Protesters Show Up At the Doorstep of Google Self-driving Car Engineer

Wait so now by dale.furno · 2014-01-22 09:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Being a Luddite is fashionable?

Re:Wait so now by Spy+Handler · 2014-01-22 09:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

No, but being a liberal Democrat is. At least in the Bay area.
Re:Wait so now by Altus · 2014-01-22 10:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

and that is this guys fault personally and somehow not the fault of the protesters who likely have their own phones and computers and used the same resources to print the very fliers that they used to protest this one guy who is just designing things and is really, in no way, more responsible for the economic state of the world than any of the people standing outside his house.
If you have a problem with this kind of economic inequality then you have a long journey ahead of you. Bitching about one engineer and the fact that he can cary a baby and check his cell phone at the same time (but what about the LIFE he carries in his HAND!) is sure as shit not going to change any of that.

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Re:Wait so now by SiliconSeraph · 2014-01-22 10:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

Picketing this guys house doesn't solve anything. He's enriching the world with his work. He's not beating child slaves in some African diamond mine, he's not indenturing people to manufacture tennis shoes. These people are doing the most convenient thing possible to act like they care without actually leaving the city or county they live in. The protestors would be better served to use that energy to plant a tree and get over themselves.
Re:Wait so now by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-22 10:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yeah! How dare those people who are earning money be able to afford rent! Damn it, they should pay even more rent, in a more expensive part of town, so everyone can be poor together!

Wait, that's right, isn't it?
Re:Wait so now by hey! · 2014-01-22 10:52 · Score: 5, Informative

It never went out of fashion. The difference is there used to be a firewall against fanaticism: upward mobility.
The Great Recession reduced the median net worth of American Household's by 39%, and 85% of self-identified middle class people say it has become harder to maintain a middle-class lifestyle over the past decade (citation: 2012, Pew Research Center, "Fewer, Poorer, Gloomier: The Lost Decade of the Middle Class"). The Great Recession also wiped out 15 years of growth in the median household income in the US (citation: Wikipedia, 'Household income in the United States',http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States), with the median continuing to drop even after economic growth resumed, although truth be told median household income was stagnant through the first decade of this century.
If you want to know how politically stable this country is, look at those median numbers. If they drop or stagnate while average incomes rise, that means the mass of people in the country are experiencing economic insecurity, and a certain proportion of those people are apt to be radicalized -- toward both ends of the political spectrum.

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Re: Wait so now by binarylarry · 2014-01-22 10:54 · Score: 2

Wait a minute, maybe these self driving cars aren't so self driving after all!?
Everyone, to the pitch forks!

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Re:Wait so now by Guspaz · 2014-01-22 10:57 · Score: 4, Informative

Indeed, the protesters weren't complaining about rent, but about how the engineer "is building an unconscionable world of surveillance, control, and automation", that the designer of a condo he wants to build "[have] created military installations, malls, and hospitals", that they are destroying the economy by "growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people"... They talk about how they stalk him in his morning routine and that when he descended the stairs of his home with his baby in his arms, he "appeared in this moment like the robot he admits that he is."
They also go on some insane rant about mining and that "Anthony Levandowski has never worked in a pit mine"...
These people come off as a bunch of creepy stalker nutjobs. If I was their target, I would legitimately fear for the safety of my family.
Re:Wait so now by lgw · 2014-01-22 11:09 · Score: 2

Mostly the housing collapse reduced the average "net worth" of American households, as a good many people had unsustainably inflated home equity.
Did you know, the average income of a 1%er in 1995 dropped by about 25% by 2005? No, I'm not taling about "the average income of the 1%", I'm talking about the specific people who were 1%ers in 1995. High incomes tend to be unstable, and it's very common for people to spend only a year or two in the top 1% of incomes before the winds of fate change.
Meanwhile, people become "radicalized" every generation in America, from the Whiskey Rebellion to today. The Great Recession really sucks, and the investment banks have never been held to account for their strong role in creating it (consumer banks were involved, but not really causing the big problems), but don't lay all the world's ills at its doorstep. We're still far better off economically than the 70s!

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Re:Wait so now by Luckyo · 2014-01-22 11:28 · Score: 3, Informative

It's been so for a while. People stalk researchers working on life-savng drugs, threaten to kill a woman with cancer who thanks the people who work on saving her life and so on.
Being a crazy lunatic is fashionable in certain circles. It's quite sad really.
Re:Wait so now by pushing-robot · 2014-01-22 11:48 · Score: 5, Funny

False. Intelligent people enjoy Pink Floyd and the Backstreet Boys, drive a 1982 white Honda Prelude, have two cats and one dog and live in a small but tidy flat in Newcastle upon Tyne.

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Re:Wait so now by CrimsonAvenger · 2014-01-22 12:16 · Score: 2

that they are destroying the economy by "growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people"
Shades of Wickard v. Filburn! People are getting upset that someone is growing their own food!
Hope those protesters don't find out about farmers...they'd prolly go totally apeshit to know that there are people who make a living growing their own food....

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"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Re:Wait so now by geekoid · 2014-01-22 12:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

don't go blaming liberal democrats.
I am a liberal democrat, and I think SFMTA is in the wrong, and that these protesters are idiotic.
Stop letting echo chambers, and shit stirrers cause you to think along such simple lines.

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Re:Wait so now by triffid_98 · 2014-01-22 12:24 · Score: 5, Informative

The Great Recession really sucks, and the investment banks have never been held to account for their strong role in creating it [...], but don't lay all the world's ills at its doorstep. We're still far better off economically than the 70s!

In spite of a far more educated workforce I have serious doubts that that's true.

Adjusted for inflation, the median household income in 1975? $45,788
The median household income in 2012? $51,017

But wait you (might) say. That means we're better off now....except for one small detail. We're measuring household income.

In the 1970's that was (generally) one persons income, in 2012 that's two people's income. In terms of physical goods I think we compare quite favorably, but factoring in things like housing, energy and food? Not so much.

REFERENCE http://www.davemanuel.com/median-household-income.php
Re:Wait so now by phantomfive · 2014-01-22 12:26 · Score: 4, Insightful

Do you understand, that living in the first world, you are likely richer than 90% if not 99% of the rest of the population? How much of your wealth are you willing to give up in the name of inequality?

