Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley
indybay.org
indybay.org
"The self-driven car has been another pet project of the DARPA for many years. It sponsored a recurring Grand Challenge for people designing self-driving vehicles, hoping someone would crack open the new technology. Anthony Levandowski was one of the wonder kids who flocked to these competitions, looking for a federal handout and fame. Now, with Google handing him more money than he could ever dream of, Levandowski is working long hours bringing this dream of the military into reality."
"Levandowski started a company that created computer tablets designed to display blueprints at construction sites. The reasoning behind their venture was that updating and then printing new blueprints took a few days and slowed construction time. With this new product, construction companies could create condominiums, malls, and subdivisions with the least possible delay and the maximum profit. In praise of his prodigious business acumen, the administration-run UC Berkeley News decided to run an article on him in 2003, championing his ability to make money and enable the housing bubble that was just starting to expand."
"The proposed project is a testament to the arrogance, disconnection, and luxury of the ruling class. Growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people allows them, somehow, to pretend that the planet is not being ravaged by the same economy they depend on for their wealth, comfort, and safety."
"Preparing for the action, we watched Levandowski step out of his front door. He had Google Glasses over his eyes, carried his baby in his arm, and held a tablet with his free hand. As he descended the stairs with the baby, his eyes were on the tablet through the prism of his Google Glasses, not on the life against his chest. He appeared in this moment like the robot he admits that he is."
Seriously? That last one is particularly horrifying and almost sounds like an implicit threat.
Wait, what?
Gentrification is a real problem, with inequality at it's roots. I think most people would agree with that. And I'd also agree that it's easy for some in the tech community to lose touch with the relative privilege that they often live in. But this is not a "reasonable backlash" – it's a bunch of incoherent knee-jerk harassment by people who should really be doing something better with their time.
The proper channel for dealing with housing issues is local government; for NSA issues, national government; in neither is the correct channel the harassment of individual employees of a company which may (or may not be) the cause of those issues.
He told me something his grandfather taught him: People who are protesting against you will almost certainly disagree with you about what an "acceptable backlash" is. Specifically you will prefer ineffective protests and those that that don't inconvenience you, while they will prefer effective protests and those that are spiteful.
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/22/264528139/long-a-dirty-word-ge...
I read the flyer, too. Kind of a PITA to rotate it, but:
It's just their perspective, mostly PR-style publicl-available history of projects for that particular developr. It's worthwhile to read, to remind ourselves to be respectful of the larger scene, rather than just the dollar signs.
Still, it's hyperbolic in places. I think their view would be more persuasive if they talked about "the kind of world we want to live in" rather than leaping to "evil." It would also be more persuasive if they discussed more ways everyday people can avoid giving power to their "opponents." Mom and Pop are much more likely to starve Google by switching to DuckDuckGo than to "take down surveillance cameras."
However, I don't think it's utter crap. Both sides in this issue have some large, philosophical questions to consider.
You lost me right there. And then the parts about Google X developing "war robots" and Google threatening to release a "massive amount of carbon"?
Just... no. I thought the protestors had a reasonable argument about Google hindering the development of better public transportation and displacing San Francisco individuals by running private bus services that isolated Googlers from the community, but this is sheer lunacy.
> developing "war robots"
Technically, since their acquisition Boston Dynamics, Google is indeed in the business of war robots: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/google-buys-major-military...
Though they've said they're only going to fulfill their existing military contracts, not seek out others. I guess we'll see what happens on that front.
The way these people see the world: those contact lenses are just one more way for the evil rich to impose their rule on the poor. They get treatment, and the poor don't.
[1]http://9to5google.com/2011/11/14/sergey-brin-is-working-on-a...
For the middle class and below? In many neighborhoods of the Bay Area the prices really are that high now. I agree of course that the description is over the top, but I think it does accurately reflect how economically tough the area is for most residents, particularly those who are not developers, lawyers, or doctors.
No person who isn't committing a serious crime deserves that whatever his/her beliefs.
PPW is short hand for the Uk licence to carry a gun for personal protection - and yes there are tech companies that do have staff that do that.
Others include Isreal / Palestine; sexism; RMS; etc. it is trivially easy to troll HN. HN does not do well at ignoring trolls or not responding to overly-enthusiastic posters. (There are some exceptions to this where a person will carefully talk through differences in opinion to try to understand or communicate a point of view but these are exceptions).
one of my mates is married to a DA in the USA and has had to "cheek his guns just in case some one tried to make the threat good.
Don't assume that all us Brits are fluffy little things who will have a fit of palpitations when fire arms are mentioned
But why is it a bad idea to carry a weapon in SF? Are people stopped and frisked? Are there metal detectors everywhere? Are there pickpockets all over the place that will steal your weapon and use it against you?
