Life Inside the RVs of Silicon Valley

Sleeping in a tent did several things for me.

It got me out of cheap rentals with wall to wall carpeting and hidden mold problems.

It helped me keep my possessions to a minimum. Because I was so sick, everything I touched got infected. The more stuff I had, the harder it was to exercise good germ control.

It allowed me to sleep amidst oxygen producing plants, some of which were aromatic, so they sometimes had mild medicinal effects.

It helped enforce a social quarantine. Being homeless makes it hard to make social connections and people are prejudiced. This helped with germ control, among other things.

It meant I could throw my home out every one to three months and get a new one that wasn't gross from being exposed to me and my germs. Initially, I tried to replace the tent and bedding and my clothes all in one fell swoop every month.

Being unplugged from society made it easier to eat what worked for my health. I was exposed to a lot less social pressure to consume foods at social events to be polite to somebody.

There is probably more, but I think that's probably about all the obvious, easily explained things.

I don't know what California needs to do to get its head out of its butt. These are clearly systemic problems. I am incredibly concerned about the trend of tech giants who are, for example, pro Basic Income while they live in the San Francisco Bay Area and can't treat their own employees decently and can't solve problems locally.

I am baffled as to why anyone takes their social theories at all seriously. They are, to some degree, the architects of the dire situation in the SFBA, but they think they can cure the country of its social woes by throwing money at the problem.

This sounds to me like virtue signalling, not like they have any clue what they are talking about. It sounds like trying to deflect the justified anger of the masses with Good Intentions while continuing to be part of the problem.

On the one hand, some of them make the news for how much they want to give to charity or whatever. On the other, some of the same names make the news for how badly they treat their own employees. Sometimes people point this out, but, more often, people debate the so called merits of their proposed solutions without going "Hey, isn't this the same guy who just did [shitty thing du jour] to their own employees?"

I am pretty fed up. I have started fussing at the president via tweet. I am waiting for the FBI to show up at my door. Because silencing (or turning a deaf ear to) the people being crapped on in this country instead if taking their problems seriously seems to be par for the course for the rich, including our real estate mogul president.

I wish someone would make me look like a fool by proving such assertions wrong. Sadly, I think that is increasingly unlikely.

It's a weird sort of militant cultural hegemony that doesn't tolerate even nuanced agreement. The powers that be are actively making life in CA worse, day by day, not realizing the rural and suburban populations support cities by producing the things they need to live.

If you speak privately to most folks who live in LA or SF they'll tell you they HATE the frustrations, but at the same time they're trying to force all Californian's to live like them.

To quote "my dinner with Andre"

“ANDRÉ: . . . And when I was at Findhorn I met this extraordinary English tree expert who had devoted himself to saving trees, and he’d just got back from Washington lobbying to save the Redwoods. And he was eighty-four years old, and he always travels with a backpack because he never knows where he’s going to be tomorrow. And when I met him at Findhorn he said to me, “Where are you from?” And I said, “New York.” And he said, “Ah, New York, yes, that’s a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?” And I said, “Oh, yes.” And he said, “Why do you think they don’t leave?” And I gave him different banal theories. And he said, “Oh, I don’t think it’s that way at all.” He said, “I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing that they’ve built—they’ve built their own prison—and so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners. And as a result they no longer have—having been lobotomized—the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made or even to see it as a prison.” And then he went into his pocket, and he took out a seed for a tree, and he said, “This is a pine tree.” And he put it in my hand. And he said, “Escape before it’s too late.” ― Wallace Shawn, My Dinner With André

If you work in a right position for one of the tech giants in the area, the compensation you get will leave you with more savings than working in a much cheaper place with smaller salary.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I wish to have other options as well.

People often forget we create laws and give people rights (property, patents, right of way on roads, attendance to public schools, free speech) because these rights serve society as a whole. Patents create the incentive to make public your discoveries. Property allows you to invest on beneficial use of land - agriculture, preservation - with the assurance you'll be able to continue it.

When the rights society gave you no longer benefit society as a whole and, as in this case, start to harm it, then it's time to discuss them.

There is the space and wealth to make it so, but it is so broken that there isn't even a decent public transporation system from San Francisco to Silicon Valley, resulting in the most horrendous and unpleasant traffic jams basically from 6am to 8pm every day.

The reason for the lack of housing in the bay area is wholly artificial. NIMBYism at the extreme.

Look at other high population areas in earthquake prone regions. Plenty of huge high rises.

So, no, I'd bet there is no near-permanent residency happening at rest stops in Northern CA. At least, I've never seen evidence of it. And, I sometimes talk to folks living in weird places when I find them, as I find the subculture fascinating (if a little depressing). I've met lots of Walmart parking lot residents. But, no Walmarts in Northern CA allow overnights, either.