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Wait so now by sexconker · 2014-01-22 12:29 · Score: 2

False -smart people don't believe all smart people do the same thing.
False. Intelligent people know that on the whole, human behavior is very predictable and homogeneous. Only idiots believe they're special snowflakes.
Re:Wait so now by lgw · 2014-01-22 13:17 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well, we don't have 10% inflation nor gas lines. And remember houses are bigger now - the ratio of rooms to people in houses has doubled, I think, with it becoming rare for children to share a bedroom. There's also buying power, which inflation adjusting only loosely accounts for. In terms of anything computerized, or just about anything medical, we have miracles by 70s standards. SO I'd argue that physical goods, entertainment, housing, and energy are all better now, and food is no worse, plus we have a stable currency for the moment. Plus it's quite common for a middle class family to have a maid and a gardener now (much of the second persons income goes to replace the work that second person once did in the home, naturally enough).
Remember, money us just the intermediary - for the most part the stuff (goods and services) we have is the stuff we collectively produce, and we produce far more than we did 40 years ago.

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Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Re:Wait so now by ShanghaiBill · 2014-01-22 13:57 · Score: 2

This isn't about being a Luddite, it's about pointing out the economic disparity at play in the world.
Baloney. All of these people, both protesters and Googlers, are in the economic top 10% of America. Otherwise they would have never been able to afford to live in SF in the first place. This is about the rich whining that someone is slightly richer.
Re:Wait so now by chuckinator · 2014-01-22 13:57 · Score: 2

88 mph is illegal? GREAT SCOTT!
Re:Wait so now by meerling · 2014-01-22 14:01 · Score: 4, Informative

You do know that lots of gold is mined in the USA.

In 2012 the United States produced 230 tonnes of gold, making it the third-largest gold-producing nation, behind China and Australia. South Africa (that's actually a country) is 5th, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo isn't even in the top 10.

Most gold is used for jewelry, not electronics, so go protest a freaking jeweler.
Re:Wait so now by swalve · 2014-01-22 14:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Exactly. My parents and all their cousins grew up in houses with about 100 sq feet per person. Three bedrooms, 7 kids, etc. Sure, they were able to live on dad's salary, but mom's entire day was spent toiling so they could make it work. If you want to live like they did in the 70s (and 60s and 50s), you certainly can on one income. But it won't be pretty, because it wasn't pretty then either. We have two income households because we have greater expectations for standards of living.
Re:Wait so now by floobedy · 2014-01-22 14:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

they have valid points about the Congo and rising rent caused by google's self-driving cars spreading their high-earning workers into lower-rent neighborhoods.
The protesters certainly do not have valid points. The rising rents in the SF Bay Area are caused by fixed supply despite growing demand, which in turn is caused by the relentless opposition to constructing any new urban housing there.
The far left in the SF Bay Area has fought tooth and nail, for decades, to disallow any dense urban housing construction. That is why rents are increasing. Demand increases every year while supply is fixed.
From the protesters' flier:

Levandowski is now making his contribution to the further sterilization and gentrification of Downtown Berkeley and Shattuck Avenue [by sponsoring new condominium buildings]. 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...
Here the protesters will not allow the construction of new urban housing. When rents continue to go up, which is what the protesters are causing by their own actions, they will complain again that rents are too high.
The protesters are causing additional carbon emissions and environmental destruction. If they successfully prevent the construction of dense urban housing, then obviously that will force those people to live in suburban housing (because people don't protest new construction there), and suburban housing has vastly worse carbon emissions that urban.
Newsflash: if you prevent the construction of dense urban housing, then that doesn't cause the potential occupants just to disappear magically. Instead, it causes them to live in suburban housing instead, which is far worse for the environment in every regard. Suburban residents usually have triple the carbon emissions or more, of urban residents.
Furthermore, if the protesters manage to shut down the bus (!?), then obviously that will force some people to drive which will contribute to the gridlock on the 101, and will cause thousands of cars on the gridlocked 101 to idle even longer during their travels.

valid points about the Congo
If you care about the Congo, as the protesters claim to do, then you should send part of your money as charity to the Congo. It does not help the people there, to boycott their only product and to boycott the only major export from the entire country. It causes economic devastation to a country to prevent its exports. That is why a blockade on exports is forbidden by the UN as an international crime.
If exports are exploitation, then the Israelis are doing the Palestinians a big favor by blockading the ports at the Gaza strip. It is preventing the palestinians from being "exploited" by selling what they have on the international market.
It's nice of you to try to find something positive about the protesters. However, in my opinion, the protesters are just stupid. What they are doing is silly, poorly thought out, unintentionally destructive, and it causes precisely the problems which they are trying to cure.
Re:Wait so now by floobedy · 2014-01-22 14:52 · Score: 2

Do you understand, that living in the first world, you are likely richer than 90% if not 99% of the rest of the population? How much of your wealth are you willing to give up in the name of inequality?
What does that have to do with it? The protesters are also richer than 99% of the rest of the population, and their actions are doing nothing to help poor people. Instead of giving their time or money to third world causes, or encouraging techies to give some of their money to such causes, the protesters wish to boycott the only export of the Congo (gold), while preventing new urban housing development and thereby forcing increased surburbanization and increased co2 emissions.
What the protesters primarily want is reduced rent for themselves. Their main complaint is that rents are too high, even though they cause the problem by preventing the construction of urban housing. The protesters are spoiled, wealthy first worlders, just like the techies, except they cause the problems they complain about and are harming the poor (or trying to harm them).
Re:Wait so now by floobedy · 2014-01-22 15:14 · Score: 2

It is SF. If you are not protesting something you are not cool.
It's also cool if your protest is hysterical, pointless, stupid, irrational, and likely to accomplish nothing. It's even more cool if your protest causes exactly the problems you complain about, for example, by protesting new urban housing construction and then complaining about insufficient places to live and increased rents. Or, protesting the bus and then complaining about the environment.
When I was a child taking the school bus in San Francisco, ACT UP protested what they perceived as insufficient AIDS research by laying down in the roadway in front of our school bus. I didn't mind; I wasn't eager to go to school. However it certainly didn't increase AIDS funding. As a child, I didn't start researching AIDS right away while blocked on the bus.
Instead of doing that, they could have spent the same time helping AIDS patients, or working, and then giving the money to AIDS research charities. But that would have actually helped.
These people in the SF Bay area don't really want to help anyone, because they never do anything that would help anyone. What they want is a random, hysterical outburst against someone picked at random.
Re:Wait so now by hey! · 2014-01-22 19:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

