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Comment by standardUser | Hacker News Reader

The tech industry has beaten the Bay Area to within inches of its life. The pandemic may have saved it. Political mismanagement probably deserves most of the blame, because how else do you explain a historically significant economic boom reducing the quality of life for a highly developed region? I tried for many years to view the tech boom optimistically, but I as wrong.

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You said it youself: political mismanagement. Make it illegal to build apartment buildings, make it impossible to build good public transit. Ban plastic straws. Refuse to prosecute criminals. Close the safe outdoor parks. Force public servants to pay into a bloated pension system. That's how you reduce the quality of life.

Lol ban plastic straws.

Yes, if only we had our plastic straws, then all the problems in the area would magically disappear.

That's exactly my point :) It's not that plastic straws are significantly good or bad - they're a distraction from the real issues. And the fact that it gets any airtime at all is absolutely ridiculous. Certainly distracted you from discussing housing, infrastructure, or crime in your response.

I can agree with that. Plastic straws suck, and banning them is good for oceans, but small stuff like this is focused on. Just ban them/add a surcharge, like plastic bags, and move on to bigger things.

I don't know if you guys realize it or not but there's a new cottage industry around artisan flavored paper straws. People soon realized paper disturbs the flavor profile of beverages and took that as an opportunity to shape and craft the profiles to their liking given the inevitable. There's all kinds of sustainably grown hemp and bamboo paper straws that add some real interesting notes and aftertastes to a beverage that can actually be paired to illuminate and compliment the natural flavors of the many things we enjoy drinking. There's a new art in it, it's the proverbial lemons to lemonade moment and people are capitalizing on it as long as the once beloved plastic straws remain regulated out of the picture. This is actually how progress happens if you think about it.

>because how else do you explain a historically significant economic boom reducing the quality of life for a highly developed region

The new world wealth basically funded a(nother) couple hundred years of war in Europe.

There's a big blurry zone between incompetence and ideological motivation when it comes to bad policy and squandering resources. If you and everyone around you have a moral compass the points toward invading Britain is it really incompetence to try and pull it off? If you and everyone around you have a moral compass that points towards banning apartment buildings and legalizing petty theft then is it really incompetence to try and pull it off? When you're competently trying to do stupid things it's not incompetence, it's just plain old bad values.

You're blaming the tech industry for the faults of NIMBYism.

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