilization).
- diab0lic 13y agoI can't imagine they were protesting the literal act of using a bus to ferry employees to work. Rather this was an easy way to target members of a group the protestors feel wronged by/animosity towards.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Crito 13y agoThey should consider reviewing their tactics then, because it sure as hell seems as though the buses are one of their complaints.
- minikites 13y agoIt would be much better to have affordable housing for all instead of the wealthy pricing out the ordinary.
- adamnemecek 13y agoCan you really blame Google for this though? Seems a bit misplaced.
- nathanvanfleet 13y ago"driven up the property values and rent prices, creating animosity, evictions, and poverty" I'm sorry but I can't imagine the gentrification has caused poverty. It's probably made it more inconvenient and pushed out people in poverty though.
- patrickg_zill 13y agoI hesitate to say that it "caused" poverty. But for people who have seen their rents go up while working the same jobs at roughly the same pay, you can see that a larger percentage of their pay goes to rent.
- altero 13y agoRent prices and other expenses skyrocketed. And not everyone has option to move out. So yes, it caused powerty.
- PeterisP 13y agoZoning laws creating an artificial scarcity of housing has caused the rent prices to skyrocket - already before that the prices were high enough to cause a boom in building lots of living space, if the city (by their voters) would allow it.
- Symmetry 13y agoI'm not too familiar with the SF housing legal environment, but in some places a lack of new housing is caused by preservation boards that are willing to declare, e.g., chain link fences as historical structures to prevent new development in their areas.
- hyperbovine 13y agoRent adjustments in Oakland are pegged to the CPI except in special cases. So long as you do not move, your rent will remain relatively stable.
- api 13y agoNot surprised to see this. The real estate hyperinflation in the Bay Area is beyond sanity at this point.
- altero 13y agoTechnicaly the bus is place of work, so there are interesting implications for Google as employer.
- anextio 13y agoNo, the bus is owned by a third party contractor. That does not count as Google's workplace.
- altero 13y agoAnd the office could be rented. I think it is clear that Google expect people to check emails and do 'work stuff', it was mentioned several times.
- huu 13y agoHas this actually happened? I can't find any other news source confirming this. Edit: Yeah, this actually did happen. Picture of the broken window: https://twitter.com/craigsfrost/status/414121201754468352/photo/1 https://twitter.com/craigsfrost/status/414121201754468352/ph...
- zem 13y agohttp://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/12/20/eviction-protesters-oakland-san-francisco-target-silicon-valley-buses http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/12/20/eviction-protesters...
- sp332 13y agoSince the last incident included a guy impersonating a Google employee, I'd imagine most news outlets are going to vet this story a little harder before covering it.
- JimboOmega 13y agoSomeone tweeting a picture isn't exactly verification. There's no real way to tell if that picture has anything to do with the location or bus in question. I'd really like to see some more verification - especially after the way the last Google Bus "incident" turned out. (A guy who at first appeared to be an employee trying to shout down the protesters... was actually a guy there to support the protesters, and make an artificial 'scene')
- huu 13y agoHere you go: https://twitter.com/craigsfrost/status/414074094578307072/photo/1 https://twitter.com/craigsfrost/status/414074094578307072/ph... Edit: The SF Chronicle is currently reaching out to the witnesses to get a better feel for the story. I'd expect something to come out in the mainstream news real soon.
- JimboOmega 13y agoI'll be waiting for it. If I knew Craig Frost, I might be more willing... the stilted writing style of the original just leaves me wanting to see more viewpoints.
- quantumpotato_ 13y ago"kind young man".. really? Fucking spin.
- kohanz 13y agoThe writing is strange and sounds very biased. The repeated reference to a kind young man, for example.
- jaibot 13y agoThis isn't a news article - it's a post on "East Bay | Global Justice and Anti-Capitalism"
- JimboOmega 13y agoYup. Would really like to see a real news article - or at least several other sources discussing the incident.
- mgraczyk 13y agoThe account was written by a participant.
- eloisius 13y agoThe "nice young man"?
- bluedino 13y ago>> Many tech employees currently reside in these locations and have driven up the property values and rent prices, creating animosity, evictions, and poverty. Damn Google employees. Causing poverty.