What you're doing here is interesting. You've created a basket of goods, and argued that those things are cheaper for a given quality. And it's an important point that you *can* do this -- but it's tricky.
Take Elvis' house. Elvis was rich, but he was not a cultural sophisticate, except possibly when it came to music. I can point to counter-examples. I once worked in a non-profit that was chock full of scions of elite Boston families -- Forbes's, Cabots, Lowells, etc. These are people whose ancestors made fortunes in the 1700s and handed it down generation to generation, and patterned their consumption patterns on those of the English aristocracy. Their homes aren't large or flashy, but they're unmistakably old money, and almost couldn't be reproduced at any price today. Everything is old, handmade and of fabulous quality, selected to be handed down to the next generation.
Now that's an extreme example (as extreme as Elvis's house), but it shows there's a flip side the the "everything's cheaper" argument. Everything *is* cheaper, not only in the sense of price, but in the sense of durability and serviceability (with a few exceptions like autos). I'm 53 years old, and there's been a shift in the very concept of quality over my lifetime that makes comparisons tricky, a shift from use-centered quality to sales-centric quality. Look at the original IBM PC-XT, obviously a ridiculously underpowered by today's standards, but focus on the build quality for a moment. It's almost exotic by today's standards, and it's built to last for ten years or more, to be serviced and upgraded. In comparison the smartphone I carry is incomparably more powerful, it is designed to be thrown away when it's non-replaceable li-ion battery starts to flag after about two years.
There's been a shift in the way we live our lives, and it's something of a mixed bag. We have to buy stuff differently now, because it's all designed with a very short service life (again except for cars, which are a huge bright spot). I can fill my house with attractive Ikea furniture at a bargain price, and it'll make my Brahmin friends' hand crafted mahogany stuff look dowdy in comparison -- but I'll have to replace most of it in five years, and they'll pass their dining room set down to yet another generation of descendants.
A lot of our enhanced buying power comes at the cost of getting on the replacement treadmill. I bought a $400 flat screen HDTV two years ago, and I just replaced it with another $400 flat screen HDTV. Meanwhile the 1970s Sony Trinitron in the spare bedroom keeps going. The point is that comparing what you could buy in 1970s to today is complicated, because our notion of quality has changed to one based on the assumption that stuff is disposable.

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Maniacal by jazman_777 · 2014-01-22 09:52 · Score: 2

This fanatical "activism" needs to be stopped.

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Re:Maniacal by ackthpt · 2014-01-22 10:10 · Score: 4, Funny

This fanatical "activism" needs to be stopped.
Boycott them!
If that doesn't work, organize a vocal protest.

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Re:Maniacal by CanHasDIY · 2014-01-22 10:54 · Score: 2

This fanatical "activism" needs to be stopped.
Well, to do that, you're going to need to draft up a Constitutional Amendment that voids the First Amendment, then get 2/3 of state legislatures to ratify it.
Good luck with that, chief.
Perhaps you failed to realize that is exactly what the FBI and NSA are for, doofus.
Shit, son, I knew about COINTELPRO when you were still suckling yo mama's titty!
OK, probably not for that long (especially considering I have no idea how old you are), but I have known about it since the first time I listened to a Dead Kennedy's album back in the early 1990's.
Guess that initial response was just a reflex to the unwarranted injection of playground name calling in your post.

Even if your cultural narrative came from Fox News you should have found the FBI's Occupy Wall-street involvement odd.

Slight aside: That's funny. Not what you said, but rather that you would half-assed accuse someone of being a Fox News 'drone,' then provide a link to the fucking Huffington CrapFest, er, I mean Post. Aside from the fact that HuffPo is, essentially, the 'liberal' answer to Fox (in that it's mainly filled with bullshit, partisan editorials thinly disguised as 'news pieces'), do you really think someone that takes FN as gospel would actually give a shit about a HuffPo link? My guess is no, you know they wouldn't, and are trolling to try and see if you can get me to accidentally name some allegiance that you can subsequently attack me for.
Not gonna happen. At least, not when discussing any form of American Corporate Media. But hey, I do tend to vote Libertarian, so I'm certain you can come up with some nonsense about that.

I mean, here you are spouting off about activism and you don't know the first thing about your government policy about it. What the actual fuck?
It's not that I 'don't know the first thing about [my] government policy.'
It's that I couldn't give a fuck less what the oligarchs who currently reign think. We have a Constitution, it is the Inalienable, Supreme Law of the Land, and it can only be superseded by a Constitutional Amendment. "Policy" does not trump Constitutional law, per the Constitution.

For fuck's sake, you morons would make me sick if your politics hadn't heaved me dry.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ, calm the fuck down you little twit. Shit, my 3 year old nephew has better argumentation skills than you, and he can make his point without degrading into brainless, foaming-at-the-mouth, hateful nonsense.
If you want to continue this conversation like a grown up, please do; I enjoy intelligent debates with people whose opinions differ from mine.
If you're going to continue this mindless, asinine troll, you can promptly go fuck yourself.

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Re:Maniacal by LWATCDR · 2014-01-22 11:33 · Score: 2

Naw. That is Sf, they are deeply nuts there. All that needs to happen is for Google and other companies to leave. Austin Tx is nice I hear as is Cary North Carolina, South Florida also has nice weather and low housing costs.

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Re:Maniacal by LWATCDR · 2014-01-22 13:06 · Score: 2

As opposed to SF? I think this story shows that SF is not known for overly rational people. Austin is is home to a lot of tech companies, Research Triangle is home to Red Hat and SAS, South and central Florida is home to a growing bio tech industry as well as space tech.
I think you are a bit clueless in this case.

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See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.

morons by slashmydots · 2014-01-22 09:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

So they're being too eco-friendly with the bus rides? Or everyone's jealous about the benefits? Or public transportation isn't crowded enough? I don't get it but I have the sneaking suspicion that these people are morons.

Re:morons by hawguy · 2014-01-22 10:13 · Score: 2

So they're being too eco-friendly with the bus rides? Or everyone's jealous about the benefits? Or public transportation isn't crowded enough? I don't get it but I have the sneaking suspicion that these people are morons.
They probably just wanted revenue so they decided to tax the buses.
They aren't earning any revenue from the buses -- state law prohibits the city from earning a profit on the bus stop fees, so the fees equal the administrative overhead to collect them.

Hierarchy of perceived victimhood by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-22 09:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

Levandowski should claim that the protesters are motivated by anti-semitism. Checkmate!

So I was sitting behind a Gbus/Fbus on 85 today. by t0qer · 2014-01-22 09:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

I started thinking to myself, "Wow, I only live a mile from where they pick folks up, and they drop me off about a mile from work" Maybe SF should take into consideration that non-goog-app-fac employees might want to ride on the same line. These companies should consider allowing non-employees to pay a fare to use the busses.

First they came for the Engineers, by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-22 09:56 · Score: 5, Funny

and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Engineer.

Then they came for the Software Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because there was no Software Union.

Then they came for the Network Admins, and I did not speak out-- Because those guys are mostly assholes.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

Re:First they came for the Engineers, by bunratty · 2014-01-22 10:04 · Score: 5, Funny

I joined a Facebook group in protest, so I'm good.

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What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.

