San Francisco, now with more dystopia

> people will eventually go “French Revolution.”

With a powerful army & technology controlled by government, this isn't an option anymore. Anybody trying to start something will be quickly and silently removed. Masses can be brought down easily by a few professional soldiers (not with rudimentary rubber batons, as in Spain this weekend)

See how having an encrypted phone at border control is a felony, you can be locked up instantly, even if encryption is only to protect your work and personal family photos.

What to do? Just obey and continue working to collect $$$, the only instrument which can guarantee your semi-independence?

We are not turning into a poor country because of "greedy rich". It has always been at the behest of politicians, they don't even need to be corrupt. The simple matter is the political class, the true one percent, have been disconnected for years from the population as a whole.

It is far worse for Democrats than Republicans. Regardless of how we see Trump the simple fact remains, the Democratic party has ignored its based for years. Nothing is more telling that the open mockery that was made of the Republican party for having so many candidates in the primaries, how did that become a bad thing? At least they let their base choose. By doing so a lot of independents also lined up on their side as well.

Yet what happens when the American people push back? The system does its best to clamp down or usurp the attempt. the Tea Party really did start off on its own but was eventually co-opted by national interests. Before it was there was no shortage of negative comments about it from all sides. There was also a dearth of attempts to limit campaign funds because neither party wanted a repeat where they did not control all dollars in politics.

The issue facing America is that it needs more than a two party system to go forward. Prior to the current President the majority of past Presidents worked for their party first and rarely for the people. This is true of the majority of Congress, laws are passed to protect their power, their party. When laws don't do the trick they resort to dividing people through speeches, innuendo, and out right lies. Politicians derive a lot of power by dividing people and then stepping up that they can "fix it" by punishing one side or another.

> Every living person needs a basic level of respect, care and dignity...

Can you substantiate this claim?

As easy as it is to blame this on rich people not wanting to pay taxes, tax payers have been quite willing to spend money on the homeless.

SF spent $241 million last year: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record...

At roughly 7k homeless people we're spending ~35k/homeless person in SF and making no headway. Which makes you wonder if throwing more money at it is the right answer.

LA recently voted to approve $335 million in funding for homeless people, but even before then was struggling to spend the money they had, at least partly due to NIMBYism: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-city-homeless-bu... (not the article I was trying to find, but does mention some struggles spending the money).

I saw Blade Runner (1982) in the theatre this last weekend. First time I’ve watched it in probably a decade. It’s still an absolutely mesmerizing film, but I couldn’t help but think of San Francisco and Los Angeles while watching. The fact that it’s always raining in what’s supposed to be Los Angeles in 2019 foretells environmental disaster that seems not far off. The abject and gross poverty reminded me of the tent villages in SF. It’s a timeline I have little faith we’ll jump out of.

For reference, 7th and Berry is exactly 4 blocks from where AT&T Park is now. Berry dead-ends at 3rd right smack into the Giants Dugout store.

Appoint leaders that have a strong sense of empathy and a great moral compass.

Educate the youth on the benefits of sharing and caring.

Use the tax system to redistribute wealth.

Use the defense budget for diplomacy and education.

Make a real effort to help grow the economy in third world countries.

For me the ultimate goal would be democratization of industry, factories should be run by the people who work in them, and all major institutions like banking should be nationalized.

It wouldn't hurt if America had a better school system and had incentives to travel more. Quite a lot would follow from that.

Sounds like San Francisco is exactly on pace, then.

$32k per homeless person a year?

If they relocated them somewhere with a low cost of living, and just paid this money to each of them, all these people could just have a reasonably decent life, even without working.

This is, of course, just a thought experiment; it is impossible for a number of reasons.

That only makes the dynamic even more exaggerated when you travel from a reasonably clean, streetcar-suburb neighborhood like West Portal or the Outer Richmond to the city core and are abruptly surrounded by a mass of bodies failed by society.

True. But, on the other hand, over half of the properties on my street in NoPa are owned by trusts, and several don’t even look occupied. So, sort of the opposite side of the coin.

Yes, I don't think they're poor because the rest are rich... There's a huge mental health problem there - and lots of drug use - and the administration has somehow seen fit to keep the poorest dwelling in the center of the most expensive city in the world, on purpose! I've lived there before - and that's how the tenderloin has been for a long time. It'll surprise anyone, even natives, that have not spent time in those parts. While that hasn't changed, I do see a continuous decline in the mental health of even the non-poor of SF.

That's not true. Wealthy people often do a lot of nice things for the homeless, and most of wealthy people didn't get rich taking money from the extremely poor.