- spiritplumber 13y agoIf my rent goes from 40% to 50% of my income because property values changed, I am poorer.
- elwell 13y agoYeah, the bias started earlier with "waiting for their giant white bus".
- cinquemb 13y ago"While this is taking place, the City of Oakland and Federal law enforcement are attempting to spread a surveillance network called the Domain Awareness Center throughout Oakland. Intended to secure the Port of Oakland against terrorist attacks and labor struggle, this surveillance network will actually monitor the entirety of Oakland through over 800 cameras. The authorities want to monitor the crazy and uncontrollable city that is pressed right up against the Port of Oakland." Would be interesting to get the coords of the cameras when they go up on iSee[0], so people can take the necessary action to avoid them. It would be interesting in general if someone made a mobile app where people can stand where cameras are (and take a photo of it for some spacial awareness) and submit the coords to a public database where people can take the data and plot their own paths away from a central server. [0]: http://66.93.183.118:8080/isee/s1 http://66.93.183.118:8080/isee/s1
- mnml_ 13y agoso ?
- gojomo 13y agoNow we know where Google can deploy Boston Dynamics!
- davevil 13y agoSuddenly, Google's purchase of military robot manufacturer Boston Dynamics makes more sense.
- marvvelous 13y agoBetter article describing 2 more bus incidents from this morning - http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/12/20/eviction-protesters-oakland-san-francisco-target-silicon-valley-buses http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/12/20/eviction-protesters...
- defen 13y agoAs if the real problem with Oakland is that there are too many Google employees living there. Let's be honest - the only reason they do this is that Google employees sitting in a bus are a "soft" target. There is essentially zero chance of reprisal or consequence, at least if it's done as a one-off thing. You get to feel self-righteous for fighting "the man" without any risk. Let's say they win this quixotic crusade and actually manage to force everyone with an income above $N to flee the area. What is the next step toward a better Oakland?
- aetherson 13y agoYeah, I want to know what people think that alternative to gentrification is. Do they imagine that high income people will eventually just not live anywhere? Do they imagine that life would be better if all growth in the Bay Area were new construction sprawl out in the edges of the urban area where there's no displacement? Is it explicitly selfish, like, "go gentrify San Jose, those guys are assholes anyway"?
- gohrt 13y agoNot saying it's correct or fair or appropriate in this situation with these protestors, but one philosophy is an equality-of-results (or even equality-of-opportunity, depending on how you interpret "opportunity"), that says "high income people should not be wealthy, should not enjoy the comforts of upper-middle-class existence, while the masses are poor"
- kasey_junk 13y agoI don't have a dog in this fight, but there are some pretty obvious things you could do to fight the burden of gentrification on lower income original members of the population (they may have other side effects that are burdensome). Off the top of my head: - Massive taxes on "teardown" or size exploding renovations. - Zoning laws that require at least 1 (or a % based) Section 8 unit per multi-unit development/renovation. - Massive subsidies on empty lot development that implement affordable housing practices. It would be even better if you implemented these changes throughout the entire metro area, not just the areas currently under development. But if you think protests by the poor for rich folks moving into their neighborhood are bad, wait until you see the inverse.
- chaz 13y agoA bus in San Francisco, too. Claims of it being an Apple bus. http://www.businessinsider.com/protesters-an-apple-bus-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/protesters-an-apple-bus-2013-...
- goldenkey 13y ago'The kind young man' 'An unthinkable horror they could not endure' Holy shit, the hyperbole that hurts my heart!
