251–260 of 296 posts
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> I personally feel the world is a much better place (certainly Oakland is) with highly skilled employees flushing out the trash. To what or whom does "the trash" refer in your comment?
I think he's referring to the people who make Oakland one of the most dangerous cities in country to live in.
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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.
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/2013/11/2…
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.
The point of the protest isn't to destroy a person's life, the point of the protest is to (1) make Google's employees reluctant to continue being Google's employees and as a result (2) make Google rethink their official and unofficial policies, in order to (3) make the world a better place. AFAIK, they haven't really hurt anybody (this time). They are just pressing the points that (they think will) hurt the most.
Meanwhile, Kiev is under siege by a REAL threat, and children in Africa are starving. Every single one of these "demonstrators" seeking to prevent people from working, harassing them, and destroying their personal property needs to seriously rethink their priorities in life.
When you attack an individual because of the place s/he chooses to work you take the "Let's all protest the activities of Big X" down to a personal level. I'd be horrified if I woke up and found a large group of people protesting in front of my house because of who I work for. Reading this message, I instantly put myself in that employee's shoes and instantly became hostile toward the organization arranging this. I m…
Question: people will often protest at the houses of CEOs, who consider themselves just employees doing their jobs. E.g. after the Bhopal disaster, people protested at the home of the Union Carbide CEO as he was trying to evade responsibility and minimize payouts to the victims. Is this inappropriate? I agree with you that the protestors didn't gain anything from this particular protest and did harm to their cause, i…
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I've never felt the need for a down vote button for a comment on Hacker News until now. Yes, we should be ethically aware of the tools and products we build, but this is not the way to go about this! Harassing a man at his home like this is unnecessary and aggressive. Please stop the promotion of individual harassment.
When people block Google busses, and break one window of one bus , it's inappropriate violence on par with barbarism [1]. When people peacefully protest a Google employee and try to raise awareness in his neighborhood of his activities that they disagree with, it's individual harassment. Isn't that just lovely? Hacker News: privileged technologists setting the standards for techno-skeptical protest. Tell us what the…
When you explicitly state, and act, with the intention to prevent people from leaving their own home, effectively placing them in a state of house arrest, then sorry, your protest is no longer any more peaceful than the force implied by that house arrest.
Hiding behind "raising awareness in the neighborhood" is a disingenuous sham that exposes a duplicity. What relevance has "representative parliamentary democracy" to your argument other than to make you feel martyred?
Remember, you are actively threatening a family that you will not let them leave their home, there is a distinct, and real, fear of how far you will go to do so. For all your "blocking busses, and breaking one window" (carefully emphasized to minimize), there's the Seattle WTO protests and everything in between, and a distinct set of people who -will- resort to violence that constitutes a non-zero threat to this man and his family's well being that you wave away as nothing.
At least have the courage of your convictions and stop pretending it's just some people "raising awareness".
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I'm a marxist - certainly not aligned with any right wing libertarians. But right from the headline that article disgusts me. Unless they have concrete proof that this specific guy have done something particularly bad (and they've not presented any), calling him out by name and with photos of his home is way over the line to begin with. Not only is it creepy, it is deeply counterproductive and will only serve to alie…
My wife is from Cuba, I've witnessed first hand what "applied" marxism creates, misery and strife. Let alone places like North Korea etc.. Honest question, how do you cope with the reality vs the ideal?
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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.
These protesters are skirting the real issue which is that they cannot afford prime SF real estate anymore. When these protesters, themselves, were uprooting the original inhabitants they did not really care but now that they are being uprooted, they suddenly are crying foul. The criticism here against the protesters is because they are asking for free handouts rather than them actually working to earn them. Yes I un…
I cannot up vote or emphasize this enough. They do not want the Meatpacking District of the early 20th Century. They want the bohemian eclecticism that -they- created in the 80s and 90s when they evicted -those- families.
And now it's happening to them, and it's the most evil thing that needs to be stopped by any means necessary.
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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 enterin…
If I lived in SF- i would be concerned that something major has changed. Your response describes reasonable questions in a level playing field where people have hope that the system works.
I don't think these people have hope in the system anymore. They're trying fundamentally different approaches rather than just giving up.
If they are willing to go after specific employees like this in spite of perception damages that come with the approach, they probably aren't averse to the perception damages that violence cultivates either.