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I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

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Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#381
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those may be true, but the bad effects of uncontrolled capitalism most likely also have something to do with the situation. If you expect people to live by the rules, they should have a honest opportunity to do so. But if all they can get is a job that doesn't even pay for a small room, what are your possibilities to live a honest live? If you remove punishment, but the only option people have is to break the…

Those are the opposites of unconstrained capitalism. In unconstrained capitalism you'd have lots of building, building bigger multifamily residences and towers, no zoning getting in the way, little to no taxes, etc.

I doubt that very much: building space is scarce in SF, as a property developer if you have a choice to build an expensive high revenue buidling versus a more affordable building for low income people, what would you choose?

In capitalism there is no driving force to ensure customer desires will or can be met, making profit is what drives it. You need constraints or laws to ensure commercially unattractive needs ar served.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crime in the article was reported. From the article: The police officer said he was glad to have the license plate number but that robbery is so low-profile in the courts right now that even if they did catch him, without video proof, the thieves would be let go within a day or so. No, the officer didn't take action based upon what they saw, but it's reasonable to conclude that a police report was filled out for…

It would be entirely reasonable for the cops to file a report, but I would not make the assumption that they did. Reasons cops file reports include: An intention to investigate the crime The victim requests a report for an insurance claim In this case they know it’s a hard crime to investigate. Based on the articles I’ve read, it seems thieves in SF often use stolen cars, so even the plates may not be that helpful. M…

Those are all fair points. I was thinking that the photographer would have asked for a report for insurance purposes, but maybe that isn't a great assumption.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#383
post #9

In early 2020, before lockdown, I visited San Francisco as a tourist with my wife. We took a wrong turn at a book store and wound up on a street covered in feces. The next street was fine. Then on the next, we watched a homeless woman shoot up on the street. Then a supercar pulled into a garage. I'm not the best traveled, I'll admit, so I can't compare SF to foreign cities. I'm a simple hillbilly from the Southeast,…

When I lived in India I saw the following...the image will always stay with me and has really changed me. In Bangalore (Koramangala) where I was living was an area filled with very rich people (like western standards rich) who had massive houses, security guards, huge walls and literally right across the street was a garbage dump with people living in it. Was heartbreaking.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually becomes a self reinforcing cycle if staying in prison makes you an even worse criminal than before. A sensible solution isn't not to incarcerate criminals, but to make prisons a place where people can improve - and not just be punished with terrible conditions that make you more violent.

> It actually becomes a self reinforcing cycle if staying in prison makes you an even worse That's certainly one of the tenants that leads people to believe that removing prison from the equation helps. I think that it relies on the false presumption that going after theft equals prison. They should have the stolen goods taken from them, ideally a financial punishment along the lines of treble damages, and locked up…

To clarify, I'm not against the idea of punishment for theft, but humans aren't simple reward maximising bots. IMHO no punishment doesn't work, and also too much punishment doesn't work.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#385
I visited Orange County and west Pasadena this month; both were free from homeless and it was wonderful. Then I spent time in LA and Long Beach and the homeless made the experience very unsafe and disgusting. Now that I have kids, I will not be returning to places that tolerate the drugs, crime, and poop on the street the homeless bring.

The homeless are bums and should be treated as such. Too many benefits and too much sympathy are given to them, and this results in places becoming hellish to live for normal people.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend of the family was on her way to her HS Prom at City Hall at night with a few friends. Dressed to the nines, going to have a great time under the rotunda with her class. A homeless guy came up to her and put something wet on her arm, directly in front of city hall. It was a lot of acid. She spent the next few days in the hospital recovering/surviving a very bad trip. She still deals with flashbacks, years later…

This sounds so implausible, I don't even know where to start. First, LSD isn't the kind of a drug homeless people usually do. It has no addictive potential, and it doesn't give you a high. It isn't a "fun" drug, as opposed to the typical heroin/meth/etc. stuff those people do. Second, LSD is usually distributed in the form of paper tabs. Why would they be wet? Third, getting high from just skin contact, especially on…

Op is so ridiculous. At start I thought it was burning acid so yeah that would be pretty bad. But your comment made me understand it was about lsd and lol no way this is true.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... why did the people move to SF? To step in poop? Those jobs exist elsewhere, but not at the numbers they exist at in SF and the surrounding area. Most young people who move to The Bay Area would then end up moving to SF because it's the closest "real" city.

