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Smart Car Tipping Trending In San Francisco
First time accepted submitter hackajar1 (1700328) writes "Is it a crime of opportunity or another page in the current chapter of Anti-Tech movement in San Francisco? Either way, the new crime trending in San Francisco invloves tipping Smart Cars on their side. While they only take 3 — 4 people to tip, this could just be kids simply having "fun" at the very expensive cost of car owners. Alternatively it could be part of a larger movement in San Francisco against anyone associated with HiTech, which is largely being blamed for neighborhood gentrification and rent spikes in recent years." This sounds like a story that would catch the ears of veteran reporter Roland Hedley.
This wouldn't even be an issue if the damn local news didn't report on it. 3 cars?! A night of drunken stupidity. Now it's going to be trending.
I'm Peggy.
Considering a Smart Car is like 12k, gets good gas mileage, and is easy to street park in the city how in the world does this equal HiTech? HiTech workers definitely make enough to afford more spacious and expensive cars along with garage parking.
Is this another example of terrible Slashdot editorial comments distorting original story to "make news" as this alternative theory is not in the original source?
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/...
This actually was a fad in Europe for a while - of course it moved to San Francisco.
reading the headline, i thought the story was going to be about people dropping change and dollar bills on smart cars as a way to, i dunno, show their support for eco-friendliness?
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
First link, second photo.
HA!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
There is a shortage of cattle in San Francisco. These might be the only alternative.
I've seen discussions of having electric cars play an audio track of engine noise to reduce accidents with pedestrians.
And now, when the kids tip it, it will go "MooOOOOOOooo"
Gentrification to me means turning filthy, crime ridden ghettos into clean and safe neighborhoods. I haven't heard any reasonable argument against it that doesn't include hidden racism or prejudice against poor people being morons who like living in dirt.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Speaking as someone who when they first saw a smart car said to themselves "I wonder if i run out into the road and shoulder check it if it would tip over" I don't think the vandals in question are doing this to make a statement. I think its most likely that they had a similar thought combined it with youthful enthusiasm and the great decision making power that only a group of teenagers can have.
obligatory XKCD
Detroit was once a very nice city. This exact sort of behavior made Detroit the smoking crater it is today. If you drive everyone with money away from your tax base, there won't be anything left. There was a deliberate effort in Detroit's case, and while it took a decade or more to drive out the middle class, and another couple decades to run out of money, it was inevitable from just a few years in.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Property taxes and rent rising pushes out renters who have lived there a long time. People like their neighbors and work to establish a safe community only to be priced out of it BECAUSE they made it safe. They end up having to move to a more distant neighborhood which is once again unsafe. Now they have to commute further to work and have less money from the move. Moving to a new apartment generally means paying higher rent in cities if you keep the same level of nice neighborhood, so it's likely a step down.
I mean, it sounds reasonable to me. Not compelling enough for me to not move to a gentrifying area (which I have before and don't feel particularly guilty about), but I understand why it upsets some people legitimately. I do think a lot of it is simply entitlement or making excuses for envy. Obviously tipping over someone's car isn't a rational way of trying to keep prices for long-term residents down: people who have already moved in are just going to hire more cops which will increase taxes which will hasten the poorer residents being priced out. No, those idiots were either simply troublemakers or at best angry because they didn't have a nice shiny smartcar while their neighbors did.
> This exact sort of behavior made Detroit the smoking crater it is today.
Not really.
There may be some parallels, but Detroit was mostly a different situation. The Detroit lower classes did not actively try to push away those with money the way the SF leaches are trying to do. In Detroit, there were decades of major race relation problems that culminated in black riots in the downtown core. This scared the white middle-class who pretty much all picked up and moved to the suburbs willingly.
In SF, the complainers are a small group of mostly young, white folks who are bored, unemployed and looking for handouts to sustain their leach-like lifestyle.