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The Street Kids of San Francisco

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#51

Post by nbroyal »

lutusp wrote: post #44
nbroyal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that as a false dichotomy. There are many other options between staying in the ivory tower and playing homeless.

> There are many other options between staying in the ivory tower and playing homeless. Yes, there are. But one advantage of "playing homeless" is that you might run into actual homeless people and find out about their lives.

I think you could do that just as easily without the lifestyle tourism. Volunteering at a shelter/soup kitchen is something that comes to mind.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#54

Post by moxie »

This article should really be titled "The Street Kids Of Hippy Hill." By going to one place in order to get a feeling for "street kids," they've gotten an extremely myopic view of that scene.

The full picture is much more varied. Traveler kids who go to hobo gatherings would never be caught dead at a rainbow gathering. Rainbow family kids don't drink, and alcohol is even forbidden at gatherings (where nothing else is forbidden). Gutter punks live to spange for 40s. Anarcho punks would rather starve than fly a sign.

Each has its own music scene, its own values, its own social norms. For this article to suggest that most street kids don't have a political analysis might be true for hippy hill, but isn't true at all for the squatter scene (see 'homes not jails' and 'food not bombs' for instance).

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#55

Post by md224 »

eli_awry wrote: post #16

I'm a 23 year old with purple hair, but I'm also a PhD student at a top 10 university for computer science. I've hung out in tons of squats and punk houses, and briefly been a street kid, but I got a 2380 on my SATs. I lived in a non-residential warehouse for months - months when I was taking Physics, Linear Algebra, Computer Science and Sociology 321 - Class and Inequality. I've dug through dozens of dumpsters, and…

> On the other hand, they're in denial about capitalism.

Could you expand on the flaws in their disdain of capitalism? Or, if that's too broad a question, perhaps direct us to some reading material on the subject?

I don't mean this in a snarky or side-taking manner... in fact I'm struggling with my own views on capitalism and would love to expand my knowledge on the issue.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#56

Post by angersock »

il wrote: post #32
angersock wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best parties I've been to were a healthy blend of web folks, hippies, anarchists, engineers, and discordians. I did observe that despite having fairly good classical training and historical knowledge--more than I had, certainly!--there did not seem to be a lot of self-educated people who knew physics and hard-sciences beyond a somewhat populist level. I suggest that this may be due theoretical physics and whatnot req…

How did you connect with that crowd? I've noticed a very high overlap between techies and hippies, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to stumble into a group of discordians short of randomly wandering the streets shouting "hail eris!".

Funny story, actually.

Was drinking one night hanging out with some hippy friends (who I'd met in some computer science courses back at university, doing a software rasterization project). They mentioned a great place with a bunch of different folks, and said I should go. A few nights later I showed up with another friend, and that was that.

It was an amazingly chill party--young folks up through old hippies, people smoking out in the garage at the back of the lot, tech folks chatting about different projects in a kitchen, some other really far out stuff happening elsewhere.

I'd suggest that the big thing to do is to be relaxed, chill, and ask a lot of questions. Don't bore people with your own life if it doesn't enhance what they're talking about or if they don't ask, and keep your mind open to the idea that there is not one fixed path to happiness in life.

Don't brag or be condescending, do be friendly, and be helpful--basically, just be a decent person and doors will open.

EDIT: Addendum. I saw a few things happening that were probably not legal, and I certainly was a bit out of my element. That said, being okay with politely refusing offers that weren't my thing and not making trouble for other folks helped me fit in.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#57

Post by rdouble »

dewitt wrote: post #40

Like another commenter on this thread, I've lived in the Haight for the past nine years. And while the article is interesting and informative, it doesn't quite paint a full picture (literally—the pictures aren't representative, that girl is not a typical street kid by a long shot, she hasn't slept a day outside in her life. Think camo and combat boots and pit bulls, not peace signs and hacky sacks) of the underside o…

The writer was duped. There is quite a chasm between the flower child from Novato coming down for the weekend to trade peace patches for shrooms and the addict gutter punk types who live there permanently.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#58

Post by angersock »

eli_awry wrote: post #28
angersock wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best parties I've been to were a healthy blend of web folks, hippies, anarchists, engineers, and discordians. I did observe that despite having fairly good classical training and historical knowledge--more than I had, certainly!--there did not seem to be a lot of self-educated people who knew physics and hard-sciences beyond a somewhat populist level. I suggest that this may be due theoretical physics and whatnot req…

I agree - I think it's somewhat cultural. That community has a lot of good ideas, but few fleshed-out solutions, which are harder and require more technical/modeling skills. It's hardly unique to them - education researchers (for instance, as I've been noticing recently) and many administrators are equally quantitatively lacking. Part of it may also be that doing novel critical analysis requires few resources, but do…

I'm not sure that being quantitatively lacking is a bad thing--but certainly you need to have those folks in contact with more implementation-capable minds to help!

I saw something similar at my local Occupy protests--once we'd put in a somewhat more concrete intellectual framework for discussing grievances, things became a lot more productive.

Hit me up on email if you'd like to chat more about these things.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#59

Post by js2 »

dorkrawk wrote: post #48
lutusp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I think about the fact that someone whose family "owns a major medevac company" is taking up space at a shelter or panhandling on the street, I get really frustrated. Just to play the devil's advocate, given a spoiled kid of wealthy parents on the threshold of adulthood, would you prefer he stay in the ivory tower, or experience the raw life of the street, even if only as a lifestyle tourist? As it happens, th…

I've been fortunate enough to live a comfortable life, but I was able to get some experience living on the street through a volunteer project I did in college working with the homeless in Washington DC. We spent the first 48 hours of our time in DC living on the street with no money. We slept in a church parking lot for 2 nights in snowy weather. We then donated all of our panhandling money not spent on food for thos…

You might find http://www.scratchbeginnings.com an interesting read.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#60

Post by angersock »

SilasX wrote: post #46
angersock wrote: post #18

Anybody remember the article a few days ago with the author complaining about the Google bus and the invasion of tech folks into the Bay Area and how they weren't improving the community? And how a lot of people were like "Hey, well, it's putting wealth into helping San Francisco!". Well, how's this fit into that calculus?

Probably in the "pearls before swine" sense. Long-time natives just don't appreciate how much the influx of tech folks is improving things, nor how few cities would love to have such a "problem".

Er, would you like to rephrase that? A fast reading would seem to suggest that you are referring to the natives as swine.
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