311–320 of 340 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This "top earner" wants more tax increases. I'm not alone. What I do not want is to be subject to violent attacks for getting up and going to work in the morning, nor to be compared to Glenn Beck for having no sympathy for the violent criminals doing so.
Perhaps you should do something about income inequality then.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only plausible theory I've read on why chemtrails might exist is that they're tests of some kind of anti-global-warming geo-engineering tech that involves spraying of nano particles to increase the Earth's albedo. So they either don't exist or don't really matter to anyone. My point is that these and some of the other examples I gave are clueless bullshit LARPing issues of the faux-left and are not relevant to ac…
> The only plausible theory I've read on why chemtrails might exist... OK, not to take this to a discussion about chemtrails, but I'm not sure I'd be so cavalier about claiming that they don't matter, any more than I would be about saying that they do. BTW, if the U.S. government is involved in such a somewhat massive, radical, and obviously covert anti-global warming campaign, then that's a story in itself. > My poi…
I think that's a complex question.
The simple reason: I think most of the people with real grievances are too busy trying to make ends meet. Meanwhile people with financially underwritten agendas and/or trustafarian types who don't have to work have plenty of time to dominate the conversation.
But there are deeper issues too. At one time those so-called "trustafarian" types did campaign for workers' rights, higher wages, etc. Now they mostly campaign for trendy eco issues and other ideological issues that have little relationship to reality and no relationship to the plight of the poor. I don't know if that's intentionally constructed or a product of some sort of breakdown in social communication, but that seems to be the way it is.
The cynic in me says this: in reality these people hate the poor. The poor are dirty, uneducated, and worst of all often harbor conservative/religious social values. Moreover empowering the poor and raising their standard of living is in conflict with environmental goals of reducing resource consumption. Who wants to use more energy and land and what-not just to take care of a bunch of rednecks and brown people? That's why activism today is basically a LARP where overprivileged mostly-white children of baby boomers try to re-live their parents' glory days and where trustafarians with dreads try to show off their street cred to get laid with cute hippie chicks. That's why they pick trendy issues that don't help or in a few cases might actually hurt the poor (e.g. limiting new construction).
I think there's a bit of truth in the cynical view unfortunately.
What's the solution? For starters, I really think people should ignore "activists" that have no skin in the game. Ask yourself if they really know what they're talking about. Are they actually affected by the issue? If not, they may well be thrusting themselves into an issue for reasons that have more to do with fashion statements and scenesterism than genuine concern or well-informed efforts to improve anything.
Take GMO foods for example, an issue I've repeatedly used as an example of a trendy LARP-protestor hobby horse. I do take protestors of GMO foods seriously when they're farmers that have been wrongfully sued for patent infringement by biotech companies, and I group that under the whole problem of patent law abuse and patent trolling that also affects the software industry. So there are people who protest GMO foods that ought to be taken seriously. But the yuppie larvae who are convinced they're going to kill us all because some quack web site says so? Fuck them. They're just clogging our informational arteries with irrelevant fear-mongering bullshit and detracting from the real issue at hand.
So let's say we do that. Ignore the LARPers, but listen to the victims of IP law abuse. That leads us somewhere the LARPers never do, namely somewhere productive and empowering, since it means that those farmers can and should make common cause with those who campaign against software patents. Now we have something that has real political meaning, a real coalition to actually get something meaningful done that can help real people.
West 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…
A very similar situation is happening in Vancouver. In the older part of town, just past Gastown, Vancouver's original neighbourhood, lies the Downtown East Side. The DTES is 'Canada's poorest postal code', and is home to a large population of Vancouver's homeless. In true Canadian fashion, it's generally a safe and vibrant area, both despite and because of the homeless population living there (compared to the suburb…
Earlier 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yeah - all political protest that uses modern technology is automatically hypocritical. No, only those protesting modern technology. Protest Gitmo with modern technology all you want. Nothing wrong with that.