- jessedhillon 13y agoWest Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively know who these protesters were (although there are no "traditional" blacks in those photos) -- but I know (I have a strong suspicion, I don't factually know) that the protesters were not drawn from the group mentioned above. These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families. The actual, working, poor people in West Oakland were at their first of the two or three jobs they hold. Or they were spending a few rare moments resting, or with their kids. Or they were lining up to get a meal at community kitchen. Actual black people were not part of this protest, because a mob of black people attacking a bus would be getting wall-to-wall coverage on every channel. It would have been responded to with a swift and overwhelming police presence. The same thing happened a few years ago when these same non-workers shut down the Port of Oakland in the name of workers. The people who actually work the port asked that they not disrupt the port, but in the end these dreadlocked, shiftless complainers cost those longshoremen a day in wages -- Viva El Proletariado! What we have today is a group of young, electively poor white kids who are upset that the price of unheated lofts and dingy Victorians are being driven up by people who have the means and motivation to actually own and improve them. That they wrap themselves up in the image of the poor (and yes, mostly black) -- whom they themselves displaced by rushing in to bid up rents with mom and dad's money -- makes this appeal all the more ludicrous. At least the tech gentrifiers will actually improve the fucking place, unlike these leeches! (Source: I live and own property in Oakland) Edited as suggested below by bonemachine.
- api 13y ago"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians.
- bovermyer 13y agoIt's because of things like this that I'm glad I live in the Midwest and not California.
- mgraczyk 13y agoIs it just me, or does the psuedo-intellectual/conspiratorial rhetoric used in this post make anybody else uncomfortable? I feel like class warfare tends to start with misplaced high-mindedness, as if there is an element of being "in the know" for those who take part in the violence. Obviously the author thought writing this way would help further his cause, so what does that say about the participants? Too uninformed to know the difference? Too angry to care?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 13y agoOf course, it's agit-prop bullshit masquerading as reporting. Self-satisfied ideologues (of all political stripes) are nauseating people.
- anigbrowl 13y agoAs a resident of Oakland who is sick to death of professional protesters slapping agit-prop posters on any available surface (not least community-financed public artwork), fuck these people and everything they stand for. And no, I don't work for some billion $ startup or even a million $ one, I'm the sort of starving artist that they claim to be fighting for, but aren't.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- djs1sjd 13y agoI take that bus routinely (though not this morning), and I can assure you that its occupants are a diverse group of East Bay residents of many races and ethnicities (black, white, asian, hispanic, etc), and though I haven't done a survey, I doubt any of us are 1%s. Many of us, myself included, support strongly progressive economic policies, but there is no real conversation to be had with people who will resort to violence like this. Sadly, use of violent and illegal methods to convey a message seems to be somewhat common in these parts. I suspect that these "protesting" groups are acting out some sort of imagined war between rich and poor, and since the real 1% don't take a bus of any kind to work, we're their next best target.
- marquis 13y agoIn our industry we are privileged. I am not sure another time in history when anyone (almost) could bootstrap themselves to relative wealth compared to their neighbours and families with determined effort rather than hard labour and luck (such as the gold rush or being born into wealth). To assume that there is no problem, that everything is fine and people are just upset for the hell of it is hubris. We could become the new oil barons, and be glad of low wages so we can live like kings. Or we could adjust to our wealth, at least acknowledge it and even if you never donate to your local foodbank or get involved with a local community group or night school, understand that you have privilege. Noblesse oblige and all that.
- djs1sjd 13y agoWho said there is no problem? Not me. I'm aware and upset about many of the same problems. However, I think smashing bus windows under presumption that those inside are uniquely responsible for the problems sends the conversation backwards, not forwards.
- marquis 13y agoI'm not sure if you edited your post I replied to but yes, it seems we agree. I may have misread earlier.
- elipsey 13y agoIf "Gentrification is a dynamic and nuanced problem", perhaps throwing bricks through windows is not the best approach to finding a solution. I'm not convinced that "gentrification" is always a problem. Must prices always remain the same? Am I entitled to be protected from competing as a buyer with other buyers who can put scarce housing resources to more valuable alternative uses, for example allowing someone else to commute to a job at Google, rather than allowing me to work a pizza place? This is not condescending, I have, and I wasn't surprised that I couldn't afford housing near the private university, or fancy corporate campuses at that time. Furthermore, if we think housing prices are a problem, perhaps we should look at zoning and density. If entrenched interests prevent a majority consensus from altering zoning laws, then try throwing some bricks. Has that happened in SF and I just don't know about it?
- brent_noorda 13y agoLet's move those Google employees to Atherton and bring DOWN someone's property values!
