0xen 🎩 pfp
0xen 🎩
@0xen
With all their ideas, billions, power and influence, the thing that stings the most for the SF plutocrats is that at the end of the day they couldn't beat a few hundred acid damaged hippies for control or win hearts and minds of a singe city. They failed. An astonishing and embarrassing defeat. They can't lead so they seethe, sow division, deflect, and finally dream up fantastical escape hatches, someplace new and safe where they can be free from all bogies, someplace they can escape their own failure. This time will be different, right?
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Matthew pfp
Matthew
@matthew
the idea that techies lost sf to “a few hundred acid damaged hippies” is so wildly incorrect. nice story tho bro
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0xen 🎩 pfp
0xen 🎩
@0xen
Nimby organizers, city council dinner party power brokers, acid damaged hippies etc. Point is, with all their power and supposed smarts they could not outmaneuver or outflank this not very impressive sounding lot.
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✳️ dcposch pfp
✳️ dcposch
@dcposch.eth
not an SF problem, it's a "every big city on the west coast" problem. and it's not a few hundred hippies, it's an entrenched coalition of land-owning boomers and grandfathered-in below-market renters that together form an electoral majority.
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0xen 🎩 pfp
0xen 🎩
@0xen
Average wage in the bay is 100k, there are over 300k millionaires, almost all of that coming from tech. Read that again. If tech can't create a coalition or move the needle with that rich and aligned of a base then hope is a lost and is a major indictment on their ability to govern anything.
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Matthew pfp
Matthew
@matthew
1. san francisco is not the bay 2. tech is less than a third of sf by # of ppl. 3. a significant number of city workers in SF make over $200k. 4. tech doesn't govern the city. 5. the overall sentiment toward tech is not even negative
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0xen 🎩 pfp
0xen 🎩
@0xen
1. if you just count SF its 165k millionaires, if you include the metro it's over 500k. 2. 1/3rd is an astonishingly high number for a single sector in a city. 3. good for them, why can't the plutocrats win their hearts and minds? 4. that they have no influence will all their wealth and power makes them culpable 5. then why can't they create a coalition to move the needle? only answer is incompetence or that they just didn't care until recently.
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Matthew pfp
Matthew
@matthew
there are not 165k tech millionaires in sf lol, and it's not 1/3, it's less. The fact that the small minority of people who happen to work in the same industry in a very diverse city do not drop everything, organize into a movement, and solve all the city's problems is not an indictment or culpability.
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0xen 🎩 pfp
0xen 🎩
@0xen
you're right, it's actually more millionaires! 276k. 30%, 25%, even 10% is huge as far as city sectors go. All I'm hearing are excuses.
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Matthew pfp
Matthew
@matthew
all I'm hearing is twisted logic from someone who clearly has a bone to pick. the point remains, the problems of city hall are the fault of those who govern the city. pretty simple.
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0xen 🎩 pfp
0xen 🎩
@0xen
if you think that money and power doesn't have influence than i can see why you might think my logic is twisted but that's an incredibly naive viewpoint. balaji's thesis in fact is that a different class of plutocrats has power in SF other than techies even though the techies outnumber them and have been entrenched for 40 years. he's upset by this and i understand why, 'he's' been outmaneuvered.
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Matthew pfp
Matthew
@matthew
when did I ever say that? and yes, there is another group of people in power. obviously.
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0xen 🎩 pfp
0xen 🎩
@0xen
‘the problems of city hall are the fault of those who govern the city. pretty simple.’ That’s like saying the ‘problems with DC are the congressmen’ without acknowledging the power brokers, lobbyists, super pacs and political machine that moves the levers of power. Never mind the hearts and minds of voters. Tech, mostly through absenteeism (why should we drop what we’re doing and worry about civic matters?) never developed their own political machine in SF, took no interest in governance or civic duty, punted essentially and are upset about it now because their billions are powerless vs the people and machine who actually gave a shit for decades, even if their policies sucked.
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Matthew pfp
Matthew
@matthew
If the problem is absenteeism, then no it wouldn't be? it would be like blaming the residents of DC for the problems of "DC". I don't disagree with you that people in tech could take more of an interest in city governance / politics. I myself was guilty of that for the first few years I lived here. But that does not excuse, and is not even close in blame to, the poor governance and mismanagement that's gotten SF to where it is now. It's not a requirement that by living in a city you also commit to governing it. That is why we have 30k city workers and administrators who get paid incredibly well. It's not just tech, everyone is upset, and it's not because "their money is powerless", it's because the city is unsafe and the government can't balance a budget. and I get that you want to map Balaji onto all of this, but a) he doesn't even live in SF and b) he is not representative of tech workers, wealthy or avg in SF.
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0xen 🎩 pfp
0xen 🎩
@0xen
-if you wield great wealth, numbers and power then yes, you're partly culpable if you turn your back on civic duty and governance. at the very least you can't come back like the dad who went out for cigarettes decades ago angry about what's become. -now we're talkin. -ask yourself if SF would be where it is today if the greatest minds in america and the world had simply engaged instead of nomading or whatever. - Sf is the 13th safest city in the world and crime is way down since the 80s. There is a ton more ambient chaos as a result of the homeless spike, but the numbers don't back up any increase in violent crime. There's only one way to tamper the homeless epidemic of the troubled and mentally ill and that's institutionalization but so far no side has wanted to touch that. https://x.com/susieneilson/status/1512461929381515270
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