It's more like, those people live completely separate lives from us and feel uncomfortable when they're required to mingle with us.
Think about it, what do they have in common with us, culturally? Nothing. Many think our culture is disgusting and must be replaced. Others have zero experience outside their carefully curated lives, which started when their parents began their c.v. at age 3. To them, we seem unknowable and unthinkable, they have no more sympathy for us than they think we have for animals in the zoo. They believe they are superior to both elites of the past and the contemporary common folk, at the same time. We are The Other to them, and why the hell would they want to live among us or have any interaction with us whatsoever?
This is what it's like when our lives collide. "I knew I was the only poor person at my tech startup because I thought my coworker was kidding when he said he was spending the three-day weekend in Greece. When I finished laughing, four people recommended hotels."
Specifically with all the silicon valley tech workers, they seem to just want to do whatever they can to get away from the homelessness.
I would love to get rid of the homeless. I don’t like seeing them on the streets shooting up, yelling at people walking by. They are rude, aggressive and scary. They don’t bath and stink up everything. I want them in homes, getting fucked up yelling at people off their balconies instead while they wait for their bath to reach a boil in high quality housing paid by seizing the monopolists money.
This is some fucked up anti-homeless propaganda. You sound like one of those sociopaths on nextdoor, even if you end it with a call to action that would help them. The damage you do by reinforcing the image of the dangerous, drug-addicted homeless person far outweighs the good part imo.
Good I’m glad my sarcasm came through. When tech people and people in general talk about San Francisco’s homeless problem they don’t care about people who are temporary homeless. They are invisible and most get on their feet quickly packed away in some terrible share housing because of the areas poor zoning laws. Tech workers don’t care or think about these people even though that’s 95 percent of the homeless population. They are just another member of the invisible downwardly mobile trend. What you hear people complain about is the long term homeless which by and large are drug addicts or have other problems. I’m not really going to be woke on homelessness, I know to many people and tried to get enough back on their feet. A lot of them have issues and living on the street doesn’t help them.
The thing is San Francisco is mostly unique in how it hates everyone. Unlike places which are a bit better people who would be on the edge end up on the street. by contrast if they lived in Maryland they would be in free housing where they don’t have to scrap by for every little thing and can enjoy some basic creature comforts which as you can imagine makes people a bit more tolerable to be around.If someone has to deal with drug or mental problems having a bed, roof and safety are pretty damn important to keep some scraps mental health. It’s not some inherent problem where it’s in their homeless genes. San Francisco just did some math and for a long time it was cheaper to send the cops on them rather than address any issues around zoning and mass building high quality public housing is outside of the American Overton window combined with the NIMBY team up of mostly rich Hispanic landlords and white landlords concerned about keeping their property values up and preserving the local character of their city while offering superficial support to rent control while failing to address the supply problem.
You can't post something demeaning to a large swath of people then say, "It was sarcasm, bro!" Differentiating between temporary homeless and long-term homeless makes sense on some level, but the way you're doing it just strikes me as sophistry. Like you're giving yourself an excuse to hate people because they don't want to get well hard enough.
I agree that the homeless should be given places to live. I don't understand your big run-on sentence about San Francisco American Overton Window NIMBY Hispanic landlords local character. When I tell you "you sound like a sociopath repeating a derogatory message about the homeless" and your response is "I'm not going to get woke on homelessness!" that really makes me question your empathy. You didn't even make a differentiation until I called you out on it.
Some people are going to be fucked up no matter what. And the way you fixate on making them 'tolerable to be around' makes me think you'll fall behind some weed and seed police program because you've already done the work of dehumanizing them in your heart.
No don’t hate anyone for not getting well fast enough that’s stupid. Their material conditions are not helping them. Regarding the tolerable to be around statement ya if someone is going to go and chase someone down the street because they are going through withdrawals I don’t want to be around them. I much preferred it when I could talk with people on their front deck about how they were behind on their fix instead. When you have to sleep in the elements it’s not good for you and turns you into an asshole. A lot of long term homeless people are assholes who I would not have a beer with in their current state.
Breaking down that big run on sentence for you since I’m already essay posting. The San Francisco government is lobbied by a few groups with regards to housing. Out of the big ones there are mostly well meaning but wealthy Hispanic landlords who want to protect their fellow person and mostly are democrats. A huge portion of the southern half of the city is owned by them. They of course have their class interests aligning with the restrictions around new developments which fits in nicely with landlords out in the suburbs. This demographic also works closely with the extremely woke but idealist socialists who run a huge portion of local activism. This group has convinced me purges are the only way to deal with anarchists and made me swear off any sort of false cries for sympathy on housing rights from the left.
The other groups lobbying are the tech companies who try to get kickbacks for revitalization and stimulating the economy with their workers. Many of these same companies own the land around their companies either directly or as individuals and rent to the newer crop of tech workers late to the game. They support new luxury development and have no cause to help anyone so they will block spending on improving society by taking up space with revitalization. Tech worker renters don’t lobby often, they are too new to have roots so their influence is in driving the price up for everyone else.
No one in the US can argue for having rent control and building big style public housing for everyone and be taken seriously. Not something that’s just a scrap for poor people or rich people housing that has one unit for a underserved communities. Actual housing just because someone is human.
It sucks you had the experience of being chased down the street by someone on withdrawals. But to take that and generalize it against homeless people is stereotyping people. One who stereotypes the powerless is doing something hurtful, even if you dress it up as "I wouldn't have a beer with that guy!"
That's a highly-detailed description of some of the interlocking forces of oppression that work against the homeless. I could see why 'idealistic socialists' collaborating with landlords could cause you to lose faith in the movement. I would reply that I've seen tangible gains from anarchists stopping certain homeless sweeps, and I've also seen 'left' organizations collaborating with cops to clear the camps.
I am not making a false cry for sympathy on housing rights. I am telling you that you are peddling damaging stereotypes and even if you think you're justified in doing so because you're jaded or burnt out, it's still a negative thing to be doing.
I'm also spending my three day weekends in Greece though. Although unfortunately that is where I'm spending every other day as well.
Feel like trading places? Reality has been disappointing ever since I got back from Greece.
they're accidentally creating the perfect conditions for tech union organizing
The IWW but it's entirely made up of computer hackers :programming-communism:
Ah yes, company towns. In the USA they were usually coal mining towns, famously uninterested in labour power
Tech workers don't view themselves as workers. They kind of aren't, they're more like petit-boug. Seriously, you need to get more familiar with how much money these people have and how they use it if you think they're just good old working class people ("financial independence" and "passive income" are two of their favorite topics, and they can actually achieve them, HINT HINT!)
The people in tech to organize are the people doing the grunt work like human moderation, the cleaning and maintenance staff, etc. The techbros are not reachable. The best case scenario is that you get shit that's purely performative. Great Article
you need to get more familiar with how much money these people have
Not just how much money but how easy they have it. You don't stay unemployed when you're in tech, for example - you put up a CV online and recruiters call you pretty much the same day.
They call you pretty much every day while you're employed!
Anybody who has sympathy for people who, as a class:
make well into the six figures starting at age 22, have excellent benefits and extremely lax work policies around vacation time and hours, and have an incredibly high amount of direction over the work they do
is wasting time or being duped.
“The project creates the future of San Jose that I want to live in,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said at a Tuesday City Council meeting, especially after overcoming “tremendous mistrust of government and suspicion of big tech.”
I wonder what convinced him to overcome his mistrust and suspicion.
This is going to be dogshit and ruin an already pretty feeble downtown and displace probably hundreds of homeless people
Yeah I thought of it immediately when I saw that private security app being rolled out in LA also.