Try to take a gun from a cop and see what happens.
This is in a population that is trained in weapon retention. I've rarely met non-LEO folks who spend adequate time on the skill.
How come?
So to answer your question in a general statement: I'm a firm believer that is my responsibility to protect my life and my family and no one else's. I also think it is naive to believe that I could never be the victim of a crime or brutal attack by someone equipped with a more effective weapon than my hands. I'd much rather have a firearm in my hand then a cell phone waiting for 911 when someone is clearly trying to inflict severe harm or death.
I, personally, believe that I'm statistically likely to make a situation worse or possibly hurt myself if I own a handgun. So I choose not to have one. I might choose differently at a later date, depending on where I live.
However, CCWs in California are state-wide licenses and many of the more rural counties are pretty liberal with giving them out. Even Sacramento is close to a "shall-issue" county. I've heard San Diego is pretty decent too.
In other words, if you live in a county where you can get a CCW, you can carry it legally in the entire state.
The trouble with the eternal firearms argument is that anti-firearms types tend to be theorists (many of whom, in my experience, have never even laid hands on a firearm, to say nothing of firing one), and pro-firearms types to be practitioners.
It's sort of like expecting a random Haskell programmer and a random PHP programmer to see eye-to-eye on anything, or indeed to be able to have a productive conversation with one another. In theory, this can occur. In practice...
Post Dunblane, all handguns are illegal in mainland UK. The only exceptions are for law enforcement/armed forces. [We'll ignore diplomatic missions using immunity/convention exceptions.]
Northern Ireland does have PPW (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_Kin... and, handily for this topic, an FOI response on PSNI website http://www.psni.police.uk/firearms_applications_ppw.pdf).
Without getting into all the republican politics, Northern Ireland is distinct in terms of the legal system and status compared to the mainland (of Scotland, England and Wales). You cannot use an example from NI to extend to the rest of the UK.
I'll leave other commentors to discuss how sensible it is to talk about bringing guns into what seems to be a pretty hot debate on the street. One comment I read recently which has stuck with me goes along the lines of "there is no situation which resorting to violence will not make worse".
You don't get a handgun as a show of force -- you get one to protect yourself from imminent harm...and some asshat blocking a bus isn't putting you in imminent harm: you're in the bus, and hopefully the bus driver has already called 911 to get the person/people who are blocking the road out of your way.
I don't think there should be harsh penalties for misusing public space, but I don't really trust people to be reasonable either (meaning I'm comfortable with some rules about the uses of public spaces).
I'd imagine if a bunch of google employees did something similar at the house of the person who organized this protest, it wouldn't be seen as being fair.
Can you please tell me where they threatened? I'm curious to know if they overstepped the boundaries of peaceful protest.
But, let's suppose you /were/ right for a moment. What conclusions would that lead us to? If you were right and gaius (the poster above) or I felt /threatened/ by google's actions of photographing our houses and slurping our wifi credentials, would that mean that google had indeed threatened us?
After all, he /felt/ threatened. In your words, the perception of being threatened matters, right? So, if you're to be believed, google _has_ threatened /me/, because /I/ feel threatened by their taking pictures in public and slurping my wifi. If this is true, then according to you, what they have done /is/ tantamount to mob rule and harassment, and Google /is/ guilty of same, as it follows all the way back up to Bahamat's post above.
But of course this is not true. Google is not guilty of mob rule and harassment. Or do you believe that Google is guilty of mob rule and harassment?
If there is a threat, there must be evidence of a threat. Above posters and I have requested evidence. Evidence of a crime, not evidence of feelings. To back up the charge of a threat, can you articulate:
1. A statement to inflict pain, injury, damage, etc.
2. The event for which retribution is sought?
If you have those two, you have a threat. Otherwise, I'm very sorry for the feelings you feel, but the protestors have acted no worse than Google. I'm grateful my country allows us to communicate our grievances to one another.
It's like damaging the lobby of a Bank of America or smashing the windows of a McDonalds -- all it does is ruin the day for the poor middle to low income folks who run the branch and does nothing to the folks who you aim to target.
What??? Uhh. This guy is the surveillance state's organs. You mean he's from Oregon? No wait...
The proper target for anger in this case is the NSA and the government which allowed this to happen.
The NSA is not a proper target for expressions of moral outrage, the individual elected officials who allow, facilitate, or collaborate with its behaviors are as are those who are just following orders. The people responsible are responsible whether the context is some three letter agency or a publicly traded company. A corporation doesn't shield one from moral liability.
This is the behavior of desperate people who have lost hope that our government functions and are motivated to action.
This seems like the natural conclusion of our government's inattentiveness to it's citizenry. Violence isn't far when folks have achieved this level of frustration.