Re:Thugocracy in Action by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-22 09:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

I didn't see anything in the article about unions. Stop being an asshole.

illiberal attack on technology advancement by zerosomething · 2014-01-22 09:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is a very good example of people who like to call them selves "Liberal" not being very liberal. Technology will advance and apparently some people don't like it in the same way some other people don't like gay marriage or pot smoking.

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It all starts at 0

Re:illiberal attack on technology advancement by Archangel+Michael · 2014-01-22 11:40 · Score: 2

Liberal and "progressive" are not as synonymous as much as the left-wingers would love to portray. I have less problems with Liberals as they tend to try to have rational (even if I disagree with them) reasons for their positions, but Progressives are usually the ones proclaiming one-offs and anecdotes as "the way things actually are". Therefore, they extrapolate their cause and attack people doing their job for being "evil", and filled with "hate" simply because they don't agree. There is no logic, and their entire point rests upon name calling anyone they disagree with labels such as "extremists" (see Cuomo's recent remarks).
Just be careful to know which kind of "liberal" you're talking to.

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Protesting against themselves? by hawguy · 2014-01-22 10:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Part of their flyer says:

There are men and women in the Congo, slaving away in giant pits in order to extract gold and other precious metals from the earth. This gold will go into phones and tablets made by companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft

Unless they all walked there and are wearing homemade clothes from home grown cotton weaved by hand into fabric, and "printed" their flyers by hand by writing them using sustainably harvested carbon pencils on home made papyrus, and organized the protest through word of mouth (which was probably aided by the fact that they all live in the same cave) rather than using email and iPhones, they are being disingenuous by protesting against resources used for technology that they themselves use and enjoy.

Re:Protesting against themselves? by kruach+aum · 2014-01-22 10:21 · Score: 2

It's typical moron drivel trying to drive their point home by attempting to induce guilt rather than by rational argument. It's a last ditch effort at trying to effect some kind of change in the world outside so they don't have to change themselves.
Re:Protesting against themselves? by darkmeridian · 2014-01-22 10:21 · Score: 5, Interesting

These idiots probably designed those flyers on a Mac using Microsoft Office, and used Google to find all the facts and allegations in their flyers.

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Re:Protesting against themselves? by neo-mkrey · 2014-01-22 10:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hypocrisy is often lost on the hypocrite.
Re:Protesting against themselves? by hawguy · 2014-01-22 10:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't particularly agree with these guys, but the argument of "you're not a ridiculously exaggerated shining beacon of the ideals I lay upon you, so your argument is worthless" is pretty piss poor.
So if I stand in front of you eating a steak and tell you that you need to be a vegetarian because your meat eating habits are cruel to animals, you wouldn't find me to be the least bit disingenuous? Realistically, I don't need to be a vegetarian to think that killing animals for food is bad, and really, why shouldn't I tell you that what you're doing is wrong even as I do the same thing myself?
Talking on an iPhone while giving a Google engineer a digitally printed flyer to tell him that his use of technology is forcing men and women in the Congo into slavery to mine gold certainly seems to be diluting the message. If they'd just stuck with things like privacy concerns, worries about robot cars on the roads, etc, that's one thing, but to tell someone that his use of technology is bad, while they are using much of the same technology themselves just comes across as hypocritical.
Re:Protesting against themselves? by grimsnaggle · 2014-01-22 11:11 · Score: 2

Their flyer also asks for people to disengage from capitalism and for babysitters to steal from their employers.
http://i.imgur.com/5ACrabf.png

Re:Thugocracy in Action by DickBreath · 2014-01-22 10:04 · Score: 2

You're right. The article does not mention unions. But now that he, and you, brought it up, and now that I think about it -- who else would be opposed to self driving cars? It all makes sense.

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Re:So I was sitting behind a Gbus/Fbus on 85 today by icebike · 2014-01-22 10:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ah, but then they become a common carrier, just like city buses, and competing with city buses.
We can't have any private industry competing with City mass transit in the race to the bottom.

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Fail by all posters so far on the issue by div_2n · 2014-01-22 10:08 · Score: 5, Informative

The protesters are part of a group that are upset about gentrification. In the event that you don't know what that is, I'll explain since all the posters so far clearly didn't read the actual article (another day on /.). Quite simply -- it's when people with significant wealth and/or income move into an area of people with less wealth/income and thereby drive up real estate prices beyond what the established population can potentially afford. Hint: property taxes start going up and the established population can't afford to buy/rent a new place in their current neighborhood and possibly can't afford their current residence anymore and will be forced to move potentially far from where they currently live. For families, this is a non-trivial challenge.

They've been protesting Google buses because this has put gentrification onto the fast track by making areas more attractive to Google employees that otherwise wouldn't have been due to transportation headaches. Getting a company funded ride straight to work is not a small deal.

Note I'm not taking a side on the issue, just pointing out what's going on. Essentially you have people that can see the time coming when they will have to move and it's directly the result of Google and its employees. I won't use the word "fault" because that implies wrongdoing.

The tactics of the protesters are clearly questionable, but I'll leave that up for the ensuing discussion.

Re:Fail by all posters so far on the issue by div_2n · 2014-01-22 10:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

At the risk of drifting to one side or the other -- I think you're oversimplifying. While gentrification is not a new phenomenon, this is one of the first times I've ever heard of people reacting so viscerally to it. I think the reason this stings so badly for existing non-Google employee residents is because it's not happening due to a new employer opening their doors nearby. If that were the case, existing residents could potentially get jobs there and afford the new normal.
In this particular instance, you have an employer that is NOT nearby making the fact that this location is not nearby a non-issue for its employees and causing gentrification in a way that mostly leaves current residents out of the loop since it's not likely the average resident could get a job at Google. The results can be devastating situation depending. Some residents might only be getting by or barely getting ahead. Having to relocate could completely upset their financial balance in a way that they can't rectify.
At a minimum, people's lives are being upended due to no fault of their own and it's quite clear where they should direct their energy.
Re:Fail by all posters so far on the issue by rgmoore · 2014-01-22 10:37 · Score: 5, Informative

Please note that rising property taxes is not a big issue in California because of Prop 13, which prevents properties from being reassessed until their next transfer of ownership. People who already own houses in the neighborhood will not see their property taxes go up any more than they otherwise would. Prop 13 was passed specifically to prevent owners from being forced out of their homes by rising property taxes, and it does a good job. Gentrification may increase the cost of living in other ways (e.g. by replacing affordable local stores with more expensive ones) but it will also help the local city's finances and help to pay for better public services.
The people who really lose out to gentrification are renters, who certainly can be priced out of their neighborhood. Even rent control and other tenant protections can be worked around, if nothing else by landlords selling to owners who plan to live there rather than rent out the property.

