I'm curious what the results would be if they polled the homeless there.
Polls should actually exclude people with homes!
70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
181–190 of 260 posts
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then they should say "reform the police" not "defund the police". If you "defund the police", they will cease to exist, since nobody will be paying them. It might or might not be what the "defund" people are actually want, but it is what they are saying , so it isn't really a strawman argument. Personally, I assume people actually mean what they say, so I think it's more likely they just want to be "radical" and have…
> Then they should say "reform the police" not "defund the police". If you "defund the police", they will cease to exist, since nobody will be paying them. Great idea, let's call the CEO of a grass roots protest and have their marketing department update the website copy. Do you realize what you are saying? > Personally, I assume people actually mean what they say, so I think it's more likely they just want to be "ra…
The more useful skill in life is to take written statements at face value. Otherwise a more valuable life lesson will be learned when you challenge a written contract in court.
Even slogans must be taken at face value, e.g. the Jews in Europe who could have escaped Nazism in the early phase, but waited too long because “they can’t be serious…just read past the slogans, it will all pass.” Godwin’s “law” notwithstanding…just one egregious example among many.
Not suggesting SF is at this stage, but a blasé attitude to what is actually being said in these situations has had severe consequences in the recent past. If you say “defund the police”, you better mean “defund the police” because any mature adult excepting your parents (maybe your grandparents) are going to interpret it as abolishing/crowdsourcing(?) the police. If you don’t mean that, then don’t say that. If it’s just unclear, than stop saying it and say something clearer. It’s the responsible thing to do.
Late in Timothy Leary’s life he was giving his standard spiel and he was surrounded by the usual burnouts and psychedelic enthusiasts who were being unusually silly, naive and annoying. A friend commented to him “Does it ever seem to you that all the neurons you killed off over the years have reincarnated into these people?” You wonder about the homeless being the karmic hair shirt some older SF folks wear to repent for their misspent youth/adulthood or accidentally winning the housing lottery. There but for the grace of tech dollars and Daddy’s money go I.
PS: Doesn’t it seem the cities most bought into these political fads are also those with the most self-indulgent parenting styles? Might be worth a study.
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#183The same thing has happened in Portland and Seattle, both cities with increasing amounts of property crime, increasing amounts of homeless campers taking up public spaces, increasing amounts of harassment from vagrants, widespread open drug-abuse, increasing amounts of blight as pristine greenbelts are trashed, and a revolving door of criminals who are released into the public without consequence by a permissive city leadership. Calls for "restorative justice" always mean being soft on crime, which removes deterrents for crime, and therefore enable increased crime. It's all so obvious and predictable, but these cities are such extreme political echo chambers that no other perspective is really represented or considered at all.
In Seattle, these policies were spurred on by motivated progressive activists who aggressively shouted down all dissent in protests, council meetings, and in social media. The rush of transplants from outside Washington state changed local politics significantly over the last decade, importing a lot of SF's policies as the voting constituency changed. As a result, Seattle experiences all the same blight SF does, but with a time delay of a few years. There have been a couple great documentaries about the deterioration in Seattle such as "Seattle is Dying" (https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw) and "The Fight for the Soul of Seattle" (https://youtu.be/WijoL3Hy_Bw) that provide a great overview of the issues. The business community also wrote two comprehensive reports about the failure of restorative justice policies as well, called "System Failure" (https://downtownseattle.org/files/advocacy/system-failure-pr...) and "System Failure 2" (https://downtownseattle.org/files/advocacy/System-Failure-Pa...).
The response from city leadership? Gaslighting, denial, and absolute arrogance (https://www.seattle.gov/cityattorney/news/seattle-isnt-dying) as they continue to ignore the needs of tax-paying law-abiding residents in favor of vocal activists and criminals. I don't think long-time residents have any confidence that Seattle will return to the peaceful, beautiful city it once was given how things have changed and how they continue to get worse. It's gotten to the point where even businesses have just given up and don't report crimes (https://mynorthwest.com/1538741/uwajimaya-seattle-prolific-o...), which results in skewed crime figures that don't tell the real story. And just like SF, now businesses have begun closing stores due to unchecked criminality (https://komonews.com/news/local/bartell-drugs-closing-in-dow...).
More recently, we've seen these policies and political attitudes spread to bigger cities like LA and NYC. LA's district attorney George Gascon now faces a recall (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/19/us/george-gascon.html). In NYC, residents and businesses are furious because the DAs dropped charges against hundreds of looters without any charges (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9705219/Fury-New-Yo...). As for Chesa Boudin of SF, although he faces a recall, I am not confident it will succeed due to how much support he has from progressives, and because of the money pouring in to defend him from outside of SF (see https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/These-charts-show-...).
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good point. The rioting encouraged by politicians and the media happened in 2020.
Anything else happen that year?
Instead of being passive aggressive with this psuedo-scoratic bullshit, why don't you just say outright what you mean? You're talking about covid.
A global pandemic is a shitty excuse for these hyper-local phenomena. It's not covid; it's the voting public of San Francisco (and two or three other west coast cities) and the disastrous politicians they elect.
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
By that logic, re: outlawing speeding: "imagine making driving a crime."
That's not my logic. My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish. Do you realise it's not a crime in other countries? It's not in the UK and yet we have a lower road-death rate than the US. What are jaywalking laws for anyway?
«no jaywalking» and «no speeding» are two sides of the effort to maintain the order
Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Police reform does not mean the police should not exist. It means the police should be reformed. So that is a strawman argument. Equating police reform with being anti-police plays right into propaganda.
Then they should say "reform the police" not "defund the police". If you "defund the police", they will cease to exist, since nobody will be paying them. It might or might not be what the "defund" people are actually want, but it is what they are saying , so it isn't really a strawman argument. Personally, I assume people actually mean what they say, so I think it's more likely they just want to be "radical" and have…
[deleted]
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not my logic. My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish. Do you realise it's not a crime in other countries? It's not in the UK and yet we have a lower road-death rate than the US. What are jaywalking laws for anyway?
«no jaywalking» and «no speeding» are two sides of the effort to maintain the order Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.
I don’t see how they’re two sides to anything? In the UK we have speeding laws but no jaywalking laws. You clearly don’t need both in order to balance or form a compromise.
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not my logic. My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish. Do you realise it's not a crime in other countries? It's not in the UK and yet we have a lower road-death rate than the US. What are jaywalking laws for anyway?
> My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish. Putting oneself in the path of a multi-ton vehicle that doesn't expect you to be there and placing the onus on them to avoid committing vehicular manslaughter when you could use a space explicitly designat…
As an aside: when I jaywalk, it's because the cars are more predictable than at nearby intersections. Drivers don't always expect pedestrians, and when they start to move when I don't expect, I have no way to predict that or defend myself.
I guess traveling safely is unpopular on HN, just like in SF.
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#189I feel like there has been a whole targeted campaign against SF recently. Am I seeing faces in clouds?
Re: 70% of San Francisco residents say quality of life has declined: poll
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anything else happen that year?
Instead of being passive aggressive with this psuedo-scoratic bullshit, why don't you just say outright what you mean? You're talking about covid. A global pandemic is a shitty excuse for these hyper-local phenomena. It's not covid; it's the voting public of San Francisco (and two or three other west coast cities) and the disastrous politicians they elect.
The crime spike @Justin_K alluded to was national, not hyper-local.
https://www.vox.com/22344713/murder-violent-crime-spike-surg...