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The Street Kids of San Francisco

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Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#171

Post by steveklabnik »

cmccabe wrote: post #167
steveklabnik wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Property is granted by governments. Why? Because it's a useful abstraction. This is where that 'broad intellectual foundation' comes in. You may think that it is, sure, but why? Not everyone does, and there's a whole lot of philosophical discussion on this very topic. Our conception of 'private property' has only been around ~200 years, and humanity's been around just a bit more than that.

So you think private property was invented in 1813? I guess the War of 1812 was more important than anyone could have dreamed at the time? You really need to read more. Like... a lot more.

... yes, I meant exactly 200 years, to the letter. Obviously. The tilde, which is generally taken to mean 'approximate', was absolutely superflous. In a thread about John Locke's conception of property and its effects on modern day states, I plant the turning point at 1813. You got me.

(the ~200 figure comes from the Inclosure acts, which, as Wikipedia says, "the majority were passed between 1750 and 1860". Even that is obviously a rough time period, and only one of many significant historical events. Even if we take Locke's birthday, 29 August 1632, as the birth of private property in the current sense, that's still roughly 380 years ago, which is still pretty new as far as human history goes.)

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#172

Post by moxie »

eli_awry wrote: post #164
moxie wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps my perspective is tainted by living in the bay area through two (three?) tech bubbles, however I still don't see it. I agree that HN-type hackers and anarchists both use aesthetically similar language, like "changing the world," but I think that means something substantially different in each context. My sense is that when tech people talk about changing the world, they generally mean keeping the form of the…

My perspective is this: I want to make really awesome intelligent tutoring systems. I'm inspired by Enders Game, Diamond Age, and the Aristotle essay by Hillis. I want to do this because I think that the current model for distributing education privileges people who are already very advantaged, but an intelligent tutoring system could be reproduced over and over and over for free. I obviously love Khan Academy, which…

You don't have to defend yourself to me. I'm not saying you (or "hackers") are wrong or something, just that these are not necessarily shared beliefs among anarchists.

What you're describing is more akin to (classical) liberalism. For instance, here you draw on a couple of the core tenants of liberalism:

1) Equality. In the Jeffersonian sense (ie, under the law). This is really the cornerstone of liberalism. The classic structuralist response would be something like "Yes, yes... all men will be tried equally for the crime of stealing bread crumbs to feed their starving children."

2) Freedom of information. Also at the heart of liberalism is the idea that in a world where anyone can participate, speak, and think freely, we'll be able to select from a marketplace of ideas for how the world should look. The classic anarchist response is that we live in a specific political and economic reality that wasn't of our choosing, but which influences our desires, the way we think, how we think, and what we conceptualize as possible. Simply talking about other social or economic possibilities does not have the same effect, so just being able to speak freely is not necessarily meaningful in that context.

3) Transparency and accountability. A typical anarchist response to projects like wikileaks is something like "What is the value of truth in a world where we have no agency?" The insurrectionist, for example, doesn't attempt to shame, expose, or reform institutions of power, but rather expects their injustices as their fundamental nature. You can't blame a tiger for being a tiger.

It's true that it is possible to draw similarities in the sense that hackers and anarchists on the whole probably want "good things and not bad things." But to the extent that we're never fully going to get there, it's the tension that really matters, and that's where I believe the differences are currently quite deep between these two groups.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#173

Post by littletables »

I became homeless at the cusp of 14, escaping from sleeping with mice on a bare mattress from a Sunset District garage - where my crack-addicted mother (she, a Stanford engineering graduate) put me. I lived on the streets of San Francisco, almost exclusively the Haight until I was 17 1/2. The horrors of my story paled in comparison to the kids I crewed up with in Upper/Lower Haight, and there were a lot of us.

There still are. For many years I have done active outreach work to the homeless youth there as well as risk reduction community mediation meetings between homeless kids, their outreach service workers, and local residents (some of these meetings have taken place at The Booksmith).

I am currently very successful in the tech arena, despite never having returned to school after having to find a place to live and food to eat when I was halfway through ninth grade; I never graduated and have no formal education. I am a very lucky exception.

Why do I tell you this? So you can begin to understand why I have to tell you that if this article is claiming to be about life for, or about, homeless youth in the Haight, the article is so inaccurate it ought to be considered harmful.

This article is the biggest lie and mischaracterization of homeless youth in the Haight I have ever read. I'm too astonished at the moment to be outraged.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#174

Post by Locke1689 »

vacri wrote: post #158
Locke1689 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experie…

What the hell? I hope you're not an American -- if civics and government class has so failed our students i would be extremely disappointed.

The government of the united States is exactly that, ranging from the lowest town council member to the President. You do understand the concept of sets and subsets, right? The federal government is a subset of the government. That's why it has that additional qualifier.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#175

Post by vacri »

argonaut wrote: post #170
vacri wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experie…

The fact that you're arguing over the synonymous/non-synonymous semantics of two phrases, rather than actually refuting locke's main point, says a great deal about your argument.

Can you please point out Locke's 'main' point, because it seems he's danced around a few topics to me.

If you're talking about the parent of my last comment, it should be abundantly clear that I'm saying 'no, you did', which is directly refuting his point, with a quote, no less. The rest was a bit of poetic license called 'taking the piss'.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#176

Post by vacri »

Locke1689 wrote: post #174
vacri wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experie…

What the hell? I hope you're not an American -- if civics and government class has so failed our students i would be extremely disappointed. The government of the united States is exactly that, ranging from the lowest town council member to the President. You do understand the concept of sets and subsets, right? The federal government is a subset of the government. That's why it has that additional qualifier.

Yeah, I don't buy your attempt at a 'save'.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#177

Post by s_baby »

777466 wrote: post #151
s_baby wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just an example. It's been a while since I've been involved in any scene.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#178

Post by roel_v »

moxie wrote: post #84
Locke1689 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Even John Locke's attempts to justify it break down."

How so? It's a perfectly reasonable explanation of how to avoid an Hobbesian free-for-all.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#179

Post by roel_v »

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…

While I am on your side in the sense that we both agree that private property exists and is necessary, I think it's very dangerous to assume that property only exists when there is a government to enforce it. Furthermore, you seem to assume that only governments can own property and that the 'delegate' the ownership to citizens as it were - a point I take offense with, I am the owner of all my property, any government be damned.

Re: The Street Kids of San Francisco

#180

Post by colmvp »

lutusp wrote: post #165
creamyhorror wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is seriously making me want to move to SF, because events as artfully crazy as these simply can't happen with any regularity in Singapore. There's just no cultural history for them to - no support or interest from the very pragmatic, have-to-be-up-early-tomorrow society over here. Sames goes for the very chill party mentioned by angersock: it just couldn't happen. When I lived in Philadelphia I don't think there…

> This is seriously making me want to move to SF, because events as artfully crazy as these simply can't happen with any regularity in Singapore. If you're serious, I should tell you that SF is by some estimates the most expensive city in the world: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/most-expensive-city... Also, having lived there myself for years, it's cold most of the year except in August and September, and…

SF has high rental prices but others costs (including taxes) are vastly more in some other cities.
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