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Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

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Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#181

Post by slededit »

hueving wrote: post #54
hummel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Weak economics, low employment, and large government debt (US anyone?) are not relevant when you bring talents, Quality of life is, and Spain or Italy are high above the mentioned countries. Also is much more cost-effective and secure. Ask yourself why many Europeans choose to retire to Spain. But I do agree, we export talent to anywhere, where Spanish professionals, executives or researchers lead the way on m…

>and large government debt (US anyone?) The comparison to the US is not apt because the US has control over its own currency. This is critical for high debt scenarios because it leaves the option of essentially printing money via a program like quantitative easing to always ensure interest rates on fed bonds don't get out of control. This serves the purpose of providing favorable rates for the government as well as i…

Canada solves this among its provinces with equalization payments. Unless you want economic deadzones its the only way to solve the problem.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#182

Post by woodpanel »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #179
woodpanel wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meet your self-proclaimed „activist“ in charge, Berlin-Kreuzberg’s housing councilor [1]. Born in Cologne (not Berlin), finished School in Frankfurt (not Berlin), studied humanities for nine years (in Hamburg, Barcelona and then Berlin). And before holding political office never once worked in a private sector job where he payed into social security. Pretty much ironic what goes as anti-gentrificationista these days.…

We should be careful about easily judging others, there are different life philosophies and diverse definitions of success in life, and different paths than most people in this forum have taken. But I have to agree here. He is portrayed in this documentary for his fight against a major housing property investor and shows the camera team around his Kreuzberg flat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI2QpsWQgEA&t=580s I r…

While I echo your concerns about judgements I stated him as a perfect example of what agitators of anti-gentrificationists are.

Let's not loose focus of my main argument here: How are people claiming the moral highground on who should become a new tenant, if they themselves where new tenants very recently?

How can you call yourself an "activist" on the good side of democracy or morale in general, whilst being an office-holding politician, without even being elected into that office?

And regarding your admiration for him for living in a 2-room Kreuzberg apartment

... I grew up the same way, where is my medallion for that ? Do I get extra points for not getting to choose to live that way, like he did?

... as a housing councilor of the city rest assured he's not poor, makes 7.533,07 € a month [1], 2.3 times the median Berliner income

... and wasn't poor before that, indicated by the fact that his family used to travel frequently between homes in Barcelona and Berlin

[1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/berliner-bezirke-stellen-...

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#183

Post by nkkollaw »

As cool as Berlin art is, so is a Google campus for tech people and business in general?

If I picture a gentrification activist I think about a purple-haired kid that wouldn't get a job if his life depended on it, making people that might be interested and have the skills to work at Google miss an opportunity.

On the other hand, Google could have picked another spot instead of giving up?

How is it..?

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#184

Post by DanielleMolloy »

woodpanel wrote: post #182
DanielleMolloy wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should be careful about easily judging others, there are different life philosophies and diverse definitions of success in life, and different paths than most people in this forum have taken. But I have to agree here. He is portrayed in this documentary for his fight against a major housing property investor and shows the camera team around his Kreuzberg flat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI2QpsWQgEA&t=580s I r…

While I echo your concerns about judgements I stated him as a perfect example of what agitators of anti-gentrificationists are. Let's not loose focus of my main argument here: How are people claiming the moral highground on who should become a new tenant, if they themselves where new tenants very recently? How can you call yourself an "activist" on the good side of democracy or morale in general, whilst being an offi…

I thought the video added a bit to the characterization of the agitator, which you had started ;)

I didn't admire his living conditions, I think you misunderstood me here. He is indeed not exactly poor^1, maybe unable to pay for decent housing for a family in a Kreuzberg with rising rents. But he would certainly be able to pay for a decently sized apartment in a less hip quarter. It looks as if he is not willing to for reasons we can only speculate about.

1: You added the numbers, and this is certainly enough money for much better living conditions even in the hippest quarters of Berlin.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#185

Post by eigenvector »

pteredactyl wrote: post #89
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> help diversify the tech ecosystem in Berlin and give them access to facilities and other resources. Another way of looking at that, is "gentrify the vibrant neighbourhood by trucking in techbros to displace the artists". It's not new (1) I don't necessarily agree with that framing, but it is understandable and coherent, not a misunderstanding 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18282143

The mutual exclusivity is naive at best. To me, it shows haters' level of intellect. And perhaps explains why they feel left out. They're attached to an ideal of what 'art' (additionally, activism[1]) should be. An outdated, 20th century one. I personally don't like Google. And I understand your framing is hypothetical. But why is tech framed the opposite of art? Why is tech equal to techbro? Yea there are always bad…

