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Comment by fosk | Hacker News Reader

The Economist is ignoring the fact that the city administration in San Francisco is now extremely busy, and I mean 24/7 busy, cracking down on electric scooters that - unlike needles, human excrements, tents and substance abuse - are a real problem that needs a resolution ASAP.

As soon as this insurmountable plague has been eradicated, the city administration will finally have time to talk again about the things that matter, like: Should Vaillancourt Fountain be finally removed or not? Or after introducing the soda tax, is it finally time for a burrito tax? Of course really anything that would prevent them from fixing the real problems that are affecting SF.

SF needs its own Rudy Giuliani and its own Broken Windows policy[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

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If we were on Reddit I would have given you gold.

I am not a US citizen, but during the years I spend in SF it became painfully clear how backwards SF policies are.

Rich displace poor? Solution: limit construction of medium and high income apartments.

Traffic jams? Let's regulate the shit out of corporate busses that essentially substitute public transportation.

Etc etc etc..

It is really sad to see that logic is loosing to populist ideas.

Nah man we gotta deal with those plastic straws first.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-to-consider-b...

Don't forget banning goldfish!

> The Economist is ignoring the fact that the city administration in San Francisco is now extremely busy, and I mean 24/7 busy, cracking down on electric scooters that - unlike needles, human excrements, tents and substance abuse - are a real problem that needs a resolution ASAP.

Don't discount the virtue signaling that's going on here. It's an election year, and tech is still a reasonably good whipping boy for voters. Of all my friends, the non-tech ones seem much more likely to vote than the tech ones. Many of my tech friends in SF aren't even registered to vote here.

> Many of my tech friends in SF aren't even registered to vote here.

I'm a transplant to NYC and I'm generally pretty critical of complaints about transplants -- try living in a city nobody wants to move to and get back to me on which is worse -- but this does make me think hard about the ways in which the people who move to a new city for short-term opportunity might not care at all about its long-term viability.

“virtue signaling”

Ew please refrain from echoing alt-right invented language here.

The "alt-right" absolutely did not invent the phrase 'virtue signaling', though one could probably make a (shaky) argument that they're guilty of deploying it most uncharitably.

I don't think this is the place for that discussion though.

I also don't think this is the place for trying to shut down the conversation based on who is associated with a word or phrase used. If there's something wrong with it's use in this context, "debt" should make that case, rather than trying to police the language.

Agreed.

I was struggling to find a way to state this as well but choose to shut up when words eluded me. Is the phrase "virtue signaling" sometimes deployed by people with shitty intent? Yes.

That doesn't mean the phrase has no value at all and I think in the context used its usage above was perfectly apt. If one thinks otherwise they ought to articulate a counterpoint instead of expecting all discussion on the point to stop because of their own personal hangups with bad actors.

Something something nuanced political debate is dead

Nuanced political debate may not be dead, but it is certainly being shot at. This is the second time today I've seen someone trying to end a conversation on HN because they labeled a participant as "alt-right". (There was more justification in the other case - the participant may well have been an active alt-right leader - but someone wanted them to be shunned for their off-HN identity, not for what they said here.

It's disturbing. Some people (and from what I'm seeing, it's people on the left) want to simply silence other people (on the right) rather than actually answer them. I guess it's less work that way, and maybe more satisfying as well. It's less productive, though - you miss a chance to convince the audience, and you miss a chance to persuade your opponent. You gain the chance to make the audience make sure they never say the "taboo" words in the future, though... but that's more of a totalitarian approach than a reasonable tactic for a free people.

I do want to shut it down at the first scent of a malformed, intellectually stunted alt-right-prescribed viewpoint as it’s tiresome to constantly need to successfully shoot down the barrage of canned Shapiro/Peterson/Bannon-esque rebuttals to every left-leaning viewpoint or policy. Alt-right viewpoints are simply noise at this point akin to listening to the distant echoes of thousands of YouTube videos simultaneously.

So when I see the tired phrase “virtue signaling” I think “uh oh here we go...”

Sorry if I’m triggered by it.

One does not need to apologize for having raw nerves in this political climate. That's understandable. It's hair trigger word association and bad faith presumptions of complicity with "the other" for reasons as shallow as expressing dissent without real substance or political vigor that some seem to be growing fatigued with.

I won't sit here and promulgate respectability politics just say that when one ignores their own political baggage and hubris it passively signals to everyone watching it's fair game for them to do so as well.

And the noise just gets louder as a result.

Nodding in agreement. Though I feel lately there's segments of all political stripes that don't care about making good points and just want to win, and be seen winning.

Reminds me of a Hunter S Thompson quote about a high water line of political fervor, where people thought they were winning, that they were right simply because they had done nothing more than show people how angry they could be.

Of all my friends, the non-tech ones seem much more likely to vote than the tech ones

Interesting. I realize I'm asking you to spitball, and that's fine legitimately curious to hear something outside the box but why do you think that is?

Seems to me an unlikely division when it comes to voter participation, or at least a very unexpected one.

