Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley • Hacker News Board

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#241

Post by cpncrunch » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:01 PM UTC

shadowmint wrote: post #54

jijji wrote: post #21

If this guy and all of his friends would actually get off their lazy butts and get a job, they might understand the need for other people to work. We all need to make money to live, have a roof over our heads, and feed our family. Just because you don't have a job or an income doesn't mean other people shouldn't either.

That's not really a fair comment and it trivializes the issues these guys are trying to raise. Getting a job isn't the issue; it's a complex mix of the privileged position and hard work that led to them being able to get that job , which these people cant do and the extremely obvious difference in economic status having that job grants, which includes people being evicted from their homes so that higher paying indivi…

The person organizing the bus protests (Erin McElroy) has two degrees...that seems pretty privileged to me.

I don't live in SF, but it looks to me like the problem is simply lack of new housing.

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#242

Post by diydsp » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:02 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #150

02 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is exactly like those things.

but Google did not turn up mob handed an picket you house and make threats about you and your family did it.

> threats

Can you please tell me where they threatened? I'm curious to know if they overstepped the boundaries of peaceful protest.

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#243

Post by diydsp » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:06 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #227

The real problems in San Francisco and elsewhere, the problems that are hurting and displacing people, aren't caused by self-driving cars or software to make construction more efficient, and the people experiencing pain will not be made better by casting out all of the professionals, many of whom politically side with progressive causes. (And isn't doing home composting and growing your own garden what Berkeley prote…

> to describe them in dehumanizing terms (a robot).

Anthony Levandrowski has self-described himself as a robot:

"Although Levandowski spent most of his childhood in Brussels, his English has no accent aside from a certain absence of inflection—the bright, electric chatter of a processor in overdrive. “My fiancée is a dancer in her soul,” he told me. “I’m a robot.” "[1]

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_...

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#244

Post by diydsp » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:15 PM UTC

kondor6c wrote: post #81

Xdes wrote: post #38

This is a good example of what the liberal democratic movement should be about: policing corporations. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the rest of them will never end their reprehensible behavior from lawsuits or other slaps on the wrists. Until there is a boot-on-ground movement to obstruct these corporations and their employees they will continue to act without consequence using their hoards of capital.

Their employees? Certainly in all of my employment history I have never had a vote or serious decision in the direction of the company, that even goes for a non-profit school I worked for. Targeting employees is, at best, a bad idea. Who is to say that this guy didn't support them? Or others support their cause? Now they appear like kids that don't have jobs or that can otherwise afford to picket someone's house duri…

They may appear like that, but they reportedly began the protest at 7am (first sentence of the article!), not during normal work hours.

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#245

Post by smtddr » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:17 PM UTC

chroem wrote: post #49

smtddr wrote: post #24

I feel for the plight[1] these people are facing, I really do and I want to help. _BUT_ if you started showing up at my home protesting and making my family uncomfortable, that creates a different problem entirely. Anyways I'm assuming this site is fake because I can't find this being reported anywhere else... and I assume the protesters know better than to pull a stunt like this. 1. Let's be clear though, this is a…

What they're doing is trying to make it socially unacceptable to assist the NSA/ DoD, and quite frankly it's overdue. I get the feeling that most of the criticism here against the protesters is because HN identifies with the Google employee(s), not because the protesters are wrong. It's a purely emotional reaction.

Hey, I completely support the protesters. If this protest is peaceful then I'll probably just call the police. But if you do something that I perceive as an immediate physical threat to my family, the logical part of my brain shuts down and the primal part turns on. I'm not trying to justify it. I'm just telling it like it is. You won't be able to reason with me anymore than you can reason with a mother-bear whose sees her cubs in trouble. During those exact moments in time any context about the protests and any compassion I had goes out the window. All I'm thinking about is the safety of my family and will proceed to remove the threat; one way or another. I may even regret my actions afterwards but... the actions will still occur.

I'm probably getting all riled up about nothing. For all we know this could be some kind of astroturfing or another fake conflict like the fist GoogleBus incident.... this whole thing has troll written all over it. For now I'll just pretend I never even saw this article.

