I'm seeing a lot of vitriol and generalizations in this thread. It's understandable to be upset about this, but automatically assuming that the protesters are "lazy trustafarians" leeching off of the tech community is not a mindset that is helpful to anybody. If anything, it just escalates the situation. The approach we should be taking is: what is the problem, why are people upset, how do we solve it. Of course smashing the Google bus is not a productive way to protest. But the tech community needs to take the high road, not the low road. Making sweeping generalizations only creates more anger and thus makes the situation worse.
Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
201–210 of 340 posts
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#202Gotta love “TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here” I find it hard to sympathize with a bunch of lazy thugs who do nothing to improve their situation. Engineering and white collar jobs in general have always paid well. Industries who are in demand even more so, and for just reason. Did similar protests happen in Detroit 50 years ago during the auto boom? Did unskilled rubes that do nothing all day put up banners say…
My thoughts on this are, techies are generally nice and intelligent people. Last thing they will do is to harm someone or get to a physical fight. Unionised autoworkers wouldn't be a soft target. I really hope that this is a one off incident and not beginning of some demonifying of tech sector. Incidences like this could be shocking to some people and may change their perception about poor and helpless. In this threa…
Being a soft and easy target has to be part of it. It stands to reason that people who smash bus windows are the same people who used to beat up nerds at school when they were children. Some people set themselves up for a life of shit from the get go and never bother to change course.
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's nopt expressing venom for people who/are those things, but for those who use such status to justify the sort of violent nihilism on display in this article. I know lots of Burning Man/weirdo artist types who work hard, care about their neighbors, and manage to express their political views without slinging bricks through windows or justifying intimidation by calling it 'direct action.'
If he wasn't implicitly being derogatory about those traits (and I think he was) he's certainly not describing them as positive. The other responses echo the attitude that the problem results from these sorts with 'useless degrees.'
Well, it would be easy enough to shoehorn me into that group (I never actually got around to attending Burning Man, but I have a lot of roots in the 90s SF rave scene, for example), and to me he's critiquing the sort of people who treat their membership of certain affiliate group(s) as a justification for self-indulgent behavior that comes at others' expense.
I don't see any point in making this into a long spiraling subthread that only the two of us will read, so let me stop here by asking you to consider some other interpretations of the original comment besides the worst one. It might have been worded a bit better but as a fellow resident of Oakland I share the writer's frustration with the local 'revolutionaries.'
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#204West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…
> These are Burning Man hippies...
Clearly a man with inside knowledge. Which BM hippies was it? Larry Page and Sergey Brin perhaps?
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#205West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…
"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mos…
That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists,
A rather untenable assertion, based on my own lengthy and up-close observation of e.g. Occupy at its peak.
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
By providing free transportation from SF Google employees are encouraged to live there. Why not live closer to work? It would probably result in a few more cars on the road but a lot of the employees would move closer to Google freeing up apartments for people who actually work at businesses in SF and HAVE to live there. NB: I have no stake in this, I like in Ireland.
1. Shortage of housing is even worse near Google campus than in SF 2. Angry mob or your opinions should not dictate where people choose to live. I could offer many suggestions as to how you should live YOUR life to better suit MY goal and ideas, but I don't because that would be stupid. You should choose a place to live that suits YOU the best and you should offer the same curtesy to others. The "occupy Google bus" m…
Yeah - people shouldn't complain - they should just shut up and get a job that pays them a 6 figure salary and provides an air conditioned luxury coach to take them to work.
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#207West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…
> These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families.
New name for them: Hipstervists
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fun writeup. Wrong attitude. Silicon Valley technology, this is Manhattan finance with a word of advice. We know the roots of the problem are housing supply restrictions and a lack of mass transit. In essence, City Hall problems. So why are they able to pin the blame on you? Because you're painting a target on your back. Ducking your heads makes you a low-risk scapegoat. Scoffing at the less fortunate, regardless of…
In Houston I, and several others who live behind the gates on Sunset, have taken to volunteering A LOT of time in Third Ward for this very reason. You're a lot tougher target when your head is raised and you have a track record of advocating for the REAL underprivileged. Because chances are, the people denigrating you would never dare go to a place like Third Ward. (Which is a shame... because the people there are qu…
Can't agree more - I volunteer at an after school programme in Harlem. It connected me with a driven, intelligent 2nd grader who couldn't concentrate because three square meals a day were beyond his family's budget. That pisses one off enough to find real solutions, not duck for political cover.
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#209I take that bus routinely (though not this morning), and I can assure you that its occupants are a diverse group of East Bay residents of many races and ethnicities (black, white, asian, hispanic, etc), and though I haven't done a survey, I doubt any of us are 1%s. Many of us, myself included, support strongly progressive economic policies, but there is no real conversation to be had with people who will resort to vi…
In our industry we are privileged. I am not sure another time in history when anyone (almost) could bootstrap themselves to relative wealth compared to their neighbours and families with determined effort rather than hard labour and luck (such as the gold rush or being born into wealth). To assume that there is no problem, that everything is fine and people are just upset for the hell of it is hubris. We could become…
Who said there is no problem? Not me. I'm aware and upset about many of the same problems. However, I think smashing bus windows under presumption that those inside are uniquely responsible for the problems sends the conversation backwards, not forwards.
Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland
#210West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…
This is the general arc of "gentrification". First, a few places in the neighborhood are rehabbed by developers. Next the "...Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the ... overprivileged..." move in to the rehabbed areas and the (usually) blacks have to move out. These hippy - artist types make the neighborhood more attracti…
Is there some migration back to where all the celebrities and bankers came from?