- gohrt 13y agoThis is not news, this is a rant site.
- Splendor 13y agoCorrect. The "by Anti-Cyborg Conglomerate" signoff at the end was nearly too much to take.
- meritt 13y agoI'm surprised this article hasn't been downmodded yet due to the incredible amount of arguing and controversy within.
- ffrryuu 13y agoClass warfare.
- linux_devil 13y agoScary , good nobody is hurt , but this kind of attitude is really disappointing .
- GrinningFool 13y ago“Bus driver, what are you gonna do, man? What are you gonna do?” “Don’t worry. It’s freedom of speech, freedom of speech.” The kind young man then walked to the rear of the bus, saying, “Oh my god! What’s gonna happen next?” The same female passenger took out her phone and began filming the blockade. “At least we’re warm in here and they’re cold out there,” she said. The nice thing about 'journalism' like this is that when you just make shit up to improve your 'story', there's nobody to hold you accountable.
- rodly 13y agoAs usual, the irony is at an all time high. > "While they took their seats, several people unfurled two giant banners reading “TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here” and “FUCK OFF GOOGLE.” People holding banners that were laser printed with materials synthesized by complex machines. People with cell phones tucked away in their pockets. People who have used Google a million times.
- negamax 13y agoCellphones likely running Android OS. And these rioters might have found each other using some Goggle powered LBS.
- gress 13y agoYeah - all political protest that uses modern technology is automatically hypocritical. Because Google makes a useful product, they are above any kind of criticism.
- kevinchen 13y agoThe irony still stands: these people benefit from tech workers' products, but they still want Googlers to "fuck off" and "get the fuck out." So it's NIMBY-ism -- just like the placement of cell towers, Google employees have to live somewhere. People want to benefit but nobody wants to shoulder the cost.
- gress 13y agoThere's no irony unless you see the world in black and white. It's not particularly surprising that most people use Google, given that it has a monopoly in search. That is irrelevant to the possibility that the influx of Googlers - aided by private infrastructure from the corporation - may be destructive to the community that is protesting.
- Crito 13y ago> Yeah - all political protest that uses modern technology is automatically hypocritical. No, only those protesting modern technology. Protest Gitmo with modern technology all you want. Nothing wrong with that.
- mkaziz 13y agoDid anyone else notice that the bus in the image doesn't have a back window?
- math0ne 13y agoWow, there is some hate in this thread. I always think it's interesting when a piece like this comes along that seems to spark a personal insult style reaction from a community. You can draw your own conclusions. I don't feel either way about this but it's been fun reading the comments here.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dangrover 13y agoMan, I'm worried we're going to get some Milagro Beanfield War style shit going down soon. Maybe Betabrand should sell their hoodies in kevlar.
- pasquinelli 13y agoa day that will live in infamy. never forget. 12-20-2013
- squigs25 13y agoThings change. Neighborhoods get gentrified. Neighborhoods get bombed. You adapt, or you die. Protesting progressive change is futile. You're not homeless because rents went up in your little neighborhood in Oakland. You're homeless because you chose not to move when rents went up. People need to take responsibility for their actions. I would like to protest the protests of today.
- drhayes9 13y ago"Chose not to move" is an interesting angle. I'm pretty sure I don't support these protesters, but you're targeting the poor with your comments and I don't think that's fair. Here are some hypotheticals: * I live paycheck-to-paycheck and can't afford to pay the application fees, deposit, or moving costs to move to a new place. * My child attends a good school nearby and I'm investing in their long-term future; moving would save me money, sure, but there aren't other good schools in new neighborhoods I can afford that give me the same commute time. * My commute to work is bad enough as it is and moving farther away from the city center makes it worse. Higher commute times are long-term stressors to the human body: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your_commute_is_killing_you.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your... * My blue-collar wage has stayed the same over the last thirty years while the prices of everything else have gone up. I am, thus, poorer. Moving doesn't solve that. * If I move away from my low-cost childcare, who takes care of my kid while I go to work long hours (especially with, say, a longer commute)?
