Why Did An Angry Man Punch Me?
siliconvalleywatcher.com
siliconvalleywatcher.com
That is not something that companies like Google are equipped to provide. Not by a long shot. It would not even be legal for them to take that situation into their own hands. The government of San Francisco is the most immediate entity actually in a position to do something there.
If the government of San Francisco needs more money to do their job, then you should be asking the government of San Francisco why the hell they aren't raising that money by, perhaps, taxing Google.
Asking why Google did not do anything is farcical.
Waiting for the inevitable arrest is obviously unsatisfactory, but I don't know how you can improve this process without trampling on rights.
How do you PROVE you aren't faking "sanity". shiver It gives the people in charge unchecked god like power over other human beings.
I'm not even saying that the government _shouldn't_ be involved in assessing mental health, just that people are wary of it for a good reason (in the same way that people are wary of any form of testing as a requirement for voting, because of the way that it was so horribly abused in the past).
Perhaps because Google hides most of its income from the US and California governments through various international subsidaries.
And perhaps also because the moment they worked around all these loopholes and actually started to get money out of Google, Google would simply up and move away, making things worse.
Google, Twitter, and companies in general, should have some duty to their communities, if only out of gratitude for providing an environment in which they could thrive. That they don't speaks volumes on their corporate values.
Personally, I think it's a problem with the "profit for shareholders above all else" which dominates the discussions about corporate values.
If the tax avoidance becomes or is excessive, you refocus your efforts above local government to seek a solution.
"If we increase taxes they'll leave, so there is no point even trying" is a defeatist attitude. And assuming that is how Google really does operate, then expecting charity from Google is ludicrous anyway.
(And you are still ignoring the fact that Google is not in a position to do anything besides provide money anyway. Your local government is the one that can actually do something with that money to combat this problem.)
Bermuda[1]. Google does its best to avoid paying tax in Ireland too.
[1] http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/to-reduce-its-tax-bu...
I don't know much about US law regarding this, but I thought the only thing a public company shouldn't do is destroy value. I don't think a company has the obligation to specifically pursue the cheapest/fastest way to do something. Directors and executives have some freedom to run things as they see fit, but won't abuse their freedom to not be voted out of the company; not because the courts would punish them for it.
While I personally believe things should be different, they aren't. A company that doesn't make money is useless to it's shareholders, and typically shareholders vote to make sure a company makes as much money as possible. There is no natural pressure on a company to care about other things, which is why we have laws to try to get them to care a little bit.
In the UK there is a section of the mental health act (section 136) that allows a police officer to take someone to a place of safety and hold them there for upto 72 hours. The person has to be in a public place and the pice have to think that you have a mental illness and need care.
In many places in the UK the place of safety might be the local police cells, although there are a few specially built places of safety built near the mental health hospital for easy access.
http://www.rethink.org/living-with-mental-illness/police-cou...
Other countries have similar law.
It needs to be said that peoe with a mental health problem are more likely to be the victim, rather than a perpetrator, of violence.
It is frustrating that people have jumped to the conclusion of mental illness rather than, say, drug use.
Even if you don't though, Google cannot go around throwing people into drunk tanks.
There is a lot of work in the US that needs to be done with how we handle mental health, addiction, or just plain old drug abuse. Primarily, that work needs to be done in government.
Why do you think that techies are more qualified to solve problems that people who specialized in those problems are struggling with?
Remember that Google, and the tech industry in general, does not have a monopoly on smart people.
It seems like a reasonable question. Most tech companies are focused on products for healthy, wealthy people (wealthy enough to buy tech products, I mean. Which is far wealthier than the homeless people living on the street)
What's to stop tech companies creating systems or products that directly help people at the bottom of society? Nothing really. It's a hard problem but that's what the tech community likes to boast about solving.
I know those sorts of products aren't particularly appealing to most companies but they'd be a darn site better for society than facebook is
Why look at homeless people and say Twitter/Google/Apple etc. should fix this instead of the government should fix this or maybe I should fix this?
When you vote in government that don't support a strong social/welfare system companies and citizens have a social responsibility. I don't think Twitter should be housing the homeless but doing things like building services inside the business so employees never have to venture out hurts local businesses and the local economy. All businesses should be supporting their local communities, not just tech businesses.
Isn't San Francisco pretty "socially aware" already?
Paradoxically, places with more homeless-friendly policies attract far more homeless people (for obvious reasons). As a famous example, Santa Monica has a history of hassling homeless people and effectively criminalizing homelessness, which has the effect of forcing the homeless population elsewhere.