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Re:Fail by all posters so far on the issue by Altus · 2014-01-22 10:45 · Score: 2

There is a SHIT LOAD in this particular protest that has nothing at all to do with the gentrification issue that you describe. Even if it were about gentrification how does it help to protest one particular engineer and then call him out for his work on self driving cars like those are somehow related to the problem ever mind all the crap about pit mines in the congo and blaming this guy for them rather than any of the protesters (many of whom certainly own devices containing materials mined in the same exact way.
Did YOU read the article?

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Re:Fail by all posters so far on the issue by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2014-01-22 10:46 · Score: 2

Protesting is also totally legal, so suck it up and deal, no? Or does this only work one way...
Re:Fail by all posters so far on the issue by slimjim8094 · 2014-01-22 12:27 · Score: 2

The reason it's so visceral is because it's happening so quickly. And that's happening because housing stock is so limited. Complicating the issue is that transportation sucks so hard that there's nowhere else to go that isn't like being the other side of the moon. This is 30 years of bad policy coming home to roost.
A few thousand new people with money really shouldn't be this disruptive.

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Re:Fail by all posters so far on the issue by Loki_1929 · 2014-01-22 13:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

At a minimum, people's lives are being upended due to no fault of their own and it's quite clear where they should direct their energy.
Toward getting better skills, better jobs, or finding more affordable places to live if the first two don't work out?
Talk about fault, what fault is there with Google or its employees? The process you describe will happen regardless of where Google goes (since it can only go where supporting infrastructure exists). So Google and other high paying companies are terrible, evil companies regardless of where they go? How about their employees? Are they only allowed to live in their own offices at work? Since apparently they aren't allowed to choose where to live based on the location, rents, etc.
Sorry, but paying rent today (or for however long) does not entitle one to continue paying that same rent tomorrow and forever into the future. What you're entitled to is what's in your lease. If your lease says you can pay rent for the next 12 months at $1,000, there's absolutely nothing there saying you can pay that (or anything near that) 13 months from now. If you want the security of staying where you are, BUY; renting doesn't give you that and it shouldn't. This whole concept of some people being somehow entitled to continue residing in the same place simply because they've been there for a given period is patently absurd.
Gentrification is a net positive for an area. It makes the area nicer, increases the tax base without altering the individual tax burden, reduces crime for that area, and helps stamp out poverty. It won't be a net positive for every resident and that's fine. No change ever makes everyone happy all the time and it doesn't have to to be a net positive. How many crime-ridden ghettos of NYC have been completely turned around by gentrification?
Want to see a place without gentrification? Look at Detroit.

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Re:Fail by all posters so far on the issue by russotto · 2014-01-22 14:41 · Score: 2

Hint: property taxes start going up and the established population can't afford to buy/rent a new place in their current neighborhood and possibly can't afford their current residence anymore
This is a problem in other places. Not in California; you can't be priced out of your current residence by property tax increases, thanks to Proposition 13 (which leftists hate BTW)
Re:Fail by all posters so far on the issue by rgmoore · 2014-01-22 16:35 · Score: 3, Informative

I certainly wouldn't say that Prop 13 is an unalloyed good, but you're partly misunderstanding how it works. The assessment only goes up- or only goes up by more than 2%/year- when the property changes ownership, i.e. when it's sold or inherited, not when it changes occupants. This means it has the kind of effect you're describing mostly for owner occupied housing, not for rental apartments. What it really does is to give a tax advantage to owners who have owned a long time, whether they live in the property or not.
It's also important not to exaggerate the importance of property tax in the overall cost of a property. Prop 13 also rolled back property taxes to 1% of the value of the property, and while there have been some tax increases since then, typical property tax rates in California are around 1.25%. If somebody wants to sell their house to move into a smaller house, a big jump in real estate prices will generally give them big windfall profits on the sale that will soften the blow of higher taxes on the new place. There's also a special clause that lets people over 65 carry some of the reduced assessment from their old house if they sell and buy a new place; value in their new house up to the sale price of their old house will be assessed at the assessment for their old house, so their taxes won't go up unless they're moving into a more expensive house.

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Re:The candlestick makers did the same thing... by admiralh · 2014-01-22 10:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

So the 55-year old candlestick makers were supposed to upgrade their skills or do what? Starve? I think that tech advances are generally good, but this "Creative Destruction" comes at a cost to certain individuals in society who were unlucky/unconnected enough to choose the wrong profession. You can't simply let all those people fend for themselves without any support.

The protesting slime seem to think they have a god given right to be where they are.

Wow. I think you would fit into Putin's (or Stalin's) Russia just fine.

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Re:Thugocracy in Action by mlgunner · 2014-01-22 10:09 · Score: 2

Well, "Anonymous Coward", you should follow the money. Who does it hurt, really, for tech companies to bus their own people to work rather than have them drive their cars? Its much better on the environment, less traffic on the freeways, and better for the workers.
Its not that they are busing their people to work, is it?
Its the fact that they are not using MUNICIPAL i.e. government owned buses that exclusively use unionized workers, specifically SEIU, which has a habit of using this very tactic.

Re:So I was sitting behind a Gbus/Fbus on 85 today by ackthpt · 2014-01-22 10:12 · Score: 2

I started thinking to myself, "Wow, I only live a mile from where they pick folks up, and they drop me off about a mile from work" Maybe SF should take into consideration that non-goog-app-fac employees might want to ride on the same line. These companies should consider allowing non-employees to pay a fare to use the busses.

Better yet, have these tech titans fund some Bay Area high speed commuter rail.

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Re:The candlestick makers did the same thing... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2014-01-22 10:15 · Score: 2

I find their choice of protest targets rather strange (If you think that autonomous vehicles are the biggest of your problems, or that Google is the major threat in that area, you are painfully uninformed...); but do you seriously expect people to just 'GTFO' (and to where?) whenever technological change comes knocking? Economic threats are one of the few things that reliably get people worked up, and technological change definitely is one, if you are the one being rendered obsolete at a given time.

Rhetoric for, or against, 'natural' or 'god given' rights tends to be nonsense; but expecting people to not get touchy when you come after their bread and butter seems like either profound ignorance of history and human nature, or a... perhaps unsteady... theory of social order. Hard to keep a game running if most of the players lose most of the time, no?

Actually follow the link by Tailhook · 2014-01-22 10:16 · Score: 2

Do actually follow the link. Don't worry; there is a great big picture with a few words, so you don't have to read much.

The very first thing you should notice is that this is about more than property values. This is also, and perhaps primarily, about hate for technology and technologists. The black-and-white image of Levandowski's house doesn't say "so and so is pricing you out of your neighboorhood." It says:

Anthony Levandowski is building an unconscionable world of surveillance, control and automation. He is also your neighbor.