I'm not sure, but it's been a little surprising to me as well. For the past month any time I've had a conversation with someone who had an opinion about politics and policies in SF, I've asked them if they have voted yet, or if they're going to vote; and while nearly everyone has had an opinion, only two people in tech out of probably two dozen have said yes. Of the remaining lot, a bunch have said they never registered to vote for a variety of reasons ("I forgot to", "Oh, I need to do that sometime", "I don't want my information getting sold", "I still don't have a California driver's license", etc).

On the other hand, friends not in tech (much more varied population by job; artists, food-service & bar industry, construction, medical) were much more motivated to tell me not only what their opinions were, but how they were voting (or had already voted) and why.

It's possible that this will change nearer to the mid-term, but it doesn't seem like primary elections get people that excited.

It's a great question though, and I'll start asking more deeply about it because I'm curious now as well!

Anecdote time:

Last night I stumbled by a group of older (than me, all clearly retired) folks talking about Unions at my local pub. Interested, I sat down and quietly listened in-they didn't seem to mind.

At one point though I spoke up about how surprised I was that we haven't seen more tech workers unionizing in areas that aren't San Francisco, Cupertino or Austin. The "leader" of the pack so to speak,went on to talk about all of the amenities tech giants offer like day cares and dog parks on campus, laundry facilities etc and then he capped it off with "but none of that stuff pays your rent in San Fran".

Bringing it all back around, I do genuinely think about this sort of stuff a lot and I wonder if there's something to be said of a tech culture that gives it's employees so much that they passively lose something that binds us all to the connective tissue of citizen engagement.

I only bring it up because I've noticed the exact same phenomenon you have: lots of very smart, well paid tech friends who confessed to not even bothering to vote despite very huge opinions about everything political and an even larger eagerness to display their "wokeness" on social media.

It's my poorer blue collar and service industry friends I see online asking for rides to the polls, and are the ones who ask ME "did you vote today?"

> I'm not sure, but it's been a little surprising to me as well.

When you have the income to:

1. Rent a comfortable apartment pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area, without fear of rising rent displacing you. (Keep rent within a third of your income)

2. Pay for a private solution (Rideshare, Private commuter buses, tech company shuttle) to the broken transportation infrastructure, dirty streets, and the homeless problem of the Bay.

3. Have a fiscal safety net in case something happens to your income.

4. Have the insurance needed to withstand the occasional curve-balls of life.

then you've mostly averted the endemic problems of the Bay Area. SF's gov't is incompetent, and private solutions have alleviated most of its systemic issues for its moneyed classes. Of course people in tech won't be as motivated to vote, they're insulated from all of the problems.

There's a growing sentiment (growing being an understatement, Google/Apple buses have been smashed/blocked for years now) that tech's private market solutions are priced to only help their own out. Until this perception changes, they're going to want to vote with their rage.

They’re priced to clear markets so that functioning goods and services are actually available at their stated prices. Whereas for some reason populists prefer public transit that’s uniformly abysmal and “affordable housing” that no individual applicant has a reasonable chance of winning.

My comment wasn't meant to be political. I'm just talking about the perspective. I'm not sure about you, but if my housing, transportation, and livelihood were threatened, I'm not going to sit back and say "oh oops looks like I'm on the other side of systemic issues, public failure, and market clearing, that's just the way the world works".

Public transit in cities that aren't SF is not 'uniformally abysmal.'

One of the reasons for it, is that in cities with working transit, both the rich, and the poor, newcomers and decades-established people take the bus/train. When people with influence are using public transit, it stops being shit.

Pointing at Muni, and saying: "Look, you fools! Public transit doesn't work!" is a bit like pointing at Somalia, circa 2009, and saying: "Look, you fools! Rule of law doesn't work!"

>One of the reasons for it

Another being that community organizers and concerned citizens were sufficiently disenfranchised and disempowered that greedy developers obtained permission to destroy pre-existing communities, open space, and neighborhood character to create built environments that are dense enough for good public transit to be cost-effective. In some cases, this happened more than 1000 years ago, so no one minds anymore.

>When people with influence are using public transit, it stops being shit.

Is there any evidence for this? Has a population ever actually forced its leaders to ride shitty public transit, and subsequently seen a turnaround?

Most New York professionals rely on the subway, and it's falling apart anyway.

Everything you described is why I'm terrified of my hometown Indianapolis (where I plan to move back in a couple of years and set down roots by buying a house) courting Amazon for HQ2. Having lived in one overpriced tech hub I'm not ready to fight that fight again, and I don't necessarily trust a tech giant's presence among the Unigov central Indiana experiment to provide much for anyone but folks who feed the monster.

Probably straying close to striking the heads off of poppies by saying this but it's a real concern I have while simultaneously wanting to see my hometown thrive.

Weird spot to be in.

It is very easy to register to vote. You don't need a CA driver's license.

Go here: http://registertovote.ca.gov/

They will mail you a confirmation of registration. Once you receive that confirmation convert yourself to a permanent vote-by-mail voter.

