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San Francisco's guerrilla protest at Google buses swells into revolt
- railzfailz 13y agoI agree - the protesters are revolting.
- woah 13y agomeanwhile, in Ukraine...
- matthuggins 13y agoI don't understand what this comment has to do with the article.
- eksith 13y agoPriorities, apparently. Of course, Ukraine being on fire right now doesn't make all other news disappear, but perhaps we should be paying more attention to the actual revolt.
- fennecfoxen 13y agoPriorities, and making fun of San Francisco's "revolt" for not actually being a revolt.
- e12e 13y ago> meanwhile, in Ukraine... Agreed, the hyperbole in the headline and text is rather distasteful, considering what's happening in Ukraine (and Egypt, and...).
- lettergram 13y agoSeems kind of silly to me, yes this means that many people have to leave the city, but there really is not much that they can do about it. San Francisco's city government is not going to be able to either (a) kick out the tech people nor (b) figure out a way to lower rent (and in turn tax revenue). It's in the cities interest to keep the rent/cost per home as high as possible and in turn keep the tech people around. I really don't understand why this bothers the others in the city. If they do not own where they live (and chose to rent) then they don't OWN their home and in turn have no right to live there. Rather, it makes much more sense that they should live somewhere within their means. If they are angry about that, it seems to me that they are just throwing a fit. I personally am from Chicago, and I know there is a similar situation there. Most of the city (even for high paying jobs) commute in because there is a fairly decent train system, but also the prices are 10 times higher per square foot in the city. The people who do live in the city are wealthy or homeless. Though San Francisco's rent is twice as high as Chicago's on average, no one near Chicago wants to waste their money living in the city unless they want to be in the heart of the city and enjoy the scene. If you can't afford that, then perhaps you didn't make very good choices in your life (aka didn't make enough money to obtain what you want) and you should try and find a way to achieve that goal without inflicting pain (stress, wasted time, etc.) on others.
- fennecfoxen 13y agoYou're right that they don't own their home. The key is that they feel entitled to living there anyway, as the commie leftists whose ideology defines the city's politics do not respect capital, like the capital that goes into building homes, or the right of the owner of that capital to make a profit. Rather, the landlord is treated as an invalid actor and a cartoonish villain. That's why there's rent control, it's also why the housing stock is so poorly maintained, and one important reason why no one's built middle-class housing in the city for decades (though other anti-development sentiment also exists).
- dylandrop 13y agoRight, so everyone who is in opposition to Google is a "commie leftist". What, is this McCarthyist America again?
- whistlerbrk 13y agoThere is a lot of misdirected anger in this world and attacks upon symptoms of problems instead of their underlying causes.
- badman_ting 13y agoWell said.
- jusben1369 13y agoActually "symptoms" become "symbols" that people rally around. Sitting at the front of the bus instead of the back was a symptom of racism not the cause. You can't "attack" an underlying cause but you can attack a physical manifestation/symptom of the problem.
- noamsml 13y agoYeah, but when attacking a symptom becomes directing your hatred at a group of people, you have a problem.
- adharmad 13y agoThe unfortunate fact is that some of the people protesting have been the originators of the underlying causes via voting and legislation.
- ubercore 13y agoGooglers, what is your opinion on relaxing the remote work rules? Seems like a very direct way to ease this tension, but I have no perspective on how detrimental it would be to Google's culture.
- raverbashing 13y agoThere's that as well. As I understand, Googlers "work remotely" already, meaning, no development is done in their desktop machine, but on remote servers, maybe someone can confirm. EDIT: I am apparently wrong as some mentioned, so I would expect a more detailed explanation.
- andrewljohnson 13y agoFalse.
- skj 13y agoI will confirm that you are incorrect.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Crito 13y ago[I do not work at google.] When I work remotely, I work on my desktop machine, via my laptop. SSH works just fine on desktop machines; desktop vs server really has nothing to do with working remotely.
