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The Street Kids of San Francisco

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Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#111

Post by cpeterso »

wyclif wrote: post #74
edmundhuber wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live here, you have to harden yourself against constant harassment for money and offers of drugs, and you have to get used to stepping around garbage and shit in the street. As much as SF should strive to be tolerant, at a certain point it must be recognized that if you don't want to be taken advantage of, as I believe is the case here for "authentic" residents of Haight-Ashbury, i.e. people who pay local taxe…

I'm from the East coast and I recently visited SF again after a long time away. I was appalled by the amount of human feces in public. Street people just pull down their pants and shit right on the sidewalk or on a doorstep. But what's far more appalling is that straight people in SF put up with it as part of the cost of doing business.

From the "only in SF" files:

"When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator ... they found so much human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team."

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-down...

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#112

Post by vacri »

johngalt wrote: post #108
moxie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old wobbly story: A wobbly was riding a freight train across the midwest one summer, in between jobs. The train sided out in the middle of nowhere, and it was scorching hot, so the wobbly got off the train and started walking down a dirt road. After a couple of miles, the road passed by an apple orchard. The wobbly hopped over the fence, and sat down to rest under the shade of a big apple tree. The wobbly…

Here's a justification for private property. How will there ever be an orchard otherwise ? Orchards don't just burst spontaneously into existence. Imagine that no one 'fought the natives for it'. Instead the land was a vacant waste with no one living there and nothing growing there. Over the years through hard work, dedication and sacrifice the land was amended and the trees grew creating the orchard. The only thing…

A nice turnaround, but in the story, the land wasn't a vacant waste, it was acquired by force. The story isn't "Oh, you moved into emptiness and created something, so I'll fight you", it was "you fought the people here before, so I'll continue with your method of ownership".

Similarly, the wobbly wasn't demanding an apple, but enjoying the shade. Was the farmer selling shade? Lowering the cost of shade to all?

The idea of a one-sided "fuck off, this is MY land" seems to be a new-world Anglo thing - back in Europe a lot of countries have a form of right to roam that sits in conflict with property rights. While there is certainly a 'my land!' aspect, there's also the competing philosophical idea that people are free to travel over it or use it recreationally

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Right_to_roam_i...

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#113

Post by bcoates »

SilasX wrote: post #107
hindsightbias wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant: http://www.hanc-sf.org/next-meeting/the-homeless-bill-of-rig... Tonight.

"The bill helps protect homeless people from discrimination in employment, ..." |face-palm|

There appears to be some goofy stuff in there, but giving them somewhere to defecate so they don't do it where I'd like to walk would be worth every penny. This is basic public health stuff.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#114

Post by vacri »

Locke1689 wrote: post #105
moxie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old wobbly story: A wobbly was riding a freight train across the midwest one summer, in between jobs. The train sided out in the middle of nowhere, and it was scorching hot, so the wobbly got off the train and started walking down a dirt road. After a couple of miles, the road passed by an apple orchard. The wobbly hopped over the fence, and sat down to rest under the shade of a big apple tree. The wobbly…

I don't see why you need a broad intellectual foundation here. Property is granted by governments. Why? Because it's a useful abstraction. Where did the government get the property? It claimed it and enforced its claim by force. So I guess my answer to the story would be: fine, you can fight the owner for it, but the real owner isn't me, it's the United States government. If you are so inclined to fight the governmen…

I imagine the wobbly will quite happily let the farmer go and get a representative of the US government for him to fight. Likely he will have naturally moved on before such a representative responds to 'someone is enjoying my shade against my will!'

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#115

Post by thwest »

johngalt wrote: post #108
moxie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old wobbly story: A wobbly was riding a freight train across the midwest one summer, in between jobs. The train sided out in the middle of nowhere, and it was scorching hot, so the wobbly got off the train and started walking down a dirt road. After a couple of miles, the road passed by an apple orchard. The wobbly hopped over the fence, and sat down to rest under the shade of a big apple tree. The wobbly…

Here's a justification for private property. How will there ever be an orchard otherwise ? Orchards don't just burst spontaneously into existence. Imagine that no one 'fought the natives for it'. Instead the land was a vacant waste with no one living there and nothing growing there. Over the years through hard work, dedication and sacrifice the land was amended and the trees grew creating the orchard. The only thing…

> Imagine that no one 'fought the natives for it'. Instead the land was a vacant waste with no one living there and nothing growing there.

