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Comment by jb3689 | Hacker News Reader

It’s pretty incredible to me that the whole community on the last thread was fixated on the fact that it must’ve been the homeless/drug addicts. What kind of place is it where you immediately dismiss premeditated murder, or even throw it up as 50-50?

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>It’s pretty incredible to me that the whole community on the last thread was fixated on the fact that it must’ve been the homeless/drug addicts.

Completely agree, I was downvoted into oblivion last week for claiming it was possibly somebody in his circle rather than a random stanger. The assumptions made about the inhumanity of the homeless/poor is worrying.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35455096

I think that says more about Hacker News than SF. There's a level of hate for the city here that I don't understand. Feels a bit like a vendetta sometimes.

I wonder how many of the negative comments are by people who are actually living or have actually lived in SF? And not, say, down in SV.

I wonder the same about Seattle. How many commenters are speaking from Redmond or Kirkland or Bellevue etc instead of the city?

I lived in Seattle proper for over two years (2012-2015) and it absolutely was awful, at least in many parts of the city. Anywhere near Pioneer Square, for example.

I'm coming up on 6 years in Seattle. Lived in SLU or Denny Triangle (parts some people consider "downtown") the entire time. I've learned to just largely ignore the incredibly negative comments because my experience and the experience of all the people I know who live here are vastly different. While the city still has its problems I would like for people to approach solving them from a realistic point of view.

It completely depends on where you live in SF. The people in the wealthy hyper gentrified areas are baffled that people would think the city is unsafe.

Meanwhile people with less income are exposed daily to an epidemic of drug addiction, homeless, theft, mental illness, all problems with straightforward solutions that the residents are screaming for.

Its not one or the other, its both. Just because you live in a safe neighborhood does not mean that everyone that doesn’t isn’t being “data driven” or “logical” enough.

So the Outer Richmond is a "wealthy hyper-gentrifed neighborhood" now? Or the Mission? The Sunset? SOMA? Dogpatch?

Sure, I mean if you're able to afford to live in those neighborhoods, then you're doing OK. But it's a bit rich to call them "hyper-gentrifed".

What are the unsafe neighborhoods in SF?

Not so. I've mostly lived in a comparatively high crime neighborhoods in SF, though I live in Oakland now. I'm married to someone who grew up in the Tenderloin. Your argument that attitudes are correlated with residential wealth rather than experience may accurately capture a general trend but it is far from the cast-iron rule you suggest.

straightforward solutions

Hmm

There is def a vendetta but you see the same things in r/sanfrancisco and other places as well so it's not limited to HN

A lot of city (and country) subs on reddit are overrun with people who don't live in the place commenting on what a hell-hole it is. We see this in New Zealand every time something gets international attention, and it's very obvious given time zones and posting volumes.

There is very little incentive for someone to believe that there is a better place to live than the one they're in and all the ego stroking to believe otherwise.

A lot of people on HN came to SF from elsewhere for money/career reasons, and were upset to discover that the city is not an extension of the Moscone Center (ironically enough named after a former mayor who was murdered - by one of the city supervisors who thought he was too 'woke': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Moscone).

Not to completely call Moscone the height of evil but there are definite allegations about him taking money/influence peddling from Jim Jones and the People’s Temple

He absolutely did, although I think this is one of those things that looks way worse with hindsight.

Not surprising. Hacker news is made up of a lot of people who worship billionaires and have a contempt for the poor

I think a lot people probably experienced or witnessed petty theft or assault, and figured those same people might commit murder at a high rate. When you have a personal experience like that, or multiple, the natural reaction is to apply that experience to another situation.

It actually says a lot about SF that people would jump to that conclusion. SF is not in a good place. It has deteriorated over the past 2 decades. But it's not why Bob Lee is dead.

There is a cancer of cynicism and hate in these parts. Always has been but now it feels that it's the victim and now it has the tools to grow. This was a failed attempt at growth. It will try again until it is eradicated.

No one had a problem dismissing Seth Rich as a random murder. People just believe what fits their narrative.

Nobody ever produced any evidence to the contrary. I've read hundreds of blog posts saying he 'must have' been murdered by powerful political figures on the basis that powerful figures have means, motives, and opportunities that are not available to most ordinary folk, and therefore that mere possibility is sufficient to be considered a probability. The absence of evidence is thrown back as 'proof' of a cover-up.

The point is more that the local police said it was likely a robbery gone wrong when there's no evidence for that and every media outlet repeats it as fact and "nothing to see here". The would-be robbers didn't wind up taking anything from him and it's not a neighborhood known for a high crime rate. There's also tons of other "but but but" coverage, including extensively in the Wikipedia article on the topic, that completely misses the point.

The person who published the DNC leaks said it was an inside source and that it wasn't a foreign government. No one seems to believe this despite no evidence to the contrary (and other groups having access to the same information is not evidence, since it was proven that multiple groups did)

Anyway it's too much to cover here and is off topic and I'm not going to change any minds, so i'll leave it there

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