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First 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 fo

First 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 ago
The private buses are a very visible symbol of what's going on in their neighborhood. They're an obvious target.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  They'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 ago
    As 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 ago
Because then people might listen, things might change and then they'd have nothing else to talk about!
jaibot 13y ago
Pain 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.
gress 13y ago
The tech companies, and Google in particular have far more power and resources at their disposal and are actively trying to change society in numerous different ways. They choose not to use this power to improve the local community, instead insulating themselves from the problems by providing their employees with a way to ignore the lack of infrastructure around them. What 'constructive ways' would you suggest people without money or power use to change the system?
- dragontamer 13y ago
  I dunno. They can always become the next Google or Facebook and do something with THEIR money. These mega-corps grew from nothing in only ~20 years. The new rich of America is NOT like the "old rich" of Wall Street. Basically any no-name nobody with 5 guys working in a basement can become the next Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, Groupon, Zynga or whatever.
  - gress 13y ago
    It's hard to take this comment seriously. It's clearly absurd, because otherwise we'd have 100,000s of new multi-billion dollar corporations, instead of a small handful. I'm starting to think it's more likely that you meant it sarcastically.
    - dragontamer 13y ago
      Not multi-billion, but there are definitely thousands upon thousands of multi-tens-of-million dollar companies. There was a recent study on the "new upper class" of the USA. Most of it is "new money": first-generation millionares and first-generation billionares.
      - gress 13y ago
        None of whom seem to be interested in improving social policy other than for their own class.
gress 13y ago
What would you suggest they do?

zrail 13y ago

The private buses are a very visible symbol of what's going on in their neighborhood. They're an obvious target.

dragontamer 13y ago
They'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 ago
  As 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 ago

Because then people might listen, things might change and then they'd have nothing else to talk about!

jaibot 13y ago

Pain 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.

gress 13y ago

The tech companies, and Google in particular have far more power and resources at their disposal and are actively trying to change society in numerous different ways. They choose not to use this power to improve the local community, instead insulating themselves from the problems by providing their employees with a way to ignore the lack of infrastructure around them. What 'constructive ways' would you suggest people without money or power use to change the system?

dragontamer 13y ago
I dunno. They can always become the next Google or Facebook and do something with THEIR money. These mega-corps grew from nothing in only ~20 years. The new rich of America is NOT like the "old rich" of Wall Street. Basically any no-name nobody with 5 guys working in a basement can become the next Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, Groupon, Zynga or whatever.
- gress 13y ago
  It's hard to take this comment seriously. It's clearly absurd, because otherwise we'd have 100,000s of new multi-billion dollar corporations, instead of a small handful. I'm starting to think it's more likely that you meant it sarcastically.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    Not multi-billion, but there are definitely thousands upon thousands of multi-tens-of-million dollar companies. There was a recent study on the "new upper class" of the USA. Most of it is "new money": first-generation millionares and first-generation billionares.
    - gress 13y ago
      None of whom seem to be interested in improving social policy other than for their own class.

gress 13y ago

What would you suggest they do?