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I’m Sorry

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18 pointsantr25 comments

Here is a copy of the original post: http://cdn1.uptownalmanac.com/cdn/farfuture/NSQW_1fiNhQgHaAK...

The original post was unsurprisingly deleted from Peter Shih's blog.

His post was a little rude (and a bit sexist), but I feel he makes some good points. San Francisco is kind of shitty, but the people I met there were so insecure about SF not being New York/LA that they would pedantically argue about the pros and cons of each place, always convinced that SF is some glorious wonderland that encompasses the best of all worlds.

San Franciscans need to travel more.

Well, I have never had the opportunity to visit San Francisco but if the OP thinks that London has good transport and parking, then he must really be having problems!

Midol is sexist.

As someone who doesn't live in San Francisco (but has visited it, and found it very pleasant!), I thought the response to this guy on Twitter was absurd and disgusting: "#PeterShihFacts" was trending in SF (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23petershihfacts), and it was pretty much just "Hey, lets shit on this guy because he insulting our city."

Printing out posters that say "Peter Shih is a prick, kick him out of SF" (https://twitter.com/skilldrick/status/368818494231429120/pho...) does very little, in my mind, to engender respect or affection for a place or a populace.

I see this as a cautionary tale of how careful you should be with social media, especially if you are in a startup.

I give Peter the benefit of the doubt and believe that the original article really was meant to be a humor piece. And unfortunately for him, his writing was interpreted by a great deal of people for cruelty rather than satire. (Don't quit the day job, Pete!) Sucks to be him.

Then, rightly or wrongly, people attacked his startup as well. I can understand why. One reason is that our personalities, whether we like it or not, are deeply imbued in our startups.

But a closer reason is: if you touch a nerve, some people will find a way to lash back at you any way they can. And calling your startup out is one way. (For an example, look at the tragic case of the Adria Richards/SendGrid and PlayHaven firings.)

Think twice before you blog/post/tweet.

I'm glad he's at least not trying to claim it was "satire" because that's an insult to satire. He wrote complaints that lots of SF people share and that's probably why he thought it was a great thing to publish. But there's a difference between:

1. SF has a bad homeless problem

2. Why can't SF clean up after all these dirty drunk conniving homeless people?

And being unhappy about finding a date can be handled differently than trying to blame SF's "ugly" women for acting self-confident and rational

What is he apologizing for? I have no idea what blog post he's discussing.

The original post was unsurprisingly deleted. Here's a discussion + copy of the original.

http://uptownalmanac.com/2013/08/tech-founder-complains-abou...

And here's a little more context for the backlash that caused the apology:

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23PeterShihFacts&src=hash

Some Googling and cache yields this:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...

"10. Bicyclists Stop being fucking hypocrites. If you want to share the road, then you need to respect the rules of the road and stop running stop signs and lights. Next time I see one of you fuckers bomb through a crosswalk and almost mow down a row of pedestrians I’m going to clothesline you."

LOL because bicyclists always follow the rules in Manhattan, rite guys?

EDIT: I thought it was funny, but I don't live in either NYC or SF. But seeing SF through the perspective of a New York/East Coast city dweller's eyes is somewhat amusing sometimes.

For example, homeless people in Philly don't fucking FOLLOW YOU when asking for money. I think a lot of people out here wouldn't even bat an eye before beating the dude senseless. Sad, but in a way that keeps people in check out here.

That's just "tu quoque". The fact that place X doesn't follow the rules doesn't mean place Y gets a free pass.

Some of his original arguments were that X is worse than Y because X does Z, so pointing out that Y also does Z actually does negate the argument.

Ah, fair enough. That's a different argument.

Now that Peter has apologized for what he wrote, what about the people that wrote the sleazy and occasionally reprehensible responses?

Will they acknowledge that they might have gotten caught up in heat of the moment and said things they shouldn't have either?

Well I like the post were he apologys for. I mean it seems like he got a point at what he says, are the other SF people just running mad or wth?

If something is shit there's someone who calls it and someone who clears it, or not. Why make a mess about it?

I thought the original post was pretty funny. SF does have its shitty qualities. It's kinda scary that you can't criticize it without the pitchfork mob coming out. This will prevent all improvement.

There is plenty of criticism of San Francisco coming from people inside, and outside, of the startup/tech scene.

His post was misogynistic and hypocritical, which encouraged the pitchfork mob. (I don't intend to make a value judgement regarding the response his post got.)

It was misogynistic? I don't remember him complaining that SF needs to get rid of women or anything.

This part:

>5. 49ers

>No, not the football team, they're great. I'm referring to all the girls who are obviously 4's and behave like they are 9's. Just because San Francisco has the worst Female to Male ratio in the known universe doesn't give you the right to be a bitch all the time

As a person who went to a university with a stilted sex ratio, then lived in a city with the opposite sort of ratio (aka, the good way for me), I'm guessing the guy just isn't adjusting well to moving west from an eastern city (NYC). I actually warned a friend of mine about this when he moved there.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/04/21/business/econ... for comparison

Small overall imbalances lead to LARGE imbalances in singles at younger ages.

Is a guy misogynist if he complains about an imbalanced sex ratio and the social pathologies that spread from that? I just wish we were less quick to excommunicate people from the politically correct Church of All. Relax people, let a little heresy into your life. You'll age better.

It sounds as though "the guy" in question has certain expectations about the ways in which women are supposed to interact with him. These expectations apparently vary based on his perception of how attractive the woman is; he gives women he deems sufficiently attractive social license to behave in ways that women he seems as less attractive are not granted.

It's not expressly stated, but not unreasonable to guess that these behaviors revolve around the guy's expectation that a woman will respond positively to demands that she pay positive attention to him. Merely moderately attractive women are not expected to rebuff the attention of the guy, and doing so is "being bitchy."

There are certainly social pathologies here, but not on the part of the women.

The complaint being responded to is predicated on assigning every woman a social worth based solely on a numerical rating of sexual attractiveness. If this doesn't strike you as misogynist I'm unsure what possibly could.

What you see as a "politically correct Church of All" I see as "basic decency to your fellow humans."

It's not what he criticized, it's how he did it. A good argument presented badly is a bad argument.

tldr: i'm a dick, but i'm not dumb and i understand that i should apologize.

You're probably right, but I at least appreciate that he didn't try to play it off as a joke or make excuses. That's pretty rare in internet apologies nowadays.

He did try to play it off as a joke, by editing the post and adding a disclaimer at the top claiming satire.. That didn't work, so here we are.

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