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)
A vile costs less than $1 per hit and a fraction of that price for someone "in the family". You can only move so much though since it's not a habit. Several factors favor a small source of distributors. Ergot is dangerous to work with, it's a difficult synthesis, and the overhead costs of making 1,000 hits and 1,000,000,000 is essentially the same.
Why use vials? Unpredictable dosage, charged by weight if arrested... (of course, I'm not sure how much SFPD cares about hippie drugs)
Not to mention the guys selling it for $20/sheet every 4/20 on Hippie Hill -- there's your year's supply right there.
"sitting in the shade" is not the crime; trespass is the crime. The concept of private property is useful enough on the whole that governments are willing to enforce it, and leave discretion for right-of-access to the owner of said property. This allows the property owner to assess people in terms of risk they pose to said property and either grant or deny access. If said farmer has had problems with transients damag…
Surely then, this would be the province of the local law enforcement, not something worth summoning in the Feds for.
The only person to mention the federal government was you.
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…
> "without a massively efficient capitalist system"
Efficient is a tricky word. Burning through non-renevable fossil, freshwater, (arable) land and mineral resources at an accelerating pace, with no regard for the environment or future generations has allowed the world to reach levels the overpopulation that China spent thousands of years reaching -- in less than 200 years. But without any structure, government or system that has any hope (or indeed even any goal) of breaking the pace of expansion in a way suitable to avoid massive disasters and system failure.
As for the US, given the wast resources left, and the (comparatively) sparse population -- it appears to me to be one of the few countries that actually could become more efficient (resources spent per capita) -- without forcing particularly bad consequences on in its citizens.
But yes, a group producing no, or little value, paying none, or little in tax could indeed be seen as parasites. I can think of a few group that I'd consider harmful parasites, though.
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 id…
It wasn't acquired by force by the farmer, it was acquired by force by the great grandfather. Either way, you disprove your own point. The farmer has a more legitimate claim because he worked for it, he didn't attack someone for it like the guy who showed up wants to.
My point was that the parent post was misrepresenting the original story. I'm not sure how that's disproved by what you're saying.
I was one of those kids. And I can tell you that the article is pretty accurate. I am female, small and skinny. At the time, I was 19 years old and I had given up a one-way ticket to Hawaii, where I was going to transfer to another Dave and Buster's. I decided that even in paradise, I didn't want to work for those assholes anymore. So I packed up about 1/10 of my belongings (what I considered valuable: my violin, some clothes and a ton of beads). When I got to SF, I instantly made friends. I was drawn to the ones who didn't like begging- the buskers and merchants. I slept in the park every night for months. I wandered Haight & Ashbury- at night. Yes, I got robbed by the Fillmore Kids once, but I deserved it for selling on their turf. I never got in any fights, nor did any of the kids I was hanging with. I never even had anything stolen (not that I had anything to steal). The whole point is to be totally detached from society. Looking back, I think it should have been scary, but it wasn't. It was fun. I got to play my violin all day and sing Janice Joplin to the gypsies at night by campfire on Ocean Beach. I met some fascinating characters. One kid had joined a cult. When they refused to let him play jazz piano, he decided that working in a vegan-bakery-sweat-shop run by jesus freaks wasn't for him. He collected rocks and must have been really fucking strong because he had the heaviest pack I have ever held. At least he could be sure that no one would steal that thing! There were a lot of kids with psychosis there, too. One kid wrote poetry all day and occasionally sang to himself. When I asked him what he was saying, he'd say, "a song I wrote for you." Though the sentiment was sweet, he didn't write it. It was 'Tangled Up in Blue' by Bob Dylan. It was ALWAYS 'Tangled Up in Blue'. I thought the comment about "respecting the spot," was interesting, too. We really do that. No one is greedy. If we feel we've made enough cash for beer or cigarettes, we leave. I've even had other kids tell me about a good busking stop they had just left vacant. "Warmed it up for ya." It's easy to see why this lifestyle is so appealing. However, the same cannot be said of why it's a lot less dangerous than most would think. But I lived it and I can tell you, I never felt unsafe in the HAIGHT (I emphasize Haight because I did venture to a soup kitchen near Polk and Geary and that was fucking terrifying). Despite any negative feelings some of the gypsies might have toward the cops, the police generally go easy on the stray kids because they know they keep the real crime out of the tourist area.