The last line of the link makes it clear that Google isn't going to be the only target. "All of you other tech companies, all of you other developers and everyone else building the new surveillance state--We're coming for you next." Burn the witch!
I don't think people should be resorting to violence out of principle, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect that "folks" who are economically marginalized should put up with this because "manners."
I just wanted to point out, it's _not just the economic marginalization_, it's the cultural mismatch that fuels so much frustration for those in the outside group.
Of course the economic stuff is easy to measure (being numbers!), but stuff like calling yourself a robot (the develop calls himself a robot in his soul), having employees wear different colored badges according to their privileges and so on are cultural differences that people don't like and feel compelled to call out.
If I lived in SF- i would be concerned that something major has changed. Your response describes reasonable questions in a level playing field where people have hope that the system works.
I don't think these people have hope in the system anymore. They're trying fundamentally different approaches rather than just giving up.
If they are willing to go after specific employees like this in spite of perception damages that come with the approach, they probably aren't averse to the perception damages that violence cultivates either.
Lets just hope feel the same the next time they read about some mid level banker or stock broker having people outside their homes. Amazing how even in this community we have groups who think there is a difference just because of who you work for.
If we stipulate that actual harassment is illegal, I don't think the rest of your statement follows. Protesting at the home of a worker without decision-making authority is unlikely to change anything, protesting at the home of a high level executive (hypothetically--you'd never get past their security) could potentially convince them to change the way their company does business.
More so because there are actually people here in this thread defending the crazy person who's trying to destroy somebody's life because they don't like the company he works for.
Everyone else is speculating on how the poor little "Googler"'s life is destroyed by a naive peaceful protest, derailing the issue with anti-left wing jokes, suggesting that "Googlers" carry weapons, and so on.
HN at its best: when its ideological toe is stepped on. popcorn
I am in no way a right winger I was coming at it form the same direction that those who fought in cable street did.
"An injury to one is an injury to all"
You might want to talk to a few people outside of your group from different ethnicity / group.
Would I feel threatened and oppressed if I was the target of that? Yes. I'd probably make sure I had weapons in the house.
My lunatic meter went off time and time again while reading their flier. I would not for a second trust that there's not at least one crazy guy that decides to take things one step too far in that group.
If you were someone that needed to go to work, and needed to drop your child somewhere on the way, and there was a large group of people outside your house with the stated intent of preventing you from doing so, you would not feel threatened? I mean sure they are peaceful while you are inside not attempting to leave, but when you try to oppose their goals by leaving, it raises the question of how dedicated they are to their goal, which I believe would make a rational person feel threatened.
If they had not made the point that the purpose of this was to restrict him from going about life then I would be much more willing to consider the view that he should not feel threatened.
Unless they have concrete proof that this specific guy have done something particularly bad (and they've not presented any), calling him out by name and with photos of his home is way over the line to begin with.
Not only is it creepy, it is deeply counterproductive and will only serve to alienate people that might otherwise be sympathetic.
What they describe as a "pompous two story palace with stone lions guarding the door" looks to me like a quite average suburban house. Yes, I get that there are people substantially worse off, but they're not getting any sympathy with crap like that.
Further, trying to dehumanise him with their descriptions of him as a "robot" and contrasting him with his child, and their use of words like "evil" ought to make everyone concerned.
This is not progressive. On the contrary, this is moronic petit bourgeois luddites staging ineffective and creepy demonstrations that will achieve nothing but play straight into the hands of their opponents.
It also shows that they fundamentally fail to understand the mechanisms they are fighting. Everyone on the other side will see what they are doing as perfectly reasonable. They are just "hacking the system" and following consequences. The moment they are described as "evil" and faced with personal demonstrations, these guys start creating enemies, when they could instead have searched for partners.
But these clowns use socialist terms while they clearly don't understand much of its basis. Marx, for example, was very clear in his agitation against the kind of moronic vilification demonstrated in this text: The typical capitalist, and those aiding him, according to Marx, is no more evil than the worker he oppresses - capitalist and worker alike for the most part are trapped in the same machine, and have little choice but to stick to their roles: A capitalist that stops exploiting labour will fail, and end up a labourer by necessity himself. Marx was not against the capitalist. He was not even against the capitalist system per se - on the contrary, he realised that for any chance of socialism to succeed, it would be _essential_ to bring about the economic development and automation required to be able to meet the needs of everyone.
In fact, socialism as an idea is a child of the industrial revolution more than anything: It arose out of the hope that the industrial revolution would bring about such wealth that poverty could finally be beaten, Marx held that the capitalist system would play out its role once production had reached such a height that poverty could be eradicated.