So at this point we should be all done soft-pedalling these people (a la this submission) as good but misguided folks in fear of "impact on the San Francisco Bay Area economy," or whatever. These are neo-luddite libtards fomenting hate and using surveillance to intimidate individuals.

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Re:The candlestick makers did the same thing... by frog_strat · 2014-01-22 10:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

That's all well and good when the jobs are still there, they're just changing. That candlestick maker, he can retrain to work on robots ! But when jobs are shed and not replaced, this will eventually lead to big problems. Shaming the unemployed is not so effective when there are no jobs.

Re:Thugocracy in Action by hawguy · 2014-01-22 10:19 · Score: 3, Informative

So the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe are shuttled to work in their private Wi-Fi enabled comfort busses, free from having to deal with the riff-raff of society while the common folk are out their sucking on exhaust fumes.

I can't imagine a scenario where this turns out badly.

I can imagine one scenario -- if the buses stopped overnight and suddenly 30,000 people decided to drive to work instead of take a shuttle since public transit is so unusable for their commute. So instead of hundreds of buses, you'd have thousands of extra cars on the road.

Re:Thugocracy in Action by Dcnjoe60 · 2014-01-22 10:21 · Score: 2

Sounds like the Tech companies need to get the hell out of Commie-Fornia.

They are no longer welcome, and that state HATES businesses with a passion.

More likely the city of San Fransisco hates having to provide the infrastructure for all of the tech businesses but not reap the benefits of tax revenues to pay for it because they built outside the city. States have this issue all the time, where the populace lives predominately in one state but work in the next state. It's not about being anti-business, it's about having to pay for the services provided.

The problem with Google Bus by Khopesh · 2014-01-22 10:21 · Score: 4, Informative

So they're being too eco-friendly with the bus rides? Or everyone's jealous about the benefits? Or public transportation isn't crowded enough? I don't get it but I have the sneaking suspicion that these people are morons.

I think you've missed the point. Dozens of companies in the peninsula have their own dedicated bus lines. The bus-to-person ratio is quite high, and this is not as eco-friendly as you might think. It also causes congestion in the city, and confusion at the shared bus stops (which are owned by the city of SF), both of passengers and of citizens looking for a bus they can actually ride.

The city taxing the bus services allows maintenance to be applied to the extra load of the stops as well as planning for the increased traffic these systems create. I think it is quite reasonable.

Daily Kos had a good explanation of the problem back in April.

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Re:The problem with Google Bus by jcr · 2014-01-22 10:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

this is not as eco-friendly as you might think.
It easily beats having those people all driving themselves.
It also causes congestion in the city,
No, it reduces congestion in the city.
-jcr

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Re:The problem with Google Bus by ClioCJS · 2014-01-22 10:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

It doesn't necessarily beat having those people all driving themselves. Buses take a lot more fuel. It's only when they run at a certain capacity that you have ROI. That's not a given when picking up individuals. A single bus also causes a lot more congestion than a car -- it pretty much makes the entire lane behind the bus untenable in areas with lots of red lights. Again, it's only net-positive, congestion-wise, for a specific number of people.
In case I'm unclear: I'd much rather be on a road with 1,000 people driving 1,000 cars, than 500 buses with 2 people in them. I used n=2 in this example, but I'm thinking even for n=6, it's a net loss. I don't actually know the value of n.

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Re:The problem with Google Bus by jcr · 2014-01-22 11:01 · Score: 2, Informative

I don't suppose it's occurred to you that the number and capacity of the busses is adjusted according to what the operators know about their client's needs?
This isn't a government operation we're talking about here.
-jcr

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Re:The problem with Google Bus by ClioCJS · 2014-01-22 11:20 · Score: 2

How does that work? They force their employees to live near each other? Say I live 5 miles out from any other employee. How is me having a vehicle to myself saving in congestion? I get what you're saying, and see how it can be applicable some of the time, but the fact of the matter is, a private bus won't let anyone on 'til it gets to its first stop. You've already lost there, as a proper bus would pick up all the people needing a ride from point A to point B. Imagine if every company did this. You'd have 100 buses driving by your house every day, each to pick up 1 person. Yeah, they might have some people on them. But the obvious way to delimit bus routes for maximum efficiency is geographically, not by employer.
I used to ride a short bus to one school to get on a long bus to goto another. Maybe some gas was saved, but when half the bus ride was 2 kids on a short bus, it sure as hell didn't feel like it. ~10MPG on those things, and they're slow as fuck so people have to pass you all the time, meaning you're adding congestion. It definitely wasn't as efficient as the normal bus distribution of "this bus gets this neighborhood, that bus gets that other neighborhood". But since I went to school in another county.... My situation was actually somewhat similar to the Googlers here.

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Re:The problem with Google Bus by s.petry · 2014-01-22 11:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

I realize that it's easier to be an asshole than think and read, but failing to educate yourself makes you "just" an asshole.
I live near Google and see these buses all the time. Many times these buses are empty, and driving to stops with no people. It's not a door to door limousine service, it's a bus route paid for by private funds. Just like any other bus service, there are peak and off hours. The difference between public and private is that routes can be changed when the pubic sees money being wasted. Google may keep a bus route for 1 person they believe "key" in a project, and reschedule buses at will.
Buses are much larger than cars (obviously) and they block traffic and cause congestion which omits what they are supposed to be doing (relieving congestion and carbon emissions). When you have numerous buses blocking a lane for several minutes, it's not doing any one other than the company and employee any favors.
In terms of city revenue, it also hurts. Tax revenue for cities that house these companies suffer as a result of people _not_ moving closer to work. They don't need to move closer to work, because they have a free shuttle service and get counted as working on the bus.
It also makes the companies more money, because by shuttling people in they don't have to pay the same rates.
The excuse that it's "Greener" is questionable at best, if not dishonest. It's convenient for the companies and more profitable for the companies. If you truly believe it's greener show me some stats that prove that since these bus services started there has been improvement in traffic in the bay area. You can't, because there has been no such improvement.

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Re:The problem with Google Bus by pauljlucas · 2014-01-22 11:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

It easily beats having those people all driving themselves.

True, but what I think the protesters are thinking is that if companies eliminated the shuttles (or shrank their radius so that SF was outside of it), then most workers, rather than endure a multi-hour commute each day, would simply move closer to work (and, more specifically, outside of SF city limits). It might increase traffic in/around Mountain View, but the companies could run local shuttles with a 10-mile (instead of 35-mile) radius to alleviate that problem. But it would no longer be SF's problem.

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From the Activists' Flier... by Stormy+Dragon · 2014-01-22 10:21 · Score: 3, Funny

The Nautilus Group is composed of designers and builders who have created military installations, malls, and hospitals.