Also, relative to a lot of other places in the US, SF's far-more temperate weather increases the appeal for those living outside. On top of all that, you get asshole states like Nevada bussing homeless people to places like San Francisco[1] (SF is actually suing the state of Nevada for this).
Now granted, the way _anywhere_ in the US treats their homeless and mentally ill is not particularly "socially aware", but looking at SF's relatively large homeless population and assuming that it comes from a relative lack of social awareness is a completely wrong-headed approach.
[1] http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/11/2602391/san-franc...
They vote in a government to do it because that would increase taxes. They wont do it themselves because that will cost them time and money. Saying Google/Twitter/Company X should doesn't cost them anything but a wave of the finger.
I'm not seeing a lot of responsibility here.
Now one could argue it's Twitter's "job" to try and extract as many tax breaks as possible and the blame really lies on the Mayor and other city officials for making that deal. Or really blame REALLY lies on voters for electing those people in the first place or not prioritizing higher taxes or higher social service funding.
But I think the point the article is making is that technology companies, like Twitter/Google et al, don't present themselves as monolithic profit machines of the same breed as Exxon Mobile. They're changing the world, right?
>> The payroll-tax break could lead to Twitter saving about $22 million in taxes over six years, the Chronicle said.
I think the gamble was the city would make this back thanks to revitalization or new workers moving into the city. In the near term, there's certainly going to be a reduction in the city coffers for taking care of punchy-guys.
This city has some severe problems. It also has an unusual concentration of very smart people and big computing power. Why can't we work towards solving these problems using science and evidence and smart people and big computers?
Do you not think you might be an asshole for implying that, because these problems aren't already solved, no one is working on them? Or that anyone working on them isn't smart?
Maybe these problems are HARD! [They, in fact, are. Witness all of human history.]
Google scholar counts, I guess.
I don't even know what to say to this. How can the author even be asking this question?
Here's a basic outline. It feels weird typing this because it should be obvious, but here goes.
Northern California cities are cities just like any other. There are people of all income levels doing all sorts of different jobs, or not doing any jobs. There are a disproportionate number of tech workers in that region, but other than that it's pretty much the same as anywhere else. People are still people are still people. The reason a shirtless man randomly punched you is because he was crazy. The more people you have concentrated in a small area, the more likely you are to meet up with a crazy person when you're walking down the street (that's just statistics/probability). I live in NYC, a much bigger city, and I see crazy people all the time. When you see someone not wearing a shirt in public, babbling or shouting, hanging around on a street corner by themselves, etc., etc., they are most likely crazy. If you see a crazy person, stay as far away from them as possible and do not make eye contact. Definitely do not engage with them in any way (this includes taking pictures of them) because it will provoke them. Welcome to city life!
I totally understand why tech people are a lightning rod for frustration in a place like San Francisco, but I don't see tech as the cause or the solution of these problems. That's not to absolve tech people of responsibility—I think everyone with money in this country has a responsibility—but it's just that we can't do it alone.
Reopen the mental institutions? Maybe under private management? California closed them when Reagan's budget slashing lined up with the counter-culture's "Who are we to judge them?" mindset.
Give this guy some money and see how it turns out?
Hire people to reason with him?
It's easy to see there's a problem. The answers to these problems are harder, and certainly less popular, than asking the tech community to "fix" them.
The lack of suitable community treatment and smaller, better mental health hospitals is the problem, not the closing of horrible institutions.
No, make that an enormous stretch.
I get that it's supposed to illustrate the disparity between the nouveau riche and the people left behind. But this is something for individual families and/or the state to solve. Google, Twitter, or Oracle do best when they are left to focus on their core business. If you need them to contribute more to "society" than they already do, raise corporate taxes and pray they don't move to Austin.
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(1) a city famous for decades for the extreme and outlandish behavior of its homeless people
While Twitter doing more in the community may not have prevented this incident from occurring, I think the overall idea is right. Corporations should give back to their communities. Corporate influence is huge, corporations are members of their communities and have the power to effect real change.
I also think it goes a long way for company culture when the company as a whole is genuinely focused on giving back. A lot of people rarely feel the joy of giving because they don't know where to start. They're intimidated. If the company you work for provides a platform for you to be able to roll up your sleeves and help people, that can be incredibly rewarding. Everyone benefits, including the company who gains credibility and good will within the community.