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#246

Post by aeorgnoieang » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:20 PM UTC

anExcitedBeast wrote: post #106

jasonkester wrote: post #51

Absolutely horrifying. More so because there are actually people here in this thread defending the crazy person who's trying to destroy somebody's life because they don't like the company he works for.

Let's pretend Google isn't causing very real problems for the poor and lower middle class in the Bay area. Let's also pretend that we can blame an inorganic "corporation", but never the individuals who design it, steer it, and totally embody it.

Oooh – pretending is so much fun! Let's pretend that housing isn't subject to supply and demand.

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#247

Post by moocowduckquack » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:22 PM UTC

andrewfong wrote: post #143

This flyer is just plain nuts. Some choice quotes: "The self-driven car has been another pet project of the DARPA for many years. It sponsored a recurring Grand Challenge for people designing self-driving vehicles, hoping someone would crack open the new technology. Anthony Levandowski was one of the wonder kids who flocked to these competitions, looking for a federal handout and fame. Now, with Google handing him mo…

Unfortunately it looks like the ideas of Ted Kaczynski + Internets + Snowden/NSA feeding into a new Luddite movement of ultra-woo. It could be a full blown cult within the year. Personally I don't think it is possible to avoid this escalating, is just about whether it is just briefly messy or turns into a more long lived affair.

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#248

Post by aaronem » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:31 PM UTC

diydsp wrote: post #235

aaronem wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument suggests a certain naïveté, or else a desire to claim there is no subtext whatsoever in organizing a mob to serve as the medium of the "communication" to which you refer. Whatever the overt message, and especially when the purported message is as confused and vaguely threatening as in this case, in the act of arranging that someone should awaken, to find a crowd surrounding his house and shouting imprec…

My argument parrots the dictionary. Yours smuggles in all kinds of baggage, such using a weak definition of the word "mob" while implying the strongest and saying "surrounding" when they were likely only in front of. Your suggestion that a subtext exists would be useful if there were a history of protestors at Google employee's houses. However, there is none beyond what you are imagining in your creative (how do you…

You talk of parroting the dictionary as though that were desirable. While a dictionary is a good and useful thing, there is much of value which is not to be found in such a book.

In particular, a dictionary concerns itself with what a given word is currently agreed upon to mean, and not with the history of the phenomenon that word might happen to denote; your apparent desire to constrain such historical consideration, to include only incidents in which a protest occurs at a Google employee's house, is quite neat, I suppose, in that it neatly sidesteps any concern over the implicit threat of violence which is part and parcel of any deployment of the tactic. But I don't find such circumscribed historiography particularly compelling.

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#249

Post by mc32 » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:31 PM UTC

nkvl wrote: post #203

dntrkv wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed the same people that are crying about the gentrification are the same people crying about the new buildings killing the culture of the city. It seems like they just want to kick all the new people out and just keep the status quo.

If the status quo means having a place to live in what was your and your family's neighborhood (cultural and actual) for a long time, yours is not really an indictment.

Perhaps, but the view fails to understand what a city is and that cities change, grow and die. Cities are not monolithic static entities. They are not 'living' museums.

Re: Demonstration at Home of Google Developer. Google Bus Blocked in Berkeley

#250

Post by aeorgnoieang » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 7:33 PM UTC

droopybuns wrote: post #95

rexreed wrote: post #36

This is getting to be a bit absurd. I understand and can sympathize with the plight of folks who feel that they are becoming economically marginalized in the region, because in many ways it is really happening. But public badgering of mid to low-level folks is not a way to gain a lot of support. It's like damaging the lobby of a Bank of America or smashing the windows of a McDonalds -- all it does is ruin the day for…

I'd take a different angle: This is the behavior of desperate people who have lost hope that our government functions and are motivated to action. This seems like the natural conclusion of our government's inattentiveness to it's citizenry. Violence isn't far when folks have achieved this level of frustration. The last line of the link makes it clear that Google isn't going to be the only target. "All of you other te…

But targeting developers is exactly backwards! Or at least it would be if development was, net, increasing the number of housing units. SF has some insane zoning laws; why aren't they a target? Or is there an implication that SF should only ever serve the interests of those that live there as-of some unspecified date in the (recent?) past? Will the police enforce the borders of the city to prevent anyone from entering or leaving? How exactly is this worker paradise supposed to work?