Socialism originated as an ideology deeply intertwined with a positive view of technology and automation as tools of liberation. To see these guys play modern day luddites and drag out socialism in the same breath just shows a staggering degree of lack of awareness of history. To see them target individuals rather than the system equally so.
On the other hand, look at the rest of the industrialized world. Almost every industrialized nation has socialized medicine, social insurance/welfare, etc. You're trying to characterize it as a binary when it's a lot more like capitalism in that there's a lot of latitude.
IME, self-identified Marxists outside of countries run by Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist dictatorships tend to view nominally "Marxist" Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist dictatorships as having roughly the same relationship to Marxism as modern self-identified proponents of democracy outside of Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist dictatorships have usually viewed nominally democratic Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist dictatorships like the "German Democratic Republic" or the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" of having to democracy.
Marx and Engels weren't all that bad at prescription -- a substantial portion of the 10 key concrete policies for "advanced countries" in the Communist Manifesto have been widely and successfully adopted in the modern, developed, "capitalist" world.
Lenin's rewriting of Marx's program to a very different one, with notionally the same end state and, in many cases, similar near term policy changes to be applied in very different contexts, that was supposed to work in conditions which had neither the specific problems Marx's program was designed to address nor the foundations from which Marx's program was designed to address them, hasn't worked out very well, but that's a different issue.
I'm not a Marxist but I've been struggling to articulate why I believe this sort of protesting is counterproductive. For one thing, their complaints are not actionable-- they're co-opting a grab-bag of leftist, luddite terminology and the end result rounds down to a primal scream. I don't live in SF, but it seems to me that the horse is out of the barn: SF has changed irrevocably and it will never go back to what it was. I suspect they know this on some level.
A large subset of tech workers have libertarian leanings, to be sure, but there's a strong leftist/liberal bent, as well. More than a lot of other well-off folks, I'd expect tech workers to be allies. Regardless, though, they're/we're not going to consider ourselves evil just because someone says so. The incentives are simple and compelling: we get paid well for doing work we ostensibly enjoy. They want "techies" to go away because we're ruining everything but the only way to make that work at any scale is highly, highly questionable-- shit like violence and/or intimidation, in other words.
I'm sympathetic to the protesters' feeling of disenfranchisement, but it's increasingly difficult for me to remain sympathetic. The top tier tech companies can't undo the last few decades of Bay Area history. Gentrification is not a solved problem, but density seems to be one way to go. That involves compromise. My sense is that these folks feel entitled enough to claim ownership over SF such that I'd expect a rather cool response to compromise.
Anyway, thanks for speaking up.
AFAIK, they haven't really hurt anybody (this time). They are just pressing the points that (they think will) hurt the most.
To what or whom does "the trash" refer in your comment?
However, comments like the one you make here just strengthens their movement. "Trash" ? No one is trash! If you refer to criminality, know that good hearted and decent poor people are also adversely affected.
Please, do not call anyone 'trash'.
Seriously, just look up protest in a dictionary. It's an expression, a communication. It's a chance for people to respond. It's a visible, recordable effort, as opposed to an anecdote.
Whatever the overt message, and especially when the purported message is as confused and vaguely threatening as in this case, in the act of arranging that someone should awaken, to find a crowd surrounding his house and shouting imprecations, there cannot but be a subtextual implication which amounts to "And you'd better listen to us, or else!"
Of course, I'm sure that, finding yourself in the position poor Levandowski did, your first instinct would be to argue semantics with the mob! What more reasonable response, after all, could there possibly be? And what more reasonable creature, than a shouting mob, with which to carry on such a discussion?
Your suggestion that a subtext exists would be useful if there were a history of protestors at Google employee's houses. However, there is none beyond what you are imagining in your creative (how do you evidence your statement that they were shouting?) mind.
In fact, now that a peaceful demonstration has taken place outside a Google employee's house, a precedent has begun to form in which the subtext is that employees should NOT feel threatened by protestors. I would not have realized this myself had not you not mistakenly claimed its opposite, so thank you and have an up vote.
In particular, a dictionary concerns itself with what a given word is currently agreed upon to mean, and not with the history of the phenomenon that word might happen to denote; your apparent desire to constrain such historical consideration, to include only incidents in which a protest occurs at a Google employee's house, is quite neat, I suppose, in that it neatly sidesteps any concern over the implicit threat of violence which is part and parcel of any deployment of the tactic. But I don't find such circumscribed historiography particularly compelling.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/read-the-8-biggest-tech-compa...
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html
http://www.zdnet.com/google-engineers-rage-at-nsa-7000022874...
http://blogs.computerworld.com/cybercrime-and-hacking/23090/...
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/google...
The implicit threat, made explicit.