- raverbashing 13y agoI mean the machine sitting at their desks, regardless of it being a "desktop" machine or a laptop, it should have been clear from the context
- Crito 13y agoI... what? I mean that my work is done on a tower pc sitting under my desk in the office, whether I am in the office, or at home. When at home, I just log into my desktop. "no development is done in their desktop machine, but on remote servers" has nothing to do with working remotely.
- rrhyne 13y agoI didn't get the protests until I realized that the higher rent is dramatically changing the character of the city. You won't find cheap ethnic food or eclectic family run businesses much longer if The valley keeps exporting its housing problem.
- raldi 13y agoPeople have been saying that for decades, and yet the cheap ethnic food and eclectic family-run businesses still remain.
- rrhyne 13y agoAt rent increases like the city is seeing, I don't see how the primary customers of those establishments can remain in the city.
- raldi 13y agoAnd yet they do, year after year. Try getting a parking space anywhere near 5th and Clement on a Saturday night if you don't believe me. The neighborhood is packed with people going out to eat at cheap ethnic restaurants.
- pavanky 13y agoAre they specifically targeting Google and not other big companies ? Or is it just the article baiting for clicks ?
- jusben1369 13y agoThe thing I find interesting about attacking the Google buses is that South Bay/Peninsula companies aren't really the problem. What's changed in the last 5 - 7 years is how many startups are in San Francisco. So it's the abundance of well paid jobs in the City (along a little with the ability to work remotely) that's dramatically changed the situation. That's why there wasn't this sort of intense dynamic in the 90's up to the dot com bust. The Google buses are more just salt on the wounds. Even if they stopped it wouldn't change the dynamics very much. However, I understand the source of the frustration. Of course, like all markets, the problem may solve itself over time. After all, many of the unique aspects of SF that draws tech workers there or stay there will get priced out of the market making it much less appealing.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoWhat'll happen is that it'll just be a bland yuppie city. The damage will have been done, and with no real reason to ever return to the way it was.
- vxNsr 13y agoIf the city really wanted to stop the rising rent they could just implement rent-control, and do it on a block by block basis, so you don't have the same issues that exist in NY.
- thrownaway2424 13y agoGosh what a great idea: rent control in San Francisco. You should send this new and brilliant idea to the board of supervisors immediately.
- vxNsr 13y agoNo need for the sarcasm, I was just adding this idea to the table bec it hadn't been mentioned here yet and I wanted to hear the community's reaction... I didn't think I was offering up anything new or non-obvious, but thanks for being so odious.
- noamsml 13y agoI wonder if they're ever tried that one before.
- pisarzp 13y agoThe real problem is not Google (or Apple, FB, etc) but the limits on development of new housing and rent control. I live in London, and outside of my window I can see now 5 new huge developments. Because of massive influx of people prices are increasing, but at much slower rate. I lived for 4 months in SF last year, and my crappy flat was more expensive then in London. What is worse, I rented it in a sketchy deal from a woman, who wasn't even an owner. She rented a flat for a long time, and due to rent control she was paying probably a fraction of what she should be. So she lived in Oakland and sublet flat in Mission. I understand that people don't want 'character of city' to change, but with gentrification it is changing anyway. Best cities in the world are always growing, but SF seems to be very stubborn and want's to be a kid forever.
- jusben1369 13y agoPeople need to stop with this. Higher urban density is "not" the answer. It puts an incredible amount of strain on every other service around it from roads, education, sewage, water, police, hospitals etc. It never ends (or doesn't end well) It's the velocity of change, not change itself, that's the problem for SF. Not sure about your dodgy rent controlled landlord but sounds like without here you can't afford to have experienced 4 months of SF.
- tomp 13y ago> Higher urban density is "not" the answer. In the larger picture, that's totally correct, but that is something that the governments should sort out, e.g. by incentivising the corporations to start opening offices in less dense areas. As long as the largest quantity of available jobs and the best paying jobs (the former is in part a consequence of the latter) are available in the biggest cities (London, New York, LA, SF, Hong Kong, Tokyo, ...) it will be in every person's individual interest to move there.