Oh God! Not military hospitals! THE HORROR! THE HORROR!

Re:So I was sitting behind a Gbus/Fbus on 85 today by supervillainsf · 2014-01-22 10:23 · Score: 4, Informative

Except for the fact that there is no city bus that runs from San Francisco or Berekely to Mountain View, so the competition would be with CalTrain which is owned by Amtrak. As for Bus service, anyone who does the SF - South Bay commute will be familiar with Bauer's busses and they are a private company doing exactly what you are saying can't be done. So, the whole "can't compete with gubment" thing is a bit stupid in this context.

Re:Dear San Fran by hawguy · 2014-01-22 10:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

Easy solution: These companies should open major offices in downtown San Francisco. Build a skyscraper (vertical campus!) that is walking distance from a BART subway stop. They already have one (very small) office in the downtown SF area (opened in 2007). Same with Yahoo (though they can't afford a skyscraper), who recently bought the old SF Chronicle building.

Build a skyscraper!? You really don't know anything about SF, do you?

Move by rlp · 2014-01-22 10:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

If Google, Apple, and Facebook are not welcome in the San Francisco, I'm sure there are a lot of other places that would welcome them.

For instance, taxes and cost of living are much lower in Ohio. Plus we have all this lovely snow.

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Re:Thugocracy in Action by sjames · 2014-01-22 10:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

That could actually be a net win for long time residents since the Googlers would move closer to work and rent in the city would fall back to affordable levels.

Re:So I was sitting behind a Gbus/Fbus on 85 today by RR · 2014-01-22 10:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

Does San Francisco not run buses on the same lines? If not, the problem is with the city, not Google.

The problem is with the entire region. San Francisco buses can only run in San Francisco, with limited service to a couple recreational areas a few miles away. The rest of the region doesn't want to get caught up in San Francisco's myriad governance issues, so they operate their own transit systems. There are only a couple systems that cross the entire region: BART and Caltrain.

So, to get from my home to Google via existing transit lines, I'd have to take a bus to Caltrain, then take Caltrain to Mountain View, and then take a bus to Google. The pretty good regional trip planner says that it would take me 4 buses, 2 hours, and $13 to get from my home in San Francisco to Google, even with rush hour express service. It's cheaper if I get monthly passes and take my bike onto Caltrain, but it still takes a lot of time.

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Re:Thugocracy in Action by hawguy · 2014-01-22 10:39 · Score: 2

That could actually be a net win for long time residents since the Googlers would move closer to work and rent in the city would fall back to affordable levels.

Unlikely - even if the buses stopped overnight, employees can't move overnight since they have leases and other logistics to deal with.

There's enough demand to live in SF from employees that do work in the city that as long as the economy keeps at its same level, housing freed up from Google workers that choose to live closer to Mountain View will be filled without a large drop in rents.

Re:The candlestick makers did the same thing... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2014-01-22 10:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

Shaming the unemployed is not so effective when there are no jobs.

Sure it is! It's still a perfectly good rhetorical justification for not doing anything about them, and I'm certain they'll either starve or do something we can imprison them for soon enough!

You are the one being judgmental here by SuperKendall · 2014-01-22 10:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

if it takes a private bus to get them to stop driving, the issue is that they're already looking down upon "regular" people, and that is not to be rewarded.

Bullshit. Lots of people don't take regular buses because:

1) The schedule is not as regular as you might hope
2) Hard to work on most public buses (not good seating for it or network access, and you may well not get a seat).
3) Total time taken might be very long if you have to transfer, and the bus is not going exactly where you are so there's some walking component when you reach home.
4) Bus schedules at night get worse.

The company buses potentially solve all those issues:

1) Buses will be more regular as they have fewer (or possibly just one) stop.

2) Seats meant for working and enough buses so that you can get a seat.

3) Total time taken is greatly reduced and it's going exactly where you are, so no wasted time walking after the bus stops.

4) Can run buses on demand.

Really the reason these companies have buses is because employees can get hours more work in per day. That's also better for the employees because they do not necessarily have to stay at work late if they can finish up things on the bus.

There's nothing elitist at all, it's just that a bus tailored to working serves people far better than public transport ever can. There's nothing wrong with this and as many have pointed out it is reducing congestion for everyone and ever keeping the public buses less crowded for rush hour commuters.

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Re:Two Sides by amicusNYCL · 2014-01-22 11:22 · Score: 2

Oh no! They caused the house you bought a while ago to have a massive increase in value! Those bastards!

People renting the house that get evicted because someone else will pay 3x as much don't have any equity in the house. The landlords are making out, yeah. The renters, not so much.

I'm just curious where exactly you think the tech workers SHOULD live if you think this is an issue.

I'm not taking sides in this, I don't even live in California. I was pointing out what the issues are that people are protesting because someone asked.

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Lewandowsky, SF, etc. by Animats · 2014-01-22 11:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

I met Lewandowsky when he was an undergrad at Berkeley, building a self-driving motorcycle, while also running a startup to sell a two-screen display for field use at construction sites with a player for drawings. I was impressed. He does tend to deliver on his schemes.

The Google bus thing is impressive. Google now has a huge bus fleet. They're all the same, they're all huge, and they're all white and unmarked. They're more visible than the public bus lines, because they're concentrated in a few areas. Yesterday, I was caught in a traffic jam of Google buses in Mountain View.

One of those areas is the Mission District in San Francisco. It's an OK low rent neighborhood, but not great or particularly cool. (SOMA, pre Dot Com Boom 1.0 was cool - lots of art galleries, performance spaces, clubs, warehouse parties - the fun things that need big, cheap spaces. That's over.) I have friends living in the Mission. I've been there many times. It's not really being "gentrified". It's just that rents are going up on existing buildings, which is annoying residents. SOMA and Dogpatch have been redeveloped, with most of the old buildings replaced and most of the rest converted to residential lofts or such.

SF is driving out low-income people. Mayor Brown said a few years ago that no one making less than $50K a year should live in SF. Really. The Mission was one of the few cheap neighborhoods left that was merely poor, not awful. SF still has a few bad cheap neighborhoods, but they're under attack, building by building. The 6th Street corridor is still a druggie and flophouse area. But go a hundred feet off 6th and there are luxury lofts. The area of Market Street around 6th to 8th was also a big druggie/homeless area. Then Twitter HQ moved in there. As that area gets gentrified, the 6th St. corridor will be cut off from the Tenderloin across Market. We'll know that's happened when the last strip club there closes.