Of course, they're also utterly ignorant of history, or they'd know what happens, in a revolution, to people who consider themselves on the "right side of history", but are found insufficiently so by those to whom all weapons are friends. Little Dantons, all of them! -- and I'd be perfectly sanguine about the sanguinary fate to which they'd unknowingly consign themselves, did it not take such enormities to slake the thirst of the mob; one of the Terror's distinguishing characteristics, after all, is that it is always so very hard to steer.
This sounds so familiar, where have I heard it before? Seems to have a lot in common with the anti-abortionists who bomb clinics and kill doctors . . .
Are you really defending this shit?
Plus, isn't it obvious that envy DOES have a lot to do with this?
No defense is possible for the truly evil and nonviolent behavior of that sinister protestor.
Morons are going to find things to protest. Some address real issues, others invent issues, or build them out of poor research.
It's generally a good thing to ignore the latter.
Now, it's certainly not fair or reasonable to target a private individual like this, but I used to work in a DoD lab and I've considered many of the same issues raised by the protestors.
I think the bizarre nature of this protest reflects a widespread confusion over the best way to surface the issue of government/commercial collaboration on the topic of surveillance. On the collaboration point, the protestors are right on. Like so many Berkeley events, lucidity comes with a parade attached to it.
when you target corporations, people point out that they are complex structures and that the decisions made by them do not represent every single employee
when you target specific employees with decision-making power, people point out that the corporations are the problem and they are beholden by law and so on and so on
when you discuss that maybe the blame is on capitalism for institutionalizing antisocial behavior, you're called naive and showered with examples of the good things it's produced
there's some cognitive dissonance from detractors/businesspeople not primarily concerned with social welfare in taking one of these positions at a time and not realizing that everyone else sees them take the three in conjunction
Did they change my political opinion? Probably not, but they were more likely to make me against their particular cause than for it by this action.
Can anyone see anything of value that they might have gained in the process? I'm finding it difficult to come up with anything...
I agree with you that the protestors didn't gain anything from this particular protest and did harm to their cause, if anything.
That said, there is a qualitative difference between showing up at the guarded front gate of a CEO's mansion, and showing up on the ordinary front doorstep of a rank-and-file employee's two-story house. The former can at least be said to "go with the territory". The latter verges very closely on an imminent threat of bodily harm; the whole point of such action is to demonstrate to its victim that he and his family are not safe anywhere, not even in their home.
Honestly, it was only a matter of time before the dissident left decided that the software community was just another monied enemy for them to hate.
The good news is that nobody really takes them seriously, so if you can tolerate the occasional impotent protest and the (very) occasional WTO-style near riot, you can proceed with your life and ignore them.
Not every software developer is working for a large corporation or venture-backed start-up.
Never thought I'd see someone on the left shaming a company for paying their employees well.
I couldn't afford a fancy high end college, so I chose a cheaper one and got a loan from the Government, which I paid back in full.
I studied hard in a public school and those achievements helped me get a grant to offset some cost as well.
I got a job in tech support, worked my way up through the ranks by pushing myself and going above and beyond every day.
I continually educate myself with classes and books that I pay for out of my own pocket, and invest my own time to keep my skills sharp and advance myself.
I am a "tech worker" and I have a job that pays well above average, so am I privileged? I would like to know what was handed to me that couldn't have been given to anyone else who worked hard. I'm not a rarity: tens of thousands of people in the tech industry are exactly like me. They saw a target and they hit it.
That's why I don't support these idiots. It's an idea full of fallacies. They're just trying to ruin the lives of hard working mid level people based on perceived wrongs by their bosses by people with nothing better to do.
Yes. So am I and so is most of the audience here.
I can understand Americans as a whole being privileged, yes. We have tons of opportunities people in other countries don't. But we're talking about Americans protesting against Americans and that's why it doesn't make much sense.
At a very basic level, not everyone is smart enough to do what you do. At a more practical level, not everyone has access to a good education, or grew up in a community that encourages education.
I know I'll get a bunch of responses like "What access!? Just go on codecademy and teach yourself Javascript!"
But good luck teaching web development to a 21 year old who's never been taught how to read properly.
All of these are forms of privilege. Some of them may apply to you, some of them may not, but if you are posting on this board there is a very good chance that you were privileged. One of the insidious problems of privilege is those with it think it is the norm.
When we talk about privilege we are not trying to take away from the very real benefit of drive/ambition/hard work. I'm sure you deserve the good life you've built for yourself. But a little empathy/understanding that you did have some very clear advantages just as a product of your lucky birth, goes a long way.
As far as being white and male, that's a fallacy as well. Do you work in tech? Take a look around and you'll see some of the most diversity of any industry. I worked for a fortune 100 for a large part of my career and most teams had more "minorities" on them than whites. Most of them born in India in horrible conditions. Color blindness is one of the reasons I'm proud to be in tech.
