Things That Happen in Silicon Valley and Also the Soviet Union

Post by deadmetheny » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #67

brighteyes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The homeowners have much of the blame, you're right, but tech has made things worse by rapid job growth that contributed to rising rent costs.

Tech is a bountiful solution, not a problem. The problem is in not properly taxing the output of the hyper rich tech industry. The taxation then goes into trivially solving the homelessness problem in SF. We're talking about 5,000 people, not 50k or 500k. It is not a problem compared to the enormity of the tech riches. SF is an extremely affluent city that refuses to act.

Post by shadowtree » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 3:56 PM UTC

neuland wrote: post #62

shadowtree wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good test is your view on the 2nd Iraq War. For background, as facts matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War "After 9/11, the Bush Administration national security team actively debated an invasion of Iraq. On the day of the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides for: "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit Saddam Hussein at same time. Not only Osama bin Laden."[72] President Bu…

I'm not really sure how the 2nd Iraq War is a testament to American evil. It sounds to me like you're saying the invasion was unjustified? But, is there really anyone who thought Saddam was a good guy? He was very obviously a brutal dictator. So, at the very least there's one fewer of those around. Sure, WMD turned out to be a total fabrication and the Iraq War ended up being a misguided attempt at democracy building…

Post by zzzcpan » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #44

zug_zug wrote: post #12

"- being told you are constructing utopia while the system crumbles around you" This is the one that resonated with me. Obviously "the system" as a whole isn't objectively crumbling by traditional measures like GDP, but there were things that could give that feeling: Homeless sleeping in the subway and on the main streets, the smells, crime so rampant it's basically ignored (my car was broken into > 5 times), working…

The one thing that you didn’t get in the Soviet Union was everyday crime, well, what we understand as crime. Sure they could and did send people off to the camps for weird [political and crimes against the state] offenses, but property crimes and such were close to non existent.

Post by slg » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

lostconfused wrote: post #69

projectramo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding?

I can't imagine why that would be intended to be humuoruos. The content of the post seems like a genuine attempt at trying to point out the potential flaws in purely text based communication via internet. To expand on such, text doesn't carry any of the social cues that human beings learn during their development. There's no facial expressions, tone of voice, any form of body language such as posture or hand gestures…

Post by rgrieselhuber » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #16

projectramo wrote: post #11

"I am unprepared for people who don't understand jokes" -- Anton Troynikov I don't know who he is but I really like this quote. That's consistently my biggest surprise on the internet. The #1 question I get for my posts is "Is that sarcasm?" I never answer.

Sarcasm doesn't always carry clearly through text-based media. I wouldn't be so sure that the reader is always at fault.