- vacri 13y agoOn your first point, I find it's a vastly underrated concept. People who aren't poor generally handwave away the costs of moving. In addition to the ones you state, there's also things like connection costs for utility bills. I moved about once a year in my 20s. We'd generally hire a trailer for $50 and move with sweat equity, but all these little "you're now 'initialising' in a new place" costs really add up.
- Futurebot 13y agoUltimately, the issue comes down to housing supply - a problem created both by long-time locals and municipal governments. It's the same exact story in other places, particularly here in Manhattan. Would this problem exist if the number of apartments/houses kept up with the number of people who wanted them? There are answers to this dilemma, but they are politically unpalatable to many. See a previous comment of mine for more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6549063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6549063 Short version: build a lot more, and put a regulation in place to keep the "look" of the new buildings similar/the same to the current neighborhood/buildings being replaced. People want to live in these places. People need to be near jobs. People will avoid commuting if they can. People want to be near cultural institutions. Many people want to be near lots of other people. Look at the housing shortage in North Dakota - before the energy boom, no shortage. People move in because of jobs - shortage, and very high prices. In that case, building, rather than policies did not keep up (there are answers here as well, particularly prefab / modular housing.) The number of people in cities (particularly large ones, but smaller ones as well) continues to grow (again, see link.) Our policies (in particular) need to adjust.
- dylandrop 13y agoI'm seeing a lot of vitriol and generalizations in this thread. It's understandable to be upset about this, but automatically assuming that the protesters are "lazy trustafarians" leeching off of the tech community is not a mindset that is helpful to anybody. If anything, it just escalates the situation. The approach we should be taking is: what is the problem, why are people upset, how do we solve it. Of course smashing the Google bus is not a productive way to protest. But the tech community needs to take the high road, not the low road. Making sweeping generalizations only creates more anger and thus makes the situation worse.
- rchiniquy 13y agoIt seems obvious this is the same group that obstructed a Google bus in SF earlier this month. Protesting Google from the vantage point of a privileged SF resident wasn't sufficiently sympthetic, so they're cloaking themselves in the very real oppression and problems still crushing West Oakland. Shameful. People bringing their protests to Oakland is nothing new (like the black bloc protests during Occupy). I've been living in my Oakland neighborhood for about 9 years. On my block, that makes me the newcomer. I don't speak for Oakland and neither do these protestors or whoever contributed that article.
- yetanotherphd 13y agoI don't care about the legitimacy of their cause - violent thugs like the author and his fellow protestors being in jail. Call me a libertarian, but I believe I have the right to be safe and not be attacked. In the twisted mindset of the author, I imagine that the impact that tech employees have on house prices is morally equivalent to violence. However people who believe in rule of law rather than mob rule should be able to see through this.
- kika 13y ago> sterilize a city that carries rebellion deep inside its heart I thought it was called "law enforcement"...
- firstOrder 13y ago"Someone threw fliers with a smiley face logo and the message disrupt google into the air." Hilarious! Disrupt Google! Lots of posts here "there's more constructive ways to deal with this". How constructive is a bunch of pigs evicting a family because their landlord is jacking up the rent because a bunch of Google hipster yuppies want to slum it in Oakland? Then there's the usual "these people weren't the poorest people in Oakland" posts. The police shoot people like Oscar Grant dead over nothing in Oakland, I could imagine if a swarm of young black men started throwing rocks at Google buses. The whiners here win either way - either they would get a Fox News story about how apolitical young black thugs are harrassing Google workers, or we get the comments here complaining that this is not what they were confronted with. It's not like the moneyed classes aren't pulling the political strings in the Bay Area now, like Ron Conman getting his boy Ed Lee in as San Francisco mayor. Which goes to other inane comments of the "why don't they do this outside the mansions in Altadena, instead of to us poor six-figure Google employees?" Well the Altadena people aren't the ones gentrifying Oakland and driving rents up. Some people here claim that Oakland residents like that gentrifiers are coming in and driving up rents, which shows how out of touch they are. People here are so out of touch they forget (perhaps excepting people like Ben Horowitz) that the Black Panthers were born in Oakland. I suppose almost all don't remember the 1934 waterfront strike. These actions are harbingers of these things coming about again.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago>How constructive is a bunch of pigs evicting a family because their landlord is jacking up the rent because a bunch of Google hipster yuppies want to slum it in Oakland? That seems perfectly reasonable to me, assuming the eviction is legal. This is a nation of laws. People like you who don't believe in rule of law need to find a country of your own.