- gumby 13y agoActually higher densities are more efficient in terms of land use, energy use and the cost of providing services (transportation etc). People aggregate in cities for a reason. More sprawl stresses the environment far more.
- squirejons 13y agoyou had better believe that this 'grass roots' protest is funded by people with fat fat wallets. They are making tech workers into the New Jew using propaganda. Propaganda is the hidden force behind all of modern politics. If you go back and look at the rise of hitler and the nazis, it becomes clear that the upper class needed a scapegoat to preserve their wealth from the inevitable oncoming swell of populist-leftist politics coming up from the working class. The upper class knew what was coming, so they found a scapegoat and subverted the working class populist sentiment, diverting working class anger onto the scapegoat, the jews. If you want references for this idea, see the article "I was Hitler's Boss" by Karl Mayr and also the new book _Hitler's_ _First_ _War_. Anyway, the same thing is happening now--the elite are pushing the idea that tech workers are to blame for rising prices. They are demonizing tech workers so that populist anger is directed away from themselves. It is also possible that this anger in SF against tech workers is actually in fact anger against cheap import H1b labor scabs from overseas, but the media is altering and changing the actual tenor and content of the protest to make it looks as if it is a protest against tech workers in general. Also, as a side effect of demonizing tech workers, they can get more cheap labor H1Bs into america because the tech worker will then be an unsympathetic figure.
- dgabriel 13y agoYou are out of your mind.
- squirejons 13y agoand i went right into yours, sweetie!
- venus 13y agoAs someone who's on the other side of the world - is this real? I mean, seriously? How many of these "protestors" are there? I haven't seen any pictures of huge crowds. The only photo I have seen showed about 4 or 5 cranky looking people standing in front of a bus. The whole thing smells like news media being a) lazy and b) hungry for a "conflict" story and so playing right into the protestors' hands. From what I can see, this shouldn't be a story at all.
- jusben1369 13y agoIt's the Guardian. They tend to the sensationalist. These events are small but they are most likely the canary in the mine.
- venus 13y agoI usually like the Guardian, but yeah, they've dropped the ball on this one. "Revolt"? In what possible sense could this be even compared to a popular revolt?
- tomp 13y ago> They tend to the sensationalist. Really? Any arguments/examples to back that up?
- jusben1369 13y agoWell I can think of one fairly recent example....... ;)
- lnanek2 13y agoYes, those darn buses keeping so many cars off our roads! They can't have buses! How terrible of them.
- noamsml 13y agoHating techies (and the target of hate, make no mistake, is all tech workers) is easy, convenient, misguided and counterproductive. it is easy, because hatred is a simple, attractive emotion. It is convenient, because it requires no thought about policy changes, urban planning, zoning, transportation, density, parking or anything else that makes a city. It is misguided because it fails to take into account the lack of development in this city that lead to this crisis -- essentially, SF's residents forced SF to be an exclusive enclave, and are now surprised it's becoming an exclusive enclave for someone else. Finally, it is counterproductive because the tech population is not going to leave the city, and the more hate you lob in their direction, the less willing they will be to cooperate in making the city affordable -- why collaborate with the people who actively vilify us?
- e3pi 13y agoWorldwarP.pl s/Z/P/g; # P(p) = poverty, wealth disparity " ...This goes way, way beyond a cheap bus ride - although the public transport scene in Brazil’s big cities would star in Dante’s ninth circle of hell. A manual worker, a student, a maid usually spend up to four hours a day back-and-forth in appalling conditions. And these are private transport rackets controlled by a small group of businessmen embedded with local politicians, who they obviously own." http://rt.com/op-edge/brazil-protests-world-cup-014/ http://rt.com/op-edge/brazil-protests-world-cup-014/