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Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

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Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#861

Post by muyuu »

dxbydt wrote: post #671

Speaking as an immigrant - Worked in SF most of last decade. Left in 2018. Crime was on a steady uptick while I was there. Once in the Bart, a young man grabbed a cellphone from the guy seated right next to me & bolted out of the train. The train started, and the cellphone owner gave chase. The Bart police arrived soon after, with guns pointed straight at the passengers. The robber was fast and jumped over the turnst…

the wealthier cities won't remain wealthier forever with rampant crime and civil disarray

once upon a time, not that long ago from a historical PoV (the 1950s), Detroit was THE wealthiest city in the USA and it's now among the poorest

and if you look at the decay of those once-wealthy cities, the pattern is that they took it for granted and stopped caring and competing

hard times make good men, etc etc

Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#862

Post by BurningFrog »

colpabar wrote: post #853
huevosabio wrote: post #778

I come from Ciudad Juarez. Between 2008-2011, the city was the murder capital in the world and basically unlivable. My brother and I were no longer living there because we were in college. My parents decided to send my sister, then starting highschool, to a city in central Mexico with friends of the family to avoid having her grow up in what was a life and death environment. My parents stayed. Mexicans speak a lot ab…

So what would you say to the argument that the police are already too violent, and that too many people already get put in jail, especially minorities? That is the motivation behind the progressive policies of not prosecuting criminals. Every person not prosecuted is one less crime statistic; bonus points if that person-kept-out-of-jail is a minority. I want to be absolutely clear - I am in no way suggesting minoriti…

I'd say that bad policing is a big problem, but it is a MUCH smaller problem than no policing.

Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#863

Post by lajy »

zacharytelschow wrote: post #498
Dem_Boys wrote: post #469

Could 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…

> Reducing crime isn't hard: support and hire police, put criminals behind bars, and ticket even small/petty crime

Am I taking crazy pills, or is this just simply not the approach that countries with globally low crime rates take? At the very least, it's insanely reductive. USA already has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. Supporting and hiring more police officers into a broken system won't help anything, especially when the cops are often criminals themselves (let alone the fact that their priorities so frequently seem to be contrary to the community's).

On some level, sure, we need a form of policing that the public trusts, and we need to take crime seriously when appropriate. USA is nowhere near the first point, and is fumbling the bag terribly when trying to apply the second point.

Strong social support nets and programs, fostering community and civic culture, a focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment, working to prevent the conditions that create violent crime in the first place--these are all much more effective steps as opposed to "more cops, more people in jail."

Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#864

Post by 908B64B197 »

dxbydt wrote: post #671

Speaking as an immigrant - Worked in SF most of last decade. Left in 2018. Crime was on a steady uptick while I was there. Once in the Bart, a young man grabbed a cellphone from the guy seated right next to me & bolted out of the train. The train started, and the cellphone owner gave chase. The Bart police arrived soon after, with guns pointed straight at the passengers. The robber was fast and jumped over the turnst…

> Rest of the train trip was some heated political debate between the left & the left-left, arguing what should be done. The left wanted to integrate the youth into the tech community by offering free coding classes so they wouldn't rob cellphones. The left-left argued for free iphones for everybody. I was like, hey how about catching the robber & some jailtime, which is what they'd have done where I come from.

What I wonder is where are the fathers in this scenario. I can't imagine the conversation about the son's income coming from stealing phones going very well with his father.

Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#866

Post by AverageDude »

johntiger1 wrote: post #797
huevosabio wrote: post #778

I come from Ciudad Juarez. Between 2008-2011, the city was the murder capital in the world and basically unlivable. My brother and I were no longer living there because we were in college. My parents decided to send my sister, then starting highschool, to a city in central Mexico with friends of the family to avoid having her grow up in what was a life and death environment. My parents stayed. Mexicans speak a lot ab…

Thank you for sharing your personal perspective. As a fellow immigrant, have nothing to say except that I totally agree. Many of us come from countries with less than great rule of law, and the entire reason me and my parents came here is for a better life where laws are fairly and equally enforced. That means that if you work hard - you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

That sums up so well. Saving this.

Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#867

Post by Pxtl »

flappyeagle wrote: post #839

There are enough comments on here that I am probably not adding much new, but I lived in SF for 10 years until recently. When I arrived (from New York City) I thought — hey, it's a bit sketchy but not so bad overall. I think it got progressively worse every year. I have no idea what policy changes would help, but it's the only place I've ever been where I saw crime being committed in broad daylight. It's the only pla…

Having seen Toronto spiraling into the same mayhem of random vagrant street violence in the same moment when rents exploded, I'm firmly with the housing advocates on this:

People think mental health causes homelessness, but it looks increasingly like it's the other way around -- cities with bad housing crises and insufficient shelter systems (NYC is notable for having an excellent shelter system compared to its peers) end up with people who hit rock bottom and become destructive out on the street when they'd be trying to get their lives together if they had a place to live.

If people can't grapple with their demons in the privacy of their own homes, they will grapple with them on the subway and we'll all be collateral damage.

Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#868

Post by Convolutional »

subsubzero wrote: post #708

Its 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…

> until residents in SF start voting different

The author here confesses his disconnect with the majority of people in San Francisco. This assessment is correct - the author and his views are disconnected from those of the majority of working people in San Francisco.

The magnitude of the wealth disparity in San Francisco is almost hard to comprehend. Many in this thread have advocated militarizing the city, and cleaning it out of poor people so that it can be some kind of elite utopia for tech bros and VCs. The people of San Francisco do not share this view. That they do not share this view is not in my opinion (although it is) - but in the opinion of the parent poster. As those from more equitable European cities have said in this thread - Europeans don't have these kinds of problems where they live.

Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#869

Post by austinl »

cheeseblubber wrote: post #529

Here are some statistics that might help the discussion: "With a crime rate of 54 per one thousand residents, San Francisco has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 18." https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime#des... A…

I've lived in SF for almost 10 years, and it saddens me to live in such low trust community because of all the crime. It changes people.

I've had my car stolen once and broken into several times. I've had two bikes stolen, once out of an office building, and another time through an iron gate that blocks my doorway. My neighbor had his motorcycle stolen out of his garage. I've caught someone stealing packages from a building I lived in. Last time I moved, someone tried to break into my U-Haul. I've seen people walking out of several stores with bags stuffed full of stolen goods (going to Westfield mall feels surreal—even inside the mall, shops need to hire their own private security to protect themselves).

These are just a few incidents that come to mind—I could list many more. My point in listing all of these cases is to say—it's not enough to look at crime metrics. Not to say that we shouldn't look at metrics and try to improve them, but the current metrics are flawed to some degree. People in SF-proper (e.g. mid-market, SoMA, Mission, Haight) are living with a constant low-to-moderate anxiety that they will be robbed at any time.

In all cases that I've been close to, there have been no arrests or prosecution. You won't find that I had to chase away someone trying to break into my U-Haul in any crime statistic report. No one from SF is comfortable leaving anything in their car, leaving their garage open, parking their bike outside.

All I want is a candidate to run on the platform of simply enforcing the law—it's baffling to me how controversial that is. Perhaps we'll get the right catalyst for that to happen someday.

Re: Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, has died after being stabbed in San Francisco

#870

Post by AverageDude »

sizzle wrote: post #845
huevosabio wrote: post #778

I come from Ciudad Juarez. Between 2008-2011, the city was the murder capital in the world and basically unlivable. My brother and I were no longer living there because we were in college. My parents decided to send my sister, then starting highschool, to a city in central Mexico with friends of the family to avoid having her grow up in what was a life and death environment. My parents stayed. Mexicans speak a lot ab…

Broken windows theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

They applied that in my suburb and media kept comparing it with racism. They stopped doing that from last year and car jacking and other violent crime is on the rise again. I could never understand how “Broken Window” is racist? And I am a minority.

Whatever the fix for institutional racism is need not be contradictory to Broken Window. They can work together.

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