Anti-Tech Protesters Are Telling Kevin Rose’s Neighbors That He’s A “Parasite”
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
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To this end, we now make our first clear demand of Google. We demand that Google give three billion dollars to an anarchist organization of our choosing.
On the one hand I feel sorry for Kevin having to deal with these crackpots, on the other hand these crackpots are so bad at PR it's hilarious.
Seeing hateful messages about you spread out to your neighbors must feel like an emotional knife to the heart no matter how famous or successful you are.
On the whole, life is made better when people achieve things. They shouldn't be treated shabbily.
I think they're allowed to be mad regardless of their media savvy.
Here in Europe the self-describing Anarchists are the Punks and the Black Block and they tend to drive people away from a cause by co-opting it.
You don't have to take them seriously. You can condemn them for making threats, sure, if you disagree with that tactic. It's /writing them off/ that I hate - like they don't deserve a voice because you (=the top level commenter) think they haven't tried hard enough in life.
The doctor: How come I've never seen you people before? Okwe: Because we are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms. And suck your cocks.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0301199/quotes?qt=qt0159994
Whoever is writing these notes needs to come up with something original if they're going to accuse someone of being a parasite.
[Edit] Its about illegal immigrants in London, their troubles, exploitation and attempts at a better life. It's currently available on netflix.
Of course, that's easy enough to prove. But these sort are usually afraid to try and prove it. They want everything arranged for them and someone else to bear all the risk.
Ultimately, they call that place their home and wish to say. Market economics however are forcing them to move. Therefore, conflict exists.
Honestly, the solution is to build more Apartment complexes and strike down the zoning laws that prevents the new buildings from going up.
(You can make maps like this at http://propertymap.sfplanning.org/)
It is strange to see Anarchists as the ones who are most rebellious against gentrification.
However, the housing market in SanFran is anything but free.
Whether or not anyone agrees, that's how they see it. Genrtification isn't about winning--or losing--for them its about killing a place/era they used to calll home.
Think woodstock or other "lost eras". Those times only last a short while and are fleeting. Because they are a function of the fact that they were new and unknown (at the time). Once everyone tramples into the place, whatever place it was before is gone.
Even if you still are theree: it sucks having "new neighbors" thay you just don't like. Even if you're a landowner or an established person.
See, eg https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7540842
(Similar story in NY)
They're the San Francisco Anarchists, well known for Black Bloc protests. They believe in a more extreme means to protesting.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8...
Rebellion, vandalism, and property damage are their tools. Anarchists have their own philosophy (arguably, its just a more extreme branch of Libertarianism).
Sadly it's completely radicalized into an organization which harasses individuals for the crime of spreading capital and demands that Google fund anarchist communes.
So much for anything positive (ex. better zoning) coming of it.
Occupy kind-of sorta had meaning, until those west-coast anarchists started storming banks, breaking windows, and turned the whole event into a "F* the Police" festival.
That sort of behavior scares away the Teachers Unions, the Police Unions... and the many others (who are part of the 99%), and greatly hampers the movement. Nevertheless, you can be sure that the non-assholes are hoping for a solution.
Sometimes I wonder if these kooks are hired by the real plutocrats and parasites (ex. real estate developers) to undermine the movement. Or if it's not just one giant surrealist joke.
On the other hand, this provides a good opportunity for any group who wants to position themselves as more moderate to do so.
Welcome to politics.
In the long-term, either the people leave, the water somehow disappears, or you rewrite city codes and start building vertically. Of the three, only the lattermost is even feasible.
http://blog.savesfbay.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Bart-Ad...
There is a law here called TORCA (Tenant Ownership Rights Charter Amendment). When I first heard the name, it took me a bit to comprehend it, as in my book "Tenant" and "Ownership" are mutually exclusive and make the term an oxymoron.
But when you learn about how powerful the renter's rights lobby is in SM city council, you realize that the joke is on the landlords, at least for the life of the TORCA tenant.
Usually people welcome new business opening in their area so long as it's not something that is polluting, because these businesses can do things like provide lots of jobs to people across the income/skills spectrum and also drive investment in local infrastructure and support local organisations and charities.
In these cases the rising house prices can be a good thing because those who get positions at the new companies can buy these houses and price increases protect their investments.
Is the difference that tech companies are only providing small numbers of jobs to people with specific skills who are brought in from other areas of the country/the world?
Perhaps also tech companies are only interested in doing good on a global scale and not starting in their own back yard?