I'm a "young person" who chose not to move to the Bay. The market will eventually even out based on the policy and perception of a given city on generational-timescales. SF didn't become tech/VC capital overnight, and it won't decline over night either. It will decline one junior or midlevel dev at a time going to one of the cities I mentioned or Austin/Miami/etc.

Except that jobs don't go where young people are... Young people go where jobs are, and they tend to want to live in cities as well. For example, see the TV show Friends. As bachelors and bachelorettes, they lived in the city for dating, social life, etc, but by the finale they moved out of the city to settle down.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a "young person" who chose not to move to the Bay. The market will eventually even out based on the policy and perception of a given city on generational-timescales. SF didn't become tech/VC capital overnight, and it won't decline over night either. It will decline one junior or midlevel dev at a time going to one of the cities I mentioned or Austin/Miami/etc.

Except that jobs don't go where young people are... Young people go where jobs are, and they tend to want to live in cities as well. For example, see the TV show Friends. As bachelors and bachelorettes, they lived in the city for dating, social life, etc, but by the finale they moved out of the city to settle down.

Actually, research shows that this effect is mixed, and even in support of "smart and creative" jobs following highly educated people [1,2]. Granted, this is in Europe and I don't see any mention of age demographics in a light skim of the paper, but I'd take this over Friends (frankly, I'd take many things over Friends).

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00343404.2016.1...

"Distinguishing between the smart sector and the main sector, the data support jobs follow people and not people follow jobs (as suggested by the aggregate analysis). In the smart sector, the effect appears to be large. In the main sector, the effect seems to be smaller and less precisely identified."

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-30/do-jobs-f... - article version summarizing the paper.

Re: I Was Robbed in San Francisco While the Cameras Rolled

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that jobs don't go where young people are... Young people go where jobs are, and they tend to want to live in cities as well. For example, see the TV show Friends. As bachelors and bachelorettes, they lived in the city for dating, social life, etc, but by the finale they moved out of the city to settle down.

Actually, research shows that this effect is mixed, and even in support of "smart and creative" jobs following highly educated people [1,2]. Granted, this is in Europe and I don't see any mention of age demographics in a light skim of the paper, but I'd take this over Friends (frankly, I'd take many things over Friends). [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00343404.2016.1... "Distinguishing between the s…

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-28/u-s-mille...

You don't have to trust Friends. You can just Google this yourself or trust your instincts. But barring that, it's well established that younger people tend towards cities.

As for jobs following people or not, your article points out that it's a chicken and egg thing, and that high talent people may attract jobs, but they also beget more jobs.

In The Bay Area, throw in startup culture and VC/Angel funding and you add more fuel to the fire.

YC's stated reason for moving from Boston to Mountain View was actually because the investors were in CA.

You could say that initially maybe it was talent from the top local schools (Berkeley, Stanford), and semiconductor research, that attracted the VCs here. Then it created jobs from companies seeking those VCs, but today, in the current state, people are coming here for the jobs. It's a feedback loop but I wouldn't put most people's ambitions for moving to SF being the quality of life offered in the city itself.

Rather than arguing aimlessly in this thread I'll rephrase threwawasy1228's thesis and my rebuttal: San Francisco is going to be in decline because of lowering quality of life (poop on streets, crime, etc) repelling some talent.

My rebuttal: These were never the reasons attracting people to come to SF in the first place. It was the availability of jobs, opportunities, and VC money and startup networking. If these things disappear, perhaps due to remote work opportunities, then yes SF would tend to decline due to the loss of local advantages. Otherwise, as long as these attractors exist it's going to keep the area a hot-spot. Of course, SF's rent isn't going to rise forever. Eventually it will reach equilibrium where enough people like threwawasy1228 will decide it's not worth the job/opportunity and this cooling down will be hailed as the "end" or "decline" of SF.

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