Re:Lewandowsky, SF, etc. by Loki_1929 · 2014-01-22 13:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

SF still has a few bad cheap neighborhoods, but they're under attack, building by building. The 6th Street corridor is still a druggie and flophouse area. But go a hundred feet off 6th and there are luxury lofts. The area of Market Street around 6th to 8th was also a big druggie/homeless area. Then Twitter HQ moved in there. As that area gets gentrified, the 6th St. corridor will be cut off from the Tenderloin across Market. We'll know that's happened when the last strip club there closes.
Dear God! What will San Francisco's good and decent law-abiding citizens do without crackhouses, whores, and the homeless?! Oh the humanity!

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Re:So I was sitting behind a Gbus/Fbus on 85 today by t0qer · 2014-01-22 12:12 · Score: 4, Funny

One question...why?

If I worked at Google I wouldn't want you on my bus. Google is a big machine. As someone who also works for a big machine, I'm only here for the perks and I have no interest in sharing with outsiders.

You want my perks? Come break your back with me and work 60 hours a week...then the bus rides, free food, nap pods, etc. will seem less like privileges and more like justifications for your insanity...

Can't tell if trying to insult me, or recruit me.

Re:The candlestick makers did the same thing... by slimjim8094 · 2014-01-22 12:14 · Score: 2

But nobody's suggesting that they go live on the street.

I live in New York City. One area or another has been gentrifying since before they came up with the name. You know what this means? It means the city is healthy - there is an influx of new people. Yuppie types (who themselves, like these protesters, kicked out people as well) come in and move to the cheaper areas they can afford and make them fashionable. Some of them stay (and make more money as they advance), and some richer people move in now that there's restaurants and other amenities. And the next generation of yuppies goes somewhere else and the process repeats. For example, my parents now couldn't afford the apartment I was born in - it's now worth more than their decently-sized house in one of the wealthiest suburbs in NJ. The Daily News loading dock across the street was turned into a bunch of really, really nice condos.

And this is a good thing! And it's been happening forever. The '66 West Side Story movie showing a grimy Upper West Side was actually filmed in the grimy UWS - about where Lincoln Center is now - and now that neighborhood is one of the most expensive parts of one of the most expensive parts of one of the most expensive cities. You know why you don't hear people in NYC bitching about it? It's because people don't feel like they have a right to live anywhere in particular, so they're comfortable with moving, and public transit is so good that there's a large area you can move to (including parts of NJ) without significantly affecting your commute. There's also a lot of housing, at various price levels.

Now, of course, SF isn't really like that. Public transit sucks, so moving makes it really hard to get to work, and they've been so adverse to improving it - or building more housing of any type - that housing is dramatically supply limited. There simply aren't any units available, and whenever one is, some techie who can afford to pay 6 months rent in advance is going to get it. Can you really blame them, or the landlord? It's a supply problem exacerbated by no-transit hyperlocality (e.g., it has to be *right here*)

Yes, I think everybody - including the techies! - agree that the status quo sucks. Perhaps the proud, longtime residents of SF shouldn't have spent 30 years making it impossible to avoid this problem, and shouldn't be fighting the solutions now!

We already have a name for the right to stay in your apartment for as long as they like - it's called "ownership", and it can suck. Renting avoids that hassle, and is cheaper, but the whole point is someone has to agree to rent it to you, and that can be withdrawn. You can't have it both ways.

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Re:Thugocracy in Action by geekoid · 2014-01-22 12:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

You have a weird definition of public spaces if there are certain classes not allowed to use them.

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Residential picketing is disgusting! by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · 2014-01-22 13:09 · Score: 2

They may have a point, but picketing a person's home is disgusting.

Really harms the legitimacy of someone's position, and is a terrible invasion.

Really needs to be illegal. I'm pro-civil liberties, but stuff like that should not be tolerated, and should be a felony for repeat offenses.

Disturbing someone at home because you don't like the implications of the technology he works on or the fact materials for it are mined in the Congo or whatever (bet the protestors own iPhone or use other tech that needs minerals) is frightening. Not only gov't can have a chilling effect!

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Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!

Re:So I was sitting behind a Gbus/Fbus on 85 today by Demonantis · 2014-01-22 14:27 · Score: 2

In Ontario we have a train/bus service called Go Transit. Regulated by the province. The goal is pulling workers into Toronto and out of Toronto without them driving. It works great and is expanding. The only thing it sucks for is people not working the 9 to 5.

Re:Buying is not an easy option by Pfhorrest · 2014-01-23 12:24 · Score: 2

Not everyone can afford to buy. That isn't a problem; it's an economic reality likely to persist as long as property exists as we know it.

Not everyone can afford food either, but the reality of that situation doesn't make it not a problem. The near-total impossibility for large swathes of the population obtain housing of their own, leaving them dependent on borrowing housing from others (which in itself perpetuates their inability to buy), is a problem. We cannot have a free and equal population when large chunks of it are dependent on others for a necessity of life like housing, and have almost no hope of even slowly or gradually working their way out of that situation.

I'm not complaining about gentrification here, in fact I've complained about people who complain about gentrification before. I have no problem with the value of real estate in different places being different, and changing as conditions in those different places change; that's just normal market dynamics. I'm saying that the real cause of the problem that has people upset about "gentrification" is the fact that so many people don't live in a place which is their own, and can have the conditions of their tentative permission to live there changed out from under them (with some restrictions of course). That is where people's energy should be directed, not at bullshit like these protesters are complaining about.

However, a tangential problem gentrification which I don't quite have a solution to is this: even fixing the tax and rent problems, people born into expensive places, who grew up there and who have everyone and everything they love there, can still be forced out of their homes in a broader sense, if the place they were born becomes more popular (and thus more expensive) than when their family first moved there. That's the situation I'm in: two generations of my family have lived in my home town, I've spent my entire life here, all my friends, colleagues, career, romance, all of that is here, and on top of that it is a fantastically beautiful place which has set my standards for what a decent place to live looks like, and makes most of the rest of the country look intolerably ugly or plain to my eye. But despite two generations of our family living here, that beauty has made prices skyrocket, and all my cousins have either had to move somewhere I'd never want to live, or still live at home with their parents, because nobody can afford to live here on their own. I am only barely managing because I am more successful than any of my parents or their siblings were at my age.

Doesn't something seem wrong about the fact that people are displaced from their home lands just because other, richer people from other lands want to live there and money is power so they get what they want and the locals have to GTFO? What if a bunch of rich Americans moved into some impoverished third world country, bought the place up, and within a generation or two the indigenous people who had lived there for centuries were forced to emigrate elsewhere? Something just like that happens at a smaller scale all the time, and from I'm not sure how to fix it even if the rental problem is fixed, but it's still a real problem. It's not a problem that "foreigners" can "immigrate", I'm not complaining about non-locals in my hometown or anything; but it's a problem that the locals can be displaced even if they would rather stay put, just because there's no way they can afford to live there.

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-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."

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