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Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

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Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#831
post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every major city has a crime problem and always has. The question is whether the situation is being blown out of proportion by sensationalist media or people with axes to grind. For a group that claims to be so rational, much of the HN crowd commenting here does seem to be averse to relying upon actual data.

Anecdotally whenever I hear a SF resident say the "crime problem is overblown", they almost always live in the nicer areas where there's virtually no crime. I lived on the border of the Tenderloin years ago, and saw things that I've never seen anywhere else. I knew a guy who was murdered in the Polk Gulch, I had my car broken into (and rummaged through multiple times after I started leaving the door unlocked), I had…

Anecdotally whenever I hear a SF resident say the "crime problem is overblown", they almost always live in the nicer areas where there's virtually no crime.

As someone who has lived in moderate-to-high crime areas for more of my life than not, most people who express a fear of crime are even less willing to listen to data-informed analyses supplemented with first hand experience, often behaving as if they're worried it might be contagious.

tldr; I lived in SF but now happily live in New York.

It seems like it might be instructive to compare your current happiness with the rhetoric of Marjorie Taylor Greene who visited recently to show support for Donal Trump and followed up with an online tirade about how 'repulsive' she found NYC.

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#832
post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the murder, I had to read scores of comments like this ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35456168 ) about the homeless, need for more law enforcement (although the US already incarcerates more of its population than any industrialized country) etc. I had to read scores of tech bros in the professional-managerial class whinge about the poor, about black lives matter and how this was due to "progressivism".…

That doesn’t change the facts (some of which stated in the post you linked) about the well known problems with homeless in SF.

"Well known problems" - really? how well known? Unless you can provide good sources you are simply showing selection bias.

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#833
post #712
post #22

As the news media and twitterverse peddled the whole "crime-ridden SF" angle, I felt myself getting drawn into the same topic and agreeing with numerous friends on how much the city has declined. This is a good reminder of how we gravitate towards powerful emotional narratives, which in the moment can feel absolutely true despite an utter lack of supporting facts on an individual murder case. I hope this brings some…

This is a bad take and itself an emotional narrative. For one, the person arrested is a suspect and not in any way proven or admitted to be the killer. Putting that aside, it's still a bad take because you're ignoring the many other incidents that took place on the same day, such as the SF Fire Commissioner who was beaten with a metal pipe by random drug users outside his house.

the SF Fire Commissioner who was beaten with a metal pipe by random drug users outside his house

Former fire commissioner, not outside his house (actually a parent's home), and what makes you so sure it was random? A man was arrested for that, who alleges that the victim initiated the confrontation by pepper spraying him. I'm quite interested in that case as I have relevant personal knowledge about people involved, but for that reason I'm reluctant to draw any conclusions about it for now.

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#834
post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you only feel safe because you have the means / are affluent enough to avoid crime ridden areas? That‘s not entirely fair.

Thanks for calling out privilege, but I think we should assume good faith. I don't think they were trying to say that everything is good, they're just saying the narrative isn't as simple as the media is making it look.

Affluence is not always privilege. It can be hard earned.

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#835
post #591

[flagged]

Please don't take HN threads into flamewar hell. We ban accounts that do that, and have had to ask you more than once before. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27723540 (July 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27692859 (June 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20282471 (June 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17352039 (June 2018)

It is not “starting a flame war” to point out the masses of comments that rushed to draw racist and xenophobic conclusions about the killers identity before this information was revealed. If you as moderators of HN do not moderate such behaviour in the first place, then don’t be surprised to find that users might take it into their own hands.

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#836

[flagged]

Just because a person was arrested doesn't mean that they did it. Let's wait for the trial and verdict.

As opposed to the status quo before, when we had no suspects, yet there were many many comments immediately rushing to blame homeless people?

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#837
post #20

Joe Eskenazi, the author of this piece, is a solid journalist who helps run the tiny donation-funded Mission Local. They've done incredible reporting on corruption in the SF city government and punch way above their weight in the stories they break. I have respect for how Joe refused to join in reporting this murder as evidence of a violent crime epidemic, while still reporting on homelessness and property crime.

[deleted]

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the murder, I had to read scores of comments like this ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35456168 ) about the homeless, need for more law enforcement (although the US already incarcerates more of its population than any industrialized country) etc. I had to read scores of tech bros in the professional-managerial class whinge about the poor, about black lives matter and how this was due to "progressivism".…

What percentage are entrepreneurs and what percentage are people with mental health problems and or drug addiction?

Umm. Lots of entrepreneurs have both mental health problems and use drugs. Especially use drugs.

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#839
post #608
post #440

It’s pretty incredible to me that the whole community on the last thread was fixated on the fact that it must’ve been the homeless/drug addicts. What kind of place is it where you immediately dismiss premeditated murder, or even throw it up as 50-50?

I think that says more about Hacker News than SF. There's a level of hate for the city here that I don't understand. Feels a bit like a vendetta sometimes.

A lot of people on HN came to SF from elsewhere for money/career reasons, and were upset to discover that the city is not an extension of the Moscone Center (ironically enough named after a former mayor who was murdered - by one of the city supervisors who thought he was too 'woke': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Moscone).

Re: Arrest made in SF killing of Bob Lee – alleged killer also worked in tech

#840
post #22

As the news media and twitterverse peddled the whole "crime-ridden SF" angle, I felt myself getting drawn into the same topic and agreeing with numerous friends on how much the city has declined. This is a good reminder of how we gravitate towards powerful emotional narratives, which in the moment can feel absolutely true despite an utter lack of supporting facts on an individual murder case. I hope this brings some…

I don’t understand why it can’t be both: SF is degenerating when it comes to random crime AND this murder wasn’t by some random thug. I remember reading blog after blog on HN about people moving out of SF specifically for what the city had become.

Because one topic, homelessness and its contribution to crime is irrelevant to the topic at hand, the tragic murder of a person. Yet there was a rush to link them. Why discuss them together when doing so implies a causal connection between them?
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