I agree with the author of the post that successful entrepreneurs have a social responsibility towards the territory; otherwise they are just exacerbating the tension between 'classes'.
What did he do to help himself? Unfortunately, its damn near impossible to help people who won't take the first couple steps themselves. I'm all for helping people who are taking some kind of initiative but being stymied by bureaucratic indifference, harsh economic reality, or some other circumstance. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the advocates for the poor and homeless in SF expect tech companies to fix everything by paying even higher taxes and eliminating shuttles without expecting the "victims" to take any initiative themselves.
How quickly did mass literacy change society for the better? How quickly did public education change society for the better? How quickly did the printing press change society for the better? How quickly did antibiotics change society for the better? I'm sure it wasn't fast enough for many who perished during the transitional points.
Situations such as this is why people formed a government that is able to tax corporations and people to fund homeless shelters and public housing and drug rehabilitation programs.
Clearly there is a MAJOR societal problem in most of the United States, but I don't see how people can lay it at the doorstep of Twitter.
Now, the question becomes... do the tech startups get involved in the conversation and try to find ways to help the inevitable gentrification that is happening hurt those pushed out less than it otherwise would? Or do they just take the line the everyone is responsible for themselves, quit crying and get a better paying job!
There are real people being hurt by Silicon Valley, for no fault of their own. And lots of these people are very hard working people who just want to live in a nice place like everyone else. But because their 40 hour weeks only clear them a couple hundred bucks after taxes they get pushed out to some other area that is probably more crime ridden and dangerous. Other posters are correct, you get a very clear economic class system happening.
You raise valid problems, which I would again say are the traditional responsibilities, and the reasons why, we have a government. Corporations historically have had TERRIBLE ethical and moral compasses which is why we need things like Child Labor Laws. I completely understand why people are mad at SF tech companies, but I think the rational place to direct their anger is towards the government that is not looking out for their interests.
To think that Twitter is somehow equipped to tackle the SYSTEMIC societal issues the US face is baffling.
Fascinating attitude. I can certainly understand the desire to help the clearly insane but being subjected to random violence is absolutely unacceptable. Who would subject children to such an environment? I guess the people putting up with this are young people without families or dependants?
Well, some of the attitudes displayed here are precisely why some people feel unable to talk about their depression or paranoia or hallucinations. Some of the attitudes here are why people do not disclose their MH problems to emoyers even though US law provides protection.
Sympathize with everyone!
If you don't like sympathy, maybe you could try some empathy. I'm sure your high horse won't mind if you get down off of him for a while.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(film)
Your ignorance of severe mental illness ("I think it's pretty rare for someone to have problems similar to the person you depicted and also be employed.") is exactly why people with severe and enduring mental illness suffer stigma. You see someone who may for all you know be experiencing their first episode of psychosis or their first episode of drug induced psychosis but you have already written them off as someone unable to function in society and unable to work.
A person who "is prone to taking their clothes off" can be an excellent employee. Emoyment makes them less likely to being prone to taking their clothes off because they have some routine and can afford the meds.
You obey the law because it's the law. In the US it's the same law that prevents you discriminating against people in wheelchairs - so you open yourself up to some really lousy publicity if you break that and make clumsy comments about it.
All of the specifics and examples in that article really are just symptoms of dystopia. The phenomenon of mentally ill people running around on the streets punching people is merely just a symptom of dystopia.
If you want to blame something-- it's not tech companies, Google, Twitter, etc. It's human nature in general, and it's the dystopian beliefs and behaviors of a group of assholes+morons alive on this planet right now who collectively pull humanity towards dystopia by their actions and behaviors in the world relative to the other humans they interact with.
Humans on this planet at this moment in technology-time have all the technological know-how to create a world-wide utopia-- theoretically, it could be done in a matter of months. Unfortunately, there is a critical mass of humans who prefer to live in dystopia. And there are many in that critical mass who are willing to kill other people who disagree with them. So dystopia is what we have at this moment in time.
Free will's a bitch when there is a critical mass of dystopian assholes+morons on a planet. The behavior of that critical mass of dystopians has a sort of spooky action at a distance for the rest of humanity, even those who are not directly connected/interacting with the dystopians.
I can't wait for dystopian actions, behaviors, ideas, models, philosophies, religions, corporations, and governments to die, finally.
Was he waiting for someone to send him a tweet: "leg it!" ?
Either few people bother to read the article or he really is right that the people of HN don't really care about solving hard problems, just the easy get-rich-quick kind of problems.