The mutual exclusivity is valid. Being able to do stuff that requires a lot of time and doesn't make a lot of money (i.e. art) requires a low cost of living. Adding a bunch of people making $200k+ into a neighbourhood does the opposite of that, very rapidly and very predictably.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#186

Post by jkaplowitz »

eigenvector wrote: post #185
pteredactyl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mutual exclusivity is naive at best. To me, it shows haters' level of intellect. And perhaps explains why they feel left out. They're attached to an ideal of what 'art' (additionally, activism[1]) should be. An outdated, 20th century one. I personally don't like Google. And I understand your framing is hypothetical. But why is tech framed the opposite of art? Why is tech equal to techbro? Yea there are always bad…

The mutual exclusivity is valid. Being able to do stuff that requires a lot of time and doesn't make a lot of money (i.e. art) requires a low cost of living. Adding a bunch of people making $200k+ into a neighbourhood does the opposite of that, very rapidly and very predictably.

Most people working for tech startups (as opposed to for Google itself) don't make anywhere near that salary, especially not outside the major US tech hubs. This campus would have been a startup incubator, not a regular Google office.

That said, yes it would have still contributed to gentrification in a less extreme way than a true Google office.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#187

Post by kadendogthing »

Kalium wrote: post #175
kadendogthing wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's patently obvious that none of these asshole techbros has ever actually tried at all, right? It's also pretty obvious when techbro's lack any kind of liberal arts education, or general praxis around the various subjects encompassed in liberal arts. You typically see this in discussions around government or social policies. But it can rear its head in literature to, like when the usage of satire is so out of pla…

> The obstacle being ego. Ah. Well. At least I now understand what you mean. Though I've found deflating the egos of every person in a discussion to be a difficult task. Telling a person getting a hostile reception to get their ego out of the way tends to come across a lot like telling someone to take the licks they deserve, complete with generally being discarded out of hand. Telling a person who feels righteous ang…

> And maybe help you understand the people you appear to viscerally despise as human beings

I'm sorry, who do I despise exactly? I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#188

Post by marcell »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #22
jschuur wrote: post #9

If I read the article correctly, this wasn't about building a new 'Google campus' (i.e. a huge building to house a large number of Google employees as their main regional HQ). This was about building Campus Berlin, an incubator for startups like they pioneered first in London and then brought to other cities. See https://www.campus.co/berlin/de and https://www.campus.co/london/en . It's easy to misunderstand this bec…

> help diversify the tech ecosystem in Berlin and give them access to facilities and other resources. Another way of looking at that, is "gentrify the vibrant neighbourhood by trucking in techbros to displace the artists". It's not new (1) I don't necessarily agree with that framing, but it is understandable and coherent, not a misunderstanding 1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18282143

Since when is a bunch of nerds “techbros”? I really hate this term. If I like programming and computers and databases, am I a techbro? Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

Re: Google drops plans for Berlin campus after protests

#190

Post by joering2 »

jschuur wrote: post #9

If I read the article correctly, this wasn't about building a new 'Google campus' (i.e. a huge building to house a large number of Google employees as their main regional HQ). This was about building Campus Berlin, an incubator for startups like they pioneered first in London and then brought to other cities. See https://www.campus.co/berlin/de and https://www.campus.co/london/en . It's easy to misunderstand this bec…

I don’t care what it is! Nothing good ever came out product-wise from Google other than search engine. Let Google search, period!

You can argue that we have second most popular operating system thanks to Google but you can’t argue that have not Google someone else would have filled in the void. And now that despicable news came out about Android founder and how Google covered for him, its akward looking at friends devices thinking to yourself: this has been invented by a total creep with a dream of slavery times being back so he can own people. Disgusting! I mean imagine if it came out that Jobs was a big fan of Hitler or enjoyed fantasizing about mass-blanket genocide! Would you still buy Apple products? And then there is that PR spin that it was fun kinky game of two. No it wasnt as she barely knew him! If I email 7 billion individuals with plan to own them and lease them, how many will come back defending me that it was okay because it was “only a kinky game.”

I applaud Germans for not being gullable when it comes to Internet. Germany amongst all European Union nations have the most strict rules and regulations protecting citizens first and foremost, not foreign entities that pay squad of taxes within German borders. Even on email protection alone you cannot email someone without double optins. We need similar protection laws in USA and Google needs to stick to search!

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