I definetly feel dirty after having taken part in discussions around this on HN.
Why are very emotional but also non-tech related stories being posted on HN.
It's all flamebait (and I've been suckered into contributing to it)
Why are very emotional but also non-tech related stories being posted on HN.
It's all flamebait (and I've been suckered into contributing to it)
Unfortunately, society tends not to like people who don't take a stance on a given item ("Fence sitter"). As such, being a fence sitter is often the courageous stance, and drawing conclusions and loudly broadcasting them to the world often is, in some part, motivated by cowardice.
I understand why the police would feel the urge to advertise themselves and say "See? We are smarter than all of those people so we deserve the money", but mocking people that tried to help because their first assumptions were wrong, is not the more productive way to spend their time. People does not have a diviner ball.
Logical and appropriate/reasonable are two distinct entities.
I can see two coin tosses, and if they came up heads, it is certainly logical to conclude that the coin is heavily biased. Understanding that the quality of the data is poor and that one probably should suspend judgements until further data is in is a sign of maturity.
I've seen this play out over the decades: Hans Reiser, Ellen Pao, etc are common examples.
>See? We are smarter than all of those people
The only person I see doing that here is you. It wasn't logical, it was emotional based on preconceptions about the crime in the city.
The city has a lot of problems and people don’t feel safe. I’m not saying prison is a great idea but ignoring crime is worse.
It’s a story about decay.
8 years ago I would have assumed it was a crime of passion. Today? Probably further decay.
I of course do not defend the uninformed speculation. But I also can empathize with the frustration and fear that SF residents must feel at times.
I'd say the epicenter of the tech industry is to the south of San Francisco: Silicon Valley/Santa Clara County/San Mateo County e.g. Google, Apple, Facebook, Sand Hill Road.
(Am I totally breaking the metaphor there by allowing for multiple epicenters? Perhaps. I guess an earthquake can have only one epicenter. But there could be multiple earthquakes, with multiple epicenters....?)
Sometimes it’s used as a synonym for “FAANG HQ city” and suddenly “Bay Area” even includes Seattle and Redmond and parts of NYC.
Humans beings are terrible at logic and epistemology on subjective matters, and intelligence in objective domains seems to be often more harmful than helpful, perhaps it gives a misleading sense of competency leading to additional errors.
Still, YC is in the Bay Area, as is Silicon Valley. It’s a huge influence in the tech and entrepreneurship world.