Is it so hard to admit that most of these protesters are lazy misguided kids with nothing better to do?
It's not at all a fallacy that being white & male in the US provides privilege. If nothing else the incarceration rate among African-American males in this country means that if you are born African-American there is a significantly higher chance that your father is incarcerated during your childhood than if you are born white. As the child being born white you have the privilege of a higher chance of an non-incarcerated parent. It is just luck of the draw.
Diversity & privilege are not the same things. They are orthogonal issues. A Japanese-American has a certain set of privileges as do European-Americans & African Americans & Africans for that matter. Just because a place hires a lot of Indians does nothing to mitigate the lack of privilege for African American boy children.
Finally, your experience may be completely different than mine, but the Indian colleague's I've had did not come from horrible conditions. Quite the contrary they were among the elite in their country, born with dramatic privileges.
Just one aspect of the privilege you enjoy is the fact that one of your passions in life happened to lead to a high-paying job. I and almost everybody on this forum enjoy this same privilege. This is a particularly insidious one because it's so hard to detect in yourself and admit to. When you're the sort of person who started programming at age 12, with no clue that it would one day lead to a financially prosperous life, it's hard to identify with someone for whom the stars just didn't happen to align in that way.
It's a lot harder to "see a target and hit it" when you have absolutely no interest or passion in the target.
Then those people are not entitled to anything. I have no interest or passion in becoming a surgeon, and since they make so much more than me I should go start a ruckus down at the hospital, using this logic.
Strictly speaking, by the definition of privilege, they're right in that you are in a position that not all can attain in practice. Whether it's because you weren't born a crack baby, or because you weren't implicitly discriminated against obviously for some historically known reason (sex, race, handicap).
But life isn't fair, and never will. Others will argue that they will continue to level the playing field, but there will those who are still privileged and those who aren't, for things like being born better looking, or being smarter, or being at the right place or the right time.
Ultimately people chaff against the label of 'privilege' because it has such a negative connotation. And implies that life was easy for you to begin with. You weren't privileged then, but now you are as it were.
For those that call you that, most want you to have the perspective that your life is better than others and that by noblesse oblige you have a duty to the less privileged, by some moral code be it Christian, Bushido, Chivalry what have you.
Consider it a social tax on your success.
Given that this seems to cover almost anyone involved in telecoms, if they are successful how will they know?
Not only that, it certainly won't endear this group's ideals to Googlers, while in fact they may have value.
The real WTF is this: what the hell are they hoping to accomplish? Everything in their manifesto is scattershot, and comes off as just a spray of resentment. I could maybe imagine a demand for Google to cease all contracts with the US military, but (1) they failed to make that demand the explicit focus and (2) they've not laid the groundwork for that demand. You don't jump into harsh escalations until you've built a community organized around the demand, but few people have heard of the Google car-military connection. The goal seems more just to express inchoate anger at Google and gentrification without having some specific outcome in mind.
So, on strategy I give them an F. Tactics a B, mostly because the execution is flawed because of an absent strategy, leading to their manifesto reading as frothing rage than an intelligent indictment of him and Google. All the neighbors who receive this flier to are going to walk away sympathetic with the guy and respecting him more.
1. Let's be clear though, this is a first-world problem.
The criticism here against the protesters is because they are asking for free handouts rather than them actually working to earn them. Yes I understand it is not easy to be retrained and I don't have a good solution for people being uprooted.
Yet, most commenters here on HN identify with startups/capitalism and believe that creating something that the market wants is ultimately the only way to earn a living. Certainly not protesting for free handouts.
The strange thing is that the protesters would have found lots of support among Google and other Tech industry employees if they had not targeted them in the first place.
PS: Google does not assist the NSA. Google has made it categorically clear. Guardian too had to backtrack on it's claims about that.
I cannot up vote or emphasize this enough. They do not want the Meatpacking District of the early 20th Century. They want the bohemian eclecticism that -they- created in the 80s and 90s when they evicted -those- families.
And now it's happening to them, and it's the most evil thing that needs to be stopped by any means necessary.
> Fuck these guys. I've spent the last ten years of my life trying to keep Google's users safe and secure from the many diverse threats Google faces.
You are making it seem like these companies had a choice in providing data to the NSA. In reality, the data were either taken without their knowledge or forcefully (i.e., serious legal repercussions if they told anyone or didn't fork it over).
[1]: https://plus.google.com/108799184931623330498/posts/SfYy8xbD...
I'm probably getting all riled up about nothing. For all we know this could be some kind of astroturfing or another fake conflict like the fist GoogleBus incident.... this whole thing has troll written all over it. For now I'll just pretend I never even saw this article.