San Francisco Permanent Vote By Mail:

1. Go here: http://sfelections.org/tools/regupdate/regupd.php

2. Enter your details, then check the "Become a permanent vote-by-mail voter" checkbox.

3. Click Print, then Save to PDF. Attach your signature electronically (or print it, sign it, and scan it with your phone)

4. Email the PDF to SFVote@sfgov.org

San Jose Permanent Vote By Mail:

1. Go here: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/rov/VBM/Pages/Permanent.aspx

2. Print the form and fill it out

3. Mail it to the address indicated

San Mateo Permanent Vote By Mail:

https://www.smcacre.org/vote-mail

Now you're set. They will mail you a ballot in the mail for every election. You mark the cards, put them in the envelope, and drop them in the mail. You usually have ~3 weeks to research each proposition and candidate.

If you live in a different county you'll have to check with them how to become a permanent vote-by-mail voter, or use the state form and mail it to your county registrar: http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov//vote-by-mail/pdf/vote-by-ma...

On the micro level, voting is completely irrational. The chances of your individual vote deciding an election is usually incredibly low, so going to the polling booth has a very low RoI. In a practical sense, voting is just a bad use of your time. Anecdotally, it seems that tech people are far more likely to think in these terms.

This micro-level rationality leads to a big problem on the macro level. People who see politics as a matter of principle aren't likely to be swayed by the low RoI of going to vote. They'll exercise their democratic rights, come hell or high water. You end up with an electorate that is disproportionately driven by principles and ideals rather than pragmatism.

Guiliani happened to be in office when crime rates are falling drastically and uniformly nationwide, the current best explanation for which is the de-leading of gasoline. Whether anything he and Bratton did mattered to that drop is very much an open question; that it involved hassling ordinary citizens and unconstitutional tactics isn't.

So you don't agree with the Freakanomics theory that it is a result of Roe Vs Wade?

The Roe vs Wade effect was a very good hypothesis for a while, but it doesn't explain at all the runup in crime rates before abortion was legalized, nor does it replicate in other countries that legalized abortion.

For further reading on the lead-crime connection, this [1] is a decent survey article.

[1] https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...

But SF actually doesn't need that policy. Everyone was leaving NYC pre Giuliani because it was a hellhole that was completely undesirable to be in. After NYC became gentrified and the crime went away the city began regaining its population.

SF doesn't have this problem, despite all the dysfunction, homeless, and small time crime (it's no where close to being as dangerous as NYC in the 1980s) people have a strong desire to live here. No one is going to bring in a broken window policy because it doesn't matter to the people living here right now. There's still high demand, locals are making money if they got in when it was right. It doesn't matter.

In their eyes there technically isn't a problem, the problem is for people who aren't on rent control and who moved here from other places. The locals here don't really care about that because they know if you leave someone is going to replace you. It's also easy for them to point the blame on new industry for causing homelessness not lack of new development. I don't see things changing.

There are pockets without high demand, such as west oakland, tenderloin, which aren't expensive and not many people want to live in.

I read somewhere that the problem with scooters is that homeless people poop on them. The article was blaming scooters' startups - not even mentioning that the real problem is that homeless people are pooping on the street and sidewalks.

I do not think the city administration is the only guilty here. We are in such a strange bubble here ...

This is somewhat confused.

As far as I know, we don't have ravening hordes of scooter-poopers (regardless of housing status). Some folks pooped on them as a statement, pics went around.

Yes, especially in SOMA, where both the homeless and the scooters are plentiful, one encounters poop. But otherwise, there's no real relation.

The scooters are somewhere between annoying and a menace, depending. I tripped over one two days ago; there's a dark stretch on my block, so of course that's where someone dropped the damn thing.

My issue is with people who think the commons is there to be exploited. If your business is going to occupy and use public space, it needs to do so only with the consent of those impacted. It not, why shouldn't I start occupying the sidewalks to hawk my goods and services, too? Why stop there - there's a lot of street to take over, too, not to mention all those parks, just waiting to be DISRUPTED!

I find it especially ironic that the homeless, forced to live on the sidewalks, are being blamed for problems with scooters, whose owners are competing with the homeless for the space.

Haven't taken part, but I have no issue with the folks who have been destroying the scooters. It is a useful form of feedback.

>Rudy Giuliani

Yeah, what we need is busted heads, unconstitutional policing and questionable associations with organized crime.

< SF needs its own Rudy Giuliani and its own Broken Windows policy[1].

New Yorker here. You want the pre-lunacy Giuliani. Just thought it's worth clarifying.

When did such a creature exist? He's still the dude that married his cousin and, after divorcing her, left his second wife using a mayoral press conference. There's been a lot of lunacy around Giuliani for three-four decades at this point.

What's sad is, at this point in my life, I accept that politicians are psychologically unstable just as a matter of course. Politics has a very natural selection bias. Philosophically, I'm of the opinion that the best leaders tend to not want to be leaders.

With that in mind, perhaps the only thing that's redeeming about Giuliani is that he was remarkably successful in cleaning up NYC.

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