NYTimes picked it up as breaking news:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/technology/cash-app-found...
Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
821–830 of 1001 posts
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#822Its a real bummer with SF, but the problems are totally self inflicted. If the politics were of a different breed I could see it being one of the best cities to live in the US, let alone the world. Having worked there for close to a decade the stuff I have seen was really depressing. I visited my cousin who works at Ouster nearby for lunch one day and was wondering what all these white casings were littering the grou…
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And here's the reason why. SF is arguably the most progressive city in the most progressive state in the nation (well, maybe Berkeley is more progressive but let's consider large cities). They have enjoyed Republican-free politics for decades now. Last Republican mayor of SF has left office in 1964. And on any trouble, what are we seeing? "Akshually, the real socialism has never been tried yet, let's try it more!". Well, I guess we can call it an experiment on how long it would take for people to recognize the pattern here. Unfortunately, so far the results are not encouraging.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#823Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? When I'm given a task to complete, my first instinct is to find where other developers have done what I'm asked to do and then utilize their wisdom into my own solution which will likely look very similar to theirs. Why do we see such drastically different approaches to solving issues in society and government? Want bette…
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Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#824I have commented on SF threads before regarding the violent crime. I don't think we have figured out if this was premeditated or not, but either way, SF is becoming incredibly dangerous. Progressive DA's and a neutered police force are to blame for the rise in violent crime. Many of my friends have taken their remote gigs and left SF in the last 3 years. What's the point in rolling the dice every time you walk outsid…
It’s of questionable taste to use someone’s death to advance your politics when the facts are known and can be fairly used as evidence that your tribe is right about something. It’s in poor taste indeed to acknowledge that you don’t know the facts of a murder, and to still insist that the killing supports your politics.
The truth hurts
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#825Its a real bummer with SF, but the problems are totally self inflicted. If the politics were of a different breed I could see it being one of the best cities to live in the US, let alone the world. Having worked there for close to a decade the stuff I have seen was really depressing. I visited my cousin who works at Ouster nearby for lunch one day and was wondering what all these white casings were littering the grou…
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As a non-USian, SF actually makes a lot of sense to me now.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#826I find it shocking that anyone still chooses to live in this broken city. I left >4 years ago and am never coming back. It's unfixable. Let's move the tech industry somewhere that isn't rotten to the core.
Or most cities for that matter. I keep hearing "but culture" and I scratch my head... is culture expensive bars, restaurants, breweries? Yes the museums and art galleries can be cool, but most people see those once every few years. Similar to concerts/live music, its easy to travel into a city a few times per year for an event. Otherwise, they seem far from vibrant. (I've lived in SF, NYC, and LA - and haven't been b…
Most Americans have no idea what "culture" is; they assume it refers exclusively to consumption, i.e. what is available to consume and how people prefer to consume it.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#827The residents of San Francisco are going to start having to wear chainmail soon to just go grocery shopping.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#828Bob was a good friend, tried to hire me numerous tries at Square, and was my next door neighbor for 3 years. I knew him well and spent a lot of time with him. He will be dearly missed. I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit. That being said, I left San Francisco in 2018 because I was worried I would eventually become the random murder that would finally…
My condolences for your loss. Simultaneously, I don't understand your post. The second paragraph states "I have been told from very well placed sources in the US Intelligence community this is probably a hit." But then the rest of your post rails against the SF crime problem in general, finishing with "And now a good friend is fucking dead." Starting off by saying it was likely a hit would appear to indicate that SF'…
To be fair, it's probably easier to organize a hit in a city where murder and crime are somewhat regular occurrences. Not that I am saying this was a hit.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#829Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? When I'm given a task to complete, my first instinct is to find where other developers have done what I'm asked to do and then utilize their wisdom into my own solution which will likely look very similar to theirs. Why do we see such drastically different approaches to solving issues in society and government? Want bette…
> Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? Because half the country doesn't like the answers that experience produces. Reducing crime isn't hard: support and hire police, put criminals behind bars, and ticket even small/petty crime (broken windows policing). The formula works but because evenly applying the rules produces disparate outcomes among various groups…
It’s the “evenly applying the rules” part where everything breaks down in the US.
Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco
#830I have commented on SF threads before regarding the violent crime. I don't think we have figured out if this was premeditated or not, but either way, SF is becoming incredibly dangerous. Progressive DA's and a neutered police force are to blame for the rise in violent crime. Many of my friends have taken their remote gigs and left SF in the last 3 years. What's the point in rolling the dice every time you walk outsid…
It’s really simple and I don’t understand why progressives can’t grasp this. You need to snuff out crime. There’s a reasonable way to do it without swinging across to either extreme. If the police force won’t cooperate, clean house and hire again. It’s a relatively low skilled job that is easy to hire for. Get the homeless off the street, snuff out petty crime or you’re basically dooming the progressive mandate as so…
I lean rather leftist in how I think about addressing social issues so we may have differing opinions on correct solutions, but your general assessment on the city's problems and its root issue being a lack of strong conviction and follow through is spot on.
I agree the SFPD’s lack of cooperation and inaction is a central issue that needs addressing by cleaning house and rebuilding. The leftist proposal (often shorthanded to “abolish the police”) would say wipe away the current structure that answers to no one built for antagonism and punishment and replace it with a service bound to strong community oversight tasked with protection, aid, and rehabilitation.
That idea may be the literal scientifically perfect solution to crime or an impossibly impractical utopian fantasy but we’ll never know from SF’s vague motions. Appointing Boudin DA so he could reduce charges and lessen punishments without making corresponding changes in the police force to focus on community outreach and aid services was never a real attempt that could be judged, and was hamstrung from the beginning in a way that could only result in failure.
But even if you think real try at that proposal would never work and the correct solution for addressing crime in SF is something very different the same type of failure is guaranteed if the city doesn’t address the point you made. If the police refuse to act in accordance with the wishes of the community and aren’t replaced with people who will the city will never have a cohesively focused law enforcement strategy that any approach requires to have a chance at succeeded.
The homelessness issue is the exact same thing with SF continuing to be afraid to commit to anything more than half measures regardless of costs. The city has a homeless population of around 8-10 thousand and spends around $1.1b a year on services. Over $100k per person, a bit more than the average income in the city, how does that make any sense? Providing every homeless person an apartment, free food, healthcare, drug rehabilitation, and job search services would very likely cost less and actually solve the issue. Like yes that's a massive simplification and not actually workable in the current world, especially without the rest of the country providing similar services, but it approximates an actual plan with singular direction and the numbers involved highlight demonstrate the problem.
San Francisco really wants to be seen as progressive on homelessness so it keeps throwing large amounts of money at one-off half-baked projects like $5k a month per person on tent spaces in parking lots to prevent COVID spread in the homeless or $70k a year to fund new beds in shelters the homeless can only sleep in at night or $1.7m to build a single public toilet.
At the same time it really wants it to seem like its listening to its tax payers and taking action with visible effect so it also tosses however many millions on encampment sweeps, building hostile architecture, and having law enforcement harass or temporarily arrest the homeless all of which just results in the homeless moving somewhere else a few blocks away.
So it ends up wasting this extraordinary amount of money and effort doing a whole bunch of nothing instead of you know, actually getting the homeless off the street. Because that would require establishing a goal with measurable criteria, forming a comprehensive plan to accomplish it, and working as a cohesive public body to make it happen.
I really rambling here but I feel like pretty much every single issue in San Francisco stems from this same problem. The city and its government is terrified of doing anything that requires the integrity to build a concrete project that it could be judged by, in whichever political direction, and so it keeps creating a giant mismatch of conflicting partial measures it can parade around as progress to counter criticism and avoid quantifiable failure while never actually making any forward movement. See everything with the schools or the cost of living or public transit or other infrastructure or a million other things for even more examples of this.
As long as SF continues to half-ass everything and avoid commitment nothing is going to change.