In the end, I got bored of that life and moved to Austin to pursue music. I'm still a gypsy at heart, but I also care a lot about the real world. These kids don't have any opinions on real events and feel no sense of loyalty to society. They're not dangerous, they're just just freeloaders. Plain and simple.
Presumably because he either pays property taxes or pays rent to someone who uses it to pay property taxes. Fundamentally, one can see people living on the street as belonging to a complex subgroup in our society: one which can be both symbiotic and parasitical. It is symbiotic in the sense that it provides a culture with which many can identify, especially those who have experienced hardship or difficult home lives…
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…
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.
Surely then, this would be the province of the local law enforcement, not something worth summoning in the Feds for.
The only person to mention the federal government was you.
but the real owner isn't me, it's the United States government - Locke1689, 5 hours ago
I am not an American, but I've been online for nearly 20 years now, and I've seen a lot of US politics pass under the bridge. I've never seen anything that goes contrary to the notion that 'the United States government' is 'the federal government [of the US]'. The two terms are used interchangably in online discourse in my experience.
If I am wrong in this, can you please provide me with some links to explain how 'the federal government' of the US is a different entity to the 'the United States government'. I'd be very interested to read them, because it would be a very curious oddity in the way politics are described over there. Does 'the federal government' operate at a higher or lower level than 'the United States government', or do they operate in parallel? It's an intriguing concept.
So part of the problem is their alternatives to capitalism. Which are mostly primitivist (as in, destroy infrastructure) communist (in the central planning, grey way depicted in i.e. The Dispossessed) or just kinda goofy. As a lifestyle choice, living off the refuse of a bloated and exorbitant society is actually quite sustainable until you need serious healthcare. As something for everybody to do, a new way of gover…
As someone who's just recently read The Dispossessed, I would be remiss if I did not correct your characterization of it. The lunar society in that book is quite clearly anarcho-syndicalist. Much of the conflict early in the story stems from the syndicate structure of that society. This should not be confused with Soviet-style centrally planned, state-capitalist, 'Communism' if that's what your acquaintances called i…
The Left Hand of Darkness is one of my favorite scifi books...I've been meaning to read The Dispossessed but haven't gotten around to it yet.
So part of the problem is their alternatives to capitalism. Which are mostly primitivist (as in, destroy infrastructure) communist (in the central planning, grey way depicted in i.e. The Dispossessed) or just kinda goofy. As a lifestyle choice, living off the refuse of a bloated and exorbitant society is actually quite sustainable until you need serious healthcare. As something for everybody to do, a new way of gover…
As someone who's just recently read The Dispossessed, I would be remiss if I did not correct your characterization of it. The lunar society in that book is quite clearly anarcho-syndicalist. Much of the conflict early in the story stems from the syndicate structure of that society. This should not be confused with Soviet-style centrally planned, state-capitalist, 'Communism' if that's what your acquaintances called i…
Well, the premise of The Dispossessed is that the anarcho-syndicalist society actually becomes an oppressive monolithic power. As a result, the protagonist is unable to find an outlet for his special talents, and has to turn to other means of success.
I thought The Dispossessed did a very good job of showing the problems with centralization of planning - it's an attempt at an anarcho-syndicalist commune that self-defeats through strict social mores. I do think that syndicalism is probably the best vision I've seen for an anarchist future - but ultimately, either those syndicates would have to participate in capitalist trade, or they would have to be controlled by some governing body, or they would have to be totally self-sustaining. Just think about how difficult-to-produce drugs would be distributed between communities. There can't be a producer in each one. So are the producers of that drug going to just gift it? How can they sustain themselves if they are making something difficult to produce that they are only consuming a tiny portion of? Well maybe because they are so generous they will get many gifts. This is starting to sound a lot like something that either has to be a market or centrally planned to me.