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Comment by forthwall | Hacker News Reader

A culmination of many things happening at once; lunar new year in Chinatown brings with it tons of heavy fireworks ordinance that every kid who’s parents run a restaurant have access to - Saturday night teenagers who have an itching for doing stupid stuff in a neighborhood where this said ordinance is being blown up by people of all ages constantly and being handed out like candy for the next two weeks - and one self driving car unfortunately that decided to drive through one of the one way one lane streets that end up getting overrun by said kids and drunk tourists alike.

Chinatown is a fun neighborhood, walking past the area around the time of this event I didn’t even pay attention due to the over abundance of explosion noises and fire responses from sffd the neighborhood gets this time of year

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Happens in the best of places. Berlin, which normally is pretty peaceful, looks like a war zone around new year. Just non stop explosions for days on end before and after new year. It kind of tapers off asymptotically as people run out of fireworks. Usually a few cars burn out, a few hundred people end up in hospital. Some people lose eyes, fingers, etc. The combination of people being drunk and having access to things that go boom in a loud and pretty way have some obvious consequences.

A taxi driver drove around with a dash cam a few years ago and filmed 20 minutes of the madness. Amazing stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVOV9YrMFCs

Precisely this. Many people have taken it as a sign of further lawlessness in SF. When actual fact it is young impulsive people acting on impulse with fireworks within easy reach.

Because the individuals responsible are young and impulsive, this is not lawlessness.

Or it could be saying this is normal expected lawlessness rather than further lawlessness.

Which would still be not good, but less of a sign of things getting worse.

Exactly

I wish I could’ve used that as an excuse for actions when I was “young and impulsive”.

A crime was committed and we shouldn’t be trying to justify it.

possibly also seen as a 'safe' prank because there were no humans to harm in it?

Probably, most people don’t really care about inanimate objects or their well being unless they own them. I’ve seen people of all walks of life litter for no reason. Teenagers are much worse I see them tag the back seats of busses or just break things (or themselves) when they’re with their group of friends when they know they’ll look cool and most likely get away with it. To be young and dumb I guess

Or the people rejecting the future envisioned by a out of touch elite.

The drunk teenager++ people destroyed someone else's creation, someone else's property, leaving a mess in Chinatown.

It's symbolic of rejecting civility in favor of destruction.

They are shaping a future for ineffectual ostracized extremists.

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