Imagine if rent goes up 300% or more in the past few years and you work as a waiter or any other number of non-tech jobs. Increase salaries and demands for hires in the tech sector would have nothing to do with you nor would you probably qualify for a job yet you suffer from all the consequences of the growth and demand happening around you aka your wage is the same but trying to rent a place now costs several thousands of dollars more than it did 5 years ago. That's essentially the problem locals who aren't in the tech field are facing.
What would a $15-$17 minimum wage SF look like?
These are not very forward thinking people.
Everybody loves when their community gets all the amenities that pop up when people with more money move in, but then what's the point when you're being forced out a year later when your rent or property taxes explode? That shit sucks.
My intention isn't to attack and start a conflict here. I would hope that maybe we could start taking the problem more seriously and maybe start thinking harder about how to actually solve the housing problem. It's a little more complex than just sitting around wishing that our current pay-to-play political system will all of the sudden magically grow a absolutist moral center and fix zoning laws and building codes.
That lobby has promoted, and our leaders have accepted, the notion that recoveries are led by the housing market. They believe consumption, not production, is the source of prosperity.
Its all designed, they say, to help the little people. But its the little people that are abused the most by these policies.
Yes, asset prices and thus rents ought to be stable and increase in a predictable way. These rapid rent increases compel people to buy (assuming they can), only to set them up for the next crash in real estate prices.
Overall, we don't benefit from these bubbles. Some get lucky for owning when they start and others get unlucky for owning when they collapse.
But those charging 6% on every transaction profit more when people buy and sell more. And bubbles are great for causing lots of transactions.
San Francisco is a densely populated city with very little land. However, buildings taller than 4-stories are outlawed. If a couple of 20+ floor apartment complexes are built, you can be rest assured that the more typical / mundane housing will become available for the rest of the citizens.
SF needs more housing, period. Local laws are what is screwing the pooch on this one.
Making it easier to build would help too, of course. But building HAS been going on. Isn't Rincon Hill 50 stories tall? Did zoning prevent it?
I dunno, call me crazy, but maybe this time, it's time to let go of the libertarian 'gubmint did it' angle and admit that natural booms exist.
Government is the use of force. It makes sense that it is sometimes damaging to distort economic choices. Moreover, there is little proof that all the interference has any benefit. Usually, they benefit a tiny group of well-connected individuals, with the rest of us paying the costs.
People in Europe and Asia have to put their money somewhere, and if the US is generating higher returns for less risk, they're going to go there, for either safety or opportunity. So if you have a huge influx of funds hungry for American assets, it is no surprise you see asset price inflation, as well as cheap, easy money.
You could argue that perhaps, if it weren't for the fact that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency, we wouldn't be able to print dollars and run a trade deficit, and foreigners would never be storing up huge amounts of dollars to reinvest or loan to the US, but you could just as easily argue that raising taxes would increase national savings and reduce the trade deficit.
http://i.imgur.com/Tn7CSTX.jpg
So yeah... methinks the problem here is the local government's poor zoning laws.
There are legitimate, well-developed arguments against specific Fed policies that can, and are, debated in economic circles. This mismatch of paranoid delusion isn't one of them. Even if I were to charitably grant your thesis for the sake of debate, the effects of Fed policy on rent wouldn't be isolated to just one city in one state. San Francisco's rents have seen a roughly three-fold increase over the national average the past this last December alone. Were the problem "Washington," this wouldn't be the case.
Tech has been rising and is dominate in this area of the country. Its also a good place to buy if your trying to move wealth out of China. A lot of other places in the US are less appealing to both tech and to Asia.
The activities of the Fed are not the only relevant factor. San Francisco is a tight space and its a great place to be. These are pre-existing conditions that make it more susceptible to the effects of asset inflation.
Which in turn, becomes a place to discuss whether their complaints are valid, and either way, what courses of action might be taken.
Granted, this is San Francisco. They've always been a roudy bunch over there. But this kind of behavior negatively looks upon the "99%". (or more specifically, the activists who claim to be the 99%).
Gendrification happens all across the country, and the renting-class poor are forced to move out of neighborhoods as they get more expensive. But only in San Francisco does gendrification seem to be so painful...
Imagine if all that rage time was spent learning rails and mobile development.
There's nothing like writing off huge swathes of people based on an utterly distorted view of reality.
As opposed to what?
Something tells me they will find an excuse for why any and all of those options presented are not options to them. They are professional complainers.
We're always going to need people to do tasks that don't require education. Being a janitor isn't punishment for not "working hard enough". We're always going to need janitors and other workers. They're valuable members of society who help make civil life possible.