Dear Randian, These statements imply that you consider the native people "no one" and native vegetation rather than industrial crops "a vacant waste". I think those are rude presumptions.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#116

Post by Locke1689 »

vacri wrote: post #114
Locke1689 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why you need a broad intellectual foundation here. Property is granted by governments. Why? Because it's a useful abstraction. Where did the government get the property? It claimed it and enforced its claim by force. So I guess my answer to the story would be: fine, you can fight the owner for it, but the real owner isn't me, it's the United States government. If you are so inclined to fight the governmen…

I imagine the wobbly will quite happily let the farmer go and get a representative of the US government for him to fight. Likely he will have naturally moved on before such a representative responds to 'someone is enjoying my shade against my will!'

I agree that people can commit crimes without getting caught much of the time?

I'm not sure if you have a point.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#117

Post by onan_barbarian »

johngalt wrote: post #108
moxie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old wobbly story: A wobbly was riding a freight train across the midwest one summer, in between jobs. The train sided out in the middle of nowhere, and it was scorching hot, so the wobbly got off the train and started walking down a dirt road. After a couple of miles, the road passed by an apple orchard. The wobbly hopped over the fence, and sat down to rest under the shade of a big apple tree. The wobbly…

Here's a justification for private property. How will there ever be an orchard otherwise ? Orchards don't just burst spontaneously into existence. Imagine that no one 'fought the natives for it'. Instead the land was a vacant waste with no one living there and nothing growing there. Over the years through hard work, dedication and sacrifice the land was amended and the trees grew creating the orchard. The only thing…

I like this rhetorical technique: completely alter the story then craft an argument based on your version of the story.

In the less artificial world (where orchards are not usually created out of barren moonscapes)- it's always a little odd - and self-serving - the degree to which people think improving land magically cancels all previous taint of expropriation.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#118

Post by rictic »

eli_awry wrote: post #94
moxie wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radical punk rock literally saved my life. As someone who's been a part of both of these worlds off and on for 16 years, I couldn't disagree with you more. I see the aesthetics of the hacker and punk scenes as being extremely similar, where as the underlying motives are currently lightyears apart. For instance, "hacker houses" and "collective houses" have a similar aesthetic. Both are about people living together, an…

I haven't had exposure to the hacker houses on the West Coast, so I can't really speak to that. The motives of hackers I've known usually have to do with impacting the world and making it better for more people. I've been in punk houses with hackers, but we mostly had parties with art people, and collaborated with anarchists. I'm not talking about the Silicon Valley startup scene, which I know nothing about. I'm movi…

I'd give good odds you're already aware, but you should totally come to noisebridge when you're in SF.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#119

Post by thisrod »

ghshephard wrote: post #109

The one question that I always ask (and instantly makes me unpopular) of the hippie/transient/counter-culture types, is, "Do you realize you would all likely be dead of hunger withing two to three weeks without a massively efficient capitalist system supporting you?" They are able to exist because of people who are willing to work to support them. Even the communes rely on fertilizer, fuels, metals, foodstuffs from 2…

Where I live, the answer might run as follows. For fifty thousand years, the local hippies avoided starvation with a one-hour workday. Now that the place is full to bursting point with slaves of some massively efficient system, they have to work a bit harder.

And, unless you can photosynthesize, you're a parasite too.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#120

Post by 777466 »

s_baby wrote: post #42
teebs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fascinating that these kids are the opposite of the usual drug dealer stereotype. Based on my limited knowledge, drugs (in particular marijuana) trace back to either small individual growers, medical marijuana patients, or a gang or cartel. (As far as I know, LSD is very difficult to produce because of its highly regulated precursors. Only a few people in the world produce LSD, and they probably sell it to gangs…

Most American LSD is distributed through the "Rainbow Family" distribution network. Basically the same people you see on the streets of San Francisco. It's a stretch calling these people a gang. It has zero connection to drugs like heroin, cocaine, and meth.

and that is because there is no profit in LSD (I suppose related to it not being addictive?)

In SF, $50 will get you an eighth of pot, whereas LSD is like $5/hit (so a twenty is enough to meet God)

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