None of this is about protesting modern technology.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Longview comment is from the Longview, Washington Union rep, not Oakland. The driver interviewed there is also not a longshoreman, and very likely not repped by a union at all. The Occupy Oakland movement was not a monolithic group of dreadlocked, burning man, trustafarians as you implied, but it's a convenient mis-characterization, as is your implication that the Union was only interested in avoiding alienating…
I don't think you're effectively rebutting my larger point, which is that these protesters represent themselves as being of one population, when they are in fact of another. Certainly, if I change my statement to "some port workers" were economically damaged by the protest, purportedly on their behalf, in which they did not participate or call for, the point remains. Regarding the "convenient mis-characterization" --…
Let's assume that they are all shiftless, white, dreadlocked, trustafarians. They are not representing themselves as being OF that population of poor minorities but rather are advocating FOR the population of underrepresented, poor minorities. How then are they different than wealthy benefactors donating to AIDS relief or anti-malarial programs in Africa? Well, they are donating their time, not their money, but if they do have so much money one wonders why they wouldn't simply donate that... You also make the observation that the individuals that are actually being negatively effected by gentrification in West Oakland are off working on their second or third jobs at that hour of the day, then wouldn't they need someone that is in a more comfortable position to advocate on their behalf?
It's interesting that you ask me for some empirical, measured data on the ethnic and class background of Occupiers. Because of the nature of that movement, it's nearly impossible to pin them down on anything. I was an observer at many Occupy events elsewhere, however, and what I found was very deep suspicion of anyone not directly involved in planning, so I'm afraid that it would be basically impossible to conduct the kind of research you're talking about. I was not involved with Occupy Oakland, but I know a few people who were, and interestingly enough, they had some of the same problems with other activists that you have. I do not think you are entirely wrong there. Certainly, some of the people that got involved just wanted to smoke weed, make idiotic signs, chant slogans and get laid, but it's ludicrous to suggest that the majority of activists involved there were of that ilk. It would also be ludicrous to suggest that there weren't any pseudo-activists. They were certainly there.
Personally, I found the Occupy movement's organizational non-structure to be self-defeating and it's no surprise that it has almost completely fizzled out. I also find the tactics being used by these particular protesters to be somewhat wrong-headed. In your original post though, you showed absolute disgust for these people and and in my own experience, they don't all deserve it. It will be interesting to find out more about what actually happened at this protest.
"Someone threw fliers with a smiley face logo and the message disrupt google into the air." Hilarious! Disrupt Google! Lots of posts here "there's more constructive ways to deal with this". How constructive is a bunch of pigs evicting a family because their landlord is jacking up the rent because a bunch of Google hipster yuppies want to slum it in Oakland? Then there's the usual "these people weren't the poorest peo…
That seems perfectly reasonable to me, assuming the eviction is legal.
This is a nation of laws. People like you who don't believe in rule of law need to find a country of your own.
Time for Google, et. al to switch to Uber / Lyft / etc? Not as eco or commute friendly, but a lot less noticeable. Or maybe time to subsidize publicly accessible commuter bus lines?
Uber/Lyft/cars would have a much bigger impact on traffic on 101, which is already terrible congested during rush hour. The buses help to minimize the impact of commuters.
Public commuter options eliminate some of the convenience for two reasons. First, Google has a single destination for everyone which reduces commute times. As you increase the number of destinations, you increase the possible routes exponentially, making it much less feasible to have direct routes everywhere. Second, you can't do confidential work when on public transportation. So you would be much more limited in what you can accomplish during the commute.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this is a case of Apple employees smashing up Google buses. Maybe their peers from college who got the same degrees went off to find productive jobs, but I am struggling to believe that these particular people did. If you cannot leverage your degree, then your degree is worthless (at least in your hands).
You've misinterpreted me. I am in no way suggesting that Apple employees are smashing a Google bus. I'm just trying to clear up two big assumptions people in this thread are making. 1. Humanities degrees aren't monetarily worthless. They're quite valuable (measured in dollars) to people who are passionate about the user experience, because they help those people land and hold onto design jobs. I mentioned Apple becau…