- funkjunky 13y agoHAhaha that's my town!
- FiloSottile 13y ago> The bus remained where it was, the thought of driving to Mountain View with a broken window and flooded with cold air an unthinkable horror they could not endure. Yeah, a neutral article for sure. The employees actually took the effort of collecting the fliers off the street, but after a violent attack, would you feel like going to work, or are they to blame if they didn't?
- rexreed 13y agoTime for Google, et. al to switch to Uber / Lyft / etc? Not as eco or commute friendly, but a lot less noticeable. Or maybe time to subsidize publicly accessible commuter bus lines?
- blhack 13y ago>Or maybe time to subsidize publicly accessible commuter bus lines? They could call it a tax!
- rexreed 13y agoIt would have to be regional tho, because those commuter bus lines would run across city and county lines. So who would be the taxing authority? The state?
- scottmp10 13y agoThose ideas would both lose valuable aspects of the buses. Uber/Lyft/cars would have a much bigger impact on traffic on 101, which is already terrible congested during rush hour. The buses help to minimize the impact of commuters. Public commuter options eliminate some of the convenience for two reasons. First, Google has a single destination for everyone which reduces commute times. As you increase the number of destinations, you increase the possible routes exponentially, making it much less feasible to have direct routes everywhere. Second, you can't do confidential work when on public transportation. So you would be much more limited in what you can accomplish during the commute.
- blahbl4hblahtoo 13y agoIf Google would pay their fare share of taxes instead of sheltering them offshore then the bay area could have awesome public transit for everybody. For all of you bitching about the "burning man" types. The bay area is full of runaways that look just like those kids and are easily radicalized. San Francisco is a "libro-cryt" city. Its very liberal, but they treat the poor like shit. Apple and Goolge should stop sheltering their taxes.
- Symmetry 13y agoAll the money that Google keeps offshore to avoid paying taxes on is money that was taken in over seas, and so would only be taxed by the federal government on repatriation. Even if they brought it all back to the US next year SF wouldn't see a cent of it.
- blahbl4hblahtoo 13y agoIt's only "earned overseas" because Google pays foreign subsidiaries money from its US operating company. Its a dodge and everyone knows it.
- damon_c 13y agoThere is a real issue with these buses. In New York City, gentrification tends to be correlated with subway commute time to Manhattan and distances to subway stations. When you introduce private busing, you plop gentrification down in strange places that may lack public transportation and you're giving the gentry exclusive access to an incredible convenience. This convenience is conspicuously not shared by their neighbors who have long walks, bike rides, buses to other buses to trains, to take them to their often much less remunerative work. The convenience also allows a certain economic class to enjoy more geographic options while not forcing the city to have appropriate taxation to build real infrastructure that can be shared by everyone. It does kinda suck. Someone very dear to me takes a Google bus daily and I fear for their happiness.
- ebiester 13y agoThe tech community in the bay area is keenly aware of the issues. The idea of protests aren't the issue; the destruction of property is the issue. That said... We have plenty of ideas on how to solve it, but they involve the buyin of people entrenched in power who have other power bases. The solution is more housing, more dense housing, and more cultural activities closer to the places of employment. However, nobody's digging up Mountain view for skyscrapers anytime soon. Subways aren't being built in San Mateo county that link to BART anytime soon, outside of Milbrae. I've said that if Colma would just move the cemetaries and and build skyscrapers, a few museums, another symphony hall, and an entertainment district, our problems would be solved. (We'd probably also have to give the residents there a good deal, all 1700 of them. The big shopping center might need a buyout too, we could rebuild that union square-style.) It's quick to SF, well connected by car, we could probably bring a bunch of industry in with mixed-use, we could do it well. Of course, it would probably hasten the gentrification of Daly City, but a 2 square mile city could be done, and the land would be a fraction of the cost of almost anywhere else.
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