Getting a job isn't the issue; it's a complex mix of the privileged position and hard work that led to them being able to get that job, which these people cant do and the extremely obvious difference in economic status having that job grants, which includes people being evicted from their homes so that higher paying individuals can move in.
You can see how people can get upset about it.
You can't just tell them to go get jobs; that won't solve anything. All it does is make you feel better, for now.
If you want to solve the problems like this you have to actually engage with the community which is feeling disenfranchised. No one wants to, but problems like this don't just 'magically' go away.
(To be clear, I don't like what's happening here at all, but comments like yours are inflammatory and make things worse for the people on both sides)
I don't live in SF, but it looks to me like the problem is simply lack of new housing.
OK, actually, if it was me I'd stay home and peek through my windows, take a bunch of pictures, and write up a blog post about it. I kinda want a group of crazies to protest outside my house, it sounds sort of exciting.
Anyone who wants money should be obstructed and shut down!
Anyone who starts a new company should be seen as a money-loving greed-inducing pawn in the corporate cog, renewing their vicious cycles of greed!
Anyone who takes part in a money-making company is no better than taking part in Nazi Germany!
Who's with me? Who's with me??!!11oneoneone
Any corporation that would rather derive its value as a government datafarm than from wealth creation has betrayed its user, customers, and capitalism.
We need more of this.
Maybe the bus drivers from all the tech company could protest against this threat to their livelihood and stage a drive in and shutdown the city like the french farmers do by driving extremely slowly though the city.
Yes, we should be ethically aware of the tools and products we build, but this is not the way to go about this! Harassing a man at his home like this is unnecessary and aggressive.
Please stop the promotion of individual harassment.
When people peacefully protest a Google employee and try to raise awareness in his neighborhood of his activities that they disagree with, it's individual harassment.
Isn't that just lovely? Hacker News: privileged technologists setting the standards for techno-skeptical protest. Tell us what the proper way to go about it (outside the established means of the sham that is representative parliamentary democracy, of course) is, then.
When you explicitly state, and act, with the intention to prevent people from leaving their own home, effectively placing them in a state of house arrest, then sorry, your protest is no longer any more peaceful than the force implied by that house arrest.
Hiding behind "raising awareness in the neighborhood" is a disingenuous sham that exposes a duplicity. What relevance has "representative parliamentary democracy" to your argument other than to make you feel martyred?
Remember, you are actively threatening a family that you will not let them leave their home, there is a distinct, and real, fear of how far you will go to do so. For all your "blocking busses, and breaking one window" (carefully emphasized to minimize), there's the Seattle WTO protests and everything in between, and a distinct set of people who -will- resort to violence that constitutes a non-zero threat to this man and his family's well being that you wave away as nothing.
At least have the courage of your convictions and stop pretending it's just some people "raising awareness".
I'm fairly sure that the correct approach to effecting political and ethical change is not harassing employees of tech firms in this way.
Every single one of these "demonstrators" seeking to prevent people from working, harassing them, and destroying their personal property needs to seriously rethink their priorities in life.
That something bad is happening somewhere else in the world doesn't mean you can't spend effort on something close to you.
Looking at their other stories/posts, I find it - I dunno what I find it, actually. It does strike me as a fight and struggle with everything. A war on life.
Personally, I'm not into the military at all, never have been. I do find that Google's connection with the military (more than just Boston Dynamics) unfortunate. I'm sure they have a reason why they are doing what they do with them, as do all the companies that work with that part of the government. It would be nice (a pipe dream I suppose) if tech companies shunned the military. Singling out this this guy - I'm not sure what good it will do.
Which ultimately leads me to think about you have to be the change you want to see. Harassing people like this is probably not going to get them to change their mind. At all. Reminds me of some documentary I watched (The Corporation maybe?) where some protestors were at an ex-Shell Oil ceo's house, doing their thing. The guy came out, offered them team and biscuits and engaged in a sit down discussion with them on his lawn. Granted, no one changed anyone's minds, but the fact they could engage in a civil conversation - both sides! - was a good thing.
As someone who's lived in SF since the early 90's and seen it go thru good and bad and ho hum times, I think all this tech worker/bus hype is misplaced. I've also lived in NYC and dated someone who completed their masters at Columbia in urban planning. While I'm not claiming to be an expert, I know a thing or two about the real reasons for skyrocketing rents and 'gentrification'. For anyone looking for a great history of NYC, check out Ken Burns 'New York'. Awesome in it's scope and presentation. It get's really interesting and relevant to today when it hits the 20th century and Robert Moses appears. (SF's version of Moses is Justin Herman)
So would I prefer the manhattanization of SF over the detroitization of SF? Absolutely. Is it that simple? Probably not. But for anyone that's been around for more than few years, you remember what the corner of 10th & Market was like before it went thru it's Twitter and redevelopment phase? This is one example and I do feel like it was a dick move on Twitter's part to cry about the tax break. But, if it means the area is cleaning up, then I figure that's better than the way it was.
Anyway, I don't feel like any of these tech protests are worth much or will amount to anything. I feel like the protesters are targeting the wrong thing and need to refocus their efforts on their local government.
I do not understand what SF issue is really about, but it seems to be local problem unrelated to international or security politic.
So, I missed the anti-surveillance state aspect. My bad.
Probably protesting, just not in front of two-story palaces.
"Why are they not protesting at the White House"
Probably they are from time to time, or anyway in front of federal buildings.
"or stopping NSA employees from getting to work?"
I don't know--maybe because they'd have to move to Maryland?
[Edit: Just to clarify, I do think they are schmucks, just more or less consistent ones.]
A more reasonable direct action is to develop and socialize technological practices which uphold community values: DuckDuckGo, Open Street Maps, Firefox, Cyanogen, encryption, CB radio, amateur radio, GNU/Linux.
However is there any link between this protest and the bus protests? The bus protests were for economic reasons mainly. This is about surveillance so I'd guess this protest didn't include many people from the bus protests.
Yes, DARPA funds long range research which can be used for military purposes. That includes the Internet, which was DARPA funded. But all technological research has dual use. The Internet could have been used as a command-and-control network for the military during war, but it is also used to distribute political dissent.
The same research into chemicals and biology that allow life saving medicines to be created to save children around the world can also be used to make chemical and biological weapons. Fertilizer grows food, it also makes bombs.
Google X's Car project doesn't seem to have anything to do with making weapons for the DoD. This is pure guilt-by-tenuous-association. Many college campuses also enter these DARPA challenges, where's the protests?
The purpose of the car is to solve a very real social problem: hundreds of thousands of people are killed in auto accidents around the world every year and millions more are seriously injured needing to go to the emergency room. This is an enormous social cost which could be used to fund better housing, or education, but instead is going to treat injuries and repair and replace damaged vehicles. There is no evidence of a Google contract with DoD for Google Car technology for weapons.
What I find really disturbing is the level dehumanization. The protest is peaceful now, but the first step to encouraging violence against someone is to describe them in dehumanizing terms (a robot). When gun-advocates like Sarah Palin start using rhetorical devices that dehumanizes opponents and paints literal gun targets on them, we are not surprised turning up the rhetorical temperature leads to violent confrontation, the behavior shouldn't be tolerated or defended on the other side.
Anthony Levandrowski has self-described himself as a robot:
"Although Levandowski spent most of his childhood in Brussels, his English has no accent aside from a certain absence of inflection—the bright, electric chatter of a processor in overdrive. “My fiancée is a dancer in her soul,” he told me. “I’m a robot.” "[1]
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_...
Innovation and economic progress, while essential to the advancement of society, needs to be amortized to decrease these negative side effects.
Together with the rest of Bay Area tech? Perhaps like the collapse of the auto monopoly in Detroit, but with an even larger industry and a worse-run city (SF).
Its absurd.
* We don't want your kind in our neighborhood. * We don't want our culture changed. * Your mere presence is ruining our life. * You are different than us, therefor unwelcome here.
I thought Berkeley was the peaceful co-existence crowd?
This is awful. I might not agree with some things Google does or any corporation does; however, this approach will only serve to alienate dissidence since most people will not want to be associated with this kind of awful tactic. Just because people (public) is not taking your side should not signal you the protester to go gonzo, off the reservation, as it were.
This is not the way to dissent. It's a desperate and counterproductive approach which _might_ get sympathy form the choir. In that sense, it's a very selfish (self-pleasing) act.
I don't disagree that they have some valid concerns, but they aren't doing themselves any favors with this over-the-top stuff. In fact, I suspect they are unintentionally setting themselves up as "the bad guys" in this story.
I can't help but think the protesters should take a long, hard look at who their leadership is, and find somebody new.
I'm actually glad this discussion is happening. I think it's a really interesting problem that faces a lot of cities, ones even less prosperous than SF. Hopefully the opposition can follow up this overwrought and misguided protest with an actual dialog with companies like Google and the city.
I also hope they stop singling out employees.
I don't see it that way.
I hope that the tech industry gentrifies the hell out of SF to get rid of nutcases such as these people.
What have the Romans ever done for us?!
I suspect it would be, and that raises an interesting question in regard to why I am conditioned to give more weight to etiquette when the issues are more weighty -. this event touches on corporatism, militarism, economic disparities, and the illegal use of public infrastructure for private profit all in addition to basic neighborhood activism.
